Technologies

T-Mobile Leads US Carriers With Over 900,000 Added Phone Customers

The carrier’s positive holiday quarter continued its growth streak.

T-Mobile grew its customer base over the holiday period, finishing the year with another strong quarter that saw it bring in 927,000 postpaid phone additions over the quarter, the metric used by the industry as an indicator of success.

This capped off a year of growth for phones that resulted in 3.1 million more that signed up for monthly plans over 2022. All told, it had 6.4 million net additions over 2022, half of which had signed up for phone plans.

«We’re winning the highest share of switching decisions in the industry,» T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. He didn’t say if the carrier would be changing its promotional strategy, standing in contrast with AT&T’s and Verizon’s recently declared intent to wind down their aggressive phone deals, which had been used to lure customers.

Sievert addressed the recent cybersecurity breach that affected 37 million T-Mobile customers, voicing regret that any information was exposed but noting that the carrier’s systems prevented the «most sensitive kinds» of data from being accessed. The hack was the fifth breach in five years, prompting concern over the carrier’s security.

T-Mobile continued slowly growing its 5G network and announced that it is now covering 265 million people with its faster midband and millimeter-wave «Ultra Capacity» 5G flavors, which offer significantly improved speeds and capacity compared to 4G LTE and its low-band 5G network (what T-Mobile calls «Extended Range 5G»). That marks an increase of 15 million over the last quarter, with the carrier planning to expand this faster network to 300 million people by the end of 2023.

Sievert said that of its 150 MHz of spectrum, 130 MHz is dedicated to midband 5G, which it aims to grow to 200 MHz by the end of 2023.

T-Mobile reported a more modest 25,000 prepaid net additions due to customers switching providers, though the carrier noted that it was the only one with positive gains — Verizon lost 175,000 and AT&T lost 13,000 prepaid customers over the holiday period. Sievert took this as a healthy sign for the industry as customers continued to shift from prepaid to postpaid contracts.

T-Mobile’s internet customer base grew with 524,000 net additions in the quarter, slightly lower than the 578,000 added last quarter as the carrier adjusts to increased deactivations from a customer base that grew to 2.6 million by the end of the year. Most of these are using T-Mobile’s fixed wireless running on its mobile 5G network, which Sievert acknowledged on the call has less overall bandwidth capacity than wired fiber internet but which is cheaper and available to tens of millions of households without needing to go through the trouble of laying cable, making it attractive to customers.

«Most of our [fixed wireless] customers are coming directly from cable, not just from rural areas or unconnected places or DSL,» Sievert said.

T-Mobile reported $15.5 billion in service revenue, a growth of 4% year over year, which resulted in a diluted earnings per share of $1.18, an increase of 71% from the same period in 2021. That was above the $1.10 earnings per share expected by analysts polled by Yahoo Finance.

Shares of T-Mobile rose 0.5% in early morning trading.

T-Mobile said it’s on track to meet expectations for 2023, which includes finalizing its integration with Sprint’s network by the end of the year. The carrier had «substantially completed» decommissioning of Sprint’s network in the third quarter of 2022. T-Mobile expects postpaid net customer additions of between 5 million and 5.5 million, half of which will be on phones.

The company capped off its quarterly report by committing to a sustainability goal of zero emissions across its entire carbon footprint by 2040, though it didn’t offer any specifics on how it would meet that goal.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Oct. 14

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 14.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword has an odd vertical shape, with an extra Across clue, and only four Down clues. The clues are not terribly difficult, but one or two could be tricky. Read on if you need the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Smokes, informally
Answer: CIGS

5A clue: «Don’t have ___, man!» (Bart Simpson catchphrase)
Answer: ACOW

6A clue: What the vehicle in «lane one» of this crossword is winning?
Answer: RACE

7A clue: Pitt of Hollywood
Answer: BRAD

8A clue: «Yeah, whatever»
Answer: SURE

9A clue: Rd. crossers
Answer: STS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Things to «load» before a marathon
Answer: CARBS

2D clue: Mythical figure who inspired the idiom «fly too close to the sun»
Answer: ICARUS

3D clue: Zoomer around a small track
Answer: GOCART

4D clue: Neighbors of Norwegians
Answer: SWEDES

Technologies

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Technologies

New California Law Wants Companion Chatbots to Tell Kids to Take Breaks

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the new requirements on AI companions into law on Monday.

AI companion chatbots will have to remind users in California that they’re not human under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The law, SB 243, also requires companion chatbot companies to maintain protocols for identifying and addressing cases in which users express suicidal ideation or self-harm. For users under 18, chatbots will have to provide a notification at least every three hours that reminds users to take a break and that the bot is not human.

It’s one of several bills Newsom has signed in recent weeks dealing with social media, artificial intelligence and other consumer technology issues. Another bill signed Monday, AB 56, requires warning labels on social media platforms, similar to those required for tobacco products. Last week, Newsom signed measures requiring internet browsers to make it easy for people to tell websites they don’t want them to sell their data and banning loud advertisements on streaming platforms.

AI companion chatbots have drawn particular scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators in recent months. The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into several companies in response to complaints by consumer groups and parents that the bots were harming children’s mental health. OpenAI introduced new parental controls and other guardrails in its popular ChatGPT platform after the company was sued by parents who allege ChatGPT contributed to their teen son’s suicide.

«We’ve seen some truly horrific and tragic examples of young people harmed by unregulated tech, and we won’t stand by while companies continue without necessary limits and accountability,» Newsom said in a statement.

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One AI companion developer, Replika, told CNET that it already has protocols to detect self-harm as required by the new law, and that it is working with regulators and others to comply with requirements and protect consumers.

«As one of the pioneers in AI companionship, we recognize our profound responsibility to lead on safety,» Replika’s Minju Song said in an emailed statement. Song said Replika uses content-filtering systems, community guidelines and safety systems that refer users to crisis resources when needed.

A Character.ai spokesperson said the company «welcomes working with regulators and lawmakers as they develop regulations and legislation for this emerging space, and will comply with laws, including SB 243.» OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice called the bill a «meaningful move forward» for AI safety. «By setting clear guardrails, California is helping shape a more responsible approach to AI development and deployment across the country,» Radice said in an email.

One bill Newsom has yet to sign, AB 1064, would go further by prohibiting developers from making companion chatbots available to children unless the AI companion is «not foreseeably capable of» encouraging harmful activities or engaging in sexually explicit interactions, among other things.