New T-Mobile commercial praising Verizon will help T-Mobile in the end

Over 20 years ago, when the time came for me to pick a wireless provider, I wanted the carrier that had the best coverage and was the most reliable. Back then, the choice was easy. Verizon was more expensive than the rest, but you would get what you paid for. With two children, I wanted to make sure that I’d be able to get in touch with them whenever I called. In 2005, Verizon had the best wireless network in the U.S.

T-Mobile wants the public to realize that Verizon no longer has the best network in America

T-Mobile‘s advertising campaign back in 2005 did not call T-Mobile the “un-Carrier as that name would debut under Legere. The carrier did focus its advertising on teens due to the success of T-Mobile‘s Sidekick device. The Sidekick II was released in 2004, and in 2006 the Sidekick 3 was launched. The device had a swiveling screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and integrated instant messaging and email capabilities. As a messaging device, the Sidekick was a huge hit.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was Verizon, whose network was considered the most reliable with the fewest dropped calls. However, Verizon‘s plans were more expensive than T-Mobile‘s. Back in 2005, if you wanted to have your phone connected to the most reliable cell service, you signed up with Verizon and paid more for that reliability. Verizon was considered to have the best wireless service in the U.S., a title it owned for many years.

Legere was named president and CEO of T-Mobile in September 2012 and he immediately helped to turn around T-Mobile with his splashy, pro-consumer un-Carrier announcements. The first one, announced in 2013, got rid of subsidized phones and two-year contracts. In 2016, T-Mobile announced the T-Mobile Tuesdays customer reward program, which has been a huge hit with customers. Another un-Carrier perk gave subscribers free Netflix streaming.

T-Mobile was the first to recognize the importance of having mid-band spectrum for 5G use. | Image credit-T-Mobile

T-Mobile had a different plan and that was to use mid-band spectrum to build its 5G network. While mid-band 5G isn’t as fast as mmWave, it is still much faster than the low-band 5G used for nationwide 5G networks. While mid-band spectrum may not travel as far as low-band, it travels longer distances than mmWave. As a result, T-Mobile decided to build out its 5G network using mid-band spectrum which became known as the Goldilocks of 5G.

It just so happened that there was a place where T-Mobile could buy a ton of 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum, perfect for 5G. It didn’t come cheap, and it wasn’t easy. But when T-Mobile purchased Sprint for $26.1 billion, the transaction included a large amount of 2.5GHz spectrum that T-Mobile used to build out its 5G network. 

T-Mobile has been officially named “The best network in America”