T-Mobile Swagger Is What Dish Is Missing
The satellite-TV company is on the receiving end of valuable assets that T-Mobile has to sell. That doesn’t guarantee success for the wireless newbie.
T-Mobile’s remarkable brand overhaul included the reinvention of its own CEO.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
T-Mobile US Inc.’s guerrilla-style marketing and remarkable brand overhaul – one that even included CEO John Legere reinventing himself – shows what it takes to truly disrupt the market when you’re starting from last place. Are Dish Network Corp. and its chairman, Charlie Ergen, willing to go to the same lengths?
Dish, the satellite-TV provider, wants to start selling wireless phone service to compete with T-Mobile, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. The biggest underestimated hurdle is how it tells that to consumers. After all, Dish’s ability to steal away subscribers is what the federal government is counting on to foster competition so that T-Mobile’s takeover of Sprint Corp. doesn’t result in higher prices.