T-Mobile Delivers Industry-Leading Customer, Service Revenue and Profitability Growth in Q1 2024, and Raises 2024 Guidance

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Industry-Leading Customer Growth Fueled by Best Network and Best Value Combination ⁽¹⁾

• Postpaid net account additions of 218 thousand, best in industry
• Postpaid net customer additions of 1.2 million, best in industry
• Postpaid phone net customer additions of 532 thousand, best in industry and higher share of industry net adds year-over-year
• Postpaid phone churn of 0.86%, matches record low for Q1
• High Speed Internet net customer additions of 405 thousand, best in industry, passing 5 million customers

T-Mobile Strengthens Largest, Fastest and Most Advanced 5G Network with Additional Mid-Band Spectrum

• Nearly 95% of 5G network traffic on mid-band spectrum given the expansive breadth and depth of deployment
• 85% of 5G traffic carried on sites with all three spectrum layers, delivering an incredibly consistent network experience

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-q1-2024-earnings

— — — — —

I find it funny that when they talk about their spectrum layers they're saying n71, n25, and n41. They're completely avoiding talking about mmWave.

T-Mobile and EQT Announce Joint Venture to Acquire Lumos and Build Out the Un-carrier’s First Fiber Footprint

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The JV will bring T-Mobile’s retail, marketing, brand and customer experience strengths together with EQT’s fiber infrastructure investment expertise. Together they will acquire Lumos’ scalable fiber network build capabilities to deliver best-in-class high-speed fiber internet connectivity to customers across the U.S. without access to fiber today. After the transaction closes, Lumos, which currently reaches 320,000 households over 7,500 route miles with fiber optic internet and home wi-fi service in the Mid-Atlantic, will transition to a wholesale model with T-Mobile as the anchor tenant owning customer relationships and leveraging its brand to attract new subscribers. The JV will focus on market identification and selection, network engineering and design, network deployment, and customer installation.

T-Mobile provides a unique value proposition and much-needed reliable connectivity to homes and businesses across the country through its 5G Internet, a fixed wireless internet service on its 5G network that is available to more than 50 million households and businesses nationwide and serves over 5 million customers, as well as T-Mobile Fiber, which has launched in parts of 16 U.S. markets. Those launches have shown consumer demand for broadband that T-Mobile cannot meet through its fallow capacity fixed wireless product alone, and many customers want the speed and reliability that only fiber can provide.

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-eqt-jv-to-acquire-lumos

Unable to confirm if it's really off but I noticed this morning that I'm no longer connecting to Band 41 on my home site. Switching my phone to LTE-only pretty much always put me on Band 41 since it was the least used band on T-Mobile's network. Now I'm only able to connect to Band 2/66. Not complaining because it means speeds are faster on LTE and maybe 150MHz n41 is around the corner.

2 hours ago, AirlineFlyer said:

Did you mean a different site? eNB ID 112039 has been around for years. Streetview even has it with C-band back in 2022

Good catch! I meant 115932/119932. Edited my original post

2 hours ago, AirlineFlyer said:

Meanwhile, Verizon's eNB 84484 in Fort Greene has been updated to include C-band and CBRS, but not mmWave. I've seen this a few times now on updated Verizon sites where it's just the CBRS antenna on its own, not in a shroud and without mmWave. Odd.

I've noticed the same thing lately and have just assumed that they're skipping it now because they're finally able to deploy mmWave small cells.

New T-Mobile site went live earlier this year at 5 W 86th St, just off of Central Park. It's not a Sprint conversion so I hope this means more new builds are gonna stop popping up in areas that need coverage the most.

— — — — —

Also spotted a unicorn (mapped a new AT&T site) in Greenpoint. It's eNB ID 115932/119932. I spotted the permit a super long time ago but it looks like it finally went live earlier this month. That makes 5 new AT&T sites in Brooklyn in the past 2 years.
— — — — — 

Noticed that I touched a Sprint conversion site while mapping today. It has been live since at least December and is already on the keep site map.

Sprint eNB 74215 -> T-Mobile gNB 1371628
Located at: 40.767977371545726, -73.96146218469505

Still a bunch more we've found that don't have any decommission permits submitted yet.

— — — — —

Adding a bunch of gig+ sites I haven't reported yet.

1. eNB 44076 
   1. Located at 40.72513188568983, -73.95130108843207
2. eNB 44110
   1. Located at 40.78671665921442, -73.97831748836762
3. eNB 47002
   1. Located at 40.71818871096234, -73.97553242675835
4. eNB 48023
   1. Located at 40.70014576627346, -73.95511802661758
5. eNB 129912/130917
   1. Located at 40.71727220756978, -73.95652417532955
6. eNB 875917
   1. Located at 40.72274052431834, -73.84403351784677
7. eNB 49849
   1. Located at 40.72181611705532, -73.86627810663067

13 hours ago, 4GHoward said:

Anyone ever try any of these companies in this article?

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/redzone-nextwave-also-complain-of-interference-from-t-mobile-s-5g

 

Here in NYC I don’t think NextWave even has any clients. By my count they only have about two dozen sites deployed across the entire city. It’s pretty much a network only put up to try to pressure T-Mobile into buying them by forcing T-Mobile to switch their n41 configuration from 140MHz to 80MHz over a growing portion of the city. That’s not competitive with Verizon who has 160MHz citywide. 

I hope we get to the point soon where T-Mobile decides it’s worth it to just buy out NextWave, take over their leases, and finally have a full 190MHz across the city. 

NextWave is complaining about interference from T-Mobile's network again. It's super annoying considering the area where T-Mobile operates a full 150MHz of BRS/EBS shrank significantly in late 2023. In a place as dense as NYC, have two operators with such split holdings of this band doesn't make sense. Interference seems nearly inevitable. Next Wave has only submitted permits for 22 sites so far, they honestly should just sell.

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/redzone-nextwave-also-complain-of-interference-from-t-mobile-s-5g

On 3/29/2024 at 7:52 PM, dkyeager said:

I believe Verizon has 160Mhz of n77 licenses in NYC, which have been available since last summer.  Have any of you seen more than 100Mhz? Does SCP report it correctly in terms of band and nr-arfcn? Of course ideally it would be SA lol.

Yeah they definitely have 160MHz live but no idea if SCP reports properly. I only have Cellmapper on my Android device and only map AT&T and T-Mobile at the moment. Also no standalone on Verizon here. 

There's a permit for a new 47 story building at 205 Montague St in Downtown Brooklyn. The problem is that  T-Mobile eNB 48352 is on the building next door and this new building will block two out of 3 sectors of the site. For reference, the new building will be roughly as tall as 16 Court St which is right across the street.

This site is the primary site covering Cadman Plaza so I wonder what the plan is. Will they just try to change sector placement, move to a different building, or will this just speed up the conversion of the Sprint site at 25 Monroe Place?

26 minutes ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Yes, the posts were for a 100MHz+80MHz+10MHz split. Here is one:
 

 

I'm confused. The screenshot in the post shows a 90MHz secondary carrier and a 20MHz n25 carrier, not a third 10MHz n41 carrier.

Mapped a bit of Perth Amboy since it seemed undermapped on Cellmapper. There are no Sprint conversions in the city however I did map a new build and one older site that had never been mapped before.

The part that stood out to me while mapping the city is T-Mobile's site density in comparison to AT&T specifically since those are the two networks that I map. T-Mobile has 10 sites within city limits in comparison to AT&T's 4 sites. AT&T still performs great there thanks to their combo of C-band and DoD spectrum. I got max speeds of about 650Mbps right under a site but those speeds quickly drop off the farther you go from the site. In some parts of the city I couldn't get any more than ~40Mbps on AT&T because I was at the edge of the C-band cell and I'm certain most of the throughput was coming from the lowband I was aggregating with.

T-Mobile on the other hand couldn't get the peak speeds that AT&T had because of NextWave encumbering them. They only have 40+40 n41 but had much more consistent 300-400Mbps speeds virtually everywhere I went and a much stronger signal. The only area where they struggled in terms of speed was around Five Corners where T-Mobile has a site on top of the Perth Amboy National Bank Building but it hasn't been upgraded just yet. They only have n71 and n25 on that site. I got speeds of about 150-200Mbps under that site which isn't bad but it's also the busiest area of the city so they definitely could use the capacity.

T-Mobile eliminated the 10MHz Band 41 carrier in Suffolk County and is now running 150MHz n41. Here's a screenshot of the 50MHz second carrier. I'm guessing it'll make its way west toward NYC in the coming weeks.

On 3/15/2024 at 7:53 PM, Paynefanbro said:

T-Mobile's only site on City Island also got upgraded just in time for the spring crowds. I haven't actually seen the site or been there to map but I was in Sands Point last weekend and noticed that I connected to a new Band 12 eNB that shared PCIs with the City Island site in an area where I used to connect to that weird old split sector Band 66 antenna. 

Following up on this. I just went up to City Island and it looks like T-Mobile is giving them the Broad Channel treatment by adding a bunch of small cells throughout the island. I mapped three new ones today bringing them to a total of seven small cells. It's still not a replacement for actual macros though. They need to join Verizon and AT&T in adding at least one more site closer to the north end of the island.

Also snapped a pic of the upgraded site. Gone is the old split sector antenna they had on the east facing sector.

— — — — —

I mapped a recently upgraded site in Cobble Hill earlier and noticed that the gNB IDs for n41 and n25/71 are separated by two. Maybe it's a sneak peak into the numbering scheme going forward? gNB ID 1089448 is n41 and 1089450 is n25/71. Maybe n66 or n77 will be given 1089449.

New AT&T speed record for me. I encountered an AT&T site with upgraded backhaul in Crown Heights. I'm certain I can hit 1Gbps on this site off-peak. 

Dish marks 5G drive test milestone, validating its network speeds

https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/dish-marks-5g-drive-test-milestone

And yet barely anyone can use it. That's probably the only reason why they're able to meet these network speed milestones. 

T-Mobile finally got a permit to decommission their old Band 66 site at 1 Carlton Ave across the street from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It hasn't been active for a few months now so it's no surprise really.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/mKapEnxkPdJuRLC96

Curious to see if they'll join move to another building or if they're content with just not having a site in that area.

— — — — —

For the folks that travel on the Grand Central Parkway, T-Mobile finally upgraded the site on top of Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, finally filling in that gap of weaker n41 coverage on the highway. I was wondering when they would get to this one. Really felt like it was never going to happen.

— — — — —

T-Mobile's only site on City Island also got upgraded just in time for the spring crowds. I haven't actually seen the site or been there to map but I was in Sands Point last weekend and noticed that I connected to a new Band 12 eNB that shared PCIs with the City Island site in an area where I used to connect to that weird old split sector Band 66 antenna. 

On 3/13/2024 at 5:20 PM, the_intern said:

Curious what your experience was with the mini-macros? Did they have bad performance because they had limited bands (maybe no NR?) or some other issue with them? Either way, full macros likely cover indoor spaces better anyways! 

When I'm near the mini-macros performance is fine. They're pretty much like high powered small cells so they do have a place in the network. However in some areas T-Mobile has been using them instead of normal macros which introduces a ton of problems. They have terrible range, most can't cover more than a block, they're often 2x2MIMO as opposed to 4x4MIMO+ that you get on traditional macros, they take forever to upgrade because antenna manufacturers typically have trouble getting the newest technologies in a smaller form factor (at least initially), and more often than not they're 2-sector because they get installed on the facade at the corner of a building so they only provide coverage in two directions.

A bunch of us in this thread have found some mini-macro sites that have been upgraded to NR but they are few and far between. The majority of them are still LTE only, some with Band 2/66 only and others with Band 2/12/66. 

The good news is, T-Mobile seems to be reevaluating their usefulness and decommissioning or converting them to full macros where possible. A good example of this is T-Mobile eNB 40003 which I posted a while back. Instead of just upgrading the small antennas, they moved to the roof of the building, installed regular antennas, and installed a third sector which has boosted coverage significantly.

On 11/19/2023 at 11:49 AM, Paynefanbro said:

T-Mobile eNB 40003 was one of those sites that used the mini-antennas but it looks like T-Mobile removed those antennas and put regular macro antennas on the roof when they upgraded it. Coverage is way better as a result. I wish they did that more often.

Before: 

 

After:

Looks like T-Mobile learned their lesson and is starting to wipe out those mini-macro sites with the antennas on the facade of buildings. Two permits in late February alone. These sites have already been turned off, the antennas just haven't been removed yet. The areas they are in are better served by the full macros/Sprint conversions in the area so it's nothing lost.

The two sites are at:

1. 515 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10022
2. 222 Park Ave S, New York, NY 10003

Also recently mapped a new T-Mobile site (non-conversion) in Manhattan at 810 Broadway, New York, NY 10003. Looks like it was first mapped last November. This site replace one that used to be on 797 Broadway before that building got demolished.

This one is weird because I wasn't able to find an antenna permit for it. I only found it because we had it on our keep site map and there was a gNB that matched the coverage pattern of the site. Confirmed it's existence with roadview.

Sprint eNB 253661 -> T-Mobile gNB 1370628

Located at 40.77956781042574, -73.89963351976638

Site is gig+
 

— — — — —

T-Mobile gNB 1343755/6 | eNB 879752/3 is a Sprint conversion in Hoboken.

Located at: 40.75217759916991, -74.0298680462198

Also a gig+ site

— — — — —

Also got my fastest speed on AT&T's network yet a couple of days back.

AT&T eNB 115379

44 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I saw T-Mobile running B26 LTE in northeast Colorado this weekend driving between Omaha and Denver. I have no idea why.... but it was there.

Most markets are affected to some degree, more rural areas where Sprint/Clear didn't focus on WiMax/B41 seeing the biggest boost. 

I've seen it running on Sprint keep sites but not on T-Mobile sites. That's super interesting!

A bit of an embarrassing moment for AT&T this afternoon when I went into an indoor garage in Alphabet City and saw this in the status bar.

Instead of spending money on a million small cells to fill in gaps in their outdoor coverage where their macros barely reach, they should just add more macros like their competitors do and it'll help both outdoors and indoors.

23 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Is T-Mobile still actively using it now?

If T-Mobile keeps it, could it use it for 5G or would it be relegated to LTE?

Nope they're not using it but it could be used for n26 or Band 26. I still don't think T-Mobile will keep it though. The radios that they have deployed don't so far don't support Band 26 or n26. Really only Dish is prepared to deploy n26 immediately. T-Mobile might just decide to hold onto the spectrum if no one buys it and then sell it to Dish years down the line.

I still think the best deal for T-Mobile would be a swap where T-Mobile would give Dish a steep discount on the spectrum in exchange for a single 600MHz block in key markets.

For example T-Mobile's lease of Dish's 600MHz D-block in NYC expires pretty soon and T-Mobile will fall back down to 15MHz n71 here without it. I have no doubt that this has already been offered to Dish but Dish is rightfully wary about handing their competitor an advantage like that. Realistically almost any swap would end with T-Mobile benefitting more than Dish. Dish doesn't *need* T-Mobile's 800MHz but it would've been a nice-to-have for the little gains in capacity.

5 minutes ago, clbowens said:

So, now T-Mobile has to sell it to someone else, right?

Technically they have to *attempt* to sell it but they aren't obligated to take any offer less than the $3.5 billion purchase price that Dish agreed to. Meaning if no one offers at least that much for the spectrum T-Mobile gets to keep it.

I'm doubtful that T-Mobile is going to keep it though. Burns & McDonnell already said last year that they wanted the spectrum for private wireless networks. https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/dish-isnt-only-one-interested-t-mobiles-800-mhz-spectrum

The goal of this petition as I understand it was to force T-Mobile to divest some amount of spectrum (likely C-band) in order to receive their winnings and AT&T absolutely failed in that regard. Sure they delayed the assignment of spectrum, but they delayed the assignment in areas where they still haven't built out any C-band. T-Mobile still maintains first-mover advantage on midband in these areas even if for a shorter amount of time.

In my opinion T-Mobile won insomuch as they got every license that they won and the only divestiture was 20MHz of AWS/PCS spectrum in two counties in Hawaii where T-Mobile already outnumbers Verizon and AT&T in spectrum by over 2:1. That's gotta sting for AT&T especially.

Now they have to reckon with people's speeds doubling overnight and TMHI suddenly becoming a reality in tons more localities.

Looks like T-Mobile added themselves to the DAS in my office in midtown. I noticed I had a much stronger signal than normal and confirmed the existence of a new LTE eNB but it has an older 5-digit numbering scheme. No 5G on the DAS but I'm glad to see them join anyway. Now I have full signal everywhere in the building. Speeds are fine at ~50Mbps which is slightly faster than what I get on the AT&T and Verizon DAS in here but pings are terrible at 100-200ms. I'm hoping it'll improve over time though as today is the first day it's active.

— — — — —

Edit: DAS turned off for about an hour for all carriers and came back. Now pings are 30-40ms with peak speeds over 100Mbps on T-Mobile.

Edit 2: Looks like Band 2 is at 10MHz on the DAS as opposed to 15MHz on macros. Band 66 is at 20MHz though.