Faster cell phone service in sight with T-Mobile rollout

Sep. 3—For Haywood County residents struggling to find reliable, fast internet service, there's a new game in town.

T-Mobile has rolled out its 5G network across Haywood and Western North Carolina.

5G is billed as the next generation of wireless technology that delivers greater speed, better responsiveness and the ability to connect more devices to each other at once.

Heidi Vierkant, the government account manager for T-Mobile, outlined the deployment plan for the county during a recent county commissioner meeting, noting a store will be opening in the county soon. The initial focus was to build out the network, one that expands the entire nation. Now the network is ready for launch.

"It's incredibly simple because no wiring is needed," Vierkant said in a later interview. "There's no trenching, no poles, nothing like that. Users will get five times the speed."

T-Mobile offers cell phone service, and a separate plan for cellular home fixed wireless service that's available to all sectors of the economy — businesses, government and nonprofit entities and home users.

During her presentation to the commissioners, Vierkant spoke of government internet rates of $49.99 a month for unlimited data. The program is available to all users in the public sector, from emergency services to fire departments to water treatment plants to schools and government offices.

The company also provides a fail-over solution, which is a backup system to keep service running should there be glitches, something especially important in the emergency service realm, she added.

What is unique about T-Mobile, Vierkant said, is its commitment to serve rural areas.

"We are not only going to the metropolitan areas, but we're going to smaller, harder to reach towns," she said. "These types of products increase economic and educational opportunities in communities."

Vierkant explained the reason T-Mobile can provide such a robust service was through its purchase of Sprint in 2020, which came with airwave space granted through the Federal Communications Commission.

"Most companies don't have their own airwaves," she said. "When we acquired Sprint, we got all of its access. We then built out in areas from there, which gave us ultra capacity there. That includes most of Haywood County."

Vierkant stressed that T-Mobile has a commitment to maintaining a high quality of service so will be closely monitoring the number of connections to any given tower to ensure service will be speedy and reliable.

"Once someone has our service, we never want to take away from anyone who has it," she said. "Once we reach the maximum, we'll be shutting the gates."

T-Mobile service isn't available in every part of Haywood, she said, but the signal should easily be able to serve some households who currently have slow or unreliable service.

"For homes that have not had an option before or have incredibly slow service, this can be a life-changing opportunity," she said of the avenues that will open up with higher speed service, including video uploads or streaming.

Those living on the northern or southern tips of the county might not be in an area were service is available, she said, but the website has an easy-to-use system where potential customers can type in their address to check availability.