Mobile group Everything Everywhere (Orange UK and T-Mobile) has today launched its new Smart Signal Sharing technology, which means that if a customer’s Mobile Broadband connectivity begins to fade (e.g. down to one bar of signal) then it will seamlessly prioritise a 3G signal from the other network instead.
The development is said to mark the final stage of EE’s “big switch-on“, which is a reference to the integration of the two merged mobile operators and their joint £1.5bn investment to boost the networks 3G performance and ready it for future “4G” superfast services.
Olaf Swantee, CEO of Everything Everywhere, said:
“Smart Signal Sharing marks the completion of the Orange and T-Mobile signal integration project, which provides our 27.5 million customers with the widest 2G and 3G coverage available in Britain today. The launch is yet another proofpoint to our commitment to provide our customers with the best network in the UK – now and in the future.
Our continued investment into the network, including the launch of 50% faster 3G speeds through HSPA+, allows our customers to access the internet, social networks or download emails faster in more places than ever before.”
Everything Everywhere also noted that its latest HSPA+ (21Mbps) network upgrade, which some like to call 3.5G but it’s still technically 3G, can now reach “95% of the UK population“. In reality you should take claims like that with a huge pinch of salt as mobile operators are known to for their exaggerated coverage claims, which don’t usually reflect consumer experience for the rest of us.
UPDATE 12:39pm
As a side note Ofcom has just issued an update on their consultation to open the 1800MHz (urban 3G) band for use by superfast “4G” Mobile Broadband services, which could allow EE to launch related services before the end of 2012; at least one year ahead of their rivals.
Ofcoms Statement – 23rd May 2012
Ofcom’s consultation on Everything Everywhere’s application to vary its 1800 MHz spectrum licences to allow use of LTE and WiMAX technologies closed on 8 May 2012. The consultation responses raise a number of detailed issues that Ofcom must now consider carefully. We will publish a statement on the proposed variation as early as possible.
Readers can check out some of the hotly controversial responses to this consultation here. Clearly Ofcom will find it a lot harder to push their recommendation through, with most rival operators opposing it, than they first hoped.
T-Mobile USA Opens 1,000th T-Mobile Premium Retailer Store - Fiercemobilecontent
Milestone branded retailer location to serve customers in Miami are
BELLEVUE, Wash., May 22, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, T-Mobile USA, Inc. announced a new company milestone -- the opening of its 1,000th T-Mobile Premium Retailer (TPR) store, located in Pompano Beach, Fla. Providing customers with the same look and feel of a T-Mobile company store, TPR stores are owned and operated by third-party experts in wireless services and align with the company's commitment to provide the best customer experience possible.
The Pompano Beach store, which is owned and operated by Catcorp Inc., will host an official grand opening celebration on June 2. Based in Tulsa, Okla., Catcorp has been a T-Mobile branded retailer since 2009 and operates 38 additional stores in the Miami, Atlanta, Tulsa, Wichita, Kan., and Springfield, Mo., markets.
The TPR program is one of T-Mobile's highest-caliber, branded retailer programs and provides customers with a seamless shopping experience, offering them the same quality level of products and service as company-owned locations.
"Our TPR program has been a huge success for the company and our branded retailers and customers alike -- reaching this 1,000th store milestone is an impressive moment," said Mike Sentowski, vice president of national dealer programs for T-Mobile USA. "We've seen great momentum, and in just the past 18 months alone, the program has grown approximately 120 percent, demonstrating the strong relationships and commitment between T-Mobile and our branded retailers."
This newest TPR location will offer Pompano Beach-area customers innovative products running on America's Largest 4G Network(R) combined with a best-in-class retail experience. The store features the company's new global design format, created to help simplify the consumer retail experience and make it more personal for each customer.
"Through the unparalleled support and training we receive from T-Mobile and the cache of their brand, along with their innovative products and nationwide 4G network, our business relationship has proven to be a model that works," said Carl Ducato, president, Catcorp. "We look forward to continuing to grow our business with T-Mobile and providing customers high-quality products and customer service."
T-Mobile's TPR program began in late 2007 and has been a great asset to the company's branded distribution strategy. Currently, T-Mobile has a nationwide branded presence through approximately 2,000 company-owned and 1,000 TPR stores. T-Mobile will continue its expansion in 2012, with plans to open more than 350 retail locations, in both company-owned and branded retailer formats, as well as continuing to provide customers with new and exciting products.
About Catcorp
Headquartered in Tulsa, Catcorp is a Premium Retailer for T-Mobile USA. Catcorp owns and operates 38 retail stores in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Catcorp's management team is led by seasoned experts who have more than 10 years in the wireless industry. For more information, visit catcorp.com.
About T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Based in Bellevue, Wash., T-Mobile USA, Inc. is the U.S. wireless operation of Deutsche Telekom AG (otcqx:DTEGY). By the end of the first quarter of 2012, approximately 129 million mobile customers were served by the mobile communication segments of the Deutsche Telekom group -- 33.4 million by T-Mobile USA -- all via a common technology platform based on GSM and UMTS and additionally HSPA+ 21/HSPA+ 42. T-Mobile USA's innovative wireless products and services help empower people to connect to those who matter most. Multiple independent research studies continue to rank T-Mobile USA among the highest in numerous regions throughout the U.S. in wireless customer care and call quality. For more information, please visit http://www.T-Mobile.com . T-Mobile is a federally registered trademark of Deutsche Telekom AG. For further information on Deutsche Telekom, please visit www.telekom.de/investor-relations .
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the current views of Deutsche Telekom management with respect to future events. These forward-looking statements may include statements with regard to the expected development of revenue, earnings, profits from operations, depreciation and amortization, cash flows and personnel-related measures. You should consider them with caution. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and are generally beyond Deutsche Telekom's control. Among the factors that might influence our ability to achieve our objectives are the progress of our workforce reduction initiative and other cost-saving measures, and the impact of other significant strategic, labour or business initiatives, including acquisitions, dispositions and business combinations, and our network upgrade and expansion initiatives. In addition, stronger than expected competition, technological change, legal proceedings and regulatory developments, among other factors, may have a material adverse effect on our costs and revenue development. Further, the economic downturn in our markets, and changes in interest and currency exchange rates, may also have an impact on our business development and the availability of financing on favourable conditions. Changes to our expectations concerning future cash flows may lead to impairment write downs of assets carried at historical cost, which may materially affect our results at the group and operating segment levels. If these or other risks and uncertainties materialize, or if the assumptions underlying any of these statements prove incorrect, our actual performance may materially differ from the performance expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. We can offer no assurance that our estimates or expectations will be achieved. Without prejudice to existing obligations under capital market law, we do not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements to take new information or future events into account or otherwise.
In addition to figures prepared in accordance with IFRS, Deutsche Telekom also presents non-GAAP financial performance measures, including, among others, EBITDA, EBITDA margin, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted EBIT, adjusted net income, free cash flow, gross debt and net debt. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for, the information prepared in accordance with IFRS. Non-GAAP financial performance measures are not subject to IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles. Other companies may define these terms in different ways.
SOURCE: T-Mobile USA, Inc.
T-Mobile USA Media Relations +1.425.378.4002 mediarelations@t-mobile.com or Justin Stokes for Catcorp +1.801.595.1155 jstokes@summitslc.com
T-Mobile goes back to lampooning AT&T iPhone - Yahoo Finance
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Six months after AT&T's deal to buy T-Mobile USA collapsed, T-Mobile's TV ads are going back on the attack against a favorite target: AT&T Inc.
Philipp Humm, the CEO of T-Mobile, showed off a new ad Tuesday featuring a hapless man on a motorcycle, cruising on a desert road as a woman on another motorcycle blows past him. The voiceover explains that the man represents an iPhone 4S on AT&T's network, and the woman is T-Mobile's 4G network.
The ad recalls other attack ads T-Mobile showed a year and a half ago. They likened the iPhone to a young man, carrying on his back a frumpy middle-aged man who represented AT&T's data network. The message: AT&T's network slows down the iPhone.
Those ads disappeared last spring when AT&T offered to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion. That deal collapsed in December after regulators opposed it on grounds that No. 2 carrier AT&T buying No. 4 T-Mobile would reduce competition.
Between the announcement of the deal and its collapse, T-Mobile was in limbo. That hurt the company's brand, and it's now looking at "relaunching" it, Humm told attendees at CTIA Wireless, the U.S. cellphone industry's annual trade show, which kicked off Tuesday in New Orleans.
Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T's wireless division, was on hand at the same event to give his opinion about the ads.
"It's comparing a phone to a network," de la Vega said. "Everyone gets that, right?"
The iPhone 4S can't use AT&T latest wireless data network, which uses so-called "LTE" technology. Nor could it utilize the top speeds on T-Mobile's network, even if it were available for T-Mobile subscribers.
"That's why this industry has a bad rap, we take the truth and we stretch it," de la Vega said.
Sprint Nextel Corp. CEO Dan Hesse, on the same panel discussion, chided both AT&T and T-Mobile for their advertising, saying some in the industry have "taken creative license around the use of the digit '4'." Both AT&T and T-Mobile have networks that are considered "3G," or "third-generation," in industry jargon, but started advertising them as "4G" when they upgraded the speeds.
Hesse argued that the wireless industry's "Achilles' heel" is the low trust people put in it, and the confusion around the network branding doesn't help.
T-Mobile subscribers could get a chance to test the claims of the motorcycle ad later this year, as T-Mobile rejiggers its network. That will, for the first time, make the iPhone compatible with T-Mobile's "4G" network. Even if T-Mobile doesn't sell the phone, used iPhones could be brought over from other carriers.
O2 blasts Ofcom for 'analytical' failings in row over 4G - Daily Telegraph
In an uncharacteristically forthright attack, O2 said the regulator had ignored its own claim that there should be two 4G providers in the market and drawn conclusions that are “irrational and fundamentally unfair”.
“It is unclear...why Ofcom has not bothered to review its own contemporaneous documents on the merger,” O2 added.
An Everything Everywhere spokesman said: “Being one of several potential companies able to launch 4G this year does not make us a 'monopoly’. This is exactly the type of rhetoric, that is designed solely to delay the launch of 4G in the UK.
Theoretically, both Vodafone and O2 could launch 4G at the moment but are unlikely to do so until after the 4G spectrum auction later this year.
More 3G Users Join China Unicom - Analyst Blog - NASDAQ
China's second largest mobile operator China Unicom ( CHU ) added 3.3 million cellular subscribers in April, down 5.7% from the prior month. This takes the company's total customer base to 212.75 million.
The company's GSM subscriber base expanded to 160.97 million with net additions of 0.34 million customers, while its 3G subscriber base increased to 51.78 million with net additions of 2.92 million.
The 3G subscriber base is growing rapidly, particularly driven by Apple Inc. 's ( AAPL ) iPhone sales. Additionally, China Unicom is focusing more on improving its 3G data surfing service, and offering cheaper handsets and low cost services to win new customers. These efforts are drawing more 3G subscribers, eventually leading to higher average revenue per user.
Despite the loss of exclusive hold on iPhones to China Telecom Corp. ( CHA ), the company's 3G subcriber growth remained encouraging in April relative to its major rivals. China's mobile leader China Mobile ( CHL ) attracted only 2.3 million 3G subscribers while China Telecom added 2.01 million to its 3G customer base.
China Unicom expects its 3G subscriber base to reach 90 million by the end of the year, taking the 3G service revenue to RMB 70 billion ($11.1 billion) from RMB 40 billion last year.
Coming to the fixed-line business, the company is poised to benefit from expansion and speed enhancement of fiber optic service in its broadband business. China Unicom added 0.58 million broadband customers in April, bringing the total number to 58.87 million.
But the company is experiencing significant declines in its local access lines due to the impact of the ongoing fixed-to-mobile substitution. Erosion in the fixed-line subscriber base continues with approximately 0.01 million customers lost in April, taking the total number to 92.34 million.
We are maintaining our long-term Underperform recommendation on China Unicom. The stock retains a Zacks #4 (Sell) Rank for the short term (1-3 months).
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T-Mobile picks Ericsson, Nokia Siemens for network - Yahoo Finance
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- T-Mobile USA on Tuesday said that Nokia Siemens Networks and LM Ericsson AB will supply the network equipment for its new wireless broadband network, a project worth $4 billion.
T-Mobile is commissioning a "4G LTE" network, the same technology used by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. for their high-speed networks. It will use, in part, radio frequencies handed over by AT&T after the bigger company backed off its deal to buy T-Mobile due to opposition from federal regulators.
In addition to handing over spectrum licenses, AT&T gave T-Mobile $3 billion in cash, which will help finance the upgrade. T-Mobile plans to have the network live next year, covering 75 percent of the 25 largest cities.
Sweden's Ericsson is one of the main suppliers for the LTE networks of Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel Corp., along with Alcatel-Lucent SA of France.
For Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture of Finland's Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG of Germany, the T-Mobile order represents a new chance to get into the U.S. market for network equipment. It got a $7 billion order from Harbinger Capital, a hedge fund, to build a network for its startup, LightSquared, but that project appears moribund because regulators concluded it would have interfered with GPS navigation.
T-Mobile USA is making the announcement on the first day of CTIA Wireless, the U.S. cellphone industry trade show, in New Orleans. The company is the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., with 33.2 million devices on its network. It's a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG of Germany.
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