GinaDee

Urban as in: "somewhere in South Dakota?" Regionally I live in an area that is night and day from you.

AT&T has excellent rural coverage in much of rural Southern California. I did notice however that backhaul is lacking along the long stretch of 15 FWY that connects Las Vegas to the populated areas of SoCal. Full bars HSPA+ but pokey speeds in some areas. On the same long rural stretch of HWY surprisingly Metro PCS has LTE but speeds appear limited to 5 Mbps down. I assume this long rural route will become part of T-Mobile's LTE network in 2014. Even my beloved Verizon, with all that red painted so pretty across the nation hides an ugly fact that much of those areas particularly around the Rocky Mountain west have very little backhaul. It's just "coverage." Right now only Verizon and Metro PCS have LTE between Vegas and SoCal along Route 15. T-Mobile only has LTE in certain patches along the same stretch so it would do them well to integrate Metro's network as soon as possible to improve the customer experience.

T-Mobile has more rural coverage than they are given credit for. It may not be LTE or 4G but they have lots of ground covered with 2G. Who has more native rural coverage sans roaming? Sprint or T-Mobile?

What do you consider worthless? Not being able to make/receive calls in rural areas or having slow 2G/3G data in areas with poor backhaul?

I think you just answered your own question. Most of the US population lives in higher density populated areas. Perceptions are based on everyone's individual reality.

http://9to5mac.com/2014/01/03/with-t-mobile-att-will-give-you-450-to-switch-kind-of/ Executive Statement This is a desperate move by AT&T on the heels of what must have been a terrible Q4 and holiday for them. I’m flattered that we have made them so uncomfortable! We used AT&T’s cash to build a far superior network and added Un-carrier moves to take tons of their customers – and now they want to bribe them back! Consumers won’t be fooled…nothing has changed; customers will still feel the same old pain that AT&T is famous for. Just wait until CES to hear what pain points we are eliminating next. The competition is going to be toast! -John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile USA

I agree additional funding always helps. Sprint got SoftBank for their funding. T-Mobile will eventually be bought out or merged. Whether it's Sprint, Dish, Vodafone, Carlos Slim etc. we'll likely know more later this year.

I hold the opinion that there will be alternate suitors rearing their heads in early 2014.

That's what paying customers are for and T-Mobie needs more for sure. They have to do it organically until a better choice rears its head.

Are you assuming that Sprint powered by Softbank is the ONLY option for T-Mobile USA to remain viable? This is the same argument AT&T used.

This is why I don't want Sprint to gobble Magenta up. If for this reason alone.

AT&T feeling the heat: http://www.geekwire.com/2014/att-offer-200-credit-tmobile-switchers-preemptive-strike-smaller-rival/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+geekwire+(GeekWire)

Is the goal right now to have 100 million POPS covered by LTE on the 2.5 GHz band by the end of next year?

I've been thinking about this a lot. I know AT&T has been getting in bed with Onstar, GM and Tesla. Google and Audi are now hooking up: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/30/google-audi-to-announce-android-in-car/

I think Softbank will continue to fund Sprint network adventures but at a certain point they will turn off the tap if management can't show real progress to shareholders. That's who they all answer to anyways. Sprint has to show a return on investment and has to gain new net adds. I've been at wireless carrier network deployment meetings. They're ugly, full of arguments and bad blood. Everyone throws in their two cents; some argue for the customer experience while others argue on behalf of company profits.