Fiber Problems Caused T-Mobile Outage, Most Customers Unaffected, Executive Says

The fiber outage “exploited an issue in our routing platform configuration, which actually led to one of these IP floods across the network” and affected the IMS and voice-over-LTE stacks in the radio core, Ray said. “That IP flood created all sorts of capacity and protection measures within the core architecture, which effectively stopped phones registering and call completion,” he said. Ray said the outage was over by about 1 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

T-Mobile has a “material advantage” on spectrum for the first time versus AT&T and Verizon after buying Sprint, Ray said. “It’s pretty clear” the two will “muster everything they can from their balance sheets to go to war on C band,” with an auction starting Dec. 8, he said. “They have no choice,” he said. “For us, we’ll evaluate where we are. We have a great position today.” Everybody needs more spectrum, he said. Ray expects the auction to take place as planned. “It’s going to take some time for clearance, for deployment, for ecosystem,” he said. Ray said T-Mobile plans to deploy 40,000-50,000 small cells, about double what it has today.

T-Mobile will close a deal on the sale of Boost to Dish Network by the end of June and is continuing discussions on continuing a lease of Dish 600 MHz spectrum (see 2006120047), Ray said.

The carrier is in a "very, very strong position” on spectrum now and wants to deploy as quickly as possible, especially on the 2.5 GHz spectrum from Sprint, Ray said. “This aggressive push in 5G rollout has already begun.” T-Mobile is using the band in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles “and there are many, many more markets coming on fast,” he said.

T-Mobile is using teams from Sprint for the deployment, Ray said, but the pandemic caused problems, including obtaining auxiliary equipment needed to do installs. “All around, it has been a tough two or three months with COVID,” he said. The time it took to close the Sprint deal was lost and “I want to regain that time,” he said. Providers are moving at a fast pace on 5G in China and South Korea, Ray said: “We have a lot of catch-up.” Very few U.S. consumers have true 5G, he said. “This year, that will change," he said: "We're not there yet." He noted T-Mobile now has more high-band spectrum than AT&T. “I love it as a capacity layer, that top layer of the cake,” he said.

Ray also highlighted new subscriber projections, disclosed late Wednesday. The stock closed up 3.7% Thursday at $106.39. It expects to add 800,000-900,000 subscribers this quarter. The company said COVID-19 costs should be lower than projected -- $350 to $450 million before taxes, down from a projection of $450 million to $550 million.

Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche told investors Pai discussed FCC progress on wireless infrastructure changes. “Pai referenced China as one country which has demonstrated that scaled small-cell network builds on a widespread basis can be a reality,” she said. The chairman “views this FCC as the most aggressive in history of making spectrum commercially available,” she said.

Andre Fuetsch, president-AT&T Labs and chief technology officer, told the conference the company expects to have 15 5G devices available this year. There’s “a lot of buzz” on a 5G iPhone and AT&T has a long history with Apple, he said. COVID-19 initially created supply problems for AT&T’s network build, but “right now that is smoothed out,” Fuetsch said. He acknowledged mid-band plays a big role in 5G in other countries. AT&T is “very interested” in the C band, he said. “It's going to be, in the long term, an important part of not just our portfolio, but all carriers' portfolios,” he said.