T-Mobile CFO Braxton Carter provided a glimpse of the Un-carrier’s ambitious strategy for the next year Wednesday with comments at an investors conference that the carrier is seeking to add 30 million to 40 million more POPs.
According to Carter, the expansion will come courtesy of the continued roll out of its 700 MHz spectrum assets. Carter said T-Mobile currently provides coverage to 305 million people across the country, but noted the Un-carrier sees plenty of opportunity to expand.
In addition to affording T-Mobile the ability to broaden its coverage across the United States, Carter said the 700 MHz spectrum has also helped reduce churn.
“We are definitely seeing better retention characteristics where we’ve rolled out 700 megahertz,” Carter said.
Going forward, Carter said the Un-carrier will continue to be “very aggressive” in rolling out its recently purchased 700 MHz assets.
But Carter said T-Mobile is also working to refarm its legacy technology spectrum for LTE use as it transitions to Voice over LTE technology.
Carter said that spectrum presents “quite a bit of additional runway.” T-Mobile believes it has 48 percent “run room” with those holdings, he said.
According to Carter, T-Mobile is also shifting its strategy to focus more on M2M. Carter said former AT&T customers are flocking to the Un-carrier as big blue shuts down its GSM footprint, and said T-Mobile is planning to “dedicate a very thin spectrum layer to M2M.”
Filed Under: Telecommunications (Spectrum)
