As part of its proposed merger with Sprint, T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS) has begun piloting home Internet service, sending invitations to a limited group of T-Mobile customers in rural and underserved markets for high-speed fixed wireless service.
The T-Mobile Home Internet pilot is offered exclusively in areas where the company expects to deliver speeds of around 50 Mbps through fixed wireless service over LTE. The service has no data caps, costs $50 per month with AutoPay ($55 without), and has no annual service contracts, or equipment costs.
Due to LTE network and spectrum capacity constraints, the T-Mobile Home Internet pilot is limited by invitation only to existing customers in specific areas, with the goal of reaching 50,000 households by the end of the year - or slightly less than 0.04% of U.S. households. But if T-Mobile's pending merger with Sprint is approved, the New T-Mobile plans to cover more than half of U.S. households with 5G broadband service - in excess of 100 Mbps - by 2024.
"Two weeks ago, I laid out our plans for home broadband with the New T-Mobile. Now, we're already hard at work building toward that future," said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. "We're walking the walk and laying the foundation for a world where we can take the fight to Big Cable on behalf of consumers and offer real choice, competition and savings to Americans nationwide."
The merged T-Mobile/Sprint will have the capability to cover more than half of U.S. zip codes with un-wired and un-cabled in-home broadband by 2024 and will be able to support 9.5 million American households for its high-speed in-home broadband service, T-Mobile says.
Current T-Mobile customers in select areas eligible to participate in the pilot will receive T-Mobile Home Internet invitations this week by email and U.S. mail with information on how to sign up.