T-Mobile may have a Halloween surprise in store as it continues to rollout its “un-carrier” plans

T-Mobile, the smallest of the “big” carriers in the United States, has been making very big waves recently. It all started with the announcement of plans to introduce a new paradigm of being the “un-carrier” at CES earlier this year.

It is fair to say that the initial phase of this re-imaging of T-Mobile was heavily underestimated, however, John Legere, T-Mobile’s CEO has proven to be an exceptional evangelist on this front. The addition of the iPhone to T-Mobile’s ranks helped quite a bit as well.

Then we saw the introduction of JUMP!, T-Mobile’s upgrade plan which works seamlessly with the carrier’s equipment installment plans, provides total equipment coverage and allows customers to upgrade as often as twice each year.

Verizon and AT&T have their own versions of such plans, but they look like “us too” responses. T-Mobile has certainly been blazing the trail. It is ahead of schedule on its LTE network rollout, and this most recent quarter adding over 1 million customers is also seen as being ahead of the curve. Topping that sundae is record low churn, just 1.58% which may as well be not losing any customers at all.

With these initiatives performing so well, word on the street is that the mighty magenta will be taking the covers off a third phase of the “un-carrier” strategy. John Hodulik with UBS Investment Research says this early success for T-Mobile is a bad omen for investors hoping to see continued high-margins from the larger carriers.


What is being projected here is something so disruptive to the industry that even the large (and largely reliable) carriers will not be able to ignore it, and will have to sacrifice their own margins to compete against whatever T-Mobile has in mind.  He is also projecting that SoftBank will have in place its plans for Sprint by early next year to compound the problem for the competition.  Certainly, customers will see this as an opportunity.

So what will T-Mobile lift the curtain for on Halloween? Your guess is as good as ours (if you work for T-Mobile and know, tip us). We can presume that network enhancements will continue to proceed at their rapid rate. Knowing T-Mobile’s straight-shooter CEO though, the carrier might point all barrels at AT&T. After all, Legere said at CES, and this is a direct quote, “The network is crap.”

What do you think T-Mobile has up its sleeve? What is “un-carrier 3.0?”

source: Light Reading