T-Mobile Announces 5G Rollout, Takes Shots at AT&T and Verizon

T-Mobile has announced plans to roll out its new 5G network in 30 cities in 2018, starting with New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Las Vegas. The announcement came at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

T-Mobile says they’re in a unique position with 5G, able to take advantage of unpopulated spectrum holdings and a “multi-spectrum strategy,” while competing carriers are forced to “kick customers off their congested LTE networks” to build out the technology.

T-Mobile’s shots at AT&T and Verizon don’t stop there. The carrier’s press release refers to them multiple times as “the Duopoly,” and CEO John Legere calls them “Dumb and Dumber.”

Legere and company seem to take particular exception with AT&T’s strategy testing of 5G via nomadic, “puck” fixed routers, saying T-Mobile’s deployment will be more focused on customers’ end experience.

“It’s a puck!?” Legere remarked in the release. “You gotta be pucking kidding me!”

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5G is the latest generation of network, with promises of speeds up to 10 to 100 times faster than 4G LTE.

T-Mobile is rolling out 5G on their 600 MHz band, which you may remember it as the new frequency that even the iPhone X isn’t compatible with. At present, only one of T-Mobile’s devices is technically 5G-ready: the LG V30. The company plans to change that, though, with the introduction of a slate of 5G devices in 2019. Expect the same from the other major carriers.

Chris Holmes

Staff Writer

Chris Holmes is a Contributing Writer for WhistleOut, where he covers the cell phone and internet industries. His work has been cited in publications like The Verge, The New York Times, and WIRED.

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