Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[greenbastard]

7 hours ago, RedSpark said:

 

 

Industry-Leading Customer Growth

• Record-high 2,035,000 total net additions, best in industry
• Record-high 1,979,000 postpaid net additions, best in industry
• 689,000 postpaid phone net additions, best in industry

Let's not forget all those free lines they gave away in the summer. I got two of them with no strings attached to my plan. I slipped one SIM in an old phone to use as a car tracker and the other SIM is sitting in a drawer.

[radem]

14 hours ago, RedSpark said:

15 percent of Sprint postpaid customer traffic has already been moved over to the T-Mobile network and customer network migrations have begun

That is tracking quite nicely with my estimate that at least 2% of customers will be moved from Sprint's network to T-Mobile's network each month.

[RedSpark]

1 hour ago, radem said:

That is tracking quite nicely with my estimate that at least 2% of customers will be moved from Sprint's network to T-Mobile's network each month.

Which devices are they prioritizing for the move? It would seem iPhone 12/Pro/Max/Mini upgrades or new purchases by legacy Sprint customers would heavily factor into this and further accelerate the move to T-Mobile's network?

 

[radem]

On 11/6/2020 at 9:20 AM, RedSpark said:

Which devices are they prioritizing for the move? It would seem iPhone 12/Pro/Max/Mini upgrades or new purchases by legacy Sprint customers would heavily factor into this and further accelerate the move to T-Mobile's network?

Any new 5G device purchased is automatically moved over to T-Mobile if possible as the primary mechanism.  Next would be modern devices that support all bands in good T-Mobile coverage areas that get assigned ROAMAHOME over the air.  Third would be those devices that get a new sim card.

[RedSpark]

59 minutes ago, radem said:

Any new 5G device purchased is automatically moved over to T-Mobile if possible as the primary mechanism.  Next would be modern devices that support all bands in good T-Mobile coverage areas that get assigned ROMAHOME over the air.  Third would be those devices that get a new sim card.

So that migration rate over to T-Mobile should definitely accelerate with the substantial onboarding of iPhone's with 5G given that they're new out of the box. They may have to rate-limit the "modern devices" you're referencing until they have enough mid-band 5G coverage built out, but it sounds like they're on track to hit midband 5G for 100 million people by the end of 2020 and 200 million people by the end of 2021. (Source: https://www.lightreading.com/ossbss/t-mobile-eyed-as-the-next-big-thing-/d/d-id/765233?)

You really have to hand it to T-Mobile on network build-outs. They state aggressive goals and they sometimes even exceed them. It's really well run. What a departure from Sprint.

 

[shaferz]

16 hours ago, jasonsteele said:

My home Sprint site is a keep site! I’m on ROAMAHOME, been over a month since I’ve connected to it. I’m so relieved, it’s going to fill in a gap nicely.

https://imgur.com/gallery/1uOQRhe

How do you know if your home Sprint site is a keep site?

[stlman314]

35 minutes ago, shaferz said:

How do you know if your home Sprint site is a keep site?

I believe it is based on the plmn showing 250

[jasonsteele]

2 hours ago, shaferz said:

How do you know if your home Sprint site is a keep site?

 

2 hours ago, stlman314 said:

I believe it is based on the plmn showing 250

Yep, PLMN 312-250 is handing off from 310-260 natively, without loss of coverage. That means it’s a keep site. Makes sense for my Sprint home site, as it is the fourth corner in a square of the nearest three T-Mo sites around me.

[RedSpark]

@S4GRU: On a completely unrelated note, I’m seeing this message in this topic thread.

[[Template forums/front/topics/activity is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

 

[Dkoellerwx]

2 hours ago, jasonsteele said:

 

Yep, PLMN 312-250 is handing off from 310-260 natively, without loss of coverage. That means it’s a keep site. Makes sense for my Sprint home site, as it is the fourth corner in a square of the nearest three T-Mo sites around me.

Noticed that yesterday I was handing off to a local Sprint site instead of sitting on T-Mobile, and it seemed seamless. Checked and it was 250. Very interesting to see.

[Dkoellerwx]

1 hour ago, RedSpark said:

@S4GRU: On a completely unrelated note, I’m seeing this message in this topic thread.

[[Template forums/front/topics/activity is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

 

I see it too... not sure what it means exactly yet.

[jasonsteele]

48 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Noticed that yesterday I was handing off to a local Sprint site instead of sitting on T-Mobile, and it seemed seamless. Checked and it was 250. Very interesting to see.

Strange thing is I have an iPhone 12 and an S10+ both on ROAMAHOME. The PLMN on the iPhone 12 is 312-250 and the S10+ it’s 310-120. In the same spot, they’re both connected to the same Sprint tower but using different EARFCNs 41094 and 41292. Not sure what that means.

[Dkoellerwx]

26 minutes ago, jasonsteele said:

Strange thing is I have an iPhone 12 and an S10+ both on ROAMAHOME. The PLMN on the iPhone 12 is 312-250 and the S10+ it’s 310-120. In the same spot, they’re both connected to the same Sprint tower but using different EARFCNs 41094 and 41292. Not sure what that means.

What are you using to look at the PLMN? Sometimes more than one are reported to SCP. Check the engineering screen to see for sure. When using SCP, I see the normal Sprint PLMN see the 250 one when checking the engineering screen.

[jasonsteele]

16 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

What are you using to look at the PLMN? Sometimes more than one are reported to SCP. Check the engineering screen to see for sure. When using SCP, I see the normal Sprint PLMN see the 250 one when checking the engineering screen.

SCP showing 310-120 but engineering screen showing serving PLMN as 312-250 and HPLMN as 312-530.

[mikejeep]

5 hours ago, jasonsteele said:

SCP showing 310-120 but engineering screen showing serving PLMN as 312-250 and HPLMN as 312-530.

Rough translation:.

The cell you are connected to is reporting 310120.

The network is reporting 312250.

Your phone's "home" PLMN ID is 312530.

Sprint owns all three of those IDs (and several others). Most providers only have one.

[BlueAngel]

I see where 5G SA comes into play, I'm in the woods had two bars of LTE, taken I was switched to SA and 5 solid bars of 5G. Love it.

[Cardsfan96]

14 hours ago, BlueAngel said:

I see where 5G SA comes into play, I'm in the woods had two bars of LTE, taken I was switched to SA and 5 solid bars of 5G. Love it.

What was the speed difference? Just because you had 5 bars didn’t mean it will be a better experience. Isn’t it likely you were connected to multiple aggregated LTE bands including B71 that would likely have identical type coverage as SA 5g?

[BlueAngel]

1 hour ago, Cardsfan96 said:

What was the speed difference? Just because you had 5 bars didn’t mean it will be a better experience. Isn’t it likely you were connected to multiple aggregated LTE bands including B71 that would likely have identical type coverage as SA 5g?

B71 wouldn't have the same coverage as SA n71 and I didn't do any speed tests I was just referencing the difference in signal strength but both were excellent for what I was doing. I was occasionally connecting to NSA 5G but the signal was equivalent to LTE.

Edited November 8, 2020 by BlueAngel

[Cardsfan96]

29 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

B71 wouldn't have the same coverage as SA n71 and I didn't do any speed tests I was just referencing the difference in signal strength but both were excellent for what I was doing. I was occasionally connecting to NSA 5G but the signal was equivalent to LTE.

How would B71 not have comparable coverage/ signal strength as SA n71?

[BlueAngel]

41 minutes ago, Cardsfan96 said:

How would B71 not have comparable coverage/ signal strength as SA n71?

I don't know the specifics but T-Mobile said SA improves coverage by 30%.

[Cardsfan96]

21 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

I don't know the specifics but T-Mobile said SA improves coverage by 30%.

I’m just generally curious. I thought the 30% was between NSA and SA. I hope I’m wrong.

[BlueAngel]

17 minutes ago, Cardsfan96 said:

I’m just generally curious. I thought the 30% was between NSA and SA. I hope I’m wrong.

Well NSA is no different than LTE when it comes to coverage because NSA uses LTE as an anchor. SA can go further because it doesn't have to rely on LTE.

[Yuhfhrh]

41 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

I don't know the specifics but T-Mobile said SA improves coverage by 30%.

It improved 5G NR coverage by no longer requiring a midband LTE anchor. Otherwise the coverage between LTE b71 and NR n71 is going to be pretty much the same.

[BlueAngel]

26 minutes ago, Yuhfhrh said:

It improved 5G NR coverage by no longer requiring a midband LTE anchor. Otherwise the coverage between LTE b71 and NR n71 is going to be pretty much the same.

Well there we go, as I said I didn't know.

[bigsnake49]

On 11/6/2020 at 12:29 AM, greenbastard said:

Let's not forget all those free lines they gave away in the summer. I got two of them with no strings attached to my plan. I slipped one SIM in an old phone to use as a car tracker and the other SIM is sitting in a drawer.

Yeah and T-Mobile has been running these promotions quite often.