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John Legere announced last year that he planned to resign as T-Mobile's CEO once the company's merger with Sprint was complete, and he officially handed off CEO duties to Mike Sievert earlier this month. Legere planned to remain on T-Mobile's board of directors until June 4th, but that timeline has apparently been cut short.
When you hear the word T-Mobile, several things probably come to mind: a retina-melting shade of fluorescent pink, industry-bucking "uncarrier" campaigns spanning the greater half of this decade, and the incessant, enthusiastic tweets of Chief Executive extraordinaire, John Legere. Well, you can soon scratch that last one off your list. Per an announcement made by Legere himself, the spirited face of T-Mobile plans to step down from his CEO position in just six short months.
T-Mobile's Un-carrier Next event was today, and to our surprise, the announcement is actually pretty sweet. Thanks to "Netflix on Us," customers with two or more T-Mobile ONE lines can now get Netflix for absolutely nothing every month. This is an addition that I think everyone can get on board with.
Love him or hate him, John Legere has done a lot for T-Mobile since he took the reins in late 2012. The company's latest announcement, entitled Un-carrier Next, has been set for September 6th, and from the video T-Mobile uploaded onto its YouTube channel, it looks like it'll be something big.
In the past few years, T-Mobile has been going after younger customers with offers like (480p) videos not counting towards data caps, free things every week with T-Mobile Tuesdays, and so on. But now, the magenta-themed company is going after older people, specifically those over 55 years of age, with its new ONE Unlimited 55+ plan. Surprisingly, it's a pretty good deal.
John Legere has a well-deserved reputation for being an eccentric CEO. After spells at AT&T and Dell, he's now the top dog at America's third largest carrier, T-Mobile. His latest crazy scheme to pull US customers away from other networks is wonderfully simple: His company will pay off your smartphone in its entirety if you switch over from Verizon.
Back in December, T-Mobile announced AT&T customers would get a free year of DIRECTV NOW if they switched to the T-Mobile ONE plan. As DIRECTV NOW is, in the words of the press release, "a complete disaster," T-Mobile has now amended that to a free year of Hulu as well.
Fun fact: As of yesterday, T-Mobile is now the only carrier in the US that no longer allows you to buy a plan on the internet with high-speed tethering. Did you know that? With the utterly confusing and pointless splitting of T-Mobile's ONE plan (already split into ONE and ONE Plus), the carrier has officially hidden high-speed tethering behind a phonewall. You have to call T-Mobile's sales number to buy the new ONE Plus International plan, the only T-Mobile plan advertised with high-speed tethering anymore (Note: T-Mobile has clarified that existing T-Mobile customers can get ONE Plus International through the T-Mobile app, but was unable to provide any explanation why new customers needed to call).
In John Legere's continuing effort to will himself into the role of mobile rock'n'roll Jesus, the T-Mobile CEO has released a teaser trailer for the carrier's next Un-Carrier event. Exactly what will happen at the event isn't being disclosed - in fact, the whole point of the video is "wouldn't you like to know?" We did find out that the announcement will come on January 5th in Las Vegas, not-so-coincidentally at the same time and place that next year's CES will be going down.
As mobile bloggers, watching national carriers with revenue in the billions snip at each other like gossiping high school students is the closest thing we have to a spectator sport. Between Sprint hiring Verizon's old spokesman, T-Mobile continuing its cloying David-versus-Goliath narrative, and Verizon using textbook straw man attacks against both of them in all those Jaime Foxx spots, we can hardly make the popcorn fast enough.
T-Mobile's Uncarrier 11 event just happened, and there were no surprises. Well, there were technically surprises, but not for anyone who pays attention to carrier rumors. The details we had previously are an exact match for what T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced. The company is handing out free stock to customers, plus you will continue getting free stuff via the new Tmo app every week.
Love it or hate it, T-Mobile's crusade against other wireless carriers, has given us a lot of chuckles, maybe some good laughs, and probably a healthy dose of groans and cringes. This last attempt, I think, falls on the innocuous side of the equation, quirky enough to be interesting for us to cover without being too distasteful or annoying.
John Legere Apparently Thinks If He Explains Binge On To You One More Time You'll Agree It's Awesome
Okay, dummy. John Legere has been explaining Binge On to you for days, and you still don't agree with him that it's the best thing since sliced bread? Well, he's just going to tell you about Binge On again using the exact same words he's been using so far. These words are available on the T-Mobile newsroom site, where he can carefully craft an expletive-free message and apologize to the EFF.
T-Mobile and its outspoken CEO John Legere are taking an uncharacteristically defensive posture after questions arose about how the new Binge On video service throttles data. The fallout from Legere's EFF interaction yesterday is still going on, and it looks like it has cost T-Mobile a Binge On partner. Video commercial streaming service 4stream.tv has notified T-Mobile that it's pulling out of Binge On in protest of Legere's comments about the EFF.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere gets away with the bombastic attitude and casual swearing largely because people like what T-Mobile has been doing. However, it looks like John might have miscalculated with Binge On. Following the video defense he posted earlier today, Legere started doing an impromptu Q&A on Twitter. He made the mistake of asking, "Who the fuck are you?" of the EFF. Now, the internet is letting him know.