Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[RedSpark]

1 minute ago, Cardsfan96 said:

Go into field test, LTE, serving cell info and it shows your LTE bands.

Thanks.

freq_band_ind shows 41. Guess I'm still on Sprint....

[RedSpark]

Oh man.... We all saw this coming.

[Cardsfan96]

1 hour ago, RedSpark said:

Thanks.

freq_band_ind shows 41. Guess I'm still on Sprint....

Hey at least your on B41. I was stuck on useless B25/26 most of the time with .17 up and down. If I had more connection time on B41 i wouldn’t have minded staying on the legacy sprint network.

[Dkoellerwx]

On 6/15/2020 at 11:36 AM, floorguy said:

So maybe me??? I just got some S20s, a + and a few ultras.. I have a business account, so i am running 2 phones side by side right now.. an ultra and note 8.

The S20 has been parked on T-Mobile since the 5G update earlier this year. I would expect those devices are not part of the test with 1 million other devices supposedly being moved over to T-Mobile.

[floorguy]

6 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

The S20 has been parked on T-Mobile since the 5G update earlier this year. I would expect those devices are not part of the test with 1 million other devices supposedly being moved over to T-Mobile.

unless you do a phone/number swap around.. then you are only on the LTE for about 24 hrs she told me.. then it reconnects to 5g speeds, still the same bands i noticed.. just no 5g icon, and the speeds were a little slower... odd.. OHHH and it has 1x for voice, instead of just the single LTE,AWS etc reading in SCP.. but I am on B71 right now

 

 

[JimBob]

3 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Oh man.... We all saw this coming.

To be realistic, I would expect New T-Mobile to be cutting thousands of jobs to eliminate overlap in the combined companies as well as adapt to the reduced physical footprint needs of the COVID-19 era.

[kct1975]

This was probably expected...but sux...

After merger, T-Mobile lays off hundreds of Sprint employees – TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/16/t-mobile-layoffs-sprint/


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[belusnecropolis]

1 hour ago, kct1975 said:

After merger, T-Mobile lays off hundreds of Sprint employees

S Y N E R G I E S

[belusnecropolis]

5 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

5G

Have you experienced 5G yet on your handset since it is using T-mobile as mains?

[red_dog007]

12 hours ago, JimBob said:

To be realistic, I would expect New T-Mobile to be cutting thousands of jobs to eliminate overlap in the combined companies as well as adapt to the reduced physical footprint needs of the COVID-19 era.

It'll be interesting to see the net jobs of TMobile over the coming years. In 3/4 years time will it be a net increase or decrease.

One thing I've been curious about is these job promises. I highly doubt it requires a net increase. So if you promise 10,000 jobs, layoff 15,000 and over the next few years you hire 10,000 people back, you fulfilled your promise even at a net decrease of 5k people. It's a similar situation at whatever states were promised.  You just move people around or layoff and rehire to hit your 1000 new employee goals for that state.

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

It'll be interesting to see the net jobs of TMobile over the coming years. In 3/4 years time will it be a net increase or decrease.

One thing I've been curious about is these job promises. I highly doubt it requires a net increase. So if you promise 10,000 jobs, layoff 15,000 and over the next few years you hire 10,000 people back, you fulfilled your promise even at a net decrease of 5k people. It's a similar situation at whatever states were promised.  You just move people around or layoff and rehire to hit your 1000 new employee goals for that state.

Assuming network build success, T-Mobile will need lots of stores in small towns/rural areas to match the duo. Building up will take longer. Eventually they will thin out their network support ranks once they reach a unified single network.

[Dkoellerwx]

16 hours ago, belusnecropolis said:

Have you experienced 5G yet on your handset since it is using T-mobile as mains?

Me? I have an LG G8, so no. 

[IrwinshereAgain]

18 hours ago, kct1975 said:

This was probably expected...but sux...

After merger, T-Mobile lays off hundreds of Sprint employees – TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/16/t-mobile-layoffs-sprint/


Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk
 

Apparently, ATT is going to layoff 3400 workers also.  At least according to the CWA in Akron Ohio.

[dkyeager]

34 minutes ago, IrwinshereAgain said:

Apparently, ATT is going to layoff 3400 workers also.  At least according to the CWA in Akron Ohio.

https://www.businessinsider.com/att-layoffs-thousands-jobs-cut-covid-19-june-2020-6

https://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2020/06/16/cwa-says-att-job-cuts-to-impact-thousands-nationally/

There may be far more layoffs.  The Fed expects the economy to take several years to recover.  The scale of the layoffs depends on possible additional funding from Congress.  Workers no longer in under supply so firms will do as they must or as they wish.

 

[bigsnake49]

Why has it taken T-Mobile so long to implement something like Google Fi that selects the best network/band among T-Mobile, Sprint and USCC? I mean they only had 2 years?

[Trip]

6 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

Why has it taken T-Mobile so long to implement something like Google Fi that selects the best network/band among T-Mobile, Sprint and USCC? I mean they only had 2 years?

I don't think they intend to do that.  I believe they intend to move everyone over to T-Mobile, even if the Sprint network is better.

- Trip

[dewbertdc]

35 minutes ago, Trip said:

I don't think they intend to do that.  I believe they intend to move everyone over to T-Mobile, even if the Sprint network is better.

- Trip

The Fi method is also a kludgey hack - the SIM actually has 4 phone numbers assigned to it, one on T-Mobile (your primary Fi number), and three "ghost" numbers for each of Sprint, USCC and Three UK, and the Fi app switches between them based on your location and signal strength.  It's a neat trick, but it's a lot of overhead that T-Mobile isn't interested in adding as it's just going to integrate Sprint sites and spectrum into its existing network.

[bigsnake49]

2 hours ago, dewbertdc said:

The Fi method is also a kludgey hack - the SIM actually has 4 phone numbers assigned to it, one on T-Mobile (your primary Fi number), and three "ghost" numbers for each of Sprint, USCC and Three UK, and the Fi app switches between them based on your location and signal strength.  It's a neat trick, but it's a lot of overhead that T-Mobile isn't interested in adding as it's just going to integrate Sprint sites and spectrum into its existing network.

I am sure that they can come up with a much more elegant solution than the Google Fi one. The integration of spectrum and and sites will  take about 2 years. Meanwhile the current method of waiting to have no service before switching to the other network is deeply unsatisfactory.

Edited June 18, 2020 by bigsnake49

[cyclone]

Been noticing weird anomalies around the northwest side of San Antonio over the past couple weeks. Started with my MB last week. Got to work to it disconnected and it was unable to connect until late afternoon. I've had it for well over a year if not two by now. I have come across areas where my signal just comes and goes with my phone dropping down like it was cycling through airplane mode. Last night I had dramatically reduced speeds at a usually fast location. I usually have 4 bars because I connect a block away, but i was down to 2 and speeds maxing out around 30Mbps all on a B41 connection. I usually hit between 150-200. Now I know there is a huge microwave backhaul layout here as well as several old clearwire only sites. Maybe they are getting thinned down or the backhaul is being messed with 🤷‍♂️

[dewbertdc]

46 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

I am sure that they can come up with a much more elegant solution than the Google Fi one. The integration of spectrum and and sites will  take about 2 years. Meanwhile the current method of waiting to have no service before switching to the other network is deeply unsatisfactory.

I'm a T-Mobile customer who works in a building with a Sprint DAS, but not a T-Mobile one.  When I had Fi, there was no elegant handoff between the two - I either had to wait for the phone to realize T-Mobile was gone and switch to Sprint manually, or force the switch with a dialer code.

I'm hopeful we'll hear more about network integration on or around "Day 1," in August, when the Sprint brand is officially sunset.  It'll be great when I can get on that DAS and not have to rely on a prepaid SIM in my office (whenever we return, which may not be until 2021 from what I'm hearing)

[bigsnake49]

1 hour ago, dewbertdc said:

I'm a T-Mobile customer who works in a building with a Sprint DAS, but not a T-Mobile one.  When I had Fi, there was no elegant handoff between the two - I either had to wait for the phone to realize T-Mobile was gone and switch to Sprint manually, or force the switch with a dialer code.

I'm hopeful we'll hear more about network integration on or around "Day 1," in August, when the Sprint brand is officially sunset.  It'll be great when I can get on that DAS and not have to rely on a prepaid SIM in my office (whenever we return, which may not be until 2021 from what I'm hearing)

My experience with Fi was the reverse of that. Mine switched between the two without waiting for one to have no service before switching to the other one, but then I had one of the Google handsets. 

[twospirits]

Seems that Sprint customers will be included in T-Mobile's Giveaway Tuesday. I never really paid attention to their Tuesday Giveaways, I guess i will now. lol

[PythonFanPA]

Odd question perhaps:  Has anyone had something suddenly be push-installed called "MCM Client" via Mobile Installer in the past day or three?  This just got installed on my LG G8X, a silent notification popped up about it.  May have nothing to do with transition but wanted to ask.

[ZERO_COOL]

54 minutes ago, PythonFanPA said:

Odd question perhaps:  Has anyone had something suddenly be push-installed called "MCM Client" via Mobile Installer in the past day or three?  This just got installed on my LG G8X, a silent notification popped up about it.  May have nothing to do with transition but wanted to ask.

My s20+ installed it today, it's done it a few times.

[Paynefanbro]

Neville Ray revealed a lot about his plans for the combined network going forward.

Quote

“This year is going to be a big year for us. My playbook … simply is to get as much 600 and 2.5 rolled out as is humanly possible this year and next,” Ray said. He looks at the additional time required to close the Sprint transaction—it took about two years—as time lost, and “I want to regain that time.”

“We’ve all made and my competition has made a lot of statements about 5G, what launched and when it launched. But the reach and impact of that has been very, very limited today. Very limited in terms of coverage availability, the customer experience, you name it. This year, that will change,” he said, thanks to T-Mobile, which is seeing speeds of 300 and 400 Mbps averages on 2.5 GHz spectrum that’s not evenly fully tapped, so a year from now, the results will be “remarkable.”

He noted that T-Mobile now has more millimeter wave spectrum than AT&T. “We’ll continue to evaluate millimeter wave options. I love it as a capacity layer, that top layer of the cake,” with interesting things in the fixed broadband replacement/displacement space, where Verizon has played pretty hard. Millimeter wave is also great for backhaul, he said.

“I think these guys [Verizon and AT&T] are going to muster everything they can from their balance sheets to go to war on C-band. They have no choice,” he said.

With the Sprint combination, T-Mobile now has more cell sites than anyone else, and its plan is to deploy on 85,000 sites. It’s now got about 110,000 sites, so it needs to whittle that down, something the tower companies are well aware of.

https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/t-mobile-s-neville-ray-reveals-5g-playbook-move-fast-2-5-ghz-600-mhz

Quote

"The small cell progress has been meaningful but it's still a battleground with the various jurisdictions. So if you're staring down the barrel of, 'I gotta build a couple hundred thousand of these things,' that's a nightmarish scenario," 

"For us, I'm not going to say it's less of a focus on small cells, but it's certainly softened. The major driver on small cell builds for us was capacity. Now, with all of our [Sprint] spectrum, we really have to go and build less than targeted with T-Mobile standalone [the company prior to its merger with Sprint]. And we're in no huge rush to go do that."

T-Mobile said it owned 26,000 small cell and Distributed Antenna System (DAS) sites at the end of the first quarter of this year. Ray said that figure would eventually double to around 40,000 to 50,000 as T-Mobile works to build its 5G network following the close of its merger with Sprint. He explained that much of the initial $40 billion in network spending T-Mobile has earmarked for the next three years would go toward building 15,000 new macro cell towers in order to raise T-Mobile's total number of macro towers to 85,000 sites.

"At this point in time we can deliver so much capacity into this network with our midband [2.5GHz] spectrum on our macro [tower] grid. Every engineer worth their salt is going to tell you that's the cheapest, most cost effective, most meaningful way to roll out and build this network," he said. "And that work itself is in many ways less complex than what you have to do with millimeter wave [small cells]. We're adding radios and antennas to existing sites in many cases out of 100. I'm not trying to navigate small cells being constructed or installed in suburban or urban areas."

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/t-mobile-network-chief-on-building-lots-of-small-cells-its-nightmarish/d/d-id/761818