T-Mobile in 2013: The Un-Carrier

By 2013, the U.S. wireless industry was in the midst of a costly transition. As consumers began to embrace more sophisticated mobile devices, the industry's four main players spent heavily to improve their infrastructures for providing reliable high-speed data services. T-Mobile, the smallest of the four major carriers, lacked the scale of its competitors and risked falling further behind in the contest for market share. Faced with this daunting business environment, T-Mobile's new CEO declared war on the rest of the industry, decrying competitor pricing practices and upending the traditional contract-based business model. This case provides background information on the state of the wireless industry in 2013 and follows T-Mobile's early steps to transform its market position. In the course of the class discussion, students discover that competition among firms in this market may drive wireless carriers to offer more complex contracts with more add-on fees. However, students also see that it is possible for a company to break out of this competitive dynamic and succeed in the marketplace.