Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[gusherb]

Opened a Kickstart line cuz I was getting the itch to see what B41 was like these days, and my first time using sprint since April 21st 2015.
The PCS layer is a god awful mess between lack of optimization and congestion, they never did do anything to increase the range of B26, but I’m impressed with B41, especially when it’s running 3xB41 with it as PCC. I drove out to rural parts of Indiana where T-Mobile loses native coverage and found myself on B41 doing 80 mbps up to 6 miles from sites as PCC and still saw it 10 miles as SCC.

I can see how this is such a gold mine for T-Mobile, especially for rural areas when paired with 600. I’m super excited to see what they do with it and hope they try to build out to cover as extensively as Verizon (maybe a bit idealistic but they’ve tried to be like Verizon in every other way). 

Have been seeing 25+25+41+41 and 26+25+41+41 CA combos, though I don’t see nearly as good speeds on these combos as I do when it’s all B41. Also have been seeing UL CA on B41. And while driving out in the rural areas I did roam on T-Mobile 2+71 for a little bit. 
 

That’s all my findings for now. 

[BlueAngel]

26 minutes ago, gusherb said:

Opened a Kickstart line cuz I was getting the itch to see what B41 was like these days, and my first time using sprint since April 21st 2015.
The PCS layer is a god awful mess between lack of optimization and congestion, they never did do anything to increase the range of B26, but I’m impressed with B41, especially when it’s running 3xB41 with it as PCC. I drove out to rural parts of Indiana where T-Mobile loses native coverage and found myself on B41 doing 80 mbps up to 6 miles from sites as PCC and still saw it 10 miles as SCC.

I can see how this is such a gold mine for T-Mobile, especially for rural areas when paired with 600. I’m super excited to see what they do with it and hope they try to build out to cover as extensively as Verizon (maybe a bit idealistic but they’ve tried to be like Verizon in every other way). 

Have been seeing 25+25+41+41 and 26+25+41+41 CA combos, though I don’t see nearly as good speeds on these combos as I do when it’s all B41. Also have been seeing UL CA on B41. And while driving out in the rural areas I did roam on T-Mobile 2+71 for a little bit. 
 

That’s all my findings for now. 

Yeah B26 was never optimized like it should have been, barely any better than B25.

[Tengen31]

I can't believe I never tried that before. But the answer would be no, it's not showing properly as it shows 3, 20MHz wide channels. That shouldn't be possible given the band configuration, right? 

Next time see what service mode shows, that will tell you

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[mikejeep]

Next time see what service mode shows, that will tell you

He did that first, I asked for the SCP info to compare it..

[dkyeager]

8 hours ago, gusherb said:

Opened a Kickstart line cuz I was getting the itch to see what B41 was like these days, and my first time using sprint since April 21st 2015.
The PCS layer is a god awful mess between lack of optimization and congestion, they never did do anything to increase the range of B26, but I’m impressed with B41, especially when it’s running 3xB41 with it as PCC. I drove out to rural parts of Indiana where T-Mobile loses native coverage and found myself on B41 doing 80 mbps up to 6 miles from sites as PCC and still saw it 10 miles as SCC.

I can see how this is such a gold mine for T-Mobile, especially for rural areas when paired with 600. I’m super excited to see what they do with it and hope they try to build out to cover as extensively as Verizon (maybe a bit idealistic but they’ve tried to be like Verizon in every other way). 

Have been seeing 25+25+41+41 and 26+25+41+41 CA combos, though I don’t see nearly as good speeds on these combos as I do when it’s all B41. Also have been seeing UL CA on B41. And while driving out in the rural areas I did roam on T-Mobile 2+71 for a little bit. 
 

That’s all my findings for now. 

Sprint typically chose to have b26 operate better within its given range when they increased the radios from 2 to 4 ports. Most all sites were also given b26 which definitely helped. Rural sites where b26 was added often have the extended range. The biggest area to benefit was cities with lots of former WiMAX sites when they were upgraded to triband. Building penetration is far superior and essential for VoLTE.

[mdob07]

Has anyone figured out out to get NR connection info from their devices yet?

Samsung's service mode gives the most info from what I've seen so far. All CellMapper reports on my phone is signal strength. SCP hasn't been able to detect NR on either of my phones yet.

The April Android update enabled N41 on my T-Mobile phone.

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[gusherb]

1 hour ago, dkyeager said:

Sprint typically chose to have b26 operate better within its given range when they increased the radios from 2 to 4 ports. Most all sites were also given b26 which definitely helped. Rural sites where b26 was added often have the extended range. The biggest area to benefit was cities with lots of former WiMAX sites when they were upgraded to triband. Building penetration is far superior and essential for VoLTE.

I’ve yet to see B26 operate at a greater range than B25, and that includes the newest tri-band setups. Going from 2xB41 only to tri-band seems to have helped a bit though. 
Out in the rural areas it dropped off LTE a number of times while it was on B25 and had nothing stronger to grab onto. Each of those sites is Tri-band so B26 was definitely around. T-Mobile or Verizon will cling to low band for miles past what PCS or AWS will do. 

[RAvirani]

3 minutes ago, gusherb said:

I’ve yet to see B26 operate at a greater range than B25, and that includes the newest tri-band setups. Going from 2xB41 only to tri-band seems to have helped a bit though. 
Out in the rural areas it dropped off LTE a number of times while it was on B25 and had nothing stronger to grab onto. Each of those sites is Tri-band so B26 was definitely around. T-Mobile or Verizon will cling to low band for miles past what PCS or AWS will do. 

The KMW triband antennas have notably poor 800 coverage patterns. The new octoport 4x800/4x1900 antennas are really great though. In Seattle, there are areas where I can pick up -105 L800 when L1900 drops off with the new RFS antennas. The Commscope antennas are a close second place contender. 

[dkyeager]

22 minutes ago, gusherb said:

I’ve yet to see B26 operate at a greater range than B25, and that includes the newest tri-band setups. Going from 2xB41 only to tri-band seems to have helped a bit though. 
Out in the rural areas it dropped off LTE a number of times while it was on B25 and had nothing stronger to grab onto. Each of those sites is Tri-band so B26 was definitely around. T-Mobile or Verizon will cling to low band for miles past what PCS or AWS will do. 

I have noticed with my T-Mobile phone that LTE 700 is allowed to run all the way out, but often it won' t function at that point.

[S4GRU]

21 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

I have noticed with my T-Mobile phone that LTE 700 is allowed to run all the way out, but often it won' t function at that point.

^^This^^  Most of my Tmo B12 signals will hold on for dear life, even though they are unusable, or so slow it is practically unusable for more than a text.  And I suppose I am glad I can still text at the edge, but I will never confuse it with something useful like Google Maps or Spotify.

Robert

[JonnygATL]

Out of curiosity did anyone have a respectable  experience with voice over LTE on Sprint? I never had a reason to use my data while on a call but when I had VoLTE toggled on, I'd always have garbled calls inside of stores where a band 25 or even 41 signal was available, nevermind band 26 (which always resulted in unusable data and calls that were completely unintelligible). It was frustrating so I normally turned it off but was trying to give it a chance as others seemed so happy with something that I had little use for and barely worked in practice. This with a Galaxy Note 10 plus. 

[ingenium]

Out of curiosity did anyone have a respectable  experience with voice over LTE on Sprint? I never had a reason to use my data while on a call but when I had VoLTE toggled on, I'd always have garbled calls inside of stores where a band 25 or even 41 signal was available, nevermind band 26 (which always resulted in unusable data and calls that were completely unintelligible). It was frustrating so I normally turned it off but was trying to give it a chance as others seemed so happy with something that I had little use for and barely worked in practice. This with a Galaxy Note 10 plus. 

VoLTE has always been perfect for me on Sprint. Crystal clear. I definitely can't say the same for 1x, which is complete robo garble all the time (every third word cuts out) due to congestion. At least that's the case in Pittsburgh and San Francisco / Bay Area.

 

That being said, I've been on rural towers with a very weak 1x800 signal and had it sound very clear. So it's definitely a capacity problem. When 1x becomes congested, it cuts quality to increase capacity. In cities this results in absolute garbage calls.

 

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[tybo31316]

Out of curiosity did anyone have a respectable  experience with voice over LTE on Sprint? I never had a reason to use my data while on a call but when I had VoLTE toggled on, I'd always have garbled calls inside of stores where a band 25 or even 41 signal was available, nevermind band 26 (which always resulted in unusable data and calls that were completely unintelligible). It was frustrating so I normally turned it off but was trying to give it a chance as others seemed so happy with something that I had little use for and barely worked in practice. This with a Galaxy Note 10 plus. 

I was having issues inside of Grocery stores. I was using an iPhone XS MAX. I’m now using an iPhone 11 Pro it seems to have better reception than my old device. I’m having a better experience now. Those same stores instead of my phone placing calls on a weak LTE signal it would switch to CDMA which doesn’t bother me because I could then use the stores WiFi for data.

I was also having issues with my calls when driving on the highway. My calls would get really choppy and I could only hear like every second or third word.

[ingenium]

I was having issues inside of Grocery stores. I was using an iPhone XS MAX. I’m now using an iPhone 11 Pro it seems to have better reception than my old device. I’m having a better experience now. Those same stores instead of my phone placing calls on a weak LTE signal it would switch to CDMA which doesn’t bother me because I could then use the stores WiFi for data.

 

I was also having issues with my calls when driving on the highway. My calls would get really choppy and I could only hear like every second or third word.

I've had the choppiness while driving very briefly, and this was because I was on b41 and it got less than ideal. In those cases my phone goes to b26 and stays there for the duration of the call. As it should in my opinion. Congestion isn't an issue with VoLTE, and it uses minimal bandwidth, so it makes sense to use low band, especially when moving, to increase call quality. 

 

 

Normally I almost never drop B41, so the move to b26 was definitely an optimization for VoLTE. As soon as I ended the call, my phone moved back to b41.

 

 

I'll add that I have noticed that I'll occasionallyhave brief cutouts when doing VoLTE via my MB or Airave (both with Ethernet backhaul), but not on macro VoLTE, and that wifi calling sounds better (I have a very good wifi setup though). So I generally keep my phone set to wifi preferred. VoLTE to/from vowifi handoffs have been flawless for me, minus the brief blip of silence during the handoff, so I see no reason not to do it.

 

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[JonnygATL]

12 minutes ago, ingenium said:

VoLTE has always been perfect for me on Sprint. Crystal clear. I definitely can't say the same for 1x, which is complete robo garble all the time (every third word cuts out) due to congestion. At least that's the case in Pittsburgh and San Francisco / Bay Area.

 

That being said, I've been on rural towers with a very weak 1x800 signal and had it sound very clear. So it's definitely a capacity problem. When 1x becomes congested, it cuts quality to increase capacity. In cities this results in absolute garbage calls.

 

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For me it seemed to be the opposite, as counterintuitive as that may be. Even here very much in the city where I live 1x was great for calls. This was most pronounced in massive concrete parking decks or inside a big box store or elevator shaft. No LTE but could still usually make a call on 1x.  Was just generally far more reliable inside of structures and in urban environments, at least in my experience here in Atlanta. 

[RAvirani]

3 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

Out of curiosity did anyone have a respectable  experience with voice over LTE on Sprint? 

I've had phenomenal luck with VoLTE. I've never had any issues provided my LTE RSRP was above -120ish. Calls connect quickly and quality is crystal clear. 

[JonnygATL]

10 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

I've had phenomenal luck with VoLTE. I've never had any issues provided my LTE RSRP was above -120ish. Calls connect quickly and quality is crystal clear. 

Are you more speaking to Louisville or Seattle? I'm from Lexington and am there fairly often but I have only paid attention to VoLTE quality here in Atlanta.  Also, which phone are you using?

[bretton88]

So with T Mobile taking over, what happens to our extended roaming? Especially uscc coverage.

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[RAvirani]

11 minutes ago, JonnygATL said:

Are you more speaking to Louisville or Seattle? I'm from Lexington and am there fairly often but I have only paid attention to VoLTE quality here in Atlanta.  Also, which phone are you using?

Both. iPhone 8. 

[dro1984]

4 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

Out of curiosity did anyone have a respectable  experience with voice over LTE on Sprint? I never had a reason to use my data while on a call but when I had VoLTE toggled on, I'd always have garbled calls inside of stores where a band 25 or even 41 signal was available, nevermind band 26 (which always resulted in unusable data and calls that were completely unintelligible). It was frustrating so I normally turned it off but was trying to give it a chance as others seemed so happy with something that I had little use for and barely worked in practice. This with a Galaxy Note 10 plus. 

Sprint's VoLTE here north of Detroit worked, (finally around Jan or Feb this year.) but was pretty bad.   Similar experience as yours... so i opted to turn it off.   Wasn't ready for prime time IMO.    I still struggle to use it.   I am anxious for T-Mobile to take over around here.   T-Mobile has a tower with AWS on it about 1/2 mile from my house.  Had tried T-Mo about 2 years ago with a pre-pay carrier.   The AWS worked great at the house.    Hoping to be able to tap into that again once things are integrated.  

[though]

18 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

Wish I could get some of this upload in my market (East Nebraska/West Iowa)...

[S4GRU]

I figured out how to get to Field Test/Engineering Screens on my LG V60 DS (*#546368#*600#).  I went to the Downtown site with the 5G NR live and went to the Engineering Screen and see this. 

So this probably explains why it's not populating in Cellmapper.  It's not even populating any data in the LG hidden screens. It just shows connected to 5G and that's it. No band info, no bandwidth info.  No PCI.  No signal strength.

I also noticed that as I drove away and my 5G signal transitioned to 4G LTE, the signal bars never dropped from full signal.  So it never was showing the "bars" for 5G in the signal indicator.  It was the 4G LTE strength. Because where I drove out of 5G NR coverage was near another 4G LTE tower.

So I wasn't able to determine which NR band I was on using Engineering Screens or Cellmapper. But I was able to turn on and off NR bands using the LG Field Test options under Modem Commands.  

So I first tried under NR bands, n71 only and then hit Save. The signal indicator changed to 4G LTE for 2-3 seconds, and then the 5G indicator came back. Still nothing on the engineering screen or Cellmapper, except to say 5G = True.  So I then went back and changed it to Auto select NR band.  It flickered back to LTE and settled back on 5G signal indicated. 

Next I selected n66 only.  Save.  5G disconnects.  Connects to 4G LTE. Then nothing.  After 5 seconds, 10 seconds. Nothing. Stays on 4G LTE. Does not connect NR.  Go back to automatic, reconnects to 5G.  Try it again with n71 only...connects.  Try again with n66 only...stays on LTE.  OK, maybe I can determine that I was on n71 then.

Next I tried n41 only and saved.  It too immediately went back to 4G LTE indicated.  But, BAM!!!  It settled back on 5G indicated. Is it actually connected n41? 

Excited by the prospect of finding n41 in WA State, but highly skeptical, I decide to try other NR bands only.  I was thinking that maybe the phone was overriding my selection and forcing it back to n71, though requested not to.

I went back to auto select NR bands, and reset. It then went thru its normal reset...first 4G LTE and then settling back on 5G indicated.

OK.  Try with n2 only.  Nothing, stays on 4G LTE.  They with n12 only.  Nothing.  When it comes to NR, it would connect to the local site using n71 only, n41 only, or automatic.  No other NR band selections.

Does this mean NR is broadcasting on n41 in my town?  I cannot definitively say. I did run speedtests. But these are not revealing. On n71 I was getting approximately 6-8Mbps up and down. On supposed n41, I was getting approx 10-12Mbps up and down. On 4G LTE I was getting 50-60Mbps. But I hear new 5G sites start out very slow and then drastically approve.

So I don't know what to think.  I can't really get access to this site to take pictures of equipment.  Thoughts?

Robert

 

 

 

[gusherb]

Wish I could get some of this upload in my market (East Nebraska/West Iowa)...

 

No issue doing that here and this was on native Sprint. 

[though]

4 minutes ago, gusherb said:

No issue doing that here and this was on Sprint not T-Mobile roaming. 

Where is 'here'?

[gusherb]

The KMW triband antennas have notably poor 800 coverage patterns. The new octoport 4x800/4x1900 antennas are really great though. In Seattle, there are areas where I can pick up -105 L800 when L1900 drops off with the new RFS antennas. The Commscope antennas are a close second place contender. 

Most of the new setups I’ve seen around here are using the KMW panels.

I have noticed with my T-Mobile phone that LTE 700 is allowed to run all the way out, but often it won' t function at that point.

^^This^^  Most of my Tmo B12 signals will hold on for dear life, even though they are unusable, or so slow it is practically unusable for more than a text.  And I suppose I am glad I can still text at the edge, but I will never confuse it with something useful like Google Maps or Spotify.
Robert

IME B12 is only good for a call or SMS. I’ve hung onto calls for miles driving through areas that I can’t use any data. T-Mobile B12 is basically a voice-only carrier.
B71 since they widened it to 15 MHz in this region will have usable data all the way out to cell edge, about 10 or so miles from the site.