Also unveils US$10 billion commitment to eradicate the “homework gap”
BELLEVUE, Wash.— With its merger with Sprint having received an FCC okay, T-Mobile last week announced three new initiatives.
- It launched Project 10Million, a brand new program designed to put a dent in what’s become known as the homework gap – which exists for millions of children who can’t get online at home due to economic reasons – by offering free service and hotspots and reduced cost devices to 10 million needy households around the U.S. over the next five years. The company says there are 35 million households in this country with children, and of those, about 15% have no home internet. It estimates this will cost the company around US$10 billion over the next five years.
Eligible families in the U.S. and Puerto Rico will receive up to 100GB of free internet access each year, one free mobile Wi-Fi enabled hotspot and the option to purchase select Wi-Fi enabled devices at the company’s cost.
- It also launched T-Mobile Connect, a new prepaid US$15 per month prepaid wireless option, half the price of the lowest T-Mobile plan today, to everyone, but especially targeting lower-income consumers.
- It also announced the Connecting Heroes Initiative, a US$7.7 billion 10-year commitment to provide free 5G access — unlimited talk, text and smartphone data — to every first responder from all public and non-profit state and local police, fire and EMS agency in the U.S.
T-Mobile also said last week it will begin to enable the above moves by lighting up its 5G network on December 6th, covering more than 200 million Americans and more than 5,000 cities and towns across the country – including millions in rural America. Customers will be able to tap into T-Mobile’s LTE and 5G network using the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G or OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren. Both phones will be able to tap into Sprint’s mid-band 5G spectrum with the New T-Mobile in 2020, says the company.
