Shortly after the FCC officially announced its approval of the merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, the so-called New T-Mobile is wasting no time firing up the marketing machine. The goal? To convince consumers that less quantifiable competition in the cellular marketplace benefits said consumers. It has announced a set of Un-carrier action plans that will come into place shortly, including the launch of its 5G network.

T-Mobile started by announcing it would be launching its 5G network on December 6. The grid is supposed to cover more than 200 million people and reach across 5,000 cities mostly through its low-band 600MHz spectrum. The Galaxy Note10+ 5G and the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren will be the first devices to access the network.

The company is also pressing multiple equity initiatives — major concerns about the merger revolved around how it would affect mobile internet access to the low-income population — including:

  • Project 10Million, which is meant to provide 100GB of free internet per year, a free Wi-Fi hotspot (with 5G reception, of course), and other devices at a discount to 10 million households in poor and/or rural communities over 5 years. The package is valued at $10.7 billion.
  • T-Mobile Connect, cut-price prepaid plans available to all customers that give unlimited talk and text plus 2GB or 5GB of high-speed data for $15 or $25 per line per month. If they stick with it, plan holders can get just under 500MB of extra monthly allowance per year for the next 5 years.
  • It has also previosuly promised not to hike existing customers' rates for three years.
  • partnering with six civil rights organizations, including the National Urban League, on other efforts.

T-Mobile is also moving on its Connecting Heroes service dedicated to first responders to counter AT&T's FirstNet. It aims to provide $7.7 billion worth of free talk, text, and data service to all public and non-profit state and local police, fire, and EMS agencies over 10 years.

The company also claims that the merged carrier will have 11,000 more jobs by 2024 than if each company went it alone. It is opening up three new customer service call centers and expanding its Team of Experts staffing model.

It should be noted that the Sprint/T-Mobile merger has yet to close — the companies involved are trying to resolve litigation from attorneys general for 15 states plus the one for the District of Columbia against their union — and that T-Mobile is predicating these hopes and dreams on having the deal sealed.

You can check out the full announcement at the YouTube link below.

Correction: The original version of this story misinterpreted the T-Mobile Connect annual data bonus to be 6GB per year. Android Police regrets the error.

Source: T-Mobile (YouTube)