T-Mobile said it will enhance its Capex spending to $5.8 to $6.1 billion in 2019 as the third largest telecom operator is aiming for 5G network investment.

T-Mobile’s Capex reached $5.5 billion (+6 percent) in 2018 — primarily due to deployment of 600 MHz spectrum and laying the groundwork for 5G.

The company is currently waiting for the final approval from the US regulatory authorities to buy rival Sprint in a $26 billion deal to take on AT&T and Verizon.

T-Mobile’s 5G will be available in six of the top 10 markets, including New York and Los Angeles, and customers can use first standards-based 5G smartphones in 2019. T-Mobile’s standards-based 5G will reach more locations next year.

Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile said the deployment of 600 MHz using 5G ready equipment reached over 2,700 cities and towns on 29 devices.

T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, said it has the fastest 4G LTE network for 20th consecutive quarters based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence data.

T-Mobile’s LTE network offers 4G LTE download speeds of 33.4 Mbps, and 4G LTE upload speeds of 12.1 Mbps.

T-Mobile owned an average of 31 MHz of 600 MHz spectrum. It cleared approximately 135 million POPs and will clear spectrum covering approximately 272 million POPs by year-end 2019.

T-Mobile covers more than 325 million people with 4G LTE, up from 322 million at the end of 2017. T-Mobile has achieved effective network population coverage parity with main rival Verizon.

T-Mobile added about 1 million phone subscribers in the fourth quarter compared with 891,000 additions a year earlier.

The wireless carrier said it expects to add 2.6 million to 3.6 million new post-paid customers in 2019.

Q4 revenue of T-Mobile rose 6.4 percent to $11.45 billion from $10.76 billion. T-Mobile’s 2018 revenue grew 6.7 percent to $43.31 billion.

The company’s net income fell to $640 million in the quarter ended Dec.31 from $2.71 billion.

Baburajan K