The CTO of number three US operator T-Mobile said its network now “covers nearly everyone Verizon reaches,” as it announced some impressive preliminary Q3 customer figures.

“I’m calling it. Verizon’s coverage advantage is gone,” commented Neville Ray in a statement that said T-Mobile reaches 99.7 per cent of the consumers number one player Verizon does.

“Now, Verizon’s rebranding their older, slower network as ‘LTE Advanced,’ highlighting technology we launched two years ago. Even with their ‘new’ technology T-Mobile’s LTE network is still faster – just ask OpenSignal, Ookla or the FCC,” he added.

Financials

T-Mobile US provided a preliminary view of several results for the third quarter of 2016 in a quarter that saw the company introduce its One “unlimited everything” subscription and witness the strongest iPhone pre-order in its history.

As of the first half of September the operator said it has already surpassed Q2 2016 levels in key subscriber performance metrics including branded postpaid phone and prepaid net customer additions.

It said its customer flow continues to come from all three major operators in the country. Verizon “contributed” over 250,000 postpaid phone and prepaid net customer additions, while AT&T “donated” nearly 400,000 and around 300,000 came from Sprint.

“All three wireless carriers tried to match Un-carrier signature moves this quarter, like getting rid of overages and introducing unlimited data plans, but as usual, they came up short,” said John Legere (pictured left), president and CEO.

The figures announced are preliminary and subject to completion of the operator’s quarter-end closing review procedures. T-Mobile US will provide a full update on its growth outlook for 2016 as part of its Q3 2016 earnings report in late October.

Last month, Legere declared “the era of the data plan is over”, when the company unveiled its One subscription, which later came under fire from consumer rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation for going against net neutrality principles.