Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[Brad The Beast]

3 hours ago, chamb said:

Sprint's 800 will still be in service,  Not going to Dish right away.

I thought they were selling it right away? Oh I wonder if that's part of the keeping CDMA up for three years thing?

 

3 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

Sprint is bringing 800Mhz. Dish can elect to buy Sprint's 800Mhz after 3 years. I don't know why you're freaking out about it.

How are you supposed to compete with VZW and AT&T when you don't have any usable lowband? Isn't that like the whole point of this merger?

 

Wasn't there supposed to be a spectrum sharing agreement with Dish for the time that they operate as a new T-Mobile MVNO? 

[chamb]

3 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

How are you supposed to compete with VZW and AT&T when you don't have any usable lowband? Isn't that like the whole point of this merger?

T-Mobile has some low band but because of poor site spacing, inadequate numbers of sites, etc, the low band gets overloaded.

If they had enough correctly located sites, more traffic would flow to the higher bands. The merger gives them more and better located sites.

[bigsnake49]

2 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

How are you supposed to compete with VZW and AT&T when you don't have any usable lowband? Isn't that like the whole point of this merger?

Verizon only has 10x10 band 5 and 10x10 band 13. They do OK. T-Mobile will have 10x10Mhz band 71 (more in some markets, 5x5 Band 12 and 5x5 MHz band 26.

[Brad The Beast]

3 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

Verizon only has 10x10 band 5 and 10x10 band 13. They do OK. T-Mobile will have 10x10Mhz band 71 (more in some markets, 5x5 Band 12 and 5x5 MHz band 26.

Verizon has much better site density though and they only do ok. New T-Mobile still won't quite have the site density that VZW does and they'll be working about the same amount of low band. They need to buy Dish's 600. Do we know what Dish's 5G NR plan is?

[Paynefanbro]

12 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

How are you supposed to compete with VZW and AT&T when you don't have any usable lowband? Isn't that like the whole point of this merger?

The whole point of the merger is to get Band 41 and Sprint's customers.

[Trip]

1 hour ago, Brad The Beast said:

Verizon has much better site density though and they only do ok. New T-Mobile still won't quite have the site density that VZW does and they'll be working about the same amount of low band.

Whoa!  Slow down!  If you move those goalposts any faster, they'll fall over and you might hurt yourself.

- Trip

[dro1984]

Brad overload.      "Whoa!  Slow down! "   from Trip... I agree.  chill!   

[bigsnake49]

4 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

Wasn't there supposed to be a spectrum sharing agreement with Dish for the time that they operate as a new T-Mobile MVNO? 

Just the 800MHz at least for 3 years.

[bigsnake49]

2 hours ago, Brad The Beast said:

Verizon has much better site density though and they only do ok. New T-Mobile still won't quite have the site density that VZW does and they'll be working about the same amount of low band. They need to buy Dish's 600. Do we know what Dish's 5G NR plan is?

At the end of 3 years, T-Mobile will have about 85,000 sites, the same amount of Verizon & AT&T.

Edited March 15, 2020 by bigsnake49

[Brad The Beast]

5 hours ago, Trip said:

Whoa!  Slow down!  If you move those goalposts any faster, they'll fall over and you might hurt yourself.

- Trip

I'd love to hear how I'm moving the goalposts. Please, do tell. 

[ingenium]

Sprint TACs have changed to match T-Mobile TACs. This is a prerequisite for MOCN. So they might roll that out soon after the merger completes. Would basically merge the radio part of the networks, but keep the cores separate.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[S4GRU]

3 hours ago, Brad The Beast said:

I'd love to hear how I'm moving the goalposts. Please, do tell. 

We all agree, so it's not necessary.  

Robert

[Trip]

5 hours ago, ingenium said:

Sprint TACs have changed to match T-Mobile TACs. This is a prerequisite for MOCN. So they might roll that out soon after the merger completes. Would basically merge the radio part of the networks, but keep the cores separate.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
 

Not sure where you are, but the Sprint TACs have yet to change in this area.  They did change in Shentel land, but the values don't appear to match T-Mobile values at all.

- Trip

[mdob07]

Sprint TACs have changed to match T-Mobile TACs. This is a prerequisite for MOCN. So they might roll that out soon after the merger completes. Would basically merge the radio part of the networks, but keep the cores separate.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

I noticed they changed here in Louisville Saturday night/Sunday morning. Will MOCN allow them to host VoLTE across each other's networks? I did some quick reading on it and it looks like it might, but I don't know enough about it.

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[RAvirani]

2 hours ago, mdob07 said:

Will MOCN allow them to host VoLTE across each other's networks? I did some quick reading on it and it looks like it might, but I don't know enough about it.

Yes it will. 

[RedSpark]

20 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

Verizon only has 10x10 band 5 and 10x10 band 13. They do OK. T-Mobile will have 10x10Mhz band 71 (more in some markets, 5x5 Band 12 and 5x5 MHz band 26.

According to this, "New T-Mobile" is going to divest its Band 26 to Dish: http://about.dish.com/2019-07-26-DISH-to-Become-National-Facilities-based-Wireless-Carrier

Of course, if you've seen the most recent 800 MHz Transition report, the 800 MHz reconfiguration project is still slogging along: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1030388607753/800 MHz Monthly Report March 2020.pdf

There's additional detail in this Quarterly Progress Report (For the Quarter Ending December 31, 2019) from the 800 MHz Transition Administrator: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10313373707297/Quarterly_Progress_Report_Q4_2019.pdf

[RedSpark]

 

Seems to be a pattern with SoftBank...

At least there's money available for Sprint now... Oh wait.

[Trip]

On 3/16/2020 at 6:01 AM, Trip said:

Not sure where you are, but the Sprint TACs have yet to change in this area.  They did change in Shentel land, but the values don't appear to match T-Mobile values at all.

- Trip

I'm looking at the MLS data for the past few days and it looks like the TACs may have changed in some areas where T-Mobile's TAC values begin with 3 or 4.  For example, in Columbia, SC, it looks like one of T-Mobile's TAC values is 31598.  It looks like any Sprint data collected from that area since at least 3/16 now has a TAC value of 31598, rather than the older 4353 value.

- Trip

[belusnecropolis]

36 minutes ago, Trip said:

I'm looking at the MLS data for the past few days and it looks like the TACs may have changed in some areas where T-Mobile's TAC values begin with 3 or 4.  For example, in Columbia, SC, it looks like one of T-Mobile's TAC values is 31598.  It looks like any Sprint data collected from that area since at least 3/16 now has a TAC value of 31598, rather than the older 4353 value.

- Trip

SC user checking in, can confirm this is legit.

[RAvirani]

1 hour ago, belusnecropolis said:

SC user checking in, can confirm this is legit.

I can also confirm this is happening. 

[Trip]

This implies that the change in Shentel land may have been an interim change, which cleared the 3xxxx range for moves to the T-Mobile values, and then perhaps the Shentel TACs will change again once they make the move to T-Mobile TACs in this part of the country.

- Trip

 

[pokefan02]

I can confirm tac has changed in the Louisiana market in Southwest LA

[mdob07]

Has anyone observed any prep work on T-mobile sites yet? At this point can they go ahead and start hanging B41 M-MIMO gear? Could Sprint lease them unused B41 spectrum in a market for testing and tuning if they do start installing equipment? I know there's still a few last hurdles but it looks to be pretty much guaranteed at this point that the merger will close soon. I've seen tower crews on some T-mobile sites around here but haven't been able to tell what they are doing yet.

[afazel]

2 hours ago, mdob07 said:

Has anyone observed any prep work on T-mobile sites yet? At this point can they go ahead and start hanging B41 M-MIMO gear? Could Sprint lease them unused B41 spectrum in a market for testing and tuning if they do start installing equipment? I know there's still a few last hurdles but it looks to be pretty much guaranteed at this point that the merger will close soon. I've seen tower crews on some T-mobile sites around here but haven't been able to tell what they are doing yet.

I haven't directly observed confirmed T-Mobile work, but a couple of nights ago my T-Mobile service was on and off. A day or two prior to that, there was a crew working on a flagpole site a half mile away.

[RedSpark]

T-Mobile and Sprint are nearing a close on their merger deal, and are poised to pool their respective spectrum resources. Together they’ll have high-band 47 GHz spectrum covering most of the country, and appeared to have picked up licenses in adjacent markets.

Combined, T-Mobile and Sprint are licensed to provide service using 47 GHz spectrum to 95% of the U.S. population (315,331,464 people), according to Goemmer. 

 

How about that....