Latest news with #wirelessindustry
Bloomberg
07-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
‘Telecom Is the New Tequila': Behind the Celebrity Wireless Boom
Actor and producer Ryan Reynolds put a new spin on celebrity investment trends in 2019, when he acquired a part-ownership stake in wireless brand Mint Mobile, becoming the face of the company. The gamble by the Deadpool star was so successful that T-Mobile US Inc. bought the brand for $1.35 billion last year. Reynolds blazed a trail for other A-listers who believed they could leverage their fame to strike lucrative deals in the wireless industry — without having to become wireless experts themselves. 'A lot of celebrities are looking at what Ryan Reynolds has done with Mint Mobile and saying, 'Hey, wait a second. He marketed himself, he sold this product. He didn't run the mobile network. He didn't own the infrastructure. How hard can this be?'' said Michael Lazarus, managing member of Telecommunications Law Professionals. The SmartLess podcast hosts and actors Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes followed suit in early June by fronting their own brand, SmartLess Mobile, on the T-Mobile network. Days later, President Donald Trump's sons Eric and Don Jr. announced their own Trump Mobile venture that will let users choose their preferred network; it also includes the option to buy a gilded smartphone.
Phone Arena
25-06-2025
- Business
- Phone Arena
T-Mobile has 'the best network in America', and America couldn't care less
Monday, June 23, 2025 was supposed to be a big day for T-Mobile. Five years after the official completion of a merger that transformed the US wireless industry as it was known in 2020, Magenta earned the nation's "best mobile network" prize from Ookla, celebrating its latest momentous achievement by adding even more value to its "most popular" plans and confirming the highly anticipated T-Satellite nationwide launch date. But what would have been a noisy and attention-grabbing "Un-carrier" event just a few years ago ended up looking like little more than another typical Monday at the office for CEO Mike Sievert, COO Srini Gopalan, and President of Marketing, Strategy, and Products Mike Katz (seen below trying their best to hype up an ultimately largely meaningless marketing label). Before I let you all answer that for yourselves, I'd like to try to guess some of the reasons why T-Mobile customers no longer seem as interested (and as impressed) as they used to be by such titles as the one bestowed by Ookla. By the way, I'm not just saying that, instead basing my assessment on the relatively poor views figures generated by our article detailing T-Mo's latest win over Verizon and AT&T and the general indifference with which the otherwise super-vocal Redditors on the "Un-official subreddit of the Re-carrier" received the big news at the beginning of the week. This almost looks like a parody of an Un-carrier event from back in the good old days. | Image Credit -- T-Mobile Let's not beat it around the bush, you're far more open to debating and commenting on things like new plans, revised plan features and conditions, as well as every little detail concerning the universally reviled T-Life app, than the results of hundreds of millions of network speed and reliability tests performed across the nation. And I feel like the simplest explanation could also be the most valid - no one cares about the other guy (or girl), let alone a theoretical user. That's obviously the problem with all these studies conducted by Ookla, Opensignal, RootMetrics, and any other such independent analytics firm. As vast and as scientific as their experiments may be, they're still theoretical and thus not representative of your individual user experience. And unfortunately for T-Mobile , all the network performance trophies collected in the last half a decade don't seem to have done much to silence the criticism from individual customers with specific coverage issues that simply won't go away and underwhelming speeds that look unable to get better. Several_Resolution92 on Reddit, June 23, 2025 While the number of T-Mo subscribers complaining of various problems every... single... time the "Un-carrier" wins a new gold ribbon is by no means large in the grand scheme of things, I can totally understand if your distrust in the real-world relevance of speed and network availability tests is fueled by these negative comments... or your own sub-par experience. After all, who cares if some people can (theoretically) squeeze 200+ Mbps download speed averages out of their T-Mobile phones when you barely hit 20 or 30 Mbps most of the time? As odd as it may sound, I feel like the completely opposite explanation can also work, as T-Mobile , Verizon , and AT&T have all improved both their speeds and coverage over the last few years to such a remarkable degree that the competition for first place in Ookla reports no longer matters to most people. After all, not everybody needs 200 Mbps downloads to be happy, and as long as you can typically hit 50 or 60 Mbps, you might not care if the weather is (slightly) warmer on the other side. No matter the reason for your indifference, it's pretty clear that Magenta has to give (most of) its customers something else than empty titles, generic achievements, and big numbers that may or may not coincide with a user's real network experience. Something better, something more palpable, and something with a clearer and bigger value for one's day-to-day life. What must worry T-Mo's powers that be the most is the positive attention Verizon has been generating for a little while now, culminating with a "Project 624" announcement that felt pretty underwhelming to me personally, but that was surprisingly well-received on Reddit and other places around the web. Of course, those gift cards helped, and so did a new T-Mobile-style promotion. That's right, Verizon is so very clearly taking pages, nay, entire chapters from the old "Un-carrier" playbook that T-Mobile absolutely needs to rethink its ways and go back to its roots before it becomes an underdog again. And that needs to happen yesterday! Switch to Total 5G+ Unlimited 3-Month plan or Total 5G Unlimited and get a free iPhone. We may earn a commission if you make a purchase Check Out The Offer
Wall Street Journal
17-06-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Why Celebrity Cellular Brands Are Everywhere
What do actor Ryan Reynolds, ESPN, the Trump family and the hosts of the SmartLess podcast have in common? They have all launched their own mobile carriers. Celebrity-backed brands are jumping into the wireless world despite it being a crowded, competitive business. The Trump Organization said Monday it will launch Trump Mobile and plans to offer a U.S.-built smartphone later this summer. President Trump's administration has tangled with mobile carriers over their diversity initiatives and pushed phone makers including Apple to bring manufacturing to the U.S.
E&E News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- E&E News
Industry groups back FEMA as ‘essential' disaster agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, facing potential upheaval under President Donald Trump, has received a wave of support from powerful groups such as the wireless industry, electric utilities, power companies and real estate agents. They submitted testimony emphasizing the importance of FEMA in helping communities recover from disasters — and warning against the administration's plan to weaken the agency. 'Rather than shifting responsibility to states, FEMA's role at the federal level should be maintained,' the Large Public Power Council, which represents the nation's biggest public power systems, told a Trump-appointed council reviewing FEMA. Advertisement Comments received by the council in recent days have highlighted little-known FEMA activities that help maintain services such as electricity, water and wireless communications during a disaster. Trump's FEMA Review Council holds its first meeting Tuesday.
