T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion
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By Paynefanbro · Posted
From WSJ which is paywalled but they're reporting that T-Mobile and Verizon are working on a joint deal to buy and split up U.S. Cellular. https://www.wsj.com/business/telecom/t-mobile-verizon-in-talks-to-carve-up-u-s-cellular-46d1e5e6?st=qwngrnh4s3bcr76 — — — — — Summary from a user in the Reddit thread: -
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So, in summary, here are the options I tested: T-Mobile intl roaming - LTE on SoftBank, routes back to the US (~220ms to 4.2.2.4) IIJ physical SIM - LTE on NTT, local routing Airalo - LTE on SoftBank and KDDI (seems to prefer SoftBank), routed through Singapore (SingTel) Ubigi - 5G on NTT, routed through Singapore (Transatel) US Mobile East Asia roaming - 5G on SoftBank, routed through Singapore (Club SIM) Saily - 5G on NTT, routed through Hong Kong (Truphone)...seems to be poorer routing my1010 - LTE on SoftBank and KDDI (seems to prefer KDDI), routed through Taiwan (Chunghwa Telecom) I wouldn't buy up on the T-Mobile international roaming, but it's a solid fallback. If you have the US Mobile roaming eSIM that's a great option. Otherwise Ubigi, Airalo, or my1010 are all solid options, so get whatever's cheapest. I wouldn't bother trying to find a physical SIM from IIJ...the Japanese IP is nice but there's enough WiFi that you can get a Japanese IP enough for whatever you need, and eSIM flexibility is great (IIJ as eSIM but seems a bit more involved to get it to work). -
So, the rural part of the journey still has cell service for nearly all the way, usually on B18/19/8 (depending on whether we're talking about KDDI/NTT/SoftBank). I think I saw a bit of B28 and even n28 early on in the trip, though that faded out after a bit. Once we got to where we were going though, KDDI had enough B41 to pull 150+ Mbps, while NTT and SoftBank had B1/B3 IIRC. Cell service was likewise generally fine from Kawaguchiko Station to Tokyo on the express bus to Shinjuku Station, though there were some cases where only low-band LTE was available and capacity seemed to struggle. I also figured out what I was seeing with SoftBank on 40 MHz vs. 100 MHz n77: the 40 MHz blocks are actually inside the n78 band class, but SoftBank advertises them as n77, probably to facilitate NR CA. My phone likely preferred the 40 MHz slices as they're *much* lower-frequency, ~3.4 GHz rather than ~3.9, though of course I did see the 100 MHz slice being used rather often. By contrast, when I got NR on NTT it was either n28 10x10 or, more often, 100 MHz n78. As usual, EMEA bands on my S24 don't CA, so any data speeds I saw were the result of either one LTE carrier or one LTE carrier plus one NR carrier...except for B41 LTE. KDDI seems to have more B41 bandwidth live at this point, so my1010 or Airalo works well for this, and honestly while SoftBank and NTT 5G (in descending order of availability) have 5G that's readily available it may be diminishing returns, particularly given that I still don't know how to, as someone not from Hong Kong, get an eSIM that runs on SoftBank 5G that isn't the USM "comes for free with the unlimited premium package" roaming eSIM (NTT is easy enough thanks to Ubigi). In other news, I was able to borrow someone's Rakuten eSIM and...got LTE with it. 40 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up, 40ms latency to Tokyo while in Tokyo...which isn't any worse than the Japan-based physical SIMs I had used earlier. But not getting n77 or n257 was disappointing, though I had to test the eSIM from one spot rather than bouncing around the city to find somewhere with better reception. It's currently impossible to get a SIM as a foreigner that runs on Rakuten, so that was the best I could do. Also, I know my phone doesn't have all the LTE and 5G bands needed to take full advantage of Japanese networks. My S24 is missing: B21 (1500 MHz) - NTT B11 (1500 MHz) - KDDI, SoftBank B42 (3500 MHz) - NTT, KDDI, SoftBank n79 (4900 MHz) - NTT Of the above, B42/n79 are available on the latest iPhones, though you lose n257, and I'm guessing you're not going to find B11/B21 on a phone sold outside Japan.
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By Paynefanbro · Posted
T-Mobile acquiring SoniqWave's 2.5 GHz spectrum Another spectrum speculator down! T-Mobile is acquiring all of their BRS/EBS licenses and their leases. Details are lacking but it looks like T-Mobile might be giving them 3.45GHz in exchange in some of the markets where they're acquiring BRS/EBS to sweeten the deal and stay below the spectrum screen. Hopefully NextWave is at the negotiating table with T-Mobile so NYC can finally get access to the full BRS/EBS band as well. — — — — — Edit: Turns out this is a spectrum swap where T-Mobile is basically giving them DoD spectrum in a bunch of markets in exchange for all of SoniqWave's BRS/EBS. SoniqWave will likely turn around and sell the DoD spectrum to AT&T whenever the FCC removes the 40MHz cap.
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