Last week I joined industry analyst Chetan Sharma for a fireside chat at his annual Mobile Future Forward event to discuss 5G and the golden era for consumers. This year’s event focused on the Quantumverse, the next generation of interconnected technologies like 5G, Edge, Blockchain and the Metaverse that are changing the way people interact with one another.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I, and T-Mobile, have been laser focused on 5G for a LONG time. So, I was delighted when Chetan asked me to join him to talk about what comes next. In short, while 5G is already delivering meaningful benefits, the best of 5G is yet to come.
Ten years ago, I would not have predicted that T-Mobile would become a global leader in the industry. But that’s where Chetan started the dialog and he wanted to know how T-Mobile feels about leading the industry in the years to come.
But Chetan and I didn’t meet to only discuss T-Mobile’s tremendous growth. We quickly started looking at the future of 5G for consumers, as well as how they are already using it today.
For some time now, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in how customers leverage our network to get the most out of their 5G experience. On Magenta Max, our customers each use an average of 39 GB of data every month! In fact, 5G users stream 2x more video, spend 1.5x more time on social media and play mobile games 3x more often compared to their 4G LTE counterparts.
Mobile is no doubt the most common 5G use case, but there is so much more to come. So where else will 5G take consumers?
We’ve been heads down building our nationwide network so that everyone, including those in small towns and rural communities, have access to reliable and affordable internet through Home Internet. Home broadband service is and will be a major component of the 5G future.
We’ve always taken pride in keeping customers connected while they’re on the move, and now fixed wireless brings broadband connectivity at home, so users can enjoy the same ultra-fast and reliable 5G experience in the place they spend much of their time across an ecosystem of devices.
In fact, in the past year, we’ve rapidly expanded our home internet services across the country to become not only the fastest growing internet service provider (ISP), but also one of the top 10 largest ISPs in the country. When it comes to reaching rural areas, fixed wireless is one of the best solutions out there, especially in areas that fiber can’t reach or where that last mile seems especially long!
We are also hard at work on our vision to bring connectivity to areas where there is no service at all today, which is why we recently announced we’re teaming up with SpaceX to take it a step further with complementary satellite connectivity.
The future of 5G will also be HUGE for wearables in the coming years, driving innovation in ways we’ve never even dreamed of. We’re already seeing some of the biggest companies in the world prepare for a world of extended reality (XR) services, and the possibilities for these devices are endless, especially with the benefits of 5G with its potential for super-low latency.
The golden era of 5G for consumers is here with more opportunities to leverage the power of 5G than ever. I’m incredibly proud of T-Mobile for kickstarting 5G in the U.S. years before anyone else and for our hard work ensuring we’re poised to lead the industry well into the future.