T-Mobile made an incredibly smart decision a few years ago. Unlike Verizon and AT&T, T-Mobile decided to build its 5G network from the bottom up. So while the others were focusing on mmWave 5G (which delivers the fastest 5G download data speeds), T-Mobile was buying nearly $8 billion worth of low-band 600MHz spectrum. It also spent $26 billion to buy Sprint so it could take control of the latter’s mid-band 2.5GHz airwaves.
T-Mobile’s decision to focus on low and mid-band 5G has helped it battle Verizon and AT&T
The reason why these decisions were so important is because of the different characteristics between low-band, mid-band, and mmWave spectrum. When Verizon and AT&T decided to start their 5G build-outs with mmWave, they were probably thinking that the faster download speeds available would attract subscribers. But what these two carriers didn’t seem to consider was the limited reach of mmWave which makes finding such signals akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
