T-Mobile is all set to shake up the wireless industry for the eighth time with the announcement of Un-carrier 8.0, which will take place on Dec. 16 at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
T-Mobile's firebrand CEO John Legere will once again take the stage to announce what's in store for wireless customers already with T-Mobile and others who are looking to switch to the fourth largest carrier in the United States.
The company did not provide a lot of details as to what Un-carrier 8.0 could be, but it teased in an announcement about something "so big we had to keep it under wraps."
Everyone who plans on catching up with T-Mobile's latest promotions can get all the details about the company's "market changing move" as it "shares how we continue to rewrite the rules of wireless" on Tuesday by watching the event live streamed over newsroom.t-mobile.com.
The event will be followed by a "fireside chat" with Legere hosted by Yahoo!'s David Pogue, which will also be aired over the live webcast. Anyone interested can send in their questions to Legere on Twitter using the hashtag #Uncarrier8.
Legere has used T-Mobile's previous Un-carrier events to announce revolutionary promos that had its competitors leaping to their feet. The latest Un-carrier event had the T-Mobile chief announcing unlimited Wi-Fi calling and texting and a partnership with in-flight Wi-Fi provider Gogo. Other announcements in the past include the elimination of contracts and international roaming rates as well as T-Mobile's Music Freedom plan, which allowed customers to stream unlimited music over data without contributing toward their regular mobile data usage.
All this is part of T-Mobile's efforts to win over customers from rivals Sprint, AT&T and Verizon and to keep existing customers with the help of aggressive pricing promotions and a brazen-mouthed CEO. So far, the Un-carrier's tactics have won for T-Mobile another 2.3 million customers in the previous quarter and could help it take over Sprint as the third biggest carrier in the United States.
The Un-carrier 8.0 announcement comes as T-Mobile introduced its Wideband LTE service to the greater New York City metropolitan area. The service, which theoretically offers data speeds of up to 110 Mbps, has previously covered Manhattan but now includes coverage for Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Long Island and northern New Jersey.
The company says some users have already reported speeds of more than 100 Mbps, but the average data speed is closer to 22 Mbps, which T-Mobile claims is faster than what AT&T and Verizon currently offer and is double the speed of Sprint's network.
T-Mobile also says it plans to expand Wideband LTE, which uses more lanes to increase bandwidth and capacity and accommodates more customers during peak hours, to neighboring areas, which include Westchester County, White Plains, Scarsdale and Central New Jersey.
"New Yorkers deserve a network that moves at the blazing speed of this amazing city," said T-Mobile chief technology officer Neville Ray. "Our LTE network was already fastest here. Now, with the launch of Wideband LTE, we've widened our lead even further throughout the greater metro area."
