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Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread


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Look T-Mobile elected to merge the networks on 5G tech not 4G. That is a dangerous assumption to make in that you're hoping that your subscribers will quickly move to 5G so that you don't have to integrate 4G networks. You're also hoping not to have to subsidize the handset transition.

When they say that decommissioning has started, are they actually transferring B41, B26 antennas/RRHs over to the T-Mobile racks? Or are they decommissioning sites with B41 and just using the 2.5 spectrum for 5G on the new site? What's happening to band 25 spectrum and RRHs from the Sprint sites they are decommissioning? I have seen Sprint subs complaining that they have lost B41 coverage all of a sudden. 

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Look T-Mobile elected to merge the networks on 5G tech not 4G. That is a dangerous assumption to make in that you're hoping that your subscribers will quickly move to 5G so that you don't have to integrate 4G networks. You're also hoping not to have to subsidize the handset transition.

When they say that decommissioning has started, are they actually transferring B41, B26 antennas/RRHs over to the T-Mobile racks? Or are they decommissioning sites with B41 and just using the 2.5 spectrum for 5G on the new site? What's happening to band 25 spectrum and RRHs from the Sprint sites they are decommissioning? I have seen Sprint subs complaining that they have lost B41 coverage all of a sudden. 

From what I've gathered, they have not refarmed any Sprint B41 to NR yet. N41 is greenfield spectrum, in B41M. LTE tends to be in B41H and B41L (small cells and femtos in one, macros in the other). Sprint's N41 was also in B41M, which was why they had to shut it down. They also moved femtos to the same earfcn as small cells to free up another 20-40 MHz. None of this reduces Sprint B41 LTE capacity. They've also deployed 1-2 T-Mobile B41 LTE carriers in some markets, and I believe they have the spectrum to do that as well without shutting down any Sprint B41.

 

I'm skeptical that they've actually shut down any Sprint sites yet actually. They've moved 5 MHz of B2 from Sprint B25 to T-Mobile B2 in some markets where it's contiguous. But I haven't heard of anyone reporting actual decommissions. And I'd hope that they wouldn't start until almost all Sprint customers are on T-Mobile's network. It just doesn't make much sense to do earlier than that.

 

 

 

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Like I suspected, TMobile definitely does not have nearly as many "connections" as ATT.  As all companies do, they are cherry picking certain data and presenting the numbers in a way that paints a rosier (more magenta??) picture than reality might otherwise suggest.  Do they have more postpaid customers? Apparently but barely. But ATT has far more customers and connected devices when using the term "connections" and that is a much clearer picture of the actual situation.  I'm all for TMobile but don't misunderstand the data.  

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357737/t-mobile-att-bigger-number-2-wireless-carrier-earnings

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13 minutes ago, JonnygATL said:

Like I suspected, TMobile definitely does not have nearly as many "connections" as ATT.  As all companies do, they are cherry picking certain data and presenting the numbers in a way that paints a rosier (more magenta??) picture than reality might otherwise suggest.  Do they have more postpaid customers? Apparently but barely. But ATT has far more customers and connected devices when using the term "connections" and that is a much clearer picture of the actual situation.  I'm all for TMobile but don't misunderstand the data.  

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357737/t-mobile-att-bigger-number-2-wireless-carrier-earnings

The thing with "connections" is, if your network is historically wider-ranging coverage wise, you'll get more IoT customers, paying you a few dollars per line per month on average. Those customers are rather cheap to service from a network load perspective, but they're also low-revenue. So there's at least some method to the madness of cherry-picking that particular number.

 

1 hour ago, ingenium said:

From what I've gathered, they have not refarmed any Sprint B41 to NR yet. N41 is greenfield spectrum, in B41M. LTE tends to be in B41H and B41L (small cells and femtos in one, macros in the other). Sprint's N41 was also in B41M, which was why they had to shut it down. They also moved femtos to the same earfcn as small cells to free up another 20-40 MHz. None of this reduces Sprint B41 LTE capacity. They've also deployed 1-2 T-Mobile B41 LTE carriers in some markets, and I believe they have the spectrum to do that as well without shutting down any Sprint B41.

 

I'm skeptical that they've actually shut down any Sprint sites yet actually. They've moved 5 MHz of B2 from Sprint B25 to T-Mobile B2 in some markets where it's contiguous. But I haven't heard of anyone reporting actual decommissions. And I'd hope that they wouldn't start until almost all Sprint customers are on T-Mobile's network. It just doesn't make much sense to do earlier than that.

They've definitely shut some sites down, per Reddit posts. If you have a dense network for capacity reasons and you've migrated enough customers over to TMo in that area, might as well drop the site before the lease needs to be renewed.

TMo has definitely dropped B41 in some areas, either entirely or by dropping one of the carriers. We were 3CA here and are now 2CA everywhere I've tested except UT campus, where they have a third carrier at 10 MHz

With all that said, for the sites that remain, I expect non-contiguous B25 not to get touched until TMo can move >= 10 MHz at once. In areas where TMo has less on its block than Sprint's they could do that by swapping the entire block. e.g. if TMo has 10 MHz and Sprint has 15, reband the 15 MHz over to T-Mobile. But that'll come pretty late in the game, as it would mean dropping Sprint to one or two 5x5 LTE carriers in the entire band, vs. the typical current config of 10x10 + 5x5.

Through all this, B26 will be the absolute last thing touched. I fully expect Sprint will end up as a single 1xA channel on SMR + B26 LTE + PCS-G LTE (nothing in PCS A-F, nothing in B41) before the network finally gets turned off.

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56 minutes ago, JonnygATL said:

Like I suspected, TMobile definitely does not have nearly as many "connections" as ATT.  As all companies do, they are cherry picking certain data and presenting the numbers in a way that paints a rosier (more magenta??) picture than reality might otherwise suggest.  Do they have more postpaid customers? Apparently but barely. But ATT has far more customers and connected devices when using the term "connections" and that is a much clearer picture of the actual situation.  I'm all for TMobile but don't misunderstand the data.  

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357737/t-mobile-att-bigger-number-2-wireless-carrier-earnings

So much of it is smoke and mirrors and bragging.    When you deep dive the numbers, things don't jive.

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1 hour ago, JonnygATL said:

Like I suspected, TMobile definitely does not have nearly as many "connections" as ATT.  As all companies do, they are cherry picking certain data and presenting the numbers in a way that paints a rosier (more magenta??) picture than reality might otherwise suggest.  Do they have more postpaid customers? Apparently but barely. But ATT has far more customers and connected devices when using the term "connections" and that is a much clearer picture of the actual situation.  I'm all for TMobile but don't misunderstand the data.  

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357737/t-mobile-att-bigger-number-2-wireless-carrier-earnings

I don't think it's T-Mobile trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with this announcement. However, I do think that this announcement shows us that carriers have inconsistent definitions for what a customer or connection is.

AT&T counts a connection as virtually anything with a SIM card in it (this includes things like branded AT&T customers, Cricket Wireless, OnStar, IoT devices, and other resellers) while T-Mobile is only counting prepaid and postpaid customers from the brands that they own specifically (T-Mobile, Sprint, MetroPCS).

That said, all of this seems like semantics because even if you go by AT&T's definition of connections T-Mobile is only 1.3 million "connections" behind AT&T which means that if both AT&T and T-Mobile continue at their current pace, in roughly 3 to 6 months they'll likely surpass AT&T.

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7 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I don't think it's T-Mobile trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with this announcement. However, I do think that this announcement shows us that carriers have inconsistent definitions for what a customer or connection is.

AT&T counts a connection as virtually anything with a SIM card in it (this includes things like branded AT&T customers, Cricket Wireless, OnStar, IoT devices, and other resellers) while T-Mobile is only counting prepaid and postpaid customers from the brands that they own specifically (T-Mobile, Sprint, MetroPCS).

That said, all of this seems like semantics because even if you go by AT&T's definition of connections T-Mobile is only 1.3 million "connections" behind AT&T which means that if both AT&T and T-Mobile continue at their current pace, in roughly 3 to 6 months they'll likely surpass AT&T.

That's an extreme version of what I said.  Generally TMO is, in my mind, a relatively rock solid, customer centric company. I never said they were trying to "pull the wool" over anyone's eyes. That would imply malice.  They weren't doing that but I thought I was extremely clear in stating that all companies seek to paint themselves in the absolute most positive light from the same set of data that others might draw a different conclusion from.  Such is the nature of these things.  It has always been thus and it likely always shall.  That statement is 100% true.  Sprint was a master at this, if you'll recall.

 

 

 

 

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My wife and my CPAP machines have ATT 4G to phone home daily. Not sure ATT even knows our names. Does ATT consider me a customer? Probably applies to many IoT devices. 

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On 8/7/2020 at 3:12 PM, Paynefanbro said:

I don't think it's T-Mobile trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with this announcement. 

Let's not leave out the fact TMUS loves to give out "free lines" every blue moon. I have two fully activated SIM cards with unlimited everything + HD Video + Hotspot just sitting in a drawer not being used. 

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5 hours ago, Bennyjet29 said:

f8051cc0e507620eb723654d2655dee7.jpg
I must say it feels awesome knowing that I no longer have dead spots along the NYS Thruway I-90! emoji1430.png


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Musical taste aside...I'm glad for you. 😏

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Musical taste aside...I'm glad for you. [emoji57]

Hahaha, Sirius XM was letting me down yesterday on my 3 hour drive so I just kept flipping through my presets and noticed the “R” for roaming when passing through Mindenville aka the middle of nowhere lol! [emoji1787][emoji2375]


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Let's not leave out the fact TMUS loves to give out "free lines" every blue moon. I have two fully activated SIM cards with unlimited everything + HD Video + Hotspot just sitting in a drawer not being used. 
How did you get those?

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When on band 66 texts seem to hang for several minutes or not go through at all. 
Screenshot_20200809-233300_Messages.thumb.jpg.4b38ef811576933f499d4b2cb9aa459a.jpg
I've had that issue when using TMO in the past. Vs not so much on att,vzw or sprint

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On 8/7/2020 at 5:03 PM, bigsnake49 said:

Look T-Mobile elected to merge the networks on 5G tech not 4G. That is a dangerous assumption to make in that you're hoping that your subscribers will quickly move to 5G so that you don't have to integrate 4G networks. You're also hoping not to have to subsidize the handset transition.

Well, if they can entice people to get new phones over the next 3 years with a fantastic 5G network, I think this could go a long way to get users off phones that can't essentially forever roam on TMobile's network as well as grabbing customers from VZW/ATT.  As TMobile reduces the amount of spectrum on B25/41 users could get frustrated at slower speeds and seek a phone upgrade. 

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Well, if they can entice people to get new phones over the next 3 years with a fantastic 5G network, I think this could go a long way to get users off phones that can't essentially forever roam on TMobile's network as well as grabbing customers from VZW/ATT.  As TMobile reduces the amount of spectrum on B25/41 users could get frustrated at slower speeds and seek a phone upgrade. 
He is wrong they are still doing LTE work. Sprints PCS spectrum will be LTE, people have seen 20-40 MHz of B41 on TMO LTE

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7 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

He is wrong they are still doing LTE work. Sprints PCS spectrum will be LTE, people have seen 20-40 MHz of B41 on TMO LTE

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All I know is that people on reddit complaining that they have lost coverage on B41 when they had it before. Or going from 100Mbps+ on B41 to 1-5 Mbps. My MB is still working on B41 so I'm not complaining. 

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3 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

All I know is that people on reddit complaining that they have lost coverage on B41 when they had it before. Or going from 100Mbps+ on B41 to 1-5 Mbps. My MB is still working on B41 so I'm not complaining. 

Turning off Sprint's band 41 is not working well for anybody.  All those Sprint Subs get dropped to band 25 or 26. Why do they think this would not cause severe congestion and get people upset. I would not give them a good grade on how they are handling the network upgrades/conversion. If they keep terrorizing the old Sprint Subs, they will see them fleeing out the door.

All they seem interesting in doing is getting a 5G network established very quickly while ignoring all the havoc they are creating.

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I'm assuming some of those people complaining about B41 loss have the S20 or another current 5G phone, because then the T-Mobile network becomes primary and you will lose B41.

Not defending it.  I know how frustrating it is, and I've echoed the all eggs into 5G concern before, too.

Sounds like it is happening to non-5G phone users too:

 

 

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5 minutes ago, jreuschl said:

I'm assuming some of those people complaining about B41 loss have the S20 or another current 5G phone, because then the T-Mobile network becomes primary and you will lose B41.

Not defending it.  I know how frustrating it is, and I've echoed the all eggs into 5G concern before, too.

This is one of the things I've been wondering.  Will new T-Mobile add LTE 41 to their existing network?  Or will they just add N41 to their network, and slowly shut down B41?

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