T-mobile 3g Launch In 2007

[jones]

D.Telekom U.S. unit sees growth going on, 3G in '07
Sun May 29, 2005 11:08 AM ET

By Nikola Rotscheroth
SEATTLE, May 29 (Reuters) - T-Mobile USA, Deutsche Telekom's (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) U.S. mobile arm, sees its growth of around 1 million new customers per quarter continuing at this pace in 2005 and is preparing new "third-generation" mobile services for 2007.

As there are many more Americans who have not used a mobile phone than there are Europeans or Japanese, T-Mobile USA, the country's smallest national operator, believes there is still plenty of room for it to expand, its head told journalists.

"I believe we can keep up this speed of growth," said T-Mobile USA Chief Executive Robert Dotson. T-Mobile USA won 957,000 new subscribers in the first quarter of 2005, to reach 18.3 million.

"We are a growth machine. We have to grow, grow, grow," Dotson said.

The main source of this growth, the operator believes, is people using their mobiles instead of the fixed-line network to make calls, or giving up their fixed-line phone entirely -- as 10 to 15 percent of T-Mobile USA's customers already have.

Since Deutsche Telekom bought the unit, then called VoiceStream Wireless and a small startup, for a breathtaking $40 billion in 2001, it has become its main growth engine -- and overtook the domestic German mobile arm in terms of revenues last year, with 9.3 billion euros ($11.7 billion).

According to a 10-year business plan it published this year, Deutsche Telekom expects T-Mobile USA to bring in 43 percent of its mobile revenue -- more than any other mobile unit including Germany, Britain, and other European countries.

T-Mobile International CEO Rene Obermann told reporters he was not worried by the mergers in the United States, which have reduced to four the number of national mobile operators, leaving T-Mobile USA the fourth rank by far.

"The fourth rank is a good position," Obermann said, adding that T-Mobile USA, as part of T-Mobile International with 75 million subscribers, had bigger purchasing power than any other U.S. operator.

Cingular, a joint venture of Baby Bells SBC (SBC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and BellSouth (BLS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , took over AT&T Wireless last year to become the largest operator, and Sprint (FON.N: Quote, Profile, Research) bought Nextel to become the third largest.

No. 2 in the market is Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and the world's biggest mobile operator, Vodafone (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research) .


3G LAUNCH IN 2007

T-Mobile USA is preparing the launch of new third-generation (3G) mobile phone services -- which allow video phone calls and music downloads over mobiles -- in 2007, even though it has yet to make a formal decision to bid for the necessary spectrum.

"We plan to begin the 3G rollout in the second half of next year and the first services shall launch in 2007," said Chief Development Officer Cole Brodman.

T-Mobile International's Obermann cautioned, however, that the supervisory boards of T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom still had to approve the group's bidding for the service in an spectrum auction upcoming in the second quarter of 2006.

Obermann declined to say how much he was ready to spend for the spectrum -- all over Europe, operators spent around 100 billion euros for 3G spectrum -- but said licence prices had come down in the United States since the number of national operators has dropped to four from six.

Dotson ruled out T-Mobile USA buying a regional U.S. mobile operator to expand into areas where it did not have its own presence yet.

The group, which has earmarked 2.2 billion euros to build its network in the United States this year, would rather spend on its own network assets in regions it had identified as interesting, he said.

3G LAUNCH

[EdwardP]

I think this might be better in the T-Mobile Users forum, but in any event, it's excellent news.

T-Mobile: 75 million subscribers...

[Gideon H]

That's good news. I've been telling everyone that as soon as I get back from Brazil, I'll see a whole new wireless America because of all the 3G upgrades going underway (SK Earthlink, Amp'd, VCast from Verizon, Cingular launching HSDPA, and now T-Mobile).

[EdwardP]

Originally Posted by EdwardP

I think this might be better in the T-Mobile Users forum, but in any event, it's excellent news.

T-Mobile: 75 million subscribers...

Too late to edit my original message, but it's 78.9 million customers.

1.5 million new customers during the first quarter of 2005. 70% of all new customers decided on postpay service. Almost 50% of the total T-Mobile customer base are now postpay customers.

See this press release at T-Mobile International.

[bobolito]

50% postpay? That seems too low. No wonder the high churn.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by bobolito

50% postpay? That seems too low. No wonder the high churn.

That includes TM worldwide - European contract customers are only about 20% of the base IIRC. T-Mobile USA is about 88 or 89% postpay.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by bobolito

50% postpay? That seems too low. No wonder the high churn.

that's europe for you!

[EdwardP]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

that's europe for you!

As an example, a press release from T-Mobile Slovensko (T-Mobile Slovakia) indicated this:

• 1,223,000 prepaid customers
• 663,000 contract customers

The percentage of prepay customers to total customers in Europe, appears to be higher than in the U.S.

[agentHibby]

Can't T-Mobile do WCDMA sooner??

[Andy]

Originally Posted by EdwardP

As an example, a press release from T-Mobile Slovensko (T-Mobile Slovakia) indicated this:

• 1,223,000 prepaid customers
• 663,000 contract customers

The percentage of prepay customers to total customers in Europe, appears to be higher than in the U.S.

Of course there are less prepay customers in the U.S. than in Europe, I believe I read somewhere once(too lazy to check right now) that VZW has 90% percent post pay customers, show me a european provider that can do that.

[Fire14]

This is good to hear that they are looking to go 3G soon, It will cause the competition to heat up in this way as well.

I thought this was an interesting quote

Dotson ruled out T-Mobile USA buying a regional U.S. mobile operator to expand into areas where it did not have its own presence yet.

Guess buying Suncom is out of the question, and it is good to hear they are going to expand, if they do the 850 roaming ability as well, they will be a good carrier.

[EdwardP]

Wirelessly posted (Nokia6800/2.0 (5.58) Profile/MIDP-1.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.0)

T-Mobile can roam on 850 in Vermont, on Unicel (Rural Cellular Corp.), coverage on I-89 is decent.

[bobolito]

Originally Posted by agentHibby

Can't T-Mobile do WCDMA sooner??

Not without spectrum. I don't understand why T-Mobile hasn't deployed EDGE quicker. EDGE is actually more efficient than GPRS, so you'd think that company that lacks spectrum will rush to get EDGE up and running.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by bobolito

Not without spectrum. I don't understand why T-Mobile hasn't deployed EDGE quicker. EDGE is actually more efficient than GPRS, so you'd think that company that lacks spectrum will rush to get EDGE up and running.

is there another auction coming up or something or how will T-Mobile gain more spectrum if they are already short?

[bobolito]

Yes, there are more auctions coming. This is where T-Mobile is placing its hopes on.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by bobolito

Yes, there are more auctions coming. This is where T-Mobile is placing its hopes on.

Do you have a link with more information on that, like dates and what areas the auction will be for?
Every carrier needs to expand sooner or later, especially with the new Data products they're coming out with, so I would think that a lot of carriers would be interested in more spectrum, and I guess it comes down to who has how much money to spend.

[Steve B]

Originally Posted by bobolito

Yes, there are more auctions coming. This is where T-Mobile is placing its hopes on.

It will be interesting to watch these auctions. Because you got VZW will major pockets to dip into for money. I just wonder how valuable these licenses will be to the major cash holders.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Andy84094

Do you have a link with more information on that, like dates and what areas the auction will be for?
Every carrier needs to expand sooner or later, especially with the new Data products they're coming out with, so I would think that a lot of carriers would be interested in more spectrum, and I guess it comes down to who has how much money to spend.

This is all I found on a quick search on the FCC site.

http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/def..._summary&id=N4

see the .pdf on the right fron 12/29/04

[bobolito]

Here's more info:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...C-240030A1.pdf

[NYCDru]

Quote:
Originally Posted by bobolito
Not without spectrum. I don't understand why T-Mobile hasn't deployed EDGE quicker. EDGE is actually more efficient than GPRS, so you'd think that company that lacks spectrum will rush to get EDGE up and running.

Perhaps beacuse they don't have the specreum do do that and not inconvinience there T-Zones customers at the same time? Also, is EDGE/GPRS backwards compatible? If not then you have alot of phones that need upgrading for the users sakes.

[bobolito]

EDGE is just "GPRS on steroids" so it is backwards compatible. Some people call it E-GPRS as it is essentially the same network, so you don't need separate spectrum for it. It can be added right on to the same base spectrum/channels used for voice/data so it will be virtually painless for current GPRS users.

In other words, EDGE is almost the same thing as GPRS, the only thing that it changes is the encoding/compression of the data in the time slots so that you can fit more data in the same time slots used by GPRS. Since you can put more data into the same time slots, customers will potentially use less spectrum/time slots to download a web page. This translates into more spectrum efficiency which leaves more room on the network for other customers. The mobile units will automatically pick whichever data encoding method it can use based on its capabilities (EDGE or GPRS) but it will still use the same network elements shared by GPRS. Therefore, there's virtually no impact to existing GPRS users.

An upgrade to EDGE requires changing a card in each base station and upgrade software so it is not cheap. Maybe it was too expensive for T-Mobile?

[NYCDru]

Originally Posted by bobolito

Maybe it was too expensive for T-Mobile?

I sincerly doubt that. Tmobile USA is a cash cow for Tmobile apparently.

Its probably either not in line with there current strategic goals (whatever they are) or they are working on releasing it all at once (highly possible) or it is not any more profitable for them to do so.

[Matt]

I've never been able to dig up "the" reason for the delay. They do have the money though.

[Mobile Mike]

I wonder if DT focuses on their Euro operations, and "monitors" their US ops. I also think they probably want to see the problems that develop for Cingular with their high-speed data rollout. Maybe too, they want T-Mobile US to differentiate from its US competitors, and they are willing to lose some of their speed-deprived data-hungry customers to keep the rest? This is just a guess, but it sure seems to be the way they are operating.

I myself, am not concerned with data speeds. I never use it. As long as I have service (I do) that works well (it does), then I'm a happy camper.

[Matt]

No, they actually focus on the US ops - they were forced to build 3G in Europe because of the terms of the licenses they won at auction. The US is the fastest growing part of TM Int'l and is the biggest contributor in terms of revenue in spite of having about 9M less customers than TM Germany.

[Yankees368]

Originally Posted by agentHibby

Can't T-Mobile do WCDMA sooner??

Well, it took 2 years to answer this question, but no.

I'm back home on Long Island for thanksgiving, and I passed the local T-Mobile tower today. There are new pannels added to the tower, which I would have to assume are T-Mobiles new 1700 mhz 3G service. Does anyone have any details about this?

[clock3687]

Originally Posted by Yankees368

Well, it took 2 years to answer this question, but no.

I'm back home on Long Island for thanksgiving, and I passed the local T-Mobile tower today. There are new pannels added to the tower, which I would have to assume are T-Mobiles new 1700 mhz 3G service. Does anyone have any details about this?

i found this on dslreports. The announcement could be as close as 2 weeks away.

T-Mobile goes 3G in USA - The INQUIRER


T-MOBILE is expected to make an announcement that it will provide a 3G service on December 6.

A T-Mobile spokesperson told him that an announcement about 3G availability in his area would be on or before 6 December 2007. She cited an internal document announcing the rollout.

[bobolito]

It's almost the end of 2007 and I don't see T-Mobile 3G anywhere. So I can see they're in a rush to complete this before 2007 ends so nobody can claim they have failed on their promise.

The problem I see is with 1700Mhz does T-Mobile have any devices available that can use that band? They can launch 3G everywhere but if there are no devices that can use that band, nobody is going to see any benefit from it.

[budney]

The only device/phone that T-Mobile has right now is the Samsung T639. I believe it is only being sold in test markets.

Samsung SGH-T639 Specs & Features (Phone Scoop)

[clock3687]

Originally Posted by bobolito

It's almost the end of 2007 and I don't see T-Mobile 3G anywhere. So I can see they're in a rush to complete this before 2007 ends so nobody can claim they have failed on their promise.

The problem I see is with 1700Mhz does T-Mobile have any devices available that can use that band? They can launch 3G everywhere but if there are no devices that can use that band, nobody is going to see any benefit from it.

The nokia 6263 is due out in december as well.