New T-Mobile’s plans for in-home, fixed wireless internet services begin to take shape

T-Mobile offered its clearest glimpse yet at exactly what it will offer in terms of in-home, fixed broadband internet services if the company is allowed to merge with Sprint—to become what it has called “New T-Mobile.”  T-Mobile’s chief operating officer Mike Sievert told the Federal Communications Commission that New T-Mobile “has confirmed that there is a large market for New T-Mobile’s in-home broadband offering at the anticipated pricing and service levels.” He said the company expects to offer in-home internet services to 52% of the zip codes across the county by 2024, covering 64% of Charter’s territory and 68% of Comcast’s territory. “New T-Mobile expects to utilize caching and other network optimization techniques to increase the number of households that can be served,” he said.

Further, Sievert predicted New T-Mobile would gain 1.9 million in-home wireless broadband customers by 2021 and 9.5 million customers by 2024, making it the nation’s fourth largest in-home ISP by 2024.

But perhaps the most interesting item in Sievert’s comments is that New T-Mobile appears to be ready to allow customers to install their own equipment for the service. “Unlike other in-home broadband offerings, the wireless nature of the offering will also provide customers with the choice of avoiding installation appointments and related charges as they will be able to self-provision the necessary in-home equipment,” Sievert said. Thus, it appears that New T-Mobile believes it will succeed where Verizon appears to have failed. Verizon had developed a prototype aimed at allowing customers to install their own equipment for the carrier’s new 5G Home internet service, but that device was not part of Verizon’s commercial launch of the offering this month. Instead, the carrier said that its technicians would have to install the necessary equipment on the outside of customers’ homes or offices so that they would be able to receive Verizon’s 5G signal.