T-Mobile US, in closing its first quarter as a larger operator following its acquisition of Sprint, signaled nothing but upside as it undertakes multiple network transformation efforts at increasing volume.

Following its deployment of the world’s first standalone (SA) 5G network operating on a 5G core earlier this week, T-Mobile’s 5G network footprint is now “roughly double AT&T’s and exponentially higher than Verizon,” CEO Mike Sievert said during the company’s second quarter earnings call.

The operator moved 10% of legacy Sprint customers to the T-Mobile network during the quarter and reiterated that 85% of the Sprint customer base is using a device that’s compatible with T-Mobile’s network. It expects to move more of those recently acquired customers over to its network at an even faster pace going forward. 

T-Mobile’s network team is also activating 5G on the 2.5 GHz spectrum it recently acquired via the acquisition in major metropolitan cities and “by the end of the year, customers will find mid-band 5G in thousands of cities and towns across the country,” Sievert said. 

“We are currently seeing average speeds north of 300 Mb/s, better than most home internet speeds and eight-times faster than 4G LTE,” he added, leading into competitive analysis of the operator’s envious spectrum position. 

“T-Mobile controls 319 megahertz of combined low- and mid-band spectrum on average nationwide. That’s more than AT&T and Verizon combined. We also have more millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum than AT&T and, get this, we already have as many 5G devices on our network as AT&T and Verizon combined,” Sievert said. 

Executives also challenged recent complaints lobbed by the country’s leading tower companies about what they perceive to be a slow pace of 5G network buildout on T-Mobile’s part. 

“I love the fact that some of the tower companies that are out there sort of spreading some disinformation about our pace. … We will be in thousands of cities and towns across this country as we exit this year,” Sievert said. 

“The reason it feels tough over there at the tower companies is because both standalone T-Mobile and Sprint were planning on lots of new sites — Sprint for coverage and T-Mobile for capacity. New T-Mobile has synergies. That’s called site avoidance and I know that’s tough if you are a tower company because billions and billions of dollars in site avoidance causes the kinds of comments you are now hearing,” he said. 

Neville Ray, T-Mobile's president of technology, added that the tower companies aren’t happy because “there is a competitive process in play right now and we have choices that we can make.” T-Mobile plans to initiate more tower deployments later this year, but it’s not slowing down in the meantime, Ray explained. 

“We are moving at an incredible pace,” he said, noting that the operator was activating 700 new sites per week, as of last month, and that it expects to continue ramping up those efforts going forward.

Costs saved through its combined operations with Sprint are still on track to deliver $43 billion in synergies, but there’s a potential to “unlock even more than originally planned and to do it all faster than planned,” Sievert added.

T-Mobile spent $2.26 billion on capex and pegged COVID-19 related costs at $341 million during the quarter. It expects capex for the second half of 2020 to come in between $6.5 billion and $6.9 billion. 

The operator also boasted that it became the country’s second largest mobile network operator in the country based on customers during the quarter, thanks in large part to the merger with Sprint and continued net additions overall. “Our total branded customer accounts surpassed AT&T, making us the No. 2 player in wireless at the beginning of the quarter,” Sievert said. “Our lead versus AT&T is even wider as we talk to you today.”

T-Mobile banked $110 million in net income on $17.7 billion in revenue during the quarter. 

Wall Street is undoubtedly pleased with the company’s results, pushing T-Mobile stock up 7.7% today. The “early signs are encouraging,” analysts at MoffettNathanson wrote. 

“The wireless industry isn’t a great business; it grows slowly, is intensely competitive, and generates (as a result) relatively low returns. And 5G won’t turn the wireless industry into a thematic growth story,” the analysts wrote. “But a consistent share gainer like T-Mobile, with the industry’s lowest prices and now on the brink of having the industry’s best network, can be a spectacular company growth story even when the industry in which they play is a mediocre one.”