T-Mobile CEO Confident FCC Will Like SpaceX Project

it isn't clear when the FCC will OK the plan, but “what gives me confidence here is that the FCC has been very clear that one of the priorities that they have is making sure that reliable connections are available everywhere.” T-Mobile hopes to start with “a beta centered around a messaging service, not just texting, but messaging apps as well with real-time back and forth ability to send messages, send pictures that kind of thing,” he said. “We've been working on this for a long time and it could really change things,” he said: “This is a vast country and it has, millions of places, hundreds of thousands of square miles, where there's no signal from any cellular company.” T-Mobile has largely wrapped up the decommissioning of the Sprint network, more than a year ahead of schedule, Sievert said. Sprint spectrum is being converted to T-Mobile 5G, he said. Parts of switching over Sprint’s back office operations remain to be completed, he said. “The main thing that's left now is billing and our intention is to make that opaque to the customer,” Sievert said. “We move Sprint customer billing over to the T-Mobile systems [and] their rate plan doesn't change, the look and feel of their bill doesn't really change.” Sievert said T-Mobile is sticking with its strategy of not raising prices despite inflation. “We don't raise prices because it's not our strategy and our strategy is something that we're confident in,” he said. Sievert noted Verizon and AT&T are also deploying mid-band spectrum for 5G: “They're scrambling to catch up, but we're moving at pace as well, even faster.”