During a live event today at its Tech Experience 5G Hub in Bellevue, Washington, T-Mobile announced that it has been named the Best Mobile Network in the US by Ookla, based on half a billion real-world usage tests conducted over a six-month period. This marks the first time T-Mobile has taken the overall top spot.
(Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)
"We made big bets on 5G, pushing the limits to deliver speed and coverage no one thought possible," said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. "Now, as the Best Mobile Network in America, with unmatched satellite-to-mobile capability, it's clear we're shaping the future of wireless with a network built not just for speed, but for possibility."
The company also announced additional features as well as a July 23 commercial launch date for T-Satellite, its Starlink-based satellite connectivity service. Because T-Mobile has associated its wireless brand with an ongoing array of perks, the company is also adding free DoorDash DashPass memberships for T-Mobile subscribers with Magenta status.
In less than a decade, T-Mobile has gone from a limited-spectrum upstart with a penchant for bright pink branding to the top of the competitive US mobile industry, largely due to the way it has navigated the transition to 5G networking (and maybe some help from the magenta colors). Merging T-Mobile's low-band spectrum with Sprint's mid-band became one of the main reasons T-Mobile is now crowing about its spot in Ookla's rankings.
As part of these announcements, T-Mobile invited CNET to an exclusive behind-the-scenes conversation about how it arrived at this point and a tour of some of the technologies at work at its headquarters and labs.
At T-Mobile headquarters, even the flowers are magenta colored. Jeff Carlson/CNET
An unconventional road to 5G
Every company says it's the best at something, and for a long time, T-Mobile claimed it was the best value among the major wireless carriers. "US consumers have always had to make a choice between going to a much higher priced but higher quality network, or make a trade-off in network and get a better value," said Mike Katz, T-Mobile president of marketing, strategy and products. "Now it's validated by a third party [that] customers don't have to make this choice. They can get both the best value, which T Mobile has always been known and famous for, and get the best network."
But how did T-Mobile get to this point? It's easy to say you have the best value and that customers love you, but those are results. At this scale -- being one of the top three providers in the US competing for an essential market -- it takes a series of technical decisions, a vision of how technology will evolve and the willingness to take big risks.
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