T-Mobile USA

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T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Type	Subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom
Founded	2001 as Voicestream Wireless
Headquarters	Bellevue, Washington
Area served	United States, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands
Key people	Robert Dotson – President and CEO
Industry	Wireless Services
Products	HSDPA, UMTS, W-CDMA, UMA, EDGE, GPRS, GSM
Website	www.t-mobile.com

T-Mobile USA is a cellular telecommunications provider and the United States based subsidiary of T-Mobile International AG, itself based in Bonn, Germany. The US company was previously known as VoiceStream Wireless or Powertel. In May 2001, VoiceStream was acquired by Deutsche Telekom for US$24 billion, and in September 2002 changed the company name nationally to T-Mobile. Headquartered in Factoria, Bellevue, Washington, T-Mobile USA is currently the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. market with 30.8 million customers as of the end of the first quarter 2008 and annual revenue of US$17.1 billion for their 2006 fiscal year ^[1]

T-Mobile USA tends to compete on price and advertises heavily to the youth market.^[2] Historically, they have also pioneered new features; they were the first U.S. carrier to launch a ringback tones service nationally (CallerTunes), video messaging and "HiFi Ringers" (ringtones which are clips of an actual song).

As of 2007, T-Mobile USA has captured at least 11 J.D. Power Awards in the areas of customer care, call quality, and overall customer satisfaction. In particular, it has dominated the wireless industry in the area of customer care and customer satisfaction, winning all customer care and satisfaction awards for all six surveyed regions for five years in a row.^[3]

[edit] Network

A T-Mobile store in San Jose, California

Through acquisitions of Aerial, APT, Digiph PCS, Eliska, General Cellular Corp, GSM Alliance, Intercel, Omnipoint, Pacific Northwest Cellular, Powertel, SOL Wireless, Voicestream, Western PCS, GSM Facilities^[4], and Western Wireless, T-Mobile has added sites to its network. ^[5] The native T-Mobile network currently consists of 36,400 cell sites and predominantly uses the GSM/GPRS 1900 MHz frequency-band, making it the largest 1900 MHz network in the United States. Service is available in 46 of the top 50 US markets, reaching 244 million potential customers. By mid-2008 the network is forecast to expand to 98 of 100 largest markets and 282 million potential customers.^[6][7][8]

Data service is available to most users in the form of the older General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or newer Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). EDGE coverage is stated as being available within at least 75% of the GSM footprint.^[9]

[edit] Roaming

Although T-Mobile USA has the smallest native network of all the national U.S. carriers, it has roaming arrangements with a number of regional carriers, such as Centennial Wireless, Dobson, and Unicel, and with the national carriers AT&T Mobility and the Alltel GSM network. These carriers predominately provided service using the GSM 850 MHz band, and a dual band phone is required to use both the native and affiliate networks. When roaming on these affiliated networks airtime is deducted from the user's plan, as opposed to a surcharge, effectively expanding nationwide coverage.^[10]

As of 2008, prepaid customers have almost all of the postpaid domestic roaming privileges and restricted international roaming to Canada and Mexico.^[11]

While international roaming is available to most customers, it must first be activated through customer service. Once provisioned, there is no monthly fee to maintain international roaming coverage.

[edit] T-Mobile HotSpots

A T-Mobile HotSpot is a Wi-Fi based internet access point, generically called a hotspot, which provides high-speed wireless internet access to computers and electronic devices within a distance of approximately 300 ft (90 m). The T-Mobile HotSpot service operates a nationwide collection of approximately 8,350 access points, installed in venues such as Starbucks coffeehouses (which will remain unchanged in spite of Starbucks migrating to AT&T), Borders Books and Music stores, FedEx Kinko's Office and Print Centers, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, Red Roof Inns, Sofitel and Novotel Hotels, the airline clubs of American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines and US Airways.^[12]

The service was formed in 2002 when T-Mobile USA acquired the assets of MobileStar, a bankrupt wireless ISP that had been installing a collection of access points in venues such as Starbucks coffee shops, Hilton Hotels, and in American Airlines Admiral Club since 1998. Branded as T-Mobile HotSpots, the service was initially expanded into 400 Borders bookstores, as well as 100 of the most-frequented airport clubs and lounges operated by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines.^{[13] [14]}

[edit] Talk Forever Mobile (HotSpot@Home)

T-Mobile's Talk Forever Mobile service is a Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) service that enables a wireless handset to make and receive calls via an internet-connected Wi-Fi network instead of the cellular network. The service is an add-on feature costing $9.99 on an existing plan(paying $39.99 and up). This fee allows for unlimited calling to any number in the US from any Wi-Fi router worldwide, as well as US T-Mobile HotSpot locations.^[15]

In order to use the service, customers must use a UMA handset and have access to a wireless router. For use at home, T-Mobile branded @Home wireless routers manufactured by D-Link or Linksys are available and claim advantages such as prioritizing voice calls and helping to preserve phone battery life, however most wireless routers work with the service and new equipment is not required.^[16]

If the Talk Forever Mobile add-on service is removed from the service plan, a UMA handset will still be able to connect to WiFi routers for digital quality calls but minutes used will be deducted from the user's rate plan.^{[citation needed]} This is applicable in locations where cellular signal coverage is inadequate, enabling the wireless router to operate as a femtocell.

The service was initially soft-launched in select stores in the Seattle, Washington area. The nationwide service was launched on July 3, 2007 to all of T-Mobile's customers.

[edit] 3G Upgrade

In September 2006, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) offered, at auction, licenses in the first Advanced Wireless Services band. This band was an area of wireless spectrum, half in the 1700MHz (1.7GHz) and half in the 2100 MHz (2.1GHz) frequencies, that was already in use by government services but would be available at some point in the future when those services moved to different frequencies.

The auction made numerous licenses available in overlapping market-area, economic-areas, and regional levels. Each license was individually bid upon, and T-Mobile was the winner in 120 license auctions, at an aggregate price of $4.18 billion. As part of its winnings, T-Mobile gained nationwide coverage of 1.7 GHz and 2.1 GHz, with numerous areas being supplemented with addition licenses. Examples include New York City, Chicago, and Boston where T-Mobile acquired one-third (33%) of the available spectrum, or San Francisco, Houston, and Miami where they acquired 45% of the available spectrum.^[17]

Two weeks after confirming their winning bids, on October 6, 2006, T-Mobile announced their intentions to create a UMTS third generation, or 3G, cellular network with the spectrum they had won. T-Mobile USA said it would utilize and build on the experience of T-Mobile Europe, which already implemented its own 3G network, and at roll-out they intend to offer 7.2 Mbit/s service, making it the fastest 3G network in the United States. The upgrade was forecast to cost $2.6 billion, in addition to the $4.12 billion spent to acquire the spectrum.^[18]

During the Oct 6 announcement, T-Mobile indicated they had already begun to deploy about half of the upgraded equipment, beginning in major markets such as New York City. With the equipment in place, they would be able to activate their network as soon as the current users, various government services, vacated these frequencies. T-Mobile had hoped to have its network activated by mid-2007, but as of September 2007 the government users had not vacated the AWS band.^[18]

T-Mobile began selling their first 3G-capable phone, the Nokia 6263, in November 2007.^[19] They announced in February 2008 that their 3G network will finally be activated "within the next few months"^[20] and released in the New York City market on May 1, 2008. ^[21]

[edit] Corporate History

Former VoiceStream logo

The merger of General Cellular and Pacific Northwest Cellular formed Western Wireless, a cellular provider for several western and southwestern states, as well as Hawaii. After a successful public offering by Western Wireless, the VoiceStream Wireless division was formed. In 1999, this division was spun off as an independent company, and it proceeded to immediately acquire the regional GSM carriers Aerial Communications, in the midwest, and Omnipoint, in the northeast.

In May 2001, VoiceStream and the southern regional carrier Powertel were acquired by Deutsche Telekom for US$24 billion. In September 2002, the company's name changed nationally to T-Mobile.

On September 17, 2007 T-Mobile announced that it will buy SunCom Wireless for $2.4 billion in cash. The acquisition will improve T-Mobile's network coverage in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. It will also add Puerto Rico to T-Mobile's footprint. At the end of the second quarter of 2007, SunCom had more than 1.1 million customers. The acquisition was subject to governmental and regulatory approvals as well as approval by SunCom shareholders. The deal closed on February 22, 2008.

[edit] Marketing

T-Mobile USA's spokesperson through mid-2006 was Academy Award-winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. (The VoiceStream Wireless spokesperson was Jamie Lee Curtis.) Zeta-Jones was the main figure in T-Mobile's branding strategy. As of September 2006, Catherine Zeta-Jones has officially been dropped as the 'face' of T-Mobile for its US advertising campaigns due to a new corporate rebranding strategy.^[22] T-Mobile USA also relied on rapper Snoop Dogg as the spokesperson for the company's T-Mobile Sidekick in a series of commercials late in 2004, T-Mobile also released a series of Sidekick phones known as the D-Wade Edition for Basketball Player Dwyane Wade.

T-Mobile is also an official sponsor of the National Basketball Association, the NBA Rookie Challenge and the Women's National Basketball Association.

In 2007, T-Mobile USA changed their approach to advertising, and moved from the "Get More" slogan to a "Stick Together" slogan to focus more on the personal aspect of staying together with who matters the most to their customers.^{[citation needed]} With this they also ended their relationship with Catherine Zeta-Jones, and now use mainly non-celebrity spokespeople (though Dwyane Wade and Charles Barkley are featured in some commercials).

[edit] Security Issues

In January 2005 it was revealed that a 21 year old Hacker named Nicolas Jacobsen had been charged with intruding into T-Mobile's internal network^[23]. Reports indicate that for about a year he had access to customer passwords, address books, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and Sidekick photos but not credit card numbers. He was also able to read customer e-mail including that of the US Secret Service. He was identified by a Secret Service informant as part of Operation Firewall who provided evidence that Jacobsen had attempted to sell customer information to others for identity theft. T-Mobile and the Secret Service did not elaborate on the methods Jacobsen used to gain access but sources close to the case indicated that an unpatched flaw in the BEA WebLogic application software used by T-Mobile was the weakness he exploited^[24]. Additional SQL injection vulnerabilities with their web site were reported by Jack Koziol of the InfoSec Institute^[25].

An additional security flaw with their voice mail system passwordless login feature exposes the customer's voice mails to third-parties by way of Caller ID spoofing. T-Mobile recommends that this feature not be used but still offers it by default due to customer demand^[26].

[edit] Competitors

T-Mobile is the fourth largest carrier in the United States. Its competitors are (in order of United States customer totals):

• AT&T Mobility
• Verizon Wireless
• Sprint Nextel
• Alltel
• U.S. Cellular

[edit] See also

• T-Mobile International

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• T-Mobile USA