T-Mobile CEO John Legere has never been humble about anything, so it’s not surprising to see that when he looks back over the past year, he sees one victory after another. That said, only the most delusional PR person from Verizon or AT&T would deny that T-Mobile has really changed the competitive landscape of the wireless industry over the past couple of years, so Legere’s bragging does have some real justification. In a blog post recapping the year T-Mobile had in 2015, Legere boasted about how right he’d been about predictions he made at this time last year about the rest of the mobile industry scrambling to keep up with T-Mobile’s “Un-carrier” moves.
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Here are Legere’s four best examples of how T-Mobile has pushed the industry in new directions:
- Remarkably, Verizon − the carrier’s carrier − finally joined us in ending annual service contracts this year. Let me say that again: Verizon ended contracts! Wow.
- Sprint joined us in putting an end to overages, but we won’t rest until the Duopoly – who account for 95%+ of the $2.5 billion this year consumers paid in overages – joins us.
- An incredible 122 million US wireless customers are now free from annual service contracts, 57 million Americans are now free to upgrade their phones when they want, and the cost of a MB of data is down 62% since we started Un-carrier.
- Of course, our Amped up Un-carrier moves and our new Un-carrier moves will continue to change wireless for the better in years to come! We were busy this year as we started by bringing the Un-carrier revolution to businesses – arguably the customers most mistreated by the carriers – with Business Un-leashed in March. We also expanded your coverage to Mexico and Canada. We introduced a whole new way to get a smartphone whenever you want with JUMP! On Demand. And, we dropped some jaws when we showed the industry the right way to embrace and optimize mobile video for customers with Binge On. Just to name a few!
T-Mobile itself does some questionable things, particularly with regard to its net neutrality-bending Binge On and Music Freedom initiatives that exempt certain apps from its monthly data limits on capped data plans. That said, there’s no doubt that it’s done a lot to free up customers from their wireless contracts, to let them upgrade their phones more quickly and to pressure rivals to stop overage fees. And for that, Legere has good reason to boast.
