T-Mobile completed its $31 billion acquisition of Sprint today and announced that CEO John Legere has resigned from the carrier’s top job a month sooner than planned.
With today’s close, T-Mobile said it has “successfully completed its long-planned Chief Executive Officer transition from John Legere to Mike Sievert ahead of schedule.” T-Mobile had previously said Legere would leave at the end of April.
“I had originally planned to stay on through the end of my contract on April 30, 2020, but it makes much more sense to transition this responsibility to Mike today,” Legere said. Legere “will continue as a member of the Board of Directors for the remainder of his current term, through the Annual Meeting of Shareholders scheduled in June 2020,” the carrier said.
Like they have from the start, the combined companies maintain that this will help advance 5G in the US. The expanded T-Mobile claims it will have speeds up to 15 times faster in the next six years, 14 times more capacity and 5G coverage reaching 99 percent of the US population. The network is equally keen to point to its commitment to make service more affordable, including its recently launched $15 5G plan and an initiative to deliver free internet access and devices to 10 million low-income homes over the next five years. As T-Mobile tries keep those promises, it’s safe to say you’ll hear a lot about network upgrades in the near future.
It will still take a while to transition services. Sprint customers will keep their existing plans and, at least for now, manage their services the same way. T-Mobile has promised to keep plans “the same or better” for Sprint customers in the next three years as the unification is completed. Sprint’s network is still separate, too, and you won’t have to move to a new device any time soon.
