Is Your Town Ready for the Selfie of a Lifetime? T‑Mobile Unveils Hometown Techover Contest

BELLEVUE, Wash., April 8, 2021 /3BL Media/ — Rural America, get ready for your closeup. Yesterday, in an event webcast to the world, T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) detailed the Magenta wave coming to small town U.S.A. That wave includes an upgrade to 5G phones and plans, a new home broadband option for 10 million rural households — T-Mobile Home Internet — and a commitment to build hundreds of new stores and create 7,500 new jobs supporting the wireless needs of communities all across rural America.

Today, the Un-carrier narrows its focus to just one town: introducing the T-Mobile Hometown Techover, a contest to find a single town in America that can showcase the power of the T-Mobile 5G network, that can be the 5G model for all other cities, towns, hamlets, burgs, parishes, villages or other similarly named community. And entering is as easy as taking a selfie.

The Techover includes goods and services for the community-as-a-whole as well as individual households that, in sum, total more than $3 MILLION. Among the goodness:

• Community Grant: A $200,000 T-Mobile Hometown Grant and consulting services from Smart Growth America
• Play Ball: Little League® field refurbishment including a tech upgrade and T-Mobile Little League Call Up Grant support
• Public Space Connectivity: An Un-carrier style upgrade to a public space like a library, community center or town square
• Access to T-Mobile Resources: Concierge enrollment in T-Mobile’s Project 10 Million and Connecting Heroes programs
• The full Magenta treatment: 100 households will get free wireless service and home internet for one year, four new 5G phones and an HD TV
• And last, but certainly not least, the bash of all bashes!: A FREE concert for the winning town with 18-time chart-topping, multi-platinum duo Florida Georgia Line

“For far too long big cities have reaped the benefits of upgraded technologies while small towns are left to wait months or years for their turn. That’s helped fuel the digital divide in rural America,” said Jon Freier, Executive Vice President of Consumer Markets at T-Mobile. “We’ve wanted to find a way to rewrite that narrative for a long time, and now thanks to our merger with Sprint, T-Mobile has America’s largest, fastest and most reliable 5G network. This puts T-Mobile in a unique position to be the best in the world at connecting customers to their world – including those in smaller markets and rural communities – AND opening up new economic opportunities throughout America.”

The new kid in town
T-Mobile has long been relegated to the urban and suburban core, not by choice but by necessity. Owing to a lack of the needed spectrum, T-Mobile simply couldn’t effectively compete in rural America. But upon closing its merger with Sprint one year ago, T-Mobile now has all the assets needed to bring its unique brand of wireless, and now home broadband, service to places throughout the country that desperately need a competitive counterbalance to incumbent service providers.

The people and businesses of rural America don’t have much history with T-Mobile. They likely didn’t get to experience the Un-carrier revolution that kicked off in 2013 and brought a wave of changes to the industry. Some innovations like no annual service contracts, global roaming at a reasonable price and unlimited data service have been adopted by the industry. While others like taxes and fees included, Netflix on US and a unique and popular customer service model called Team of Experts have yet to be matched. All of that amazingness just hasn’t been readily available in many parts of the country.

Until now.

Something for everyone
To make up for lost time, T-Mobile wants to show off the power of its 5G network and the breadth of its services by focusing this content on one single town. T-Mobile will bring its award-winning mobile phone service and newly launched T-Mobile Home Internet service to 100 households and give them free service for a year. We’ll throw in four 5G phones and an HD TV for each household, too.

But home wireless and broadband service isn’t the extent of what T-Mobile can bring to communities. To help close the digital divide, T-Mobile offers Project 10 million, an initiative to bring Internet connectivity to 10 million students. We’ll provide concierge service to identify and enroll households that fit the criteria. The winning town will also get free wireless service for all its first responder agencies, saving vital tax dollars, via a T-Mobile program that’s available to all municipalities called Connecting Heroes.

As a benefit for the entire community, T-Mobile will work with city leaders to identify a community gathering space that will benefit from being tech’d out. That may mean wiring a plaza for Wi-Fi service, decking out a community center with AR and VR gaming tech — an emerging space with tons of potential in a 5G world – or something else entirely. 

For the kids and parents in the town, T-Mobile, a sponsor of both Major League Baseball and Little League, will turn a local Little League field into a Magenta field of dreams. The field will even feature wireless technology called T-Mobile FamCam 5G that makes livestreaming local Little League games possible so friends and family who can’t make a game can still see it live or on demand via their smartphone, tablet or laptop. In addition to the field refurbishment, the town's Little League will receive support from the T-Mobile Little League Call Up Grant, which helps to cover Little League registration fees for families who may not have the means to do so.

Investing in communities
T-Mobile also recognizes the impact that community revitalization can have on residents. T-Mobile has partnered with Smart Growth America (SGA), an organization that specializes in community planning and development, to help with a key part of the Hometown Techover — bringing a community project to life and maximizing its benefits. Having helped scores of smaller towns achieve economic vibrancy, our friends at SGA will help the Hometown Techover winner develop an old plan that never got off the ground or help them create a new project that will enrich the town’s development (i.e., town square, historic neighborhood, community center, etc.). The winning town will receive a $200,000 grant to help make its project a reality.

“We are excited to partner with T-Mobile to help a small town reach its full potential,” said Smart Growth America CEO Calvin Gladney. “Community projects like these can be a catalyst for creating healthier, thriving communities with strong local businesses and jobs that create economic prosperity for all.”

Celebrating Un-carrier Style with Florida Georgia Line
T-Mobile is excited to serve small town America. What better way to celebrate than with a party for the whole town?! To mark the occasion T-Mobile is bringing in 18-time chart-topping, multi-platinum duo Florida Georgia Line to perform a concert for the Hometown Techover winning town. That’s right — the WHOLE TOWN!

“Touring all across the country for so many years, we’ve seen firsthand some of the tech challenges in small towns,” shared Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard. “So, we’re excited to be a part of this Hometown Techover and have the chance to celebrate one lucky town’s newest upgrade!”

Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley continues, “We’re dreamers ourselves and can’t wait to see how the winning town is able to realize their community’s dreams.”

America’s Biggest, Fastest and Most Reliable 5G Network
A Magenta wave is headed to the winning Techover town — and with it, that town is going to be the 5G model for everyone else.    And it’s not just big and fast. Our 5G is also reliable. Just this week, independent research firm umlaut released a new report showing that T-Mobile’s largest and fastest 5G network is now also the most reliable 5G in the U.S. umlaut examined real customer usage from millions of device measurements from the top 5G providers and found T-Mobile customers have the best 5G coverage, fastest 5G speeds and most reliable 5G network. Yet another reason why T-Mobile is the leader in 5G. 

But that’s not the only place the Un-carrier is going. T-Mobile is bringing 5G to small towns across the country! Out of the 1.6 million square miles that T-Mobile’s 5G network covers, 1.45 million of them are in rural and small-town America. That’s nearly 5x more than Verizon and more than twice as many as AT&T. THAT is what we mean by 5G for All!

Ready to transform your hometown? T-Mobile’s Hometown Techover contest begins today, April 8, at 6 a.m. PT and ends at 9 p.m. PT on Friday, May 7. Visit T-MobileHometownTechover.com. Just upload a photo or video of your town and tell us what makes it special. For official rules, visit T-MobileHometownTechover.com/rules.

For more information about T-Mobile's commitment to small towns, visit T-Mobile.com/AcrossAmerica.

Follow T-Mobile’s Official Twitter Newsroom @TMobileNews to stay up to date with the latest company news.

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^{Hometown Techover: No purchase necessary. Open to legal residents of all 50 United States and the District of Columbia aged 18 or older. Enter April 8, 2021 through May 7, 2021. Full rules at T-MobileHometownTechover.Com. Void where prohibited. Sponsor: T-Mobile USA, Inc. Most Reliable 5G according to an audit report conducted by independent third party umlaut containing crowdsourced data for user experience collected from September 2020 until February 2021. Full details at: www.umlaut.com/en/benchmarking/USA}

About T-Mobile
T-Mobile U.S. Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS) is America’s supercharged Un-carrier, delivering an advanced 4G LTE and transformative nationwide 5G network that will offer reliable connectivity for all. T-Mobile’s customers benefit from its unmatched combination of value and quality, unwavering obsession with offering them the best possible service experience and undisputable drive for disruption that creates competition and innovation in wireless and beyond. Based in Bellevue, Wash., T-Mobile provides services through its subsidiaries and operates its flagship brands, T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile and Sprint. For more information please visit: https://www.t-mobile.com.

About Florida Georgia Line
GRAMMY-nominated duo Florida Georgia Line have been making history since 2012. The global superstars are the first and only Country act to achieve two RIAA DIAMOND-certified singles with 11X PLATINUM, #1 breakout “Cruise” (the best-selling digital Country single of all time – SoundScan) and 10X PLATINUM, #1 “Meant to Be” with Bebe Rexha (holding the longest reign on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart at 50 straight weeks). With their fifth studio album, LIFE ROLLS ON (BMLG Records), featuring #1 hit “Long Live,” FGL keeps proving themselves as in-demand collaborators and “one of the format’s premier musical shapeshifters” (Esquire), including recent releases “Lil Bit” (Nelly), “It’s About Time” (Russell Dickerson), plus “Drinkin' Beer. Talkin' God. Amen.” (Chase Rice). FGL’s tallied 18 career #1 singles, 13.2+ billion global streams, sold more than 40 million tracks and 4.7 million albums worldwide, logged 1.7 billion video views, and played to over 4 million fans spanning massive arena and stadium headline tours. Honored by ACM, AMA, Billboard, CMA, and CMT Music Awards, their creative empire also includes FGL House Party Radio with Florida Georgia Line on Apple Music Country, and thriving business initiatives: FGL House, meet + greet, Round Here Records, Tree Vibez Music, Tribe Kelley, Old Camp Whiskey, and Wolf Moon Bourbon (with Jason Aldean).