T-Mobile launches America’s ‘first nationwide 5G network’

TMUS finally makes good use of its 600 MHz spectrum to be able to claim the country’s first 5G network with nationwide coverage.

The 5G network apparently covers 200 million people and a million square miles, which isn’t a bad effort. How much 5G wonder subscribers with get from the relatively small chunks of 600 MHz spectrum TMUS is using to achieve this first remains to be seen but, as ever the company itself concedes, it’s a ‘critical first step’.

“5G is here on a nationwide scale,” said TMUS CEO John Legere. “This is a huge step towards 5G for all. While dumb and dumber focus on 5G for the (wealthy) Few, launching in just a handful of cities — and forcing customers into their most expensive plans to get 5G — we’re committed to building broad, deep nationwide 5G that people and businesses can access at no extra cost with the New T-Mobile, and today is just the start of that journey.”

In his usual dry, understated style, Legere is presumably referring to AT&T and Verizon, although he doesn’t indicate which one is dumber. Being the seasoned telecoms exec he is, Legere realised he’d better also launch some compatible phones, so from the end of this week TMUS early adopters can get hold of OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren and the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G for $900 and $1300 respectively.

“The carriers have been over-hyping 5G for years now, setting expectations beyond what they can deliver,” said Neville Ray, TMUS President of Technology. “When Verizon says #5GBuiltRight, they must mean sparse, expensive and limited to outdoors only. Meanwhile at T-Mobile, we built 5G that works for more people in more places, and this is just the start.”

There was lots more noise from them, as you would expect, but you get the message. TMUS is great and everyone else is rubbish and duplicitous. It’s not the most subtle marketing strategy but it seems to be working, so who are we to scoff? It looks like the 5G service doesn’t come at a premium over 4G either, and there’s some kind of extra incentive for people to switch networks, so TMUS seems to be going hard on this one.

Here’s the coverage map and those crazy guys even did a vid.