T-Mobile didn"t have the best of years in 2011. A plan to merge the company with AT&T got cancelled thanks to pressure from the US government who felt the combination would result in anti-competive issues. On top of that, T-Mobile is the only one of the four major US wireless carriers not able to offer the iPhone for sale.
This week, T-Mobile tries to remake itself in a new ad campaign that features its long time spokesmodel Carly Foulkes. The new one minute commercial shows Foulkes in her very expensive-looking city apartment ditching her trademark sun dresses in favor of a tight leather motorcycle outfit (albeit still with hints of T-Mobile"s trademark magenta colouring). She then heads down to her garage, gets onto her Ducati bike and goes for a ride through the streets.
T-Mobile uses the commercial to link to a new marketing website called Testdrive where it tries to show that its HSPA+ based wireless network is "faster" than those of Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. However, the website cheats by comparing T-Mobile phones with all of the iPhone 4S models that the three other carriers use. None of the iPhone 4S models support the faster LTE networks of Verizon and AT&T nor the WiMax network of Sprint that it will soon be dumping in favor of its own LTE setup.
Image via T-Mobile