Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[jonathanm1978]

On 3/18/2021 at 11:59 AM, Luuminator said:

I live in metro Detroit and it feels like I am now being throttled with my sprint SIM card. Twitch won’t play anymore unless I am connected to WiFi, I keep getting connection issues using my bank app, and Amazon . Those are other apps that won’t run properly. My wife and 17 year old are also having issues with different apps/web. All our iPhones are up to date and have been restarted. Just curious if anyone else is also having issues 

This is why I fear going back to a Sprint SIM. My sons are still on Sprint SIM with their phones, which we just got at Christmas. The two notes that I got 2 weeks ago were sent with Sprint SIM inside, but with TMO SIM in the box that I was told to replace and activate...

FirstNet phone obviously works great...I didn't really want to get a 2nd phone + carrier for myself just to have service at home, but I really can't afford to miss a call...  And is this going to be like Sprint 10 years ago? I called in to cancel back in 2010 and instead was sent an airave... the Samsung version. Told that Sprint would be growing and service should improve. I will say that I was able to make roaming phone calls, even though i was far from having native service...I can't even do that now. I don't understand why I can't even place a call on AT&T towers .. when with Sprint SIM...unlimited roaming for voice and 100mb of data was allowed. (also throw in texts)...

3 miles away from my house, 600mhz works great... so that means it's here..and likely on one of the towers that within 7-8 miles from me...so why can't 600 propagate far enough to just get me 1-bar.... 

Another great thing would be a Magic Box in a 600/700 variant for Tmo...

Or even something to boost band 2...since I can get a bar or so of that in the lower section of my front yard. Frustrating isn't the word .. we've been kinda left out in the cold by customer service... I gave up on calling in because I can't understand half of them.

I know for a fact I can't be the only person who's just not feeling great about the merger and what's happening with the two networks..

[dkyeager]

15 hours ago, jonathanm1978 said:

I know for a fact I can't be the only person who's just not feeling great about the merger and what's happening with the two networks..

Definitely a marketing approach in trying to get people to move over so far.  Some of those who have moved over should have done it years ago.  Starting to see permits for a few standalone Sprint sites to be converted, but only about 10 sites.  About 40 co-location sites will be sold to a WISP in Columbus.  AT&T is my backup plan (based on tested performance my pecking order is Sprint->AT&T->T-Mobile->Verizon.)  Tempted by AT&T S21 Ultra deals, just want 500GB since there is no expansion).

[IrwinshereAgain]

1 hour ago, dkyeager said:

Definitely a marketing approach in trying to get people to move over so far.  Some of those who have moved over should have done it years ago.  Starting to see permits for a few standalone Sprint sites to be converted, but only about 10 sites.  About 40 co-location sites will be sold to a WISP in Columbus.  AT&T is my backup plan (based on tested performance my pecking order is Sprint->AT&T->T-Mobile->Verizon.)  Tempted by AT&T S21 Ultra deals, just want 500GB since there is no expansion).

I just assumed that eventually, Tmobile with expansion and Sprint keep sites, would provide most Sprint users with equal or better service then before the merger.

 

Are you thinking that won't be the case?

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, IrwinshereAgain said:

I just assumed that eventually, Tmobile with expansion and Sprint keep sites, would provide most Sprint users with equal or better service then before the merger.

 

Are you thinking that won't be the case?

The key test will be stand alone Sprint sites in rural areas. Hopefully they understand the superior coverage distance of 1x800 compared to LTE.  Some small cities would benefit from more sites given greater customer density.  Ohio has stopped publicly tracking rural sites so intelligence on this is quite poor.  Historically T-Mobile does rural sites last.

In urban areas it looks like many Sprint standalone sites could be abandoned.  Some of the WISP sites are not recognized as Sprint sites by me, thus it is possible some T-Mobile sites may also be abandoned or these are new WISP sites. It is even possible these are small cell sites or a shared rack arrangement has been reached. Starry has licenses in the 24GHz frequency here (200mhz and another 100Mhz.)

Being marketting driven, it is possible T-Mobile will add more keep sites if they lose too many customers in these areas in their initial conversion markets.

Not certain T-Mobile understands there are some of us who have delayed phone purchases for many years until we have clarity on the keep sites.

For me personally the chip shortage and lack of competion in the Qualcomm 888 space has not helped (my home site now has a permit to be converted).  AT&T has some very attractive offers. T-Mobile will give me a $100 to $200 phone to stick around for a few years, but I normally buy high end and retain them for a while. I bought many more phones when they were wrapped into the plan. My fear is being stuck with poor service while locked into a plan.

[Dkoellerwx]

30 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

In urban areas it looks like many Sprint standalone sites could be abandoned. 

Suddenly all the of the Sprint sites around me are showing as Sprint "keep" sites. I'm sure it'll be different market by market, but so far it seems like they are keeping more Sprint sites around here than they are dropping.

[dkyeager]

38 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Suddenly all the of the Sprint sites around me are showing as Sprint "keep" sites. I'm sure it'll be different market by market, but so far it seems like they are keeping more Sprint sites around here than they are dropping.

The PLMN method appears to me to be often temporary. I am much more inclined to believe permits. T-Mobile also historically completed virtually all of its permits. It should also be noted here that before the merger was approved, T-Mobile moved onto some Sprint sites.

[jonathanm1978]

Sorry for the dumb question, but how do I find out about the sites around me? I know where they are, but I just want to look at them and see if permits are done or what...

[IrwinshereAgain]

6 hours ago, dkyeager said:

The key test will be stand alone Sprint sites in rural areas. Hopefully they understand the superior coverage distance of 1x800 compared to LTE.  Some small cities would benefit from more sites given greater customer density.  Ohio has stopped publicly tracking rural sites so intelligence on this is quite poor.  Historically T-Mobile does rural sites last.

In urban areas it looks like many Sprint standalone sites could be abandoned.  Some of the WISP sites are not recognized as Sprint sites by me, thus it is possible some T-Mobile sites may also be abandoned or these are new WISP sites. It is even possible these are small cell sites or a shared rack arrangement has been reached. Starry has licenses in the 24GHz frequency here (200mhz and another 100Mhz.)

Being marketting driven, it is possible T-Mobile will add more keep sites if they lose too many customers in these areas in their initial conversion markets.

Not certain T-Mobile understands there are some of us who have delayed phone purchases for many years until we have clarity on the keep sites.

For me personally the chip shortage and lack of competion in the Qualcomm 888 space has not helped (my home site now has a permit to be converted).  AT&T has some very attractive offers. T-Mobile will give me a $100 to $200 phone to stick around for a few years, but I normally buy high end and retain them for a while. I bought many more phones when they were wrapped into the plan. My fear is being stuck with poor service while locked into a plan.

Good points.  I kept my Nexus 6 until the screen finally broke.  My wife is still on her Nexus 6.  We have stayed with phones that can be used on any or at least most networks.

We left sprint when we moved since indoor signal was not very good inside my new house.  I guess if Sprint had bought Tmobile, I would now be wondering if Sprint would ever provide me with good indoor signal.  Don't know if my neighborhood would have been saved or abandoned.

Fortunately for me, Tmobile has great coverage here. 

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, jonathanm1978 said:

Sorry for the dumb question, but how do I find out about the sites around me? I know where they are, but I just want to look at them and see if permits are done or what...

If your city, county, or state has a online permit system that allows public access, that is the easiest way.

Otherwise talk to your local T-Mobile store manager. Typically most reps don't care. Technicians in repair centers may also follow this.  The carriers typically make such info available to all of the above.

Worse case you could actually go down to your local building department and ask them.

[Dkoellerwx]

On 3/21/2021 at 6:01 AM, dkyeager said:

The PLMN method appears to me to be often temporary. I am much more inclined to believe permits. T-Mobile also historically completed virtually all of its permits. It should also be noted here that before the merger was approved, T-Mobile moved onto some Sprint sites.

Having a significant footprint where T-Mobile never existed is a bonus here. Every Sprint site outside of the T-Mobile footprint has the keep PLMN. Seems more than temporary. 

T-Mobile already seems to have dropped a previous permit here in favor of a Sprint site that just in the last week popped up as a keep site.

[Mr.Nuke]

On 3/21/2021 at 5:17 AM, Dkoellerwx said:

Suddenly all the of the Sprint sites around me are showing as Sprint "keep" sites. I'm sure it'll be different market by market, but so far it seems like they are keeping more Sprint sites around here than they are dropping.

Omaha probably isn't indicative of an "average" market in this merger. T-Mobile HAS to keep a fair amount of Sprint sites here or else they'll fail.

[mdob07]

48 minutes ago, Mr.Nuke said:

Omaha probably isn't indicative of an "average" market in this merger. T-Mobile HAS to keep a fair amount of Sprint sites here or else they'll fail.

I'm seeing quite a few keep sites around Louisville where T-Mobile had the superior network by a large margin. Far more than I thought I'd see.

[aliensporebomb]

So I just got this in the mail today:

They must REALLY want me (and probably others) off Sprint and onto TMobile asap.

Do I do this?  I'm not even sure my iPhone 12ProMax will work with their sim card - I thought they used Microsims.

I live 900 feet from a b41 site on the Sprint side. But, I've NEVER had any experience using TMobile in this city so I have no clue what it's like.

The very fastest speed I've gotten is 349 MB down and 100 MB up.  But not all of the time.  During the business day we're talking maybe half of that.

 

 

[Paynefanbro]

2 hours ago, aliensporebomb said:

So I just got this in the mail today:

They must REALLY want me (and probably others) off Sprint and onto TMobile asap.

Do I do this?  I'm not even sure my iPhone 12ProMax will work with their sim card - I thought they used Microsims.

I live 900 feet from a b41 site on the Sprint side. But, I've NEVER had any experience using TMobile in this city so I have no clue what it's like.

The very fastest speed I've gotten is 349 MB down and 100 MB up.  But not all of the time.  During the business day we're talking maybe half of that.

 

 

If I were you I’d check Cellmapper to see what towers are in your area. Additionally the sim should come in multiple sizes. You can choose the correct one for your device. 

[aliensporebomb]

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

If I were you I’d check Cellmapper to see what towers are in your area. Additionally the sim should come in multiple sizes. You can choose the correct one for your device. 

I sort of gave up on crowdsourced cell tower info when sensorly died but did not know about this - this is amazing!

But, it looks like TMo has quite a bit more towers in my general area.  Hmmm...

 

 

 

 

[RAvirani]

29 minutes ago, aliensporebomb said:

I sort of gave up on crowdsourced cell tower info when sensorly died but did not know about this - this is amazing!

Crowdsourcing is almost ready for SignalCheck!

[aliensporebomb]

It's very interesting - my "home tower" is technically TMo now according to cellmapper and a new tower about 1 mile away that I saw going in last year is technically the Sprint tower now.  How strange.  

That being said I decided to test it and the TMobile network is possibly more widespread in my area but the max speeds aren't quite as high (yet).  

Since they're kind of building the bridge while crossing it that is bound to happen.  

But just so you know, if you swap to the TMobile SIM and convert over, you can't go back (I tried just to see what would happen).  So someone can learn from my experimentation.

In a way it's sad, I really liked Sprint even though the TMobile network is going to be largely one and
the same apparently.  I'd been on Sprint for many years and it feels like I've moved into a house where the floors are cold.

[Luuminator]

So I talked to a friend of mine that works for sprint/T-Mobile and yes they are now throttling all sprint users now and they want all sprint users swapped to T-Mobile sims by the end of the year

[grapkoski]

1 hour ago, Luuminator said:

So I talked to a friend of mine that works for sprint/T-Mobile and yes they are now throttling all sprint users now and they want all sprint users swapped to T-Mobile sims by the end of the year

Was there an internal directive? Odd they didn't do more of a push for people to voluntairly move (and make it as easy as ordering a sim card online without talking to an agent), before starting to poke people with sticks like this.

[Cardsfan96]

1 hour ago, Luuminator said:

So I talked to a friend of mine that works for sprint/T-Mobile and yes they are now throttling all sprint users now and they want all sprint users swapped to T-Mobile sims by the end of the year

So what’s the throttle? A throttle would indicate some kind of speed cap which I am not seeing. Deprioritization maybe but those are very different.

[iansltx]

2 hours ago, Luuminator said:

So I talked to a friend of mine that works for sprint/T-Mobile and yes they are now throttling all sprint users now and they want all sprint users swapped to T-Mobile sims by the end of the year

That doesn't seem to match with what I'm seeing. If we're talking about a hard throttle here, I wouldn't be able to hit >100 Mbps over TMo B41. I'm also still getting my 8 Mbps on Fast.com. I can't prove deprioritization, but this doesn't look like throttling to me.

Now, I'd be fine if they sent me a TNX SIM, but my plan apparently doesn't support that.

[aliensporebomb]

2 hours ago, Luuminator said:

So I talked to a friend of mine that works for sprint/T-Mobile and yes they are now throttling all sprint users now and they want all sprint users swapped to T-Mobile sims by the end of the year

Anecdotal evidence: I got an email offering a sim.

I didn't respond to the email and I received a SIM in the mail with a flashy package job.
(see the pic in this thread above).

I did wait a couple days and figured I'd give it a go since cellmapper made TMobile look slightly better than Sprint in terms of sheer coverage.

I did a speedtest over lunch today and got about 400 mbps down and 54 something up.  Upload speed varied but the download speed was at or pushing 400 mbps.  So not bad.   Sprint I was getting 328 on the high side some months ago.

[Luuminator]

Ok I used the wrong wording. I apologize. I keep forgetting that 99.9% of the users here are much smarter in the mobile area then I am. So the way I took it is they have already started to move sprint frequencies and resources to the new T-Mobile so the sprint side is getting over congested. Again I’m sorry for saying throttling I was explaining to my wife and oldest child which do not understand all the technical things and it just carried over to my post

[Cardsfan96]

2 hours ago, Luuminator said:

Ok I used the wrong wording. I apologize. I keep forgetting that 99.9% of the users here are much smarter in the mobile area then I am. So the way I took it is they have already started to move sprint frequencies and resources to the new T-Mobile so the sprint side is getting over congested. Again I’m sorry for saying throttling I was explaining to my wife and oldest child which do not understand all the technical things and it just carried over to my post

The way you originally said it and what your saying now are totally different. You said it was information from a T-Mobile employee. Throttling a sprint sim and congestion on the sprint network are very different things.

[JossMan]

Noticed a crew here in the middle of town yesterday that completely ripped and replaced this entire site that was GMO 1900MHz LTE only, I don't keep up with T-Mobile's gear but they were putting up this brand new configuration today.