T-Mobile MVNO pact 'opens the door' to businesses, Charter CEO says

telcodad

Charter and Comcast recently signed a multi-year MVNO deal that enables the operators to deliver mobile services to business customers in the US via T-Mobile’s network. Charter’s CEO says it will open the door for providing mobile services to more businesses:

T-Mobile MVNO pact ‘opens the door’ to businesses, Charter CEO says
Acknowledging that its mobile reach into the business sector has been ‘somewhat limited,’ Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said a new business-focused MVNO deal with T-Mobile will accelerate mobile line growth over time. Meanwhile, Verizon remains a ‘great partner,’ he said with a dash of diplomacy.
By Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading - July 25, 2025
https://www.lightreading.com/wireless/t-mobile-mvno-pact-opens-the-door-to-businesses-charter-ceo-says

Charter Communications has been offering Spectrum Mobile to small businesses via its existing MVNO with Verizon for years, but the opportunity has been limited.

Analysts say the Verizon MVNO agreement caps Charter to selling about 20 mobile lines to its various business customers. As T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert disclosed this week, the company’s new business-focused MVNO with Charter and Comcast raises that ceiling to 1,000 mobile lines per customer – enough to help the cable operators dive more deeply into the small and midsized business (SMB) sector.

There’s a big discrepancy between Charter’s mobile lines among business and residential customers. Charter ended Q2 with just 21,000 Spectrum Mobile lines for small businesses against a whopping 10.54 million residential lines. …

toolman1990

I would imagine this would be concerning to Verizon since T Mobile could possibly steal their consumer MVNO contract if the partnership works out.

geek

toolman1990 Let’s call it a POC, shall we? 😉

telcodad

toolman1990 I would imagine this would be concerning to Verizon since T Mobile could possibly steal their consumer MVNO contract if the partnership works out.

T-Mobile has downplayed any speculation that the MVNO would also serve residential subscribers though:

T-Mobile CEO shuts down idea of consumer MVNO deals with Charter, Comcast
T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert downplayed speculation that he’ll chase Charter’s and Comcast’s residential MVNO agreements. But he did say T-Mobile’s new cable deal allows the cable ops to sell up to 1,000 mobile lines to SMBs.
By Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading - July 24, 2025
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/t-mobile-ceo-shuts-down-idea-of-consumer-mvno-deals-with-charter-comcast

On the heels of T-Mobile’s multi-year, business-focused MVNO deal with Charter Communications and Comcast, speculation swirled that T-Mobile might consider gunning for the cable operators’ much larger residential MVNO contracts and snatch them away from Verizon.

Hold that thought.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert just tossed a big bucket of cold water on the theory.

“People are asking us, well, does this [cable deal] mean you’re stepping into [the consumer cable MVNO] or something like that? No, we’re not interested in that because the dynamics are different in terms of the incrementality in our math,” Sievert said Wednesday on T-Mobile’s Q2 2025 earnings call. ….

cork1958

Unfortunately for me that both those services totally suck in my area. Verizon is only a hair better here. Absolutely no signal here with T Mobile and maybe get a bar if outside on Verizon.

toolman1990

telcodad T-Mobile has downplayed any speculation that the MVNO would also serve residential subscribers though:

T-Mobile CEO shuts down idea of consumer MVNO deals with Charter, Comcast
T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert downplayed speculation that he’ll chase Charter’s and Comcast’s residential MVNO agreements. But he did say T-Mobile’s new cable deal allows the cable ops to sell up to 1,000 mobile lines to SMBs.
By Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading - July 24, 2025
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/t-mobile-ceo-shuts-down-idea-of-consumer-mvno-deals-with-charter-comcast

Quite frankly the denials mean nothing since AT&T said they were never going to do fixed wireless access service as well. In addition, I think Mike Sievert would be putting himself and T Mobile in legal trouble since they have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders, so they have to offer cable a price point if they request an MVNO type deal.

toolman1990

cork1958

cork1958 Unfortunately for me that both those services totally suck in my area. Verizon is only a hair better here. Absolutely no signal here with T Mobile and maybe get a bar if outside on Verizon.

You can have weird issues like that with wireless companies. Where I live AT&T, Sprint, and T Mobile had great service, but Verizon Wireless had awful coverage even low band was struggling. I remember Verizon Wireless wanting to build a new cell site to address signal issues, but it was denied since Verizon Wireless had no good answer on why they could not colocate on one of many existing cell sites. It appears Verizon Wireless had a bitch fit being told no and never did anything to address their signal problems in the area when they could have easily have colocate their cell equipment on existing cell sites.

CBusdude

toolman1990 I would imagine this would be concerning to Verizon since T Mobile could possibly steal their consumer MVNO contract if the partnership works out.

In the investor call today Charter kind of seemed to imply they weren’t interested in moving the consumer mobile off of Verizon. But at the same time, this could be them trying to fake out Verizon while they see how difficult it would be to migrate the customers.

Not_Sure

toolman1990 If Charter switched from Verizon to t-mobile I’m out.

cork1958

Not_Sure
If Charter switched from Verizon to AT&T, I could consider it, but then again, my Boost service uses AT&T anyway. Haven’t looked at what cell service costs through Charter in a good while, but last I knew, switching to them would’ve only saved me a few bucks.

Not_Sure

cork1958 Their plans are $30 and $40 taxes/fees included. If you bundle you can get savings depending on what you bundle and how many lines

cork1958

Not_Sure
Thanks. Didn’t think I’d heard of the $19.99 cell plan in quite a while they were doing quite some time back. $30 is what I currently pay for Boost.