T-Mobile President of Technology provides post-merger update on network integration
The $26.5 billion merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint closed April 1 and this week President of Technology of New T-Mobile, Neville Ray, provided a video update on network integration efforts as he oversees the nationwide effort.
Ray described the operators 5G “layer cake” strategy, a three-tiered combination of millimeter wave spectrum in dense urban areas, Sprint’s 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum for metro coverage, and 600 MHz for nationwide 5G, which T-Mobile turned up in December and most recently expanded to Detroit, St. Louis and Columbus, Ohio.
On the combination of low-, mid- and high-band spectrum for 5G, Ray said, “I wanted to let you know that we’re already beginning to make this a reality. We said we would move with speed to bring the networks together…Our teams have been hard at work for months now.” He said the end result would “supercharge 5G.”
Ray said New T-Mobile has deployed 2.5 GHz for 5G in Philadelphia with the next activation coming in New York City. This will bring “more capacity and speed on top of the nationwide 5G network we launched last year.”
Watch the entire video message here.
Former Sprint customers, Ray said, are getting a “big boost” in LTE coverage, nationwide in fact, as the operator has “materially expanded our available roaming footprints.” He also noted Sprint customers with Samsung’s latest flagship the Galaxy S20 5G will be able to access T-Mo’s nationwide 600 MHz 5G network.
