Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[cooltech6597]

7 hours ago, dkyeager said:

 

Interesting they got slower... not much 10gig sites in Cinci?

[RedSpark]

Given what's happening with Verizon now, T-Mobile needs to keep ahead of the game with spectrum:

https://totaltele.com/verizon-gains-full-access-to-c-band-after-satellite-exodus/

Verizon had initially deployed 60MHz of C-band spectrum across 46 markets in 2022, a total that slowly expanded as the satellite operators gradually migrated away from the C-band. Now, full access to the company’s C-band holdings means the operator can provide a minimum of 140MHz of spectrum across the contiguous US, with an average of 161MHz.

In 158 markets in the US ­­– covering almost 40 million people – customers will have access to the full 200MHz of spectrum.

This could be reflected in the upcoming rankings, etc.

[Paynefanbro]

2 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Given what's happening with Verizon now, T-Mobile needs to keep ahead of the game with spectrum:

https://totaltele.com/verizon-gains-full-access-to-c-band-after-satellite-exodus/

Verizon had initially deployed 60MHz of C-band spectrum across 46 markets in 2022, a total that slowly expanded as the satellite operators gradually migrated away from the C-band. Now, full access to the company’s C-band holdings means the operator can provide a minimum of 140MHz of spectrum across the contiguous US, with an average of 161MHz.

In 158 markets in the US ­­– covering almost 40 million people – customers will have access to the full 200MHz of spectrum.

This could be reflected in the upcoming rankings, etc.

After they’re granted their Auction 108 winnings T-Mobile will have ~180MHz of n41 on average nationwide. They also have a further 60MHz of n77 that covers nearly 200 million people that they plan to start deploying later this year through next year. I think they’ll be fine. 
 

Not to mention the massive coverage gap between them and the other two and neither Verizon nor AT&T have forecasted when they’re gonna hit 300 million POPs with midband. 

[cyclone]

Are we waiting for after the 2024 election with a refreshed Congress for T-Mobile to potentially be granted access to their winnings? Or do we have fingers crossed that this Congress will actually do work and re-instate FCC's powers?

[iansltx]

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

After they’re granted their Auction 108 winnings T-Mobile will have ~180MHz of n41 on average nationwide. They also have a further 60MHz of n77 that covers nearly 200 million people that they plan to start deploying later this year through next year. I think they’ll be fine. 
 

Not to mention the massive coverage gap between them and the other two and neither Verizon nor AT&T have forecasted when they’re gonna hit 300 million POPs with midband. 

IIRC it's 40 MHz, not 60, of n77, at least in the markets I checked when the C-Band auction concluded.

Still, that's a slice of spectrum wide enough to put T-Mobile at ~220 MHz of midband in those markets, and means VZW would have at most 160 MHz in the same markets. To your point, TMo will be fine.

[jreuschl]

T-Mobike also needs to upgrade backhaul to maximize the bandwidth.

[Paynefanbro]

5 hours ago, iansltx said:

IIRC it's 40 MHz, not 60, of n77, at least in the markets I checked when the C-Band auction concluded.

Still, that's a slice of spectrum wide enough to put T-Mobile at ~220 MHz of midband in those markets, and means VZW would have at most 160 MHz in the same markets. To your point, TMo will be fine.

I should've clarified that I was referring to C-band+DoD. They average 40MHz of C-band covering 220 million people but they also have 20MHz of DoD covering 184 million people.

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-extends-5g-leadership-in-auction-110

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-further-solidifies-5g-leadership-position-with-successful-c-band-auction

[Terrell352]

Can some one explain to me why we haven’t seen a single 190mhz siting on T-Mobile besides lab tests? I know the 6419 can do it. 
 

My market Orlando has been sitting at 150mhz on NR and 40mhz on LTE for what seems like forever. Why won’t they just make it 190? 

[PedroDaGr8]

18 minutes ago, Terrell352 said:

Can some one explain to me why we haven’t seen a single 190mhz siting on T-Mobile besides lab tests? I know the 6419 can do it. 
 

My market Orlando has been sitting at 150mhz on NR and 40mhz on LTE for what seems like forever. Why won’t they just make it 190? 

I have NO IDEA how they decide to allocate BW. That being said, so few of their sites can even make use of the extra BW due to their limited backhaul that maybe it just makes sense to keep it as is?

As an aside, I have noticed a number of new sites near me no longer broadcast B41 at all (though n41 isn't expanded). So maybe they are gradually planning for the transition?

[Yuhfhrh]

1 hour ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

I have NO IDEA how they decide to allocate BW. That being said, so few of their sites can even make use of the extra BW due to their limited backhaul that maybe it just makes sense to keep it as is?

As an aside, I have noticed a number of new sites near me no longer broadcast B41 at all (though n41 isn't expanded). So maybe they are gradually planning for the transition?

This is how I saw it. No need to dedicate all the 2.5 to N41, when the site only has 1gbps backhaul. 100MHz N41 will already be fully saturated. Keeping b41 active allows LTE devices have a good experience in the meantime until backhaul is improved.

[dkyeager]

15 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

After they’re granted their Auction 108 winnings T-Mobile will have ~180MHz of n41 on average nationwide. They also have a further 60MHz of n77 that covers nearly 200 million people that they plan to start deploying later this year through next year. I think they’ll be fine. 
 

Not to mention the massive coverage gap between them and the other two and neither Verizon nor AT&T have forecasted when they’re gonna hit 300 million POPs with midband. 

Auction 108 will primarily benefit rural to small city areas, thus will help with statewide rankings such as root metrics, along with improved rural internet access.

In addition to C-Band/DOD, T-Mobile will soon need to buildout its mmWave due to licensing requirements. At one point we saw sites that serve areas such as freeway intersections getting mmWave. This might be a very cost effective method of serving many people versus small cells in neighborhoods. Any reports as to how this is working? 

[dkyeager]

Dish is buying at least some of the Sprint 800MHz spectrum. I did see Maine covered, so they are buying some in border regions.

 

[jreuschl]

Hopefully mmwave will be more widespread than WiMAX!

[iansltx]

13 hours ago, jreuschl said:

Hopefully mmwave will be more widespread than WiMAX!

Not a chance heh. WiMAX freqs are an order of magnitude lower, than Clearwire's footprint in Austin alone was larger than VZW's entire mmW footprint, let alone T-Mobile's.

[iansltx]

On 8/15/2023 at 1:31 PM, jreuschl said:

T-Mobike also needs to upgrade backhaul to maximize the bandwidth.

I believe I hit two more sites yesterday with backhaul in excess of a gig, in addition to the site nearest me. I expect more upgrades sooner rather than later now that VZW can hit >700 Mbps on mid-band in way more places (saw 915 Mbps last night on a site that also has mmW...I'm 99% sure I was on C-Band at that point but it may have been bouncing to mmW).

So the upgrades *are* happening. They're just being rather surgical about it, though as of literally this week they now have a significant competitive reason not to hold back.

[dkyeager]

The strategy of buying 2.5Ghz licenses at a higher price to lease back to T-Mobile appears to be dying:

https://www.lightreading.com/5g-and-beyond/the-t-mobile-wco-fight-gets-muddy/d/d-id/786157?

[jreuschl]

7 hours ago, iansltx said:

Not a chance heh. WiMAX freqs are an order of magnitude lower, than Clearwire's footprint in Austin alone was larger than VZW's entire mmW footprint, let alone T-Mobile's.

I was in a market (Milwaukee) that only had two WiMAX sites live just to keep the license alive, so apologies if my comment was ignorant.  But I hope T-Mobile uses mmwave at places that need high bandwidth.

[Dkoellerwx]

15 hours ago, jreuschl said:

But I hope T-Mobile uses mmwave at places that need high bandwidth.

They are, but the coverage footprint is incredibly small, think individual buildings/stadiums vs neighborhood level coverage. WiMax/B41/n41 was able to function as a macro site, mmWave works best as a small cell, or in DAS usage due to the very high frequency and small usable footprint.

[cooltech6597]

On 8/15/2023 at 6:28 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

I have NO IDEA how they decide to allocate BW. That being said, so few of their sites can even make use of the extra BW due to their limited backhaul that maybe it just makes sense to keep it as is?

As an aside, I have noticed a number of new sites near me no longer broadcast B41 at all (though n41 isn't expanded). So maybe they are gradually planning for the transition?

In certain markets 190mhz makes sense... Tmo has a lot of n41 sites with greater than gigabit backhaul on it in my market, with little market share in most areas (b12/66 sites can still do 80mbps at noon). Given the meh density here it would make sense for them to widen to 180mhz so edge cell performace is a lot better as well. 

[the_intern]

On the topic of backhaul, I was talking to a T-Mobile tech at a local site recently. He claimed that the site has 10Gbps transport, even though my speeds are generally always between 700-800 Mbps only. He mentioned that most(?) T-Mobile sites place a limit on individual UE throughput below what is theoretically possible. To test this, I took a family members phone and ran two speedtests at the same time. Sure enough, both of our devices got ~700 Mbps simultaneously. Could whatever they are doing be why we generally assume that T-Mobile still has 'limited' backhaul on most sites? 

[Paynefanbro]

12 minutes ago, the_intern said:

On the topic of backhaul, I was talking to a T-Mobile tech at a local site recently. He claimed that the site has 10Gbps transport, even though my speeds are generally always between 700-800 Mbps only. He mentioned that most(?) T-Mobile sites place a limit on individual UE throughput below what is theoretically possible. To test this, I took a family members phone and ran two speedtests at the same time. Sure enough, both of our devices got ~700 Mbps simultaneously. Could whatever they are doing be why we generally assume that T-Mobile still has 'limited' backhaul on most sites? 

That's really enlightening. I've always said that it felt like T-Mobile was trying to maintain a baseline in my neighborhood of 500/100 at all times of day. So far that has held up despite 5G usage increasing a ton since my site first got upgraded. There are even some TMHI customers nearby that I can see when I scan for WiFi.

I wonder what's different about those sites where you can easily pull upward of 1Gbps? Just this morning I connected to a site here in NYC that gave me 1.1Gbps down and 140Mbps up.

[jreuschl]

Problem is T-Mobile brags about being the fastest overall in 5G, yet the speeds being posted after Verizon has uncapped N77 are pretty incredible. There was a 2.3gbps test on r/cellmapper on 140MHz N77.

They'll lose that title quick. I'm not saying anyone needs even 700mbps.

[dkyeager]

T-Mobile reportedly pulling out of Best Buy next month:

 

[Paynefanbro]

1 hour ago, jreuschl said:

Problem is T-Mobile brags about being the fastest overall in 5G, yet the speeds being posted after Verizon has uncapped N77 are pretty incredible. There was a 2.3gbps test on r/cellmapper on 140MHz N77.

They'll lose that title quick. I'm not saying anyone needs even 700mbps.

I think it's important to remember that we're in a honeymoon period for Verizon's C-band network so we're gonna see a ton of gigabit speed tests since people are running around testing every site to post the fastest speeds they can find. The reality though is that the vast majority of sites are nowhere near that fast, just as it is on T-Mobile. I have plenty of gigabit speed tests on T-Mobile myself. I just don't feel the need to upload each one I get.

That said I think we'll see a lot more backhaul increases on T-Mobile in the coming months. It's in their best interest to keep up the perception of being America's largest and fastest 5G network. In NYC I've encountered a lot of sites that received backhaul upgrades in the past few months so the work is definitely being done. You can even see it in the screenshot that the number of gigabit speed tests is increasing in recent months.

[RedSpark]

New T-Mobile Plan dropped: Go5G Next..... "iPhone Forever" is back... Sort of.

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/t-mobile-unveils-go5g-next

Also: 

 

We're currently on Sprint Max from the migration.... This looks interesting given that we like to upgrade our iPhones each year.