T-Mobile Continued Disruption of The Status Quo is Good For Everyone
In my day-to-day job, I look at disruptions in markets. I have been in the unified communications business for 20 years and I am constantly on the look out for who is making waves in my industry both from my direct competitors and those that I like to call “edge of the empire”; those on the fringe – the ones you don’t see coming out of left field until it is difficult to react to them. While some would look at endless research, spreadsheets and presentations as being boring, I love it. It is a never ending challenge.
In the mobile carrier space, there once was a company that was out in left field. T-Mobile had a marginal network, limited coverage and less-than-stellar customer service. Other carriers didn’t take them too seriously. Today however that has changed and the plans and actions of T-Mobile are causing disruptions for the other major carriers here in the United States. They have taken the rule book and for the most part have tossed it aside, forcing their competitors to make changes that they may not otherwise would have made on their on initiative.
Ultimately, we as consumers, win.
Let me be clear that I am not writing this as a T-Mobile customer. I’ve had a mobile account with AT&T in all of their various iterations since 1997. Yes, that’s a long time and in all of that time with the exception of my time living in Europe, I’ve never had another carrier (I even kept my AT&T account when I was there so I could easily get back going once I returned to the US). Rather, I’m writing this as someone who spends their career looking at disruptions and on that account, T-Mobile is inching closer to causing a tsunami.
