T-Mobile

We’ve been talking about whether 5G was worth the hype for a few weeks now (sometimes, sort of, mostly it hasn’t returned the investment) and the best idea anyone really has is “private networks” where commercial customers can set up their own high-bandwith low-latency 5G networks to do... stuff. And now T-Mobile can do that by “slicing” its public 5G network, which it says it did successfully in June at a Red Bull event, creating a slice for a broadcast drone to achieve 276Mbps uplink speeds.

Meanwhile, nearly 20,000 visitors were in attendance, using their devices as they normally would – uploading pictures and videos of the event. Because of network slicing and traffic management, their traffic did not impact the Red Bull production – and vice versa.

Neat! But let’s not forget T-Mo can do this because it was allowed to buy Sprint and reduce wireless competition, which in turn has allowed it to raise prices and act way more like a traditional carrier.

Wireless carriers haven’t been able to monetize 5G, and telecom companies are in crisis. Sean Kinney at RCR Wireless bears the bad news in a new report from an industry event:

The optimism around 5G as some sort of panacea to any sort of business problem is giving way to disillusionment. Cost pressure is mounting, headcount reductions are happening, and outright cynicism is in the offing. This raises a question: if operators, for whatever reason, cannot leverage 5G to grow revenues and deliver innovation, do they drop the pretense and face the harsh reality that connectivity is a commodity and should be sold as such? 

Guess we can look forward to even more creative new ways for carriers to charge us more!

The two companies are apparently in talks about a potential acquisition, according to Bloomberg. Maybe T-Mobile really liked Reynolds’ new Mint Mobile ad written by ChatGPT.

Reynolds became a part owner of the budget wireless carrier in 2019, and Bloomberg reports he owns approximately a fourth of the company. The Deadpool star also owns a Welsh pro soccer team with actor Rob McElhenney.