T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[nexgencpu]

No Sprint has it right. Tmobile 10*10 or 15*15 will still be usable at 125dbm and sometimes even 135dbm Sprint 5*5 is unusable around 120dbm

 

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A couple people that have connected to CA are seeing big performance gains at the edge of the signal strength. I think that will make a huge impact on the whole network, including more offloading from B25.

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1762-network-visionlte-philadelphia-metro-market-including-lehigh-valleyreading/?p=431164

[bigsnake49]

Both Sprint and T-mobile need to put up sites on the interstates, state and country roads. No excuse for it. I know that Sprint roams freely on other people, T-mobile much less so. Maybe if they are allowed to merge one of the conditions should be that they need native coverage everywhere that Verzon does!

[maxsilver]

Where I live even the rural towers have band 12 now. I was surprised. It's night and day in the coverage department. Holding LTE even longer than Sprints band 26.

 

 

To provide an anecdote to the contrary, I recently bought an LG Leon LTE (MetroPCS) just to see how service is on T-Mobile, and have found it lacking.  In this area, coverage is good, it holds LTE a really long time, etc.  Once I left Culpeper to visit my parents last weekend, though, my Sprint phone kept on chugging (either via roaming on US Cellular or, for one short stretch, Verizon, or via nTelos pseudo-native) while the T-Mobile phone spent more time saying "No connection" than anything else.  Service popped up when I crossed the interstate and one other larger town, and that was it. 

 

 

It's really a market-by-market thing.

 

For instance, lots of rural Minnesota is still EDGE only. But in Michigan, they are basically finished -- 99% of sites are converted,  there's just 5 or so EDGE-only sites left across the entire state.

 

They're running a lot of upgrades at once, and not all areas get even resources simultaneously. (That sounds eerily familiar...  )

[JeffDTD]

If Tmo has usable LTE everywhere that their map claims, then the map prob does cover 290M pops. But that "if" is a pretty big one

 

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[Terrell352]

Sprint will be number 4 come August 4th. Not that it matters. But prepare for hurricane John because he is going to talk so much smack.

 

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[joshuam]

I wish Verizon and AT&T would publish port ratios.

[Deval]

I wish Verizon and AT&T would publish port ratios.

 

Why would they? There is no danger of ever losing either 1st or 2nd for them.

 

T-Mobile will never become #2, neither will Sprint. 

[JThorson]

T-Mobile will never become #2, neither will Sprint. 

Anything can happen. I could see Sprint becoming #2 if Softbank will keep providing them funding. T-Mobile doesn't have the financial backing right now so I don't see that happening.

[Deval]

Anything can happen. I could see Sprint becoming #2 if Softbank will keep providing them funding. T-Mobile doesn't have the financial backing right now so I don't see that happening.

 

Let's look at the numbers, realistically. 

 

AT&T, which is at #2, has 121.7 million subscribers, while Sprint and T-Mobile have 58 million. The only way Sprint could become #2 is if they purchased T-Mobile, kept every single subscriber, and still managed to steal another 10 million or so away from AT&T.

[Ascertion]

Q2 Highlights For T-Mobile

• As the carriers punish their customers they are fleeing to T-Mobile
• We captured ALL of the postpaid growth.
• Branded postpaid churn remained at 1.3%
• We cover 212 market areas with wideband LTE and we are on track to be at more than 250 by the end of the year.
• We are WAY ahead of schedule of low band 700mhz. It is already rolled out in 141 market areas.
• All 700mhz market areas are cleared or on path to be cleared.
• We have refarmed 100% Metro PCS spectrum. We finished the customer and network migration 2.5 years ahead of schedule.
• T-Mobile is back on top with customer service. JD Power ranking us #1 in wireless customer care.
• We believe that family plan penetration is extremely important. We will continue to promote family plans.
• The Sprint all-in $80 plan is a return to contracts. We will not move in that direction.
• We are slightly north of 290 million POPs. We will deliver that early on 300 million and be north of 300 million by end of 2015.
• We are making tremendous progress with low band spectrum. We have accelerated our roll out on low band. Key markets like LA and NY were planned in 2016 and those have been moved into 2015.
• License we have for low band is about 190 million POPs. We will get cose to that covered this year. We have 130 million at present and will add NY, LA, Atlanta, Sacramento by the end of the year. The goal is to have 50% of our customer base with a 700mhz handset by the end of the year.
• We expect Jump on Demand to be the most popular on eligible devices.
• Content is going to Internet and Internet is going mobile. Everyone looking to get the content to the mobile is a potential partner with us.
• We have been doing EIP for 4 years now. A significant uptick after EIP expires is false. Very few people are waiting a full 2 years to upgrade to a new phone.
• Our competitors can't get postive phone net additions. They have turned their attention to lower value products (tablets).
• Our strategy is to focus on the highest value customer segments; big families, postpaid, monthly recurring prepaid and go win in those segments. Our customers are more engaged and buying more than any time in the history of the company.
• Mobile video - T-Mobile users have the highest consumption video rates of anybody. If the customers want us to be in the video business, curating and picking video, and we can add value to that we will do it.
• It has been 9 quarters that we have positively ported in the industry. In the last 19 months, the porting has been positive with every carrier. Q2 - 1.5 with Verizon / 1.9 with AT&T / 2.45 with Sprint
• We don't break down our base by device. We believe our penetration with iPhone is the lowest which means our opportunity is the highest.
• We are continuing to roll out MetroPCS format nationwide. We have seen amazing success across the country.
• Retail presence. We have about 11,000 MetroPCS doors. Our T-Mobile footprint is good where we have our deepest coverage. As we deploy nationwide there will be expansion especially in suburban areas. Over the next 2 years we see the online and direct to consumer as one of the biggest upsides of our business.
• Google Fi - Process is very early and moving slowly. Feedback is the phones are never moving to Sprint and staying on T-Mobile. It is very profitable for T-Mobile. Unlike Dumb and Dumber, we don't see industry evolutions as a threat.
• We don't have any limits on how much Google can sell.
• Legere spends hours on social media to keep it successful in marketing.
• We are normally a solid #4 in spending on marketing and advertising in most quarters. Is shows the strength of our brand and using our community. We get an amplification out of our dollars that our competitors can't get.
• We are modernizing equipment and more 700mhz purchases is something we have been very clear and deliberate about. We are committed to purchasing 600mhz in the first quarter.
• Medium to long term, every carrier needs more spectrum supply. We are in a superior position as it goes to supply per customer.
• We are well positioned in spectrum. We have more spectrum per customer than Verizon and AT&T. We have about 40% of our spectrum committed to LTE today. MetroPCS execution is outstanding. It has delivered the most dense network in the US and the best midband contiguous spectrum position. These two things are the envy of all competitors. Low band and mid band grids can't help them get there. We have 2x4 mimo across many cities. This is a 20% - 30% increase in bandwidth.
• We are way out in front on leveraging unused and underutilized spectrum.
• Yes we want to add more low band. We want to complete that footprint across the US.
• Spectrum auction - It seems remain on track that there will be reserve portion at the auction. A reserve is a significant win. I am pushing for 40mhz but it may be 30mhz. Current events (Verizon and Dish) suggest that the spectrum auction is looking positive for T-Mobile. We are showing up and we will be successful.
• Dish AWS-4 is good midband spectrum and has risk and issues around standardization, timelines, and equipment. Those are farther out for us. It is spectrum that has to find it utilization.
• Small business is going very well. We have seen the SMB at retail more than double. We are seeing good, quality customers coming in. Uncarrier 9.0 was a "firing gun" it was a start.
• We look at everything from a customer standpoint. If a partnership with a cable company is beneficial we are interested.
• As of July 1st we have shut down all the legacy CDMA networks. Accounting rules say we have to completely decommission these networks. This can take 4-6 months. It will take the rest of the year to get the full run rate from these changes. Some of the largest markets, Miami and New York, were shut down the last week in June.
• VoLTE core volume is 2 times the volume on GSM. Recently launched advanced messaging. Next is Video over LTE.
• None of the other carriers are where we are on Wifi or VoLTE.
• Retail POS - Rapidly rolling out tablet based activation and care systems to retail stores. We are redesigning retail store so we don't have those big counters separating our people from the customers.
• We are rolling out "Grand Central." It will allow an automated tech support solution. With single clicks a phone issue can be diagnosed and problem solved.
• Next year we have a new systems that is faster and dramatically reduces the activation time.
• Machine to Machine - In 2016, we are dedicating more spectrum to LTE and less to 2G and Edge networks.
• Gosmart & Metro PCS, why both brands? - These are different brands. Gosmart is 3G and focused on multicarrier distribution. People can go in and get a great value on a simple 3G offer. Metro PCS is our flagship prepaid offering at 4G with a dedicated distribution.

[Terrell352]

See that's what I don't understand how is T-Mobile always ahead of schedule on everything. Either T-Mobile is full of it or Sprint needs to step up their game to levels never before seen in the wireless world. All in all T-Mobile is showing decent results but I really think that Sprint and T-Mobile need to become one to truly compete. They are to far behind. Even if one of them can survive the other one will not so it might as well happen.

[Paynefanbro]

Under promise over deliver/over exaggerate.

[Rawvega]

Under promise over deliver/over exaggerate.

 

Yep, if I had to guess I'd say that they're extremely conservative with their timelines which can still be met even in the event of something catastrophic and when they beat those timelines by a mile then you get people are left in awe. I'm not knocking such a strategy, it's smart.

[Terrell352]

Yep, if I had to guess I'd say that they're extremely conservative with their timelines which can still be met even in the event of something catastrophic and when they beat those timelines by a mile then you get people are left in awe. I'm not knocking such a strategy, it's smart.

 

I would agree but T-Mobile timelines to complete things are not normally long when they announce it in the first place with the exception to the Metro conversion. From my experience they move like wildfire.

[Rawvega]

I would agree but T-Mobile timelines to complete things are not normally long when they announce it in the first place with the exception to the Metro conversion. From my experience they move like wildfire.

 

Look at the MetroPCS migration and re-farm for instance. If you're finishing a project 2.5 years ahead of schedule, I'm inclined to believe that your schedule was ultra conservative to begin with.

 

Similarly, with the 300 million LTE POPs by the end of the year, I'd be willing to bet that they fully well knew when they announced it that it wouldn't take them until the end of the year. Lo and behold, they're ahead of schedule and the crowd goes wild. Under promise, over deliver like Bryce said. It's smart.

[ndog21]

Look at the MetroPCS migration and re-farm for instance. If you're finishing a project 2.5 years ahead of schedule, I'm inclined to believe that your schedule was ultra conservative to begin with.

 

Similarly, with the 300 million LTE POPs by the end of the year, I'd be willing to bet that they fully well knew when they announced it that it wouldn't take them until the end of the year. Lo and behold, they're ahead of schedule and the crowd goes wild. Under promise, over deliver like Bryce said. It's smart.

They actually planned the 300 Million pops of LTE by the end of 2015 in late 2013, before they had any low band, so it could have taken longer since they'd be only using mid band spectrum. Now with low band they can do rural areas much quicker. They also likely ordered backhaul in 2013, so they'd have it now. Speeding up the process. For example they may do some areas as band 12 only to get it done quickly, then come back later and add mid band (band 2 or 4).

 

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[Terrell352]

They actually planned the 300 Million pops of LTE by the end of 2015 in late 2013, before they had any low band, so it could have taken longer since they'd be only using mid band spectrum. Now with low band they can do rural areas much quicker. They also likely ordered backhaul in 2013, so they'd have it now. Speeding up the process. For example they may do some areas as band 12 only to get it done quickly, then come back later and add mid band (band 2 or 4).

 

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I know 2 rural towers where Tmobile did just that. They added hspa+ to them also.

 

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[EvanA]

They also posted a profit of $361 Million.

Yeah, this was a pretty good quarter for them.

$361mil is great for one quarter, but they aren't consistently posting that much profit. Last quarter they posted a $64mil. Also, if you look at last year, they posted the greatest profit of the year in Q2 at $391mil, preceded by Q1 with $154mil loss and followed by $93mil loss and then a $101mil profit.

 

They did show a substantial increase in revenues this quarter, so that's a good sign. It remains to be seen if they can post successive quarters with profits matching Q2 performance.

[maxsilver]

$361mil is great for one quarter, but they aren't consistently posting that much profit. Last quarter they posted a $64mil. It remains to be seen if they can post successive quarters with profits matching Q2 performance.

 

 

 

The Q1 number is artificially low because of the Data Stash revenue deferral (approx $112mil) -- it cost them nothing on a per subscriber basis, but it makes Q1 look much worse than it factually was, and makes Q2/Q3/Q4 look slightly better than they actually are/will-be (since Q2/Q3/Q4 are recording some amount of revenue/profit from sales that already happened in Q1).

 

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/2015-q1-earnings.htm

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/04/28/t-mobile-rising-street-cheers-net-adds-improved-profit-profile/

 

It's not a huge change or anything. But the profit between Q1 2015 and Q2/Q3/Q4 2015 is slightly less volitile than it might appear to be, if people are just glancing at the final number for each quarter.

 

And that should remain that way through 2015, unless they run some new promotion that requires a new revenue deferral.

[jroepcke51]

The Q1 number is artificially low because of the Data Stash revene deferral (approx $112mil) -- it cost them nothing on a per subscriber basis, but it makes Q1 look much worse than it factually was, and makes Q2/Q3/Q4 look slightly better than they actually are/will-be (since Q2/Q3/Q4 are recording some amount of revenue/profit from sales that already happened in Q1).

 

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/2015-q1-earnings.htm

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/04/28/t-mobile-rising-street-cheers-net-adds-improved-profit-profile/

 

It's not a huge change or anything. But the profit between Q1 2015 and Q2/Q3/Q4 2015 is slightly less volitile than it might appear to be, if people are just glancing at the final number for each quarter.

 

And that should remain that way through 2015, unless they run some new promotion that requires a new revenue deferral.

Just wait until 2018 when the new Revenue FASB is required. All this is going to get screwed.

 

I already hate my life thinking about it.

[derrph]

Can someone explain this to me please. T-Mobile is on a quest to get so much reserve spectrum because they feel they are a little guy and at a disadvantage. After reading their quarter results, T-Mobiles talking about doing this with spectrum and covering this amount of people and allocating this and that. To me sounds like they aren't at a disadvantage at all especially if your covering 300mil pops. They are literally right up under Verizon and AT&T. In my eyes a disadvantage would be them only covering 250 million and that's as far as they can go. But saying your covering this many people and have more spectrum per customer and your set for the next couple of years and are in the best position sounds like your fine. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

 

 

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[S4GRU]

Can someone explain this to me please. T-Mobile is on a quest to get so much reserve spectrum because they feel they are a little guy and at a disadvantage. After reading their quarter results, T-Mobiles talking about doing this with spectrum and covering this amount of people and allocating this and that. To me sounds like they aren't at a disadvantage at all especially if your covering 300mil pops. They are literally right up under Verizon and AT&T. In my eyes a disadvantage would be them only covering 250 million and that's as far as they can go. But saying your covering this many people and have more spectrum per customer and your set for the next couple of years and are in the best position sounds like your fine. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

 

 

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You can count people you don't cover well. People with one bar of service, when only standing on one foot with their hand out the window have service and are counted in POP totals. But they may lose it going to the interior of their building from a window. Or they may not get it on the ground floor, but they're covered. Tmo's arguments are all about low frequency spectrum. Something they have only 5x5 in some markets. But zero in most of the country.

 

POP totals just draw circles around towers and count the people inside them. They don't take into account quality of service. It would be interesting to know how many millions of POP's covered cannot actually use the service where they live or work or play. A negative POP number. Unfortunately, it is not a metric than can be ascertained. But we know it exists in all those places they show we have coverage but cannot get a signal.

 

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[derrph]

Thanks for that. Whatever amount of people that are under a tower regardless if you have service or not is counted as pops. So they do have a valid reason for the reserve spectrum but will use it for penetration purposes mostly

 

 

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[EvanA]

So how is T-Mobile claiming they have the fastest LTE network when NetIndex, which Legere so often loves to point to for proof of their data faster speeds, puts Verizon over T-Mobile? 

 

http://www.netindex.com/mdownload/2,1/United-States/

 

In fact, going back in time in Net Index Explorer, I can't find a time where T-Mobile was averaging faster data speeds than Verizon on a national basis.

[cdk]

So how is T-Mobile claiming they have the fastest LTE network when NetIndex, which Legere so often loves to point to for proof of their data faster speeds, puts Verizon over T-Mobile? 

 

http://www.netindex.com/mdownload/2,1/United-States/

 

In fact, going back in time in Net Index Explorer, I can't find a time where T-Mobile was averaging faster data speeds than Verizon on a national basis.

 

Delusion?