T-Mobile Always Seeking New Spectrum, Including from Dish, CEO Says
T-Mobile would be interested in any spectrum Dish Network offers for sale, CEO Mike Sievert said during a Q2 earnings call Thursday (see 2307270064): “You know we've never met spectrum we didn't like.” One thing that distinguishes T-Mobile is “when…
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we get our hands on spectrum, we put it to work right away,” he said. “You see that in how we're deploying so ambitiously the 2.5 GHz” acquired as part of the Sprint buy, he said. “We're always on the hunt for other ways to add capacity to our network because it allows us to do amazing things like not only continue to take share and grow and meet ever rising needs of customers on their smartphones” but also expand fixed wireless access, Sievert said. T-Mobile remains on track to have as many as 8 million home internet customers by 2025, using excess spectrum capacity, he said. T-Mobile agrees to provide fixed-wireless only in areas with extra capacity, which currently means it’s available to about 50 million U.S. homes, Sievert said. Ulf Ewaldsson, president-technology, said T-Mobile remains well situated on spectrum. “We have lots of room to move ahead,” he said: “We have today 255 MHz of spectrum that is dedicated to 5G on our mid-band, and you have to remember that our low-band is all dedicated to 5G.” Other carriers are sharing spectrum between LTE and 5G, “and we're not -- we're dedicating spectrum,” Ewaldsson said. T-Mobile is deploying high-band, but in markets with “extraordinary” capacity needs, including Manhattan and Los Angeles, he said. Callie Field, president of T-Mobile Business Group, said the provider is expanding its business portfolio, adding a major global asset management firm and a “leading global bank” as new accounts in Q2. Some multiunit national retailers are replacing their wireline connections with 5G from T-Mobile, and hospitals and schools have also been seeking alternatives for campus-wide connections, she said. “The structural unattractiveness of the wireless industry has weighed on T-Mobile’s shares just as it has on AT&T’s and Verizon’s,” MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett told investors: “The only remedy will be for T-Mobile to, well, just keep putting up the numbers and buying back stock. They did both in Q2. Eventually, reticent buyers will have no choice. It’s just that it may still take some time. As ever, we’re still believers in the T-Mobile story.”