T-Mobile US has named Dentsu Creative as its lead creative agency, following a competitive review process.

As part of the deal, the agency hopes to help telecoms giant continue fueling the brand’s continued growth into a new generation of customers.

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The partnership will be headed up by Dentsu Creative’s Chief Creative Officer, Rafael Rizuto and will leverage the agency’s offering which includes storytelling, social, disruptive positioning and cultural fluency.

T-Mobile President of Marketing, Strategy and Products Mike Katz said: “As the un-carrier, we’ve always pushed the status quo to take a radically different approach to meeting consumer needs.

“As our brand has evolved – from the underdog to now the network leader – it’s more imperative than ever that we continue to put the customer at the centre of everything we do to ensure we deliver the most relevant and creative content and experiences.

He continued: “Dentsu Creative has set the bar high with their strategic, customer-centric approach and fresh ideas to help T-Mobile as we begin telling the next chapter of the un-carrier story. We’re ready to get rolling.”

Dentsu US CEO Abbey Klaassen added: “It is an incredible honour to work with one of America’s most iconic brands, and we can’t wait for more people to experience the magic that is T-Mobile.

“From the very start of the process, it was clear there was shared ambition for pushing boundaries, which is exactly why we built Dentsu Creative – to be able to take a holistic view of brands and incorporate results-driven strategic thinking that goes beyond advertising.”

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T-Mobile Poland has been hit with a $6.4 million fine (PLN25.6 million) by the country’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection for a campaign which claimed to offer 1,200GB of free data for a year.

In a statement, the trade body said concluding the messaging of “1,200GB for free a year” was misleading and users would get the credit for free when it required a top-up.

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It added that customers had to credit prepaid accounts with PLN35 per month to receive 100GB of free data for the month. However, despite this fact being published at the end of the adverts, the information was “printed in tiny font at the very bottom”.

The campaign was featured on various billboards and public areas in both Polish and Ukrainian.

As the regulator’s judgement is subject to appeal, should the decision be upheld, the telecoms giant must publish the decision on its social media platforms and its website in both languages the adverts appeared in.

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Before the Department of Justice will approve the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, it wants to see more concessions from Deutsche Telekom, which will be the controlling telecommunications company following the merger. The DOJ has made it clear that a fourth US wireless competitor must be created before the merger may take place, leaning towards Dish Network to fill the open spot. According to CNBC, Deutsche Telekom, Dish and the DOJ are on the cusp of reaching a final agreement, which could come as soon as next week.

The DOJ wants Deutsche Telekom to give more aid to Dish Network to ensure the new wireless carrier can compete with the other leading companies in the US, including T-Mobile/Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon. The DOJ is reportedly pressuring Deutsche Telekom to give Dish unlimited access to its network, but T-Mobile said it would not budge from the 12.5 per cent already proposed.

CNBC also found that Dish is seeking access to the combined T-Mobile/Sprint network for 6 or 7 years following the merger. After this part of the deal expires, Dish will need to develop and move to its own wireless network. Dish will be the only major wireless carrier that does not have a 5G network in the works but plans to develop one as soon as it acquires the funds. As a result, T-Mobile has asked that “no strategic investor take more than a 5 per cent stake in Dish.”

One a finalized deal can be made, the merger will move one step closer to completion, but ultimately needs the DOJ’s stamp of approval. The federal government is not the only entity that has publicly opposed the merger. As of now, there are 14 state attorneys general that have filed lawsuits in an effort to block the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, citing anticompetition and monopoly laws.

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T-Mobile and Sprint have hit another obstacle ahead of their merger deal, which hasn’t been fully backed by the Department of Justice quite yet. According to Bloomberg, the DOJ reportedly wants T-Mobile and Sprint to “lay the groundwork” for a new wireless carrier, so that there are still four major carriers in play after the merger.

A person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that both companies have been discussing potential concessions that would prompt the DOJ to give the merger a green light. One of these concessions would be the creation of a new competitor with its own network, to join the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and the new T-Mobile/Sprint company.

In their defense, Sprint and T-Mobile have said their merger will only create a stronger third best to Verizon and AT&T, which rank one and two in the US, respectively. While the merger continues to hit speedbump after speedbump, it does seem that T-Mobile and Sprint have won over the Federal Communications Commission.

Last week, FCC chairman Ajit Pai said the merger would now be in the best interest of the US.
Even with the FCC’s endorsements, the DOJ has not been swayed in favor of the deal, citing anti-competition concerns.

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T-Mobile and Comcast have partnered to create a new verification feature that will allow customers to avoid robocalls and spam across networks. Starting today, T-Mobile customers have immediate access to the feature, but Comcast Xfinity Voice home phone service customers will have to wait until later this year.

The technology, developed by Comcast, uses the STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) standards to verify the authenticity of calls. At the same time, T-Mobile has also made its already existing Caller Verified feature available across 10 more smartphones, including the LG G8 ThinQ and Samsung Galaxy Note8 and Note9, Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+.

“Robocalls and spam calls are an industry-wide problem, and we’ve got to join forces to keep consumers protected. Today, we’re the first to cross industry lines to do just that,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “We were first to announce readiness, first to implement Caller Verified, and now first to authenticate calls across networks, with Comcast. T-Mobile continues to remain on the frontlines in the battle against unwanted calls, and we won’t stop.”

“Fraudulent robocalls hurt everyone, so we want to give consumers more power to protect themselves,” said Eric Schaefer, senior vice president and GM of broadband and communications services at Comcast Cable. “Our engineers played a key role in developing this technology for the entire industry, and we are happy to work with T-Mobile to deliver another first in the fight against fraudulent robocalls. In the coming weeks, we’ll be exchanging authenticated calls with more providers across the industry as we come together to tackle this problem.”

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T-Mobile is postponing it’s official 5G service launch until the second half of 2019, according to chief technology officer Neville Ray in an interview with CNET. Originally, T-Mobile predicted its completed 5G service would be available in 30 cities by mid-2019, but plans have changed due to a delay in product development.

According to Ray, T-Mobile had expected handset manufacturers and chipset makers would be able to more quickly develop a smartphone that could access the lower-band 600 MHz spectrum. As of now, the few 5G phones available will only partially support T-Mobile’s 5G network, rendering the project unfinished.

The setback will push T-Mobile’s official rollout a few months behind launches from Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T, but the carrier still has plans to release 5G millimeter wave installations within the coming months. These installations will be extremely limited in availability since millimeter range is so short. 

As for the newly announced Samsung Galaxy S10 5G device, T-Mobile will sell the phone but will most likely not promote it, due to the lack of full 5G network support.

After CNET’s interview was published, Ray tweeted that it was “wrong” to characterize this as a delay in 5G service, since T-Mobile will still be releasing mmWave 5G phones before the second half of the year.

“Weve always said wed launch when phones are available, and they will be in H1. H2 is just when it gets more meaningful… but theres no delay and no change of plans,” said Ray in a tweet.

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Robocallers are able to intercept calls by illegally ID spoofing, or hijacking, a phone number that has a local area code and 3-digit prefix, prompting the recipient to think the number looks familiar. T-Mobiles Caller Verified service implements the STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) standards, which combats illegal call spoofing by using digital certificates. When the same STIR and SHAKEN standards are implemented by other mobile providers, customers can use Call Verified on calls made across networks.

T-Mobile has a history of creating anti-spam and anti-scam technology. In 2017, the company introduced the Scam ID and Scam Block to T-Mobile ONE customers, which would display Scam Likely if an incoming call did not seem legitimate. In 2018, T-Mobile launched the Name ID app, delivering call control, personal number blocking, and reverse number lookup.

According to First Orion, almost 50 per cent of all calls made in the US this year will be scam calls or telemarketers. Americans who are susceptible to scam calls are in danger of losing large amounts of money or revealing personal information to fraudulent callers. In the last 18 months, T-Mobile’s new call protection services have flagged over 8.9bn calls as Scam Likely and blocked more than a billion scam calls.

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T-Mobile, which is the third largest wireless carrier in the US, is currently in the midst of acquiring Sprint Corp, the fourth largest, for $26.5bn. The merger has triggered worry about the possible monopolization of US wireless carriers. T-Mobile had hoped the TV service would lower concern by showing “that bigger scale could help it bring better products to consumers.” Walt Piecyk, an analyst at BTIG LLC, thinks that “the cable industry is plagued by poor customer service and excessive fees,” and is “ripe for a challenge.”

T-Mobile had originally acquired Layer3, a startup with streaming services in a number of US cities, for $325m, to help catapult the wireless carrier into the streaming-video business. Along with the acquisition of Layer3, T-Mobile has also been trying to obtain new mobile-distribution rights but have run into multiple challenges.

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According to undisclosed sources, US government officials have been pressuring Deutsche Telekom to discontinue future business with Huawei, and implied that the merger would not take place until it was approved by a US national security panel. Both Deutsche Telekom and Softbank have stated they will begin the search for a new vendor, with the hopes that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) will authorize Sprint and T-Mobile to move forward with the deal.

The US government, along with other European and Australian allies, have urged businesses to stop using Huawei’s equipment as a security precaution, claiming “the company is effectively controlled by the Chinese state and its network equipment may contain back doors that could enable cyber espionage. Although the Chinese company, which is the world’s largest network equipment maker, has denied these claims, certain European countries and the entirety of Australia will not be including Huawei in any plans supporting their fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks.

“We don’t foresee calling on Huawei for 5G,” Orange chief executive officer Stephane Richard told reporters in Paris. “We are working with our traditional partners – they are Ericsson and Nokia.”

Skepticism on Huawei’s legality has continued to grow since early December, when the firm’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada. Wanzhou, who is the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was taken into custody on a US extradition request and is accused of misleading multinational banks about Huawei’s control of a company operating out of Iran.

US President Donald Trump has stated that he is willing to intervene if it means resolving the dispute or resolve US national security interests, as he saw a connection between Wanzhou’s extradition case and the Trump administration’s trade row with China. ZTE, China’s second-largest maker of network of telecommunications equipment, has also recently been targeted by the US government, when the US banned American firms from selling ZTE’s parts, claiming the company “broke an agreement to discipline executives who had conspired to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran and North Korea.” The ban was lifted four months later, in July, after ZTE agreed to pay $1.4bn in penalties.

To appease the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, Softbank plans to replace Huawei’s 4G network equipment with products from Nokia and Ericsson. Deutsche Telekom, the largest European telecoms company, will continue to evaluate its vendors in Germany and other European areas. Before the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint can be approved, which is expected to close before the second half of 2019, the deal must be authorized by the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission.

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As part of the agreement, Nokia will provide T-Mobile with its complete end-to-end 5G technology, software and services portfolio. T-Mobile will use the Finnish telecoms company’s equipment to build a 5G network across the US with 600 MHz and 28 GHz millimetre wave 5G capabilities.

“We are all in on 5G,” said Neville Ray, chief technology officer at T-Mobile. “Every dollar we spend is a 5G dollar, and our agreement with Nokia underscores the kind of investment we’re making to bring customers a mobile, nationwide 5G network.”

The deal will see T-Mobile leverage Nokia’s commercial AirScale radio platforms and cloud-native core, AirFrame hardware, CloudBand software, SON, and 5G Acceleration Services. Utilising this gear, the pair aim to develop, test, and launch services that will cover enterprise, smart cities, utilities, transportation, health, manufacturing, retail, agriculture, and government agencies.

“Nokia and T-Mobile will advance the large-scale deployment of 5G services throughout the United States,” said Ashish Chowdhary, chief customer operations officer at Nokia.

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