00:00 Speaker A
For today's Power Play I had the chance to sit down with T-Mobile CEO and Starbucks board member Mike Sievert. This is what I noticed. Firstly, Sievert pushed back on a recent report that he would leave the CEO role early, plus T-Mobile confirmed the launch date of his new Starlink satellite service, UH, correctly T-satellite. This is what he had to say.
00:28 Mike Sievert
That report was a bit exaggerated. And so they got a lot of things about it, including the idea that someone has made decisions about leaving quickly. But they did not go wrong one thing, which is yes, we have recruited Srini with the idea of succession planning in mind. And I would tell you that every company should think about these things. That's not bad news, that's good news. You know, every big move that I make in the people who go Arena will ensure that the secret sauce of this company is here for the long term and that we will survive. And applying Srini was part of that story. He is a fantastic leader who turned a great German operation like CEO, and he is already adding great value here. But that does not mean that there has been a decision by me or someone else about me who quickly step away.
01:43 Speaker A
T-Satellite News, UH, It is supposed to launch commercial July 23. What is this service? What do you let yourself do?
01:54 Mike Sievert
Well, it is the largest satellite to mobile network in the world. And we are talking about this future for almost three years now when we first revealed it from Starbase in Texas in August 2022. At that time it was a tech alliance that we had a dream to find a technology that meant one simple thing. If you can see the sky, you are connected. This is the end of dead zones. And you know that there are 500,000 square miles in this country that are not reached by a mobile network, not at & t, not Verizon. And now, you know, this is about bringing that service to the American public and we open the doors for everyone. T-Mobile customers get it for free on some plans, but everyone, T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon doesn't matter. Everyone can get it for just $ 10 a month. It is built into our UM experience beyond the plan, which is our most popular line of plans to then go 5G, our previous flagship plan. And for everyone else it is only $ 10 a month. And think of the peace of mind to be available, because, you know, the way this works is that it works with the phone that you already have in general. UM and it makes an automatic connection. This is very different from everything that came earlier. So you don't know if you have fallen from the terrestrial network and it doesn't matter, because your phone automatically connects to the satellite without making a video game to connect. And that way you can be reached. And we found in the beta with more than a million users that more than two -thirds of the messages were actually incoming messages from others you tried to reach when you are in the wild.
4:11 AM Speaker A
Recently Mike, UH, T-Mobile, UM, has launched a five-year price ditch, UM, for his telephone plans. I certainly think that uh, a few people in the industry surprised, uh, shaking in the industry. What have some of your lessons been since the launch?
4:37 AM Mike Sievert
Well, you know, people are worried and there is a lot of uncertainty in the world. The prices have risen in everything, they are also in Telecom. Ehm, and they want some certainty from the value leader, who is T-Mobile, that we will get their backs. And value comes in several forms. You know, a form is the price you pay. And now the price you pay does not change for five years.
5:10 AM Speaker A
Why are telephone plans so high?
5:16 AM Mike Sievert
Well, III would say it differently, that is, why did they not get up? In real dollars you pay the same amount that you have now done in 2019 for telephone service on average, but you consume three times more data with four times the speed. That is the 5G dividend. The American consumer, no T-Mobile customers, the American consumer consumes three times more data with four times the speed for the same price in real dollars. Name another industry that delivers that kind of value.
