August was T-Mobile’s biggest month ever with 2.7 million gross adds

[Bateluer]

http://www.tmonews.com/2014/09/august-was-t-mobiles-biggest-month-ever-with-2-7-million-gross-adds/

T-Mobile added 2.75 million gross subscribers during August alone. Just one single month. In what is normally a quiet period, T-Mo had its biggest month ever. It’s also the biggest postpaid adds month in the history of the company, with 1 million subscribers added to its postpaid ranks.

Now these figures didn’t include customers leaving, so we didn’t get any “net adds” figures. But, as a comparison, T-Mobile added under 700,000 net postpaid customers in the entire 2nd quarter (April-June). It’s biggest quarter ever was the first quarter of this year, in which T-Mo added 2.4 million net subscribers. So I think it’s fair to assume the company’s going to announce figures for its best ever quarter when earnings for Q3 are made public. If it doesn’t, it’ll be mighty close.

As for where they’re coming from, it’s “those other guys”. Four times as many customers left Sprint for T-Mobile than went the other way, and twice as many customers left Verizon for T-Mo than went the other way. Clearly, what T-Mobile’s doing is working.

Its quite awesome to see a company turn themselves around so completely in less than 2 years. In 2012, T-Mobile was on the ropes, shedding money and subscribers left and right. I walked into a TMO store in September 2012, and it was a ghost town. Walk in a TMO store today, and there will be a wait before you can talk to a rep.

 

[soccerballtux]

wow

 

[paperwastage]

makes you wonder what Sprint is doing for the past year

I'm intrigued about retention rate after these signups...without contracts (or device lock-in like Sprint), wonder how many of these people will leave the next few months due to service/reception problems

 

[jpeyton]

They are taking care of their customers big time. My parents are with T-Mobile, and on the 17th they'll pay $25 for a new Asus RT-AC68U courtesy of Uncarrier 7.0 (currently sells for $199 on Amazon).

 

[foghorn67]

makes you wonder what Sprint is doing for the past year

I'm intrigued about retention rate after these signups...without contracts (or device lock-in like Sprint), wonder how many of these people will leave the next few months due to service/reception problems

Unless I move to a rural area, I'm sticking with them. I've been traveling to a lot of areas and their LTE throughput is pretty strong.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm intrigued about retention rate after these signups...without contracts (or device lock-in like Sprint), wonder how many of these people will leave the next few months due to service/reception problems

Treat people well, and I bet many of them will stick around.

Still, the profits used from all these new customers better be spent on aggressive network upgrades; they'll need it to handle the extra load.

 

[Elixer]

They are taking care of their customers big time. My parents are with T-Mobile, and on the 17th they'll pay $25 for a new Asus RT-AC68U courtesy of Uncarrier 7.0 (currently sells for $199 on Amazon).

I assume they will have some kind of QoS limits, but, the bigger problem is, that your IP is going to be tagged when strangers start using 'free wifi'... and that could lead into some serious (legal) problems.

If T-mobile wanted to really help their customers, they would unlock any phone that uses T-mobile network (*cough* Metro-PCS *cough* for free.

 

[jpeyton]

I assume they will have some kind of QoS limits, but, the bigger problem is, that your IP is going to be tagged when strangers start using 'free wifi'... and that could lead into some serious (legal) problems.

If T-mobile wanted to really help their customers, they would unlock any phone that uses T-mobile network for free.

1) There is no free Wi-Fi for strangers.

2) T-Mobile will unlock most phones for postpaid customers. Especially since everyone is off-contract now.

 

[soccerballtux]

Treat people well, and I bet many of them will stick around.

Still, the profits used from all these new customers better be spent on aggressive network upgrades; they'll need it to handle the extra load.

I think they need to build out more than upgrade. Currently their network nowhere near as busy as AT&T's

 

[ImDonly1]

makes you wonder what Sprint is doing for the past year

I'm intrigued about retention rate after these signups...without contracts (or device lock-in like Sprint), wonder how many of these people will leave the next few months due to service/reception problems

Even though there is no contract, most people are still stuck with them for 2 years paying the phone off in payments. I doubt many people pay the phone in full right away.

 

[s44]

makes you wonder what Sprint is doing for the past year

Trying to buy Legere.

 

[trmiv]

I'm glad they are growing. I'd switch if their service in the Raleigh/Durham area wasn't completely terrible. I did the Test Drive for a week was not satisfied at all.

 

[s44]

The more cash and cash flow T-Mo has for the 600mhz auction, the better. And we'll see how much the 700mhz acquisition improves their footprint before that.

 

[Medikit]

The more cash and cash flow T-Mo has for the 600mhz auction, the better. And we'll see how much the 700mhz acquisition improves their footprint before that.

They should be able to deploy 700mhz A Block (Band 12) in DC, Atlanta, and Kansas City in the next 6-12 months. I am extremely bummed that the iPhone 6 doesn't support band 12 though.

 

[openwheel]

perhaps the Verizon version will?

 

[shortylickens]

I liked Tmobile before it was cool.

 

[trmiv]

I liked Tmobile before it was cool.

Dirty hipster

 

[v8envy]

Count me as one of those 2.7M August subs. +4 subs, actually.

It's a combo of living in an area where T-Mobile has excellent service and Sprint sucking more every year. I had Sprint in 2010, and it was good. In 2011, still usable. 2012? Without hyperbole I was getting low kilobit speeds on 3G. It wasn't enough for Pandora, never mind Youtube. Texts were delayed, sometimes by hours and several times arrived out of order causing huge confusion.

The one person I know still on Sprint in the area still has that today.

In the south T-Mobile is not an option. My inlaws live around RDU, and yeah, borderline unusable there. Outer banks? Fuggetaboutit. But in major population centers east, west and even flyover country? $116 bucks/ month including BS fees for 4 lines is pretty sweet.

 

[Seven]

They need to improve their coverage.

Yesterday I went into a restaurant and the area has a good LTE coverage, but once I went inside I got the poor E, no data whatsoever.

 

[Roland00Address]

So I want to switch from Sprint to T-Mobile, but there is no good phone that I really want. I have an S4 currently and if I am going to be spending money to get a new phone I want something to be really an improvement.

Maybe I should just look for a used g2 or something, that said even then it would be $200 to $300.

Where are my 20nm phones with much better battery life, I want it now not 6 months to a year from now

They need to improve their coverage.

Yesterday I went into a restaurant and the area has a good LTE coverage, but once I went inside I got the poor E, no data whatsoever.

That is not a problem with coverage such as the location of the cell phone towers and the electricity/signal strength being pumped out by those towers. That is a problem with the frequency that t-mobile has to use, higher mhz have lower building penetration with the same signal strength. T-mobile needs lower mhz frequency to improve that. Verizon gets such good signal for the last couple years they had the best spectrum with the lowest bands, but this may be changing with the new spectrum being freed up and sold by the FCC.

 

[Red Storm]

So I want to switch from Sprint to T-Mobile, but there is no good phone that I really want. I have an S4 currently and if I am going to be spending money to get a new phone I want something to be really an improvement.

Maybe I should just look for a used g2 or something, that said even then it would be $200 to $300.

Where are my 20nm phones with much better battery life, I want it now not 6 months to a year from now

S5, M8, G2, G3, Note 3, Note 4 will run circles around the S4's battery life.

 

[Roland00Address]

S5, M8, G2, G3, Note 3, Note 4 will run circles around the S4's battery life.

I agree they have much better battery life than a normal s4. But I use a 5200 mah third party battery on my s4. I do not mind the extra weight for it allows me to remember it is always on me in my pocket and it makes it easier to hold and use. It also gives me longer usage and it makes charging less important if I forget to plug it in (which happens all the time). Now all the reasons I like a thicker phone with a bigger battery are ADHD things about me. I need the extra weight and size to always know where my phone is, I need the extra battery so I always have charge and I do not have to worry about will I have enough juice or will I go without. If the phone is not thick enough I am just going to have to add extra thickness with a thicker case.

Now the G2 and G3 have better battery life but they will be roughly equal to my s4 with a bigger battery.

One thing I am not like about these newer phones is how wide they are making them, they are now to a point where you can't use touch the left side of the screen with your thumb when you use the device one handed, forcing you to use two hands. The S4 was pretty much at the limit and it was too big sometimes, the s5 and other similar phones just blow it out of the water and they have now reached that point you have to use two hands (the moto x 2014 is now wider than the s4 ). If I have to use the phone two handed why not just go all in and get something ridiculous huge such as a galaxy note 4, a lg g pro 2, or god forbid the sony xperia z ultra.

----

Yeah I am complaining too much, but I want a serious improvement if I get a new phone and not just a sidegrade with a very small increase. There is just nothing what I want on the market right now, I want something like a sony xperia z3 compact, or the moto x 2013 but with updated specs and a huge battery, I am very much okay with a thicker phone, in some ways I prefer it.

They simply just don't make the phone I want, I am also in between generations where we been stuck on 28nm for so long and we have not seen a real improvement on phones since q3 2013 only very marginal improvements a year later.

 

[paperwastage]

They simply just don't make the phone I want, I am also in between generations where we been stuck on 28nm for so long and we have not seen a real improvement on phones since q3 2013 only very marginal improvements a year later.

for now, I'm waiting for VoLTE, Band 12 support (on t-mobile)... in the next gen or so, you'll find 64-bit CPUs, 600-mhz band support, ...

everything else (quad-core CPU, 2-3GB ram, 1080p/2K display) seem to have peaked... you're just waiting for better performance / lower battery life, which will come at every process shrink

 

[Dari]

T-Mobile is great so long as you don't go out of the city. I'll stick with AT&T.

 

[Oyeve]

Ive been with TMO since Omnipoint and Voicestream days. Hell, I had a SonyEricsson Voistream phone that had an IR port and used my laptop to connect to it for internet back in 1998. I will never leave them.