Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[dkyeager]

10 hours ago, Trip said:

Could "an affiliate" in #2 be Swiftel?  Trying to puzzle out who it could be and that's all that really makes sense to me.

As far as #1 goes, I'm finding it hard to believe that there were so few.  Or is that only customers who are already cut off from service entirely via the CDMA retirement on 3/31?  Like, I still have service that works fine since I have a VoLTE through Sprint, and I have to imagine there are a lot more like me.

- Trip

I think Swiftel is a good choice given how small the numbers are.

The CDMA numbers are likely people who still have LG G2s etc.  Really no penalty under Sprint since they had all bands. ideal for people who barely use their phones and thus likely quite profitable.  Could also be people on special government programs who T-Mobile feels are too risky to serve given audit requirements and changing policies.

The big three's ecosystems are more dependent on phone sales than they want to admit.  The T-Mobile $10 plan is another way to try to retain the old phone users who move to MVNOs.

Not certain whether the free 5g phones will continue after Sprint network and  T-Mobile 3g shutdowns roughly on July 1 .  Noticed how T-Mobile gave themselves more flexibility by listing time periods rather than fixed dates.

[RedSpark]

Coming up soon...

[Mr.Nuke]

22 hours ago, Trip said:

Could "an affiliate" in #2 be Swiftel?  Trying to puzzle out who it could be and that's all that really makes sense to me.

Yes. https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/t-mobile-to-buy-swiftel-assets-as-lone-sprint-affiliate-remains

 

 

[cooltech6597]

T-Mobile n41 last April vs Now. So many upgrades in the past year

https://imgur.com/a/sIrYiuZ

[iansltx]

Was in Albuquerque yesterday and this morning. n41 is 80 MHz there. Something funky is going on, as the ARFCN there was 501390, which maps to 2506.95 MHz. There's LTE B41 at 2587 or so, which would put that at the top of the NR channel I think if that ARFCN mapped to the bottom of the NR channel...but that wouldn't map right for the 100 MHz channel in Austin...

There's also a B41 LTE channel at 2668.4 MHz. Both that and the 2587 one appear to be native T-Mobile; didn't see Sprint B41 there. Pretty sure TMo could eke out 100 MHz if they dropped the 2587 B41 carrier, though as it stands the network is easily faster than anyone else's (unless you count the patches of VZW mmW in a few areas).

I thought I saw a B2/25 MFBI carrier as well at 15x15 but not 100% on that; will have to check when I'm back in town. Did see 5x5 B25 in PCS A-F though, in addition to the G block. And of course B26. On the TMo side there's 15x15 n71, B12, and 20x20 + 10x10 B66 in addition to the aforementioned B2.

GF is on VZW (US Mobile) and performance was generally lackluster; n5 across town is nothing to write home about. My fault that she's on USM (was trying to get redundancy as she was going to do TMo home internet), but almost certain TMo/Mint would be a much better idea.

 

 

[dkyeager]

15 hours ago, iansltx said:

Was in Albuquerque yesterday and this morning. n41 is 80 MHz there. Something funky is going on, as the ARFCN there was 501390, which maps to 2506.95 MHz. There's LTE B41 at 2587 or so, which would put that at the top of the NR channel I think if that ARFCN mapped to the bottom of the NR channel...but that wouldn't map right for the 100 MHz channel in Austin...

There's also a B41 LTE channel at 2668.4 MHz. Both that and the 2587 one appear to be native T-Mobile; didn't see Sprint B41 there. Pretty sure TMo could eke out 100 MHz if they dropped the 2587 B41 carrier, though as it stands the network is easily faster than anyone else's (unless you count the patches of VZW mmW in a few areas).

I thought I saw a B2/25 MFBI carrier as well at 15x15 but not 100% on that; will have to check when I'm back in town. Did see 5x5 B25 in PCS A-F though, in addition to the G block. And of course B26. On the TMo side there's 15x15 n71, B12, and 20x20 + 10x10 B66 in addition to the aforementioned B2.

GF is on VZW (US Mobile) and performance was generally lackluster; n5 across town is nothing to write home about. My fault that she's on USM (was trying to get redundancy as she was going to do TMo home internet), but almost certain TMo/Mint would be a much better idea.

 

 

Although US Mobile now reportedly has higher priority than Visible thus may give better speedtest results and better access to priority restricted bands such as n77 in some areas.  US Mobile has been discussing multi tenancy like Visible recently thus may become more cost effective for hunters.

[iansltx]

2 hours ago, dkyeager said:

Although US Mobile now reportedly has higher priority than Visible thus may give better speedtest results and better access to priority restricted bands such as n77 in some areas.  US Mobile has been discussing multi tenancy like Visible recently thus may become more cost effective for hunters.

Multi-tenancy as in cheap share-ish plans?

I'm just using the pooled plan, as it's rare that I want to actually speedtest...since most of the time I'm not on C-Band heh.

[RedSpark]

Here's what's coming apparently....

[RedSpark]

Any takers here?

[PedroDaGr8]

Damn 1.75Gbps on TMobile! B66(20MHz)+n41(100Mhz)+n41(40MHz)+B2(15MHz). That dual carrier n41 is really showing some nice gains! Too bad none of the towers around here appear to be doing dual carrier OR having the backhaul to provide >1Gbps. 
 

 

[RedSpark]

 

[greenbastard]

On 4/28/2022 at 5:33 PM, RedSpark said:

 

The company is on track to upgrade or decommission substantially all of the Sprint sites this year; it’s been selectively decommissioning sites since the merger closed.

At about 5:02 PM today (literally moments ago), another batch of Sprint sites seem to have been turned off in Houston. My house is no longer covered by any Sprint LTE coverage and I have no signal anywhere. I guess it's time to turn on the T-Mobile bands 😢.

Goodbye B26, even though you spent most of your life as a congested band, it has still been a pleasure.

[dkyeager]

3 hours ago, greenbastard said:

At about 5:02 PM today (literally moments ago), another batch of Sprint sites seem to have been turned off in Houston. My house is no longer covered by any Sprint LTE coverage and I have no signal anywhere. I guess it's time to turn on the T-Mobile bands 😢.

Goodbye B26, even though you spent most of your life as a congested band, it has still been a pleasure.

Still have B26 in Columbus, OH, but only seeing one neighbor.  Might be down to just a handful in this metro.

[schmidtj]

Sprint Legacy Video Throttling Fixed

[iansltx]

On 5/13/2022 at 8:38 PM, dkyeager said:

Still have B26 in Columbus, OH, but only seeing one neighbor.  Might be down to just a handful in this metro.

By contrast, I actually got shunted to B25 last night. I think they were rebooting the radio on the n41 site near me or something. We still have 10 MHz B41 too.

[iansltx]

18 hours ago, schmidtj said:

Sprint Legacy Video Throttling Fixed

I'll reboot later but seems like my SIM still has the throttle to 2.5 Mbps rather than 8 😕

[gr8nuguy]

7 hours ago, iansltx said:

I'll reboot later but seems like my SIM still has the throttle to 2.5 Mbps rather than 8 😕

says you have to contact support and have them reprovision your line

[jf15219]

On 5/15/2022 at 5:28 PM, gr8nuguy said:

says you have to contact support and have them reprovision your line

They really should have a self-service option for this; it would save a lot of time.

[RedSpark]

Numbers are the same from a few weeks ago:

 

Posted today:

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by RedSpark
Made correction...

[Paynefanbro]

Looks like T-Mobile is shifting the focus of their network expansion from just trying to hit POP targets to actually covering as many square miles as Verizon.

From T-Mobile CEO dishes on 5G enterprise, ‘torture test’ coverage goals

Quote

“I give Verizon more credit than AT&T on that front,” Sievert said, noting that T-Mobile has caught up with AT&T on a lot of metrics. “Verizon does have the most square miles covered in the country and for us, what matters is being able to get signal to the places, the torture test places, and this is sort of a relatively new priority for us. A couple years ago, we were focused on population, just get the population covered.”

— — —

But Sievert said T-Mobile President of Technology Neville Ray and Chief Network Officer Ulf Ewaldsson pivoted from a population-driven obsession to a model called “customer-driven coverage,” where they’re looking at their core customers and where they go that’s a “torture test” moment.

For example, Sievert said he was at Mount Rainier National Park over the weekend. He ran a speed test in the national park lodge and got 276 Mbps. That’s a highly remote place – no one lives there –  but it matters, and those are the kinds of places that are a focus now.

— — —

Is there a time when T-Mobile will be in those remote places where Verizon is now in terms of square mile coverage? “Yes, absolutely,” he said, especially as it relates to the places that matter most to customers.  

When an operator goes into a market, there may be a stretch of rural highway – say, a factory where a lot of the population works –  and if they don’t have that covered, “you can’t win,” he said. “You have to know where those places are that matter to people, and that’s what our focus is about.”

 

[PedroDaGr8]

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

Looks like T-Mobile is shifting the focus of their network expansion from just trying to hit POP targets to actually covering as many square miles as Verizon.

From T-Mobile CEO dishes on 5G enterprise, ‘torture test’ coverage goals

 

This falls in line with some of their recent moves in the more rural parts of WA state. Highways and state roads which were previously dead zones are now starting to get coverage and not just token coverage like Sprint used to do. Now if they could just cover St. Helen's in the same way. 

[RedSpark]

6 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Looks like T-Mobile is shifting the focus of their network expansion from just trying to hit POP targets to actually covering as many square miles as Verizon.

From T-Mobile CEO dishes on 5G enterprise, ‘torture test’ coverage goals

 

I'm glad to see T-Mobile doing this. There are a number of "experiential" (tourist) locations where having coverage is so important, either for public safety or for documenting/sharing the experience with others on a mobile device. Improving coverage at these locations actually impacts a lot of people who visit them, but don't (can't) live there. You can really improve the customer experience for a lot of people by making improvements at these destination sites that customers go to and spend a substantial amount of time at.

[RedSpark]

T-Mobile isn’t raising prices but upselling to Magenta Max

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-isnt-raising-prices-upselling-magenta-max

Once again, the strategy goes back to Magenta Max, and to “give customers benefits that they are willing to pay more for,” Katz said. “What we're seeing with Magenta MAX is the majority of our loading mix is coming on to Magenta Max, and we still have a lot more room to run, because less than 15% of our base is on it. So we expect to still see ARPU growth, but do it through creating value with customers and giving them an exchange of value that they’re willing to pay more for.”

[RedSpark]

You've got to hand it to T-Mobile for having the most stylish network gear for disaster assistance:

The SatCOLT Jeep is ridiculously awesome.

[S4GRU]