T-Mobile’s rising financial star continues to fly high in the fourth quarter of 2018 with revenue up 6.6 percent from a year ago to $43.3 billion with operating income of $5.3 billion, up 8.6 percent.

In its earnings call, T-Mobile CEO John Legere tackled several issues including concerns about the Sprint merger driving service prices up. He had filed a pledge with the FCC to continue offering Sprint and T-Mobile service plans at equivalent or lower prices for 3 years from when its prospective deal closes.

“I want to reiterate unequivocally that prices will go down and customers will get more for less,” Legere said.

This may tie up further revenue extraction as T-Mobile grows into the 5G era. But company president Mike Sievert says that it will expect customers to flock to and pay for 5G connectivity via other means.

There is a big broadband business that we expect to build, there are big enterprise opportunities, there are IoT opportunities, there more devices per users, there are new capabilities being developed, all of which we can monetize with revenue growth. But we don’t have plans for the smartphone plans that you see today to charge differently for 5G enablement versus 4G LTE.

T-Mobile had put in paper with the FCC on the topic of the Sprint merger talking about a fixed broadband service fed by 5G, just like what Verizon is offering.

The Un-carrier also talked a little bit about its TV strategy and how it will utilize its acquisition of Layer3. The key for it to compete with Sling and YouTube TV? Don’t even bother with a so-called “skinny bundle” of channels at a base price.

…we think there’s a more nuanced role for us to play in helping you get access to the great media brands out there that you love, and to be able to put together your own media subscription in smaller pieces $5, $6 $7, $8 at a time, it’s an exciting future for us.