Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[Brad The Beast]

Just now, Tengen31 said:

M-Mimo is only where Sprint covers now. Small phases I don't know. They softbank really wants to merger cause then they can't just deploy Sprint spectrum onto TMobile towers. As posted on the forum the cellular one expansion isn't happening.

I would say if they're doing well enough to deploy all of these M-MIMO antennas in their 9 5G launch cities + locations that aren't part of those 9 cities then they should be doing well enough to expand coverage in small amounts. 

[Tengen31]

I would say if they're doing well enough to deploy all of these M-MIMO antennas in their 9 5G launch cities + locations that aren't part of those 9 cities then they should be doing well enough to expand coverage in small amounts. 

They could do even better if they could cover what VZW does with LTE but with 5G and LTE. If they had the 6 billion capex I could see that happening cause I've heard B41 is lowband on 5G. Just not sure how anymore. B41/71 would work every better, plus new Tmobile could even use B25 for 5G and keep 66,12,26, and current 3B41 for LTE

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[Brynn0823]

Yeah that only works for where Sprint covers now. Not the rest where they don't cover that Tmobile does cover and would make use of the spectrum in these areas. Coverage is more important to me than speed.  
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I have both sprint and T-Mobile. T-Mobiles coverage is nothing to brag about whatsoever. A lot of fair coverage in rural areas and it’s unusable and I travel a lot for work. I would rather go to Verizon when this merger is complete. I’ll pay them a little more for quality over T-Mobile any day


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[Tengen31]

 

 

I have both sprint and T-Mobile. T-Mobiles coverage is nothing to brag about whatsoever. A lot of fair coverage in rural areas and it’s unusable and I travel a lot for work. I would rather go to Verizon when this merger is complete. I’ll pay them a little more for quality over T-Mobile any day

 

 

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Isn't there coverage still better than Sprint? Plus the two together will be better rural coverage as that's one thing they promised would happen under the merger. Guess lowband only sites with one sector isn't so great.

 

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[Brynn0823]

Isn't there coverage still better than Sprint? Plus the two together will be better rural coverage as that's one thing they promised would happen under the merger. Guess lowband only sites with one sector isn't so great.  
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What good is T-Mobile’s coverage if you can’t use it on low band only sites ? That’s my point in this. I traveled to Montana last month and South Dakota. T-Mobile has fair coverage so I was thinking I would be fine. I could not use my data at all. Much of their “expanded low band” coverage is not useable. The rollout for expansion has been half assed at best. Together? Yes they could achieve that. But I’m not a fan of reducing competition and I’m not buying that it’ll lower prices. You don’t double your investments in coverage without passing the cost down to consumers. I don’t care how they try to convince us. We’ll keep our current plans for like 2-3 years and then we’ll be forced onto higher 5G dat plans when it’s more widespread.


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[Tengen31]

TMobile cant raise prices cause they have a brand, a brand that will go down hill if they did. They cater to millennials that will leave if prices go up. Prices are more likely to go up if it fails. Sprint can't keep doing free service or 25 dollars for unlimited everything like I have.

 

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[Tengen31]

Also att and vzw did low band only sites at first to. B13 for example it's 10x10 and is easier to use plus they have more money. TMobile works with 6 billion or so a year. So they have to go back later and add other bands. Tho In SD they have others bands. 2,4. Some areas they don't have B12. So is 71 or only 2 or 4. In the Dakota's TMobile lacks spectrum which is another reason they want Sprint. 12,2 and 4 are all 5x5.

 

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[dkyeager]

7 hours ago, Brad The Beast said:

They've been rolling out these M-MIMO antennas like there's no tomorrow. They're deploying them in markets other than the initial 5G launch cities. Since it's a simple software configuration change, they can get 5G rolled out in a lot more places than that by 2024. It might not be the fastest at first but then they win the 5G marketing gimmick. 

Some Massive MIMO sites my be 4G only, used for capacity or eliminating RF shadows.

[Trip]

8 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

Isn't there coverage still better than Sprint? Plus the two together will be better rural coverage as that's one thing they promised would happen under the merger. Guess lowband only sites with one sector isn't so great.

Promise in one hand and do something else in the other...

Fact of the matter is that right now, while T-Mobile has made the map look good, the actual service in rural areas is not good--at least in my experience--and that's with LTE.  I'm not confident that the merger will improve this.  I'm not sure why you expect it to.

Are they going to put many billions of dollars into an escrow account that will be used only to fund rural deployment within a certain time frame and be forfeited to the government if not used?  If not, then what is their promise other than words that could easily be ignored the moment after the merger is approved?

Remember the time AT&T promised they wouldn't increase prices after merging with Time Warner and did so twice within a year?  What was their promise worth?  What makes T-Mobile's different?

- Trip

[Tengen31]

Promise in one hand and do something else in the other...
Fact of the matter is that right now, while T-Mobile has made the map look good, the actual service in rural areas is not good--at least in my experience--and that's with LTE.  I'm not confident that the merger will improve this.  I'm not sure why you expect it to.
Are they going to put many billions of dollars into an escrow account that will be used only to fund rural deployment within a certain time frame and be forfeited to the government if not used?  If not, then what is their promise other than words that could easily be ignored the moment after the merger is approved?
Remember the time AT&T promised they wouldn't increase prices after merging with Time Warner and did so twice within a year?  What was their promise worth?  What makes T-Mobile's different?
- Trip

They bought B71 covering 100% of the country why would they do that then? Plus they said better rural coverage to get the merger to pass. Can't cover rural without lowband

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[Tengen31]

Promise in one hand and do something else in the other...
Fact of the matter is that right now, while T-Mobile has made the map look good, the actual service in rural areas is not good--at least in my experience--and that's with LTE.  I'm not confident that the merger will improve this.  I'm not sure why you expect it to.
Are they going to put many billions of dollars into an escrow account that will be used only to fund rural deployment within a certain time frame and be forfeited to the government if not used?  If not, then what is their promise other than words that could easily be ignored the moment after the merger is approved?
Remember the time AT&T promised they wouldn't increase prices after merging with Time Warner and did so twice within a year?  What was their promise worth?  What makes T-Mobile's different?
- Trip

TMobile stands to lose if they don't make good on their promises. They told the govt better rural coverage so they Dam well better

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[belusnecropolis]

The government just announced another 20.4 billion USD in handouts for ISP's to build their networks out to 4 million more homes. On top of the billions doled out via CAF1 and CAF2. Rural, tribal and urban networks are being financed, subsidized or loan guaranteed to get free revenue streams for carriers by government. Why building out towers to these hard to reach customers or laying fiber in cities with degrading DSL, or other areas without competition is so hard seems to be a culture of unwillingness on the part of incumbent providers to do the actual work to meet these demands. These is a lot of demand. Depending who you ask, 25-50 million United States citizens lacking reliable and fast connections.

The incentives are there for literally every seat at the table. It is an easy make work project for the government and they can say they are connecting Y under X'ed users or whatever group is currently fashionable to market. The leaders of examplecorp get feelgood points to further ingratiate to the folks handing out our bucks, and get something the kids these days call brand potential, influencer credential, charting clout and the ever coveted status of disruptor. Plus all the Jobs! Beating China! Connected America! Smart Cities! It would be a marketing speak big bang.

When the you have all these pieces coming together, you literally can't count on the rubber to hit the road and tear ass up the track if the tire is deflated. I don't believe another round of combining conglomerates will have or has been yet, as successful as we would have hoped at this point in time tackling the tough work of completing the job. It should have been done the last time. T-mobile is expanding at a brisk pace, it can complete that either way. In fact to keep the license they have too. All of the tools have been there for a long time, 700MHz was a decade ago, this transaction mostly just rewards foreign shareholders and will be marketed as exactly the opposite.

1 hour ago, Tengen31 said:

TMobile stands to lose if they don't make good on their promises. They told the govt better rural coverage so they Dam well better

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[Trip]

1 hour ago, Tengen31 said:

They bought B71 covering 100% of the country why would they do that then? Plus they said better rural coverage to get the merger to pass. Can't cover rural without lowband

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This is a non-sequitur.  My whole point was that they have the service on paper, but not in reality.  If they put 5G-NR on 600 MHz on those same towers that currently have 700 MHz, they can fill a map full of rural areas running "5G" with the actual service being as poor as it is today.  (And, if 5G-NR is a more fragile airlink than LTE, then it will be poorer.)  Spectrum is not the issue, deployment is.

1 hour ago, Tengen31 said:

TMobile stands to lose if they don't make good on their promises. They told the govt better rural coverage so they Dam well better

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Lose how?  Once they've merged, what is the remedy if they decide to give the FCC, DOJ, and the American people the middle finger?  I remind you to check out all the remedies that have been used on AT&T so far, such as... ... huh, I can't think of any.

- Trip

[Brad The Beast]

4 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

TMobile stands to lose if they don't make good on their promises. They told the govt better rural coverage so they Dam well better

How so? They can tell the government whatever they want (as they've been doing) to get the merger approved. That doesn't mean they have to follow through. 

[Brynn0823]

Also att and vzw did low band only sites at first to. B13 for example it's 10x10 and is easier to use plus they have more money. TMobile works with 6 billion or so a year. So they have to go back later and add other bands. Tho In SD they have others bands. 2,4. Some areas they don't have B12. So is 71 or only 2 or 4. In the Dakota's TMobile lacks spectrum which is another reason they want Sprint. 12,2 and 4 are all 5x5. 
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That’s my point, they have bands all over the place due to poor investments. It’s basically a half assed rollout based off the funding that’s available. Yes they provide coverage in some rural areas now but much of the coverage is subpar at best.


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[anthony.spina97]

Am I wrong when I look at that map and it looks like the T-Mobile map is their LTE coverage (in light pink) and their "potential 5G coverage" (in dark pink) whereas the Sprint map is just "potential 5G coverage"? Because that's what it looks like to me. If that's the case, no wonder the maps look so drastically different.

 

-Anthony

[Brad The Beast]

3 minutes ago, anthony.spina97 said:

Am I wrong when I look at that map and it looks like the T-Mobile map is their LTE coverage (in light pink) and their "potential 5G coverage" (in dark pink) whereas the Sprint map is just "potential 5G coverage"? Because that's what it looks like to me. If that's the case, no wonder the maps look so drastically different.

 

-Anthony

I think it's supposed to be coverage and spectrum depth. Spectrum depth is based on the color.

[bigsnake49]

16 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

TMobile cant raise prices cause they have a brand, a brand that will go down hill if they did. They cater to millennials that will leave if prices go up. Prices are more likely to go up if it fails. Sprint can't keep doing free service or 25 dollars for unlimited everything like I have.

 

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Or $15mo like I have

[red_dog007]

22 hours ago, Brynn0823 said:

That’s my point, they have bands all over the place due to poor investments. It’s basically a half assed rollout based off the funding that’s available. Yes they provide coverage in some rural areas now but much of the coverage is subpar at best.


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This has been my experience.  In East KY, where T-Mobile has owned 700A for a while, they have thrown up a lot of sites but they are AWS or PCS only.  If you look on their coverage map however, it would suggest otherwise.  The ones I have reached only have 5MHz for LTE. It really is a joke.  And it is sad because I now have an experience than is 1000x worse than what the regional wireless carrier has beings now that TMobile roaming is preferred.  

What is even worse is these new sites that only have PCS or AWS on them are spaced so far apart there will still be issues once they get around to putting 600 or 700 on them.  

And still, their 700A deployment in areas they already own have been subpar in my area.

TMobile has only been spending in the $4billion range.  Was only like a couple years they broke into the $5billion range.  The cheap and fast 2G-LTE and ability to get wideband has really helped them out quiet a lot with the limited capex.  

If they do merge, they will be at ~$10billion capex, more inline with VZW/AT&T.  I don't think we will see the gains of this large capex bucket for a few years unless New TMobile has a separate spending bucket just for merging.  So if a rack needs to be relocated higher or to a new tower that won't come out of capex.

[greenbastard]

On 4/14/2019 at 8:21 AM, Trip said:

Fact of the matter is that right now, while T-Mobile has made the map look good, the actual service in rural areas is not good--at least in my experience--and that's with LTE.  

Their coverage is so exaggerated that it's almost criminal.

Having said that, T-Mobile has done a lot of rural work since 2012. It's gotten to the point where they have much superior rural network than Sprint does in Texas. Sprint's only saving grace is Verizon CDMA roaming. But once that goes away, Sprint will be stuck with a skinny voice network (unless they find a way to bring VoLTE to older handsets or allow WCDMA roaming).

[Brad The Beast]

1 hour ago, greenbastard said:

Their coverage is so exaggerated that it's almost criminal.

Having said that, T-Mobile has done a lot of rural work since 2012. It's gotten to the point where they have much superior rural network than Sprint does in Texas. Sprint's only saving grace is Verizon CDMA roaming. But once that goes away, Sprint will be stuck with a skinny voice network (unless they find a way to bring VoLTE to older handsets or allow WCDMA roaming).

That's what the new roaming agreements are supposed to cover to my understanding. @dkyeager said it will be VoLTE roaming in areas where LTE roaming is available. 

[ingenium]

That's what the new roaming agreements are supposed to cover to my understanding. [mention=25488]dkyeager[/mention] said it will be VoLTE roaming in areas where LTE roaming is available. 

I'd be curious how they implement VoLTE roaming. Presumably they'd be able to get the roaming partner to properly prioritize the EUTRA session for it, otherwise it would basically be Calling+ while roaming.

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[tyroned3222]

The merger is facing more and more uncertainty. That T-mobile is now looking more seriously at how they can deploy 5G using AWS-3..
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/top-three/t-mobile-seeks-more-time-for-mid-band-5g-tests/amp/?__twitter_impression=true


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[jamesinclair]

Good news everyone

Quote

 

The Justice Department is unlikely to approve a planned merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Staffers from the Justice Department have reportedly told both carriers that the deal may not be approved under its current structure, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/16/sprint-stock-falls-10percent-on-report-t-mobile-merger-is-unlikely-to-be-approved-as-currently-structured.html

[Tengen31]

Good news everyone

 
The Justice Department is unlikely to approve a planned merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Staffers from the Justice Department have reportedly told both carriers that the deal may not be approved under its current structure, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/16/sprint-stock-falls-10percent-on-report-t-mobile-merger-is-unlikely-to-be-approved-as-currently-structured.html
So in your eyes layoffs for Sprint employees is good? That's what going to happen if it fails plus how can Sprint pay for 5G when they are paying still for LTE plus they need to expand coverage instead of so much roaming which they can't afford.

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