T-Mobile on Thursday announced plans to roll out its 4G LTE network in 2013, thanks in part to the AWS spectrum it is expected to gain from the failed AT&T merger deal as well as a $4 billion investment.
The effort, which T-Mobile has dubbed its "Challenger Strategy," is expected to reach the "vast majority" of the top 50 markets.
In a call with reporters, Philipp Humm, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA, said the company had a "tough year" in 2011 thanks to the drama surrounding AT&T's effort to acquire the carrier. But now that the "cloud" of that deal has been lifted, T-Mobile's 4G effort "needs a refresh," Humm said.
That includes the installation of new equipment at 37,000 cell sites and refarming spectrum in preparation for the LTE launch. Refarming will be made possible thanks to the AWS spectrum T-Mobile will acquire as part of the "breakup free" from AT&T.
Of that $4 billion investment from parent company Deutsche Telekom, meanwhile, $1.4 billion will go towards incremental network advances. T-Mobile also plans to invest in B2B and mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) partners.
"We have, frankly, suffered under the AT&T deal as we were unable to sign up new partners," Humm said today. T-Mobile will be "aggressively" looking for wholesale partners this year to make it easy for MVNOs to sign up with T-Mobile, he said.
It was just nine months ago that Humm told the Senate Judiciary Committee that T-Mobile basically wouldn't survive without AT&T. The company's spectrum holdings "will not allow us to launch LTE," Humm said at the time. Deutsche Telekom "is not in a position to finance the necessary large-scale investment in the U.S. for T-Mobile to remain competitive," Humm told the senators.
That breakup fee has apparently helped things and Humm insisted today that $4 billion will be sufficient. But Neville Ray, T-Mobile's CTO, said the company will need additional spectrum.
Just yesterday, T-Mobile and several consumer groups asked the Federal Communications Commission to stop Verizon from purchasing $3.6 billion worth of spectrum from the nation's top cable providers. T-Mobile said the deal poses "a clear threat to competition."
Ray said today that T-Mobile is looking to purchase some of the AWS spectrum that the Verizon deal would snap up.
How best to allocate spectrum to the wireless carriers has been in dispute for quite some time. A recent economic package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama, however, includes a provision that would allow the FCC to auction off broadcast spectrum to wireless carriers.
Though T-Mobile has marketed some of its devices as "4G," the provider does not yet have a true 4G LTE experience like that offered by Verizon and AT&T. T-Mobile does, however, offer HSPA+ 21, which PCMag found to be "speedy" in its annual fastest mobile networks test, but not as fast as those LTE options.