T-Mobile CEO is still blathering about 5G in 2020
T-Mobile CEO John Legere has never been known to remain quiet. As New Year's Eve approaches, it's been no different.
In an annual memo posted to the T-Mobile blog, Mr. Legere offers up his raw opinions on the passing year and includes several predictions about the future.
The biggest takeaway: Legere is excited about T-Mobile's 5G internet development. "One of the most under-reported stories for 2017 is the 600 MHz auction," he says in the post, referring to the FCC's spectrum auction in April.
"While [Verizon and AT&T] focus on 5G hotspots that won’t work when you leave your home, we will be the only ones on the fast-track toward a real, mobile nationwide 5G network in 2020 – and have already started deploying 5G ready equipment," he says.
If his claims are true, it would actually give T-Mobile a major advantage over competing brands. Consumer interest in 5G internet has only grown in recent years, and it will likely continue as the demand for faster internet everywhere climbs higher.
As Mashable previously reported, the average American home broadband had download speeds of 17.2 megabits-per-second in 2016. On a 5G network, it will reach about 1,000 megabits-per-second, or one gigabit — a dramatic leap forward.
According to the post, Legere seems to think that T-Mobile is ahead of its rivals because its focusing on building a network that can transmit these blazing internet speeds, anywhere, wirelessly. It would certainly come in as good news for T-Mobile. Verizon is currently the largest wireless telecom service provider with 149 million subscribers, followed by AT&T with 138.8 million subscribers. T-Mobile has 70.7 million subscribers.
