Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[jreuschl]

2 hours ago, swintec said:

is TNA the same as ROAMAHOME then, or essentially the same just with a tmobile sim?  plan stays in the sprint system?  can i get 5G stand alone with TNA?

You can't get 5G SA with TNA.  As far as if it is a better option, you'll see different opinions.  A few here have had positive experiences, there's a thread on Reddit about someone talking about his experience being worse with TNX on his iPhone 12.  So YMMV for now!

[though]

3 hours ago, Cardsfan96 said:

You don’t need esim to tna.

You are saying I can keep the current Sim in my S8 and Pixel 2's and I can get moved to TNA OTA via Chat or a Sprint agent?

[jonnycando]

My Iphone uses Developer betas of IOS...and I got 5G Standalone before anyone else did.....I can turn it on but I can't say for sure yet it's any better 5G...I reckon in cases where 4G would be flimsy but 5G strong it would be good...but on the whole for my experience...I can't tell any difference.

[comintel]

10 hours ago, BlueAngel said:

Not exactly, you get better speeds and overall better service with TNX.

except that with TNX, there is no roaming back onto Sprint, its magic boxes, and its roaming partners (with some exceptions possible for iPhones and TMobile-branded Androids only).  This is important for some people and unimportant for others.

Edited February 13, 2021 by comintel

[BlueAngel]

52 minutes ago, comintel said:

except that with TNX, there is no roaming back onto Sprint, its magic boxes, and its roaming partners (with some exceptions possible for iPhones and TMobile-branded Androids only).  This is important for some people and unimportant for others.

Correct, I luckily live in a solid T-Mobile area, my transfer has been amazing.

[Cardsfan96]

11 hours ago, though said:

You are saying I can keep the current Sim in my S8 and Pixel 2's and I can get moved to TNA OTA via Chat or a Sprint agent?

It depends if those devices are supported for tna. I’ve never heard anything about esim making a difference for tna.

[Dkoellerwx]

16 hours ago, though said:

You are saying I can keep the current Sim in my S8 and Pixel 2's and I can get moved to TNA OTA via Chat or a Sprint agent?

 

5 hours ago, Cardsfan96 said:

It depends if those devices are supported for tna. I’ve never heard anything about esim making a difference for tna.

Most relatively recent devices should be supported, however the S8 and Pixel two might be on the edge of that window. My dad's LG G8 got moved to TNA and we never even did anything. In fact, all of my lines are TNA/Roamahome now and we never asked them to move them. iPhone 11, LG G8 got moved over at some point in the last 2 months. And I got a new S20 FE so it was automatically TNA. 

[though]

8 hours ago, Cardsfan96 said:

I’ve never heard anything about esim making a difference for tna.

I don't think anyone said that. My question was about devices that use physical sim cards and if I can get a TNA one mailed to me for each of those devices.

[comintel]

20 hours ago, though said:

You are saying I can keep the current Sim in my S8 and Pixel 2's and I can get moved to TNA OTA via Chat or a Sprint agent?

S8 is eligible for TNX and I seem to recall TNA as well.

 

[swintec]

I have a S20+.  On ROAMAHOME right now.

My end game is 5G stand alone.  In my house for example, the anchor band (band 2) is weak while the 5G signal shows a much better RSRP. so if i lose band 2 i lose 5G which is quite often.

For instance, band 2 will show a RSRP of like -118 while 5G value is like -105 or so.  If I did not have to be on the anchor band i should have pretty decent 5G service or am i not understanding signal check correctly?

From the way I understand it though, if i go for 5G SA, I need TNX and in that case, I get migrated completely over to the TMO system, get a TMO bill, lose roaming on sprint and more importantly lose any USCC roaming.  I am also on whatever the plan is that old SERO users were migrated to (Advantage Plus?).  This also may bring other various issues.

Is TNX really all I can do?

[Dkoellerwx]

3 hours ago, though said:

I don't think anyone said that. My question was about devices that use physical sim cards and if I can get a TNA one mailed to me for each of those devices.

If the device is eligible for Romahome/TNA, it shouldn't need a new SIM card. As far as I can tell, it's mainly done on the network side plus perhaps a profile update. 

[Dkoellerwx]

1 hour ago, swintec said:

From the way I understand it though, if i go for 5G SA, I need TNX and in that case, I get migrated completely over to the TMO system, get a TMO bill, lose roaming on sprint and more importantly lose any USCC roaming.  I am also on whatever the plan is that old SERO users were migrated to (Advantage Plus?).  This also may bring other various issues.

I don't believe TNX means you are completely in the T-Mobile ecosystem with T-Mobile plan and bill and all that. Several people have only one line on TNX while maintaining Sprint lines on their plan. I'm fairly certain you can get a TNX sim without affecting your plan.

However I do believe you lose Sprint roaming partners, but Sprint sites (especially keep sites) will still be available. 

[comintel]

3 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I don't believe TNX means you are completely in the T-Mobile ecosystem with T-Mobile plan and bill and all that. Several people have only one line on TNX while maintaining Sprint lines on their plan. I'm fairly certain you can get a TNX sim without affecting your plan.

However I do believe you lose Sprint roaming partners, but Sprint sites (especially keep sites) will still be available. 

For me, on TNX with my Sprint-branded S20, in Raleigh, no Sprint sites can be accessed at all, ever, even when there is no TMobile signal at all and it says no connection, which is frequent.  (There are known excellent Sprint signals that I can access on other phones).

Many reps have told ne that this is a stated restriction of TNX - no roaming onto Sprint.  Reps on reddit confirm it as having been stated on the original internal TNX announcement.

Further evidence is that I cannot select anything except TMobile in the operator selection panel.  

Of course I have now converted back to TNA, where I CAN access Sprint sites, although only by band locking to band 41.  (That does not work on TNX).

However there is another possible overlapping explanation.  It appears according to many posters on the T-Mobile subreddit that even on native TMobile, only iPhones and TMobile-branded Androids are allowed to roam AT ALL, EVER.

[mmark27]

21 minutes ago, comintel said:

For me, on TNX with my Sprint-branded S20, in Raleigh, no Sprint sites can be accessed at all, ever, even when there is no TMobile signal at all and it says no connection, which is frequent.  (There are known excellent Sprint signals that I can access on other phones).

Many reps have told ne that this is a stated restriction of TNX - no roaming onto Sprint.  Reps on reddit confirm it as having been stated on the original internal TNX announcement.

Further evidence is that I cannot select anything except TMobile in the operator selection panel.  

Of course I have now converted back to TNA, where I CAN access Sprint sites, although only by band locking to band 41.  (That does not work on TNX).

However there is another possible overlapping explanation.  It appears according to many posters on the T-Mobile subreddit that even on native TMobile, only iPhones and TMobile-branded Androids are allowed to roam AT ALL, EVER.

This is market specific. The Milwaukee and Madison market has been updated with the "layer cake" treatment and for me on TNX R15 SIM (Sprint S21 Ultra), I get B25,26,41 from Sprint. I roam on ATT and VZW occasionally. Most time is all T-Mobile for me but frequently Sprint. So those like my markets, TNX is excellent. But sounds like Raleigh is not one of those markets.

[Cardsfan96]

7 hours ago, though said:

I don't think anyone said that. My question was about devices that use physical sim cards and if I can get a TNA one mailed to me for each of those devices.

If your talking about tna then you can have that applied on a sprint sim. You said you moved over the other devices to tna via esim which you don’t have to have esim. TNX is switching SIM cards from a sprint to a T-Mobile sim. Tna is applied to your line when on a sprint sim.

[comintel]

1 hour ago, mmark27 said:

This is market specific. The Milwaukee and Madison market has been updated with the "layer cake" treatment and for me on TNX R15 SIM (Sprint S21 Ultra), I get B25,26,41 from Sprint. I roam on ATT and VZW occasionally. Most time is all T-Mobile for me but frequently Sprint. So those like my markets, TNX is excellent. But sounds like Raleigh is not one of those markets.

Very good - I look forward to upgrades to come here.

[Dkoellerwx]

7 hours ago, comintel said:

For me, on TNX with my Sprint-branded S20, in Raleigh, no Sprint sites can be accessed at all, ever, even when there is no TMobile signal at all and it says no connection, which is frequent.  (There are known excellent Sprint signals that I can access on other phones).

Many reps have told ne that this is a stated restriction of TNX - no roaming onto Sprint.  Reps on reddit confirm it as having been stated on the original internal TNX announcement.

Some with TNX are connecting to Sprint keep sites no issue. Perhaps those sites have not been marked as keep sites, or the network provisioning has not been done for your area yet.

[jebr]

7 hours ago, comintel said:

However there is another possible overlapping explanation.  It appears according to many posters on the T-Mobile subreddit that even on native TMobile, only iPhones and TMobile-branded Androids are allowed to roam AT ALL, EVER.

If this is true, it'd be a relatively recent development. I know back in 2017 when I had a T-Mobile plan I was able to roam on Viaero without issue. The biggest issue with roaming for some Android phones on T-Mobile is that T-Mobile needs to guarantee VoLTE when roaming on providers that don't have GSM/UMTS available, and their way of doing that is with a relatively restrictive whitelist. However, that shouldn't affect all roaming partners (AT&T, Viaero, and some others have GSM or UMTS voice available if needed, at least currently.) I could see this be a limiting factor for roaming on Sprint towers, however, as that'd likely require VoLTE to connect.

[comintel]

45 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Some with TNX are connecting to Sprint keep sites no issue. Perhaps those sites have not been marked as keep sites, or the network provisioning has not been done for your area yet.

Right I have seen no evidence we have any keep sites at least right where I am.

At the link below, IPCTech (who is advanced tech support and  deals with a lot of users)  says there are very few select places where you can roam back onto Sprint.

But I absolutely agree there are such places.

Here is another quote and many reps have told ne this also.  They us it as a reason to refuse to investigate the inability to roam on Sprint on TNX because they say it is a design restriction.

:

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by comintel

[comintel]

16 minutes ago, jebr said:

If this is true, it'd be a relatively recent development. I know back in 2017 when I had a T-Mobile plan I was able to roam on Viaero without issue. The biggest issue with roaming for some Android phones on T-Mobile is that T-Mobile needs to guarantee VoLTE when roaming on providers that don't have GSM/UMTS available, and their way of doing that is with a relatively restrictive whitelist. However, that shouldn't affect all roaming partners (AT&T, Viaero, and some others have GSM or UMTS voice available if needed, at least currently.) I could see this be a limiting factor for roaming on Sprint towers, however, as that'd likely require VoLTE to connect.

Well there are numerous posts on r/tmobile by people who have "no roaming".  But absolutely what they mean by that varies I am sure and your explanation likely explains a good part of it.

There are many posts from people who have workarounds which consist of taking the sim from the Android and putting it in an iPhone for a few hours.  They say it then learns how to roam amd you can put it back in the Android. That advice is widely repeated there.

Edited February 14, 2021 by comintel

[Paynefanbro]

It's dependent on which operator you're roaming on but the main culprit seems to be U.S. Cellular who has implemented some sort of whitelisting to allow devices to roam onto their network. Their whitelist made it so that all iPhones and T-Mobile branded Android phones were able to roam on their network. Unlocked Android phones do not roam on U.S. Cellular at all.

When I drove down to North Carolina last summer, I had zero signal on my unlocked S20 Ultra in what should have been a strong U.S. Cellular region. 

[Trip]

All I can think while reading all of this is how very user-hostile it all is.  They had two years to plan for the integration and this trainwreck is the result?

- Trip

[chamb]

2 hours ago, Trip said:

All I can think while reading all of this is how very user-hostile it all is.  They had two years to plan for the integration and this trainwreck is the result?

- Trip

I am already looking at the alternative providers.  Right now,I am still ok.  But reading all thee posts over the last month or two about screw-ups and roaming issues, it has made me start looking around.  If & when T-Mobile causes me to have issues, I will already be ready to flee.

[Paynefanbro]

I hypothesized a while back that T-Mobile was going to use the MetroPCS merger playbook and that seems to be exactly what they're doing now. It looks like their main focus is getting people to TNX their device or upgrade their device to one that natively operates on T-Mobile's network out of the box. That way they can shut down Sprint's network as soon as possible and repurpose their spectrum faster.

However, I think that what T-Mobile didn't anticipate is how many people have a better network experience on Sprint's network compared to T-Mobile. MetroPCS had a pretty bad network and they offered super aggressive pricing on new devices so people were much more willing to switch to T-Mobile's network at the time. Sprint, in spite of its faults, had a pretty good LTE network in many areas and arguably had the best 5G network in the U.S by the time the merger completed.

The good news for those that are taking up T-Mobile's offer  to TNX or get a new device is that it seems like T-Mobile isn't shy about repurposing Sprint's spectrum while the migration is going on. First with shutting down Sprint's n41 network to use that spectrum for their own n41 network, then shrinking Sprint's PCS LTE network to boost LTE capacity on T-Mobile's network, and now shrinking Sprint's BRS/EBS LTE network to expand their n41 carrier. It's almost as if T-Mobile's plan is to progressively make Sprint's network worse while encouraging users to switch to T-Mobile. However, in doing so they risk making tons of Sprint users switch to other carriers.

I switched my primary line over to T-Mobile shortly after the merger completed and luckily live in an area where their network is really good so I'm missing out on much of the growing pains but it looks like T-Mobile devices can now roam on Sprint's network in areas where there is little to no T-Mobile coverage so that should be helpful for those who did switch in areas where Sprint is the better provider.

[Trip]

33 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

It's almost as if T-Mobile's plan is to progressively make Sprint's network worse while encouraging users to switch to T-Mobile. However, in doing so they risk making tons of Sprint users switch to other carriers.

I switched my primary line over to T-Mobile shortly after the merger completed and luckily live in an area where their network is really good so I'm missing out on much of the growing pains but it looks like T-Mobile devices can now roam on Sprint's network in areas where there is little to no T-Mobile coverage so that should be helpful for those who did switch in areas where Sprint is the better provider.

If it was solely about where I lived, it wouldn't matter.  I have Verizon FIOS at home, so wireless service is irrelevant to me.  What matters is where I go.  In those places, Sprint beats the stuffing out of T-Mobile all day long.

I have mapped towers (over 16,400 now) for a number of areas, not just places I go regularly, where Sprint has no service, but T-Mobile has sparse service.  By contrast, there are places where Sprint built out a real network, but T-Mobile also built out a sparse network.  Evidence suggests to me that T-Mobile builds in less populated areas to fill out the map.  Sprint built to provide real service.  It means there are areas where Sprint has no service, but in those places, they would let you roam pretty freely so at least you had service.  While in other places, Sprint had a real network, but T-Mobile was just trying to keep people from roaming and make the map look good.

To the extent that they're not letting customers roam onto the Sprint network, which they own and thus costs literally nothing to roam on, that seems like serious malpractice.  I would have thought that with two years to plan the merger, they would have figured out that the spin about Sprint's network being bad everywhere wasn't true.  If they still believe that nearly a year after the merger, what does that say about the future of T-Mobile for Sprint customers? 

In any event, I was commenting more on the fact there are at least three different methods of moving people from Sprint to T-Mobile, all of which are different and inconsistent with no clear information on what benefits or detriments each one confers.  It feels unnecessarily complicated and likely to cause frustration.  I don't see why it's not set up so as to be as smooth and streamlined an experience as possible.

- Trip