Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile USA, announced today that John Legere has been appointed CEO of T-Mobile.

“John is a talented and proven executive who brings a successful track record of leading and operating consumer- and business-focused telecommunications and technology companies,” said René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “As T-Mobile moves forward with its strategic initiatives to improve its market position, including expanding its network coverage and initiating LTE service, John has obviously the right skillset to lead the business into the future.”

Legere is a former CEO of Global Crossing, a former worldwide networking services telecom company. He has also in the past served as CEO of Asia Global Crossing, and senior vice president of EMEA and Asia-Pacific operations at Dell.

“I am thrilled to join T-Mobile and lead the Company at such a pivotal time,” said Legere. “T-Mobile is taking a number of significant steps to revitalize the business and I look forward to leading our team and partners to accelerate these efforts to become a force in our industry.”

Both T-Mobile and Sprint are positioning themselves as low-cost alternatives to Verizon and AT&T. Both T-Mobile and Sprint now offer unlimited data plans, in contrast to the more expensive “shared” plans that AT&T and Verizon rolled out this year. Also, T-Mobile has just begun trying to convince Apple fans to buy T-Mobile is in the process of implementing its 4G LTE data network. It will be that last of the major U.S. carriers to have 4G LTE.