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T-Mobile mocks “duopoly” and promises 5G in 30 cities in 2018
- In true T-Mobile fashion, the company put out a press release mocking its competition and promising 5G in 30 cities by the end of the year.
- The company explains its 5G will be superior to its competitors’ 5G because it will be mobile rather than fixed.
- T-Mobile knows it can’t be first in the race to 5G, so it instead intends to be the best.
The 5G news just keeps on coming today. T-Mobile made a statement from Mobile World Congress 2018 on its own ambitions for future wireless data coverage. Taking time to first mock the “duopoly” (AT&T and Verizon, perhaps in the form of a giant snow beast), T-Mobile announced that it would have “real” 5G in 30 American cities by the end of 2018.
While both AT&T and Verizon revealed they would offer 5G-enabled hotspots in place of smartphones to access each of their upcoming 5G networks, T-Mobile made no such promise. Instead, the nation’s third-largest carrier stated its intention to play “the long game,” focusing on building a reliable, extensive, and truly mobile 5G network for its customers.
“Dumb and Dumber are in a meaningless race to be first. Their so-called 5G isn’t mobile, and it’s not even on a smartphone. It’s a puck?! You gotta be pucking kidding me!” said John Legere, president and CEO at T-Mobile.
In other words, T-Mobile knows it can’t be first, so it’s trying instead to be the best.
The company’s press release on the matter emphasizes the difference between its planned network and the plans of its competitors. T-Mobile is going for a truly mobile 5G network, rather than the “fixed” networks other carriers are planning.
On a 4G LTE network, your connection to a tower automatically moves with your phone’s geographic location. As you go from one end of the city to the other, you never lose 4G LTE unless you go deep underground or venture into a true dead zone. With the 5G network that AT&T is building, for example, you will bounce from 5G to 4G depending on how close you are to the few available 5G towers.
T-Mobile is claiming the 5G networks it will launch in 30 cities by the end of the year will be truly mobile, where you keep your 5G connection the entire time you are in the city.
According to the company, customers in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Las Vegas will be the first to experience 5G when the first 5G-capable smartphones come out in 2019. The company did not divulge what other cities will see a 5G network rollout by the end of the year.
Next up: What is 5G?