Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[schmidtj]

15 hours ago, kct1975 said:

Not sure if this is the correct place to add this question, so if this question needs to go somewhere else, please move it to the correct discussion thread...

I am planning on adding my wife to my Wireless Mobile account. So my question are the following... 

First, if I require a new wireless mobile plan, can I get a T-Mobile plan? Or am I stuck with whatever remaining Sprint plans still exist?

Second, if I am able to get a new T-Mobile wireless plan, I can get it without having to 'port my current Sprint phone numbers over to T-Mobile'? 

You can certainly get your wife a T-Mobile plan independently. It will be billed separately. You can add an additional line to her plan and port your sprint number to her plan when you choose. Or not. 
Personally I created a T-Mobile account (Magenta) and ported 4 lines over 2 week period. Compared to my ED1500 plan I’m paying about $90/mo less. I’m in Chicagoland and T-Mobile service is excellent. I am a bit concerned how it will be in more rural areas however. With COVID as it is I haven’t done much reconnaissance in the rural areas to date.  

[dewbertdc]

 

16 hours ago, kct1975 said:

Not sure if this is the correct place to add this question, so if this question needs to go somewhere else, please move it to the correct discussion thread...

I am planning on adding my wife to my Wireless Mobile account. So my question are the following... 

First, if I require a new wireless mobile plan, can I get a T-Mobile plan? Or am I stuck with whatever remaining Sprint plans still exist?

Second, if I am able to get a new T-Mobile wireless plan, I can get it without having to 'port my current Sprint phone numbers over to T-Mobile'? 

If you wish to keep Sprint billing, you'll have to go with whatever they offer you for adding a line.  The cost will depend on which plan you currently have.  If you're not already on an unlimited plan, you can still switch to one. (https://www.sprint.com/en/shop/plans/unlimited-cell-phone-plan.html?INTNAV=TopNav:Shop:UnlimitedPlans).

You also have the option to migrate your entire account to T-Mobile and choose one of the current Magenta plans (https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans).  T-Mobile does not consider this a port-in, and you wouldn't qualify for any new customer deals.

If you want to keep your Sprint plan and billing but use the T-Mobile network, that's possible too as long as you have a supported plan and phone.  You can ask to be put on the "T-Mobile Network Experience," where you'll be provisioned a T-Mobile SIM.  https://www.sprint.com/en/support/solutions/device/t-mobile-network-experience.html

I would explore which of the options is more cost effective and go with that.  Eventually, the billing systems will combine, but we're not there yet.

[Bennyjet29]

Hope all is well and that everyone is in good health. Just some updates from upstate/WNY as New T-Mobile has made a lot of progress within the last two months. I’m still seeing 250+ download and 20+ upload speeds from my iPhone 11 Pro Max. However, all of my Speedtest results are run through T-Mobile servers and network in Syracuse, NY. No matter if I take it west in Rochester or east back in Fultonville. I was under the impression Rochester was selected for one of New T-Mobile’s call/support centers so I find it odd that everything is going through Syracuse now. On Sprint before the merger, most Speedtest results would go use a RIT or Frontier server in Rochester. Then post merger it began using different sites that T-Mobile used before shifting it all to Syracuse starting last month. 🤔🤷🏽‍♂️

[dkyeager]

On 11/10/2020 at 4:38 PM, chamb said:

I am with "TRIP" on this one.  T-Mobile COULD have had good coverage in the Shentel area in the past. Shentel/Sprint was a competitor.  T-Mobile was not even trying to compete.  Service most places was horrible. Shentel almost always had twice the number of sites to cover an area while T-Mobile done it the cheap way. Shentel had a network that was even better then Sprints network elsewhere.  T-Mobile was not even competition. Just very very poor.

   So, this is the reason I have no faith that T-Mobile will step up and do it right.  The Shentel network needs to be the base to build on.  Add T-Mobile spectrum to almost ALL of the Shentel sites.  What I hate is all the Shentel employees knew what they were doing and could be proud of it.  If T-Mobile trashes the Shentel network, all the employees will see many years of hard work disappear.

I hope the buyout price that T-Mobile has to pay is very high. It is a great network and it should bring  a premium price.

A major asset that Shentel will provide to T-Mobile is the ability to get a state #1 ranking with Root Metrics fairly easily.  This is something a marketing driven company like T-Mobile should appreciate.

[dkyeager]

On 11/10/2020 at 9:49 PM, RAvirani said:

Pretty much all T-Mobile new builds use a single 600/700 RRU and a single 1900/2100 RRU. If you get lowband, you get both 600 and 700. If you get midband, you get both 1900 and 2100. 2500 uses its own massive MIMO antenna, of course.

While not having 1900/2100 fragmentation or 600/700 fragmentation is a a step in the right direction, T-Mobile isn't consistently adding lowband, midband and highband to sites. With the imminent influx of Sprint users to their network, I don't doubt they're going that route in major metros, but less busy areas are not getting the same treatment.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe T-Mobile only adds frequencies to sites as they are projected to be needed, but does fully supply backhaul, where as Sprint added all bands to every possible site in recent years since it came out of a capital budget, but did not have enough operating funds to add proper backhaul to most of its sites.

[RAvirani]

6 hours ago, dkyeager said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe T-Mobile only adds frequencies to sites as they are projected to be needed

This is absolutely correct. 

6 hours ago, dkyeager said:

but does fully supply backhaul, where as Sprint added all bands to every possible site in recent years since it came out of a capital budget, but did not have enough operating funds to add proper backhaul to most of its sites.

This has been the trend more often than not, although it is not true 100% of the time. 

[Trip]

I hate articles like this.

https://www.lightreading.com/ossbss/t-mobile-outlines-sprint-network-shutdown-plans/d/d-id/765997?

Title sounds informative, article doesn't even deliver a sliver of what the title promises.

Actual webcast is here:  https://investor.t-mobile.com/news-and-events/events-and-presentations/event-details/2020/UBS-Global-TMT-Conference/default.aspx

If I find time, I'll give it a look later.  If anyone else beats me to it, then I won't bother.

- Trip

 

[kckid]

Just got this email today:  This is South Overland Park, KS.  I do not have a phone to test it yet.  My iPhone 11 Max is currently using band 66 to connect.  (I think) 

[RAvirani]

1 hour ago, kckid said:

Just got this email today:  This is South Overland Park, KS.  I do not have a phone to test it yet.  My iPhone 11 Max is currently using band 66 to connect.  (I think) 

I was actually in Kansas city a few weeks ago for work! Although I wasn't paying particular attention, I don't recall ever seeing LTE on my phone except for once deep in a building (because I couldn't place a call). 

[wispiANt]

18 hours ago, Bennyjet29 said:

Hope all is well and that everyone is in good health. Just some updates from upstate/WNY as New T-Mobile has made a lot of progress within the last two months. I’m still seeing 250+ download and 20+ upload speeds from my iPhone 11 Pro Max. However, all of my Speedtest results are run through T-Mobile servers and network in Syracuse, NY. No matter if I take it west in Rochester or east back in Fultonville. I was under the impression Rochester was selected for one of New T-Mobile’s call/support centers so I find it odd that everything is going through Syracuse now. On Sprint before the merger, most Speedtest results would go use a RIT or Frontier server in Rochester. Then post merger it began using different sites that T-Mobile used before shifting it all to Syracuse starting last month. 🤔🤷🏽‍♂️

T-Mobile's regional engineering office is in Rochester (Henrietta), but the NOC is in Syracuse. 

[Bennyjet29]

30 minutes ago, thisischuck01 said:

T-Mobile's regional engineering office is in Rochester (Henrietta), but the NOC is in Syracuse. 

Thank you, that definitely makes sense. I do not visit Henrietta that much but will have to look for the regional engineering office next time.

[stlman314]

3 hours ago, kckid said:

Just got this email today:  This is South Overland Park, KS.  I do not have a phone to test it yet.  My iPhone 11 Max is currently using band 66 to connect.  (I think) 

I'll be in Overland Park this weekend. I'll definitely keep my eyes open

[Dkoellerwx]

4 hours ago, kckid said:

Just got this email today:  This is South Overland Park, KS.  I do not have a phone to test it yet.  My iPhone 11 Max is currently using band 66 to connect.  (I think) 

N71 has is live in many areas around KC, not complete coverage but pretty widespread.

N41 hotspots have been going up since summer. Maybe a dozen or so sites around JoCo at the moment, could be a few more since I was there last.

[Rickie546]

Well Swiftel is no more! T-Mobile has purchased it from Brookings and filed application with FCC 2 days ago!

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=12386667

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsEntry/attachments/attachmentView.jsp?applType=search&fileKey=420296911&attachmentKey=21083843

 

Rickie

[iansltx]

5G hotspot is finally out, and plans aren't bad: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/5g-just-got-better

They now brand their mid/mmWave as Ultra Capacity. The hotspot device doesn't support mmWave, which is fine given how much of a cost premium that would entail.

Data plans start at $5/mo for 500MB and go up to $50/mo for 100GB. By comparison, CricKet's 100GB plan costs $90/mo.

[Paynefanbro]

1 hour ago, iansltx said:

5G hotspot is finally out, and plans aren't bad: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/5g-just-got-better

They now brand their mid/mmWave as Ultra Capacity. The hotspot device doesn't support mmWave, which is fine given how much of a cost premium that would entail.

Data plans start at $5/mo for 500MB and go up to $50/mo for 100GB. By comparison, CricKet's 100GB plan costs $90/mo.

Interesting choice by T-Mobile to unite mmWave and mid-band 5G under a single name. It seems like they're doing so specifically to counteract Verizon's marketing message around mmWave. Verizon emphasizes UWB as high capacity and super high speed and now it seems like T-Mobile is saying the same for n41 with the added bonus of greater coverage. 

The only thing that worries me about this is that it seems like T-Mobile may be using this new name to de-emphasize their own mmWave network. It's not like T-Mobile doesn't have the spectrum, they just don't want to deploy it.

 

[dkyeager]

2 hours ago, Rickie546 said:

Well Swiftel is no more! T-Mobile has purchased it from Brookings and filed application with FCC 2 days ago!

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=12386667

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsEntry/attachments/attachmentView.jsp?applType=search&fileKey=420296911&attachmentKey=21083843

 

Rickie

Sprint had a clause in the agreement that if a merger occurred they could buy them out! Kudos to the folks that put in that clause!

[iansltx]

1 minute ago, Paynefanbro said:

Interesting choice by T-Mobile to unite mmWave and mid-band 5G under a single name. It seems like they're doing so specifically to counteract Verizon's marketing message around mmWave. Verizon emphasizes UWB as high capacity and super high speed and now it seems like T-Mobile is saying the same for n41 with the added bonus of greater coverage. 

The only thing that worries me about this is that it seems like T-Mobile may be using this new name to de-emphasize their own mmWave network. It's not like T-Mobile doesn't have the spectrum, they just don't want to deploy it.

 

I wish they had a higher-resolution version of the Ultra Capacity map. Looks like they've added more n41 around here but I don't want to go hunting for it unless I know where it generally is.

As for mmWave, for the time being there's no point to doing more mmWave deployment. TMo can get orders of magnitude more mileage out of getting 2.5 built out, MU-MIMO added, and 100 MHz bandwidth turned up. For TMo, mmWave should only be used when they've run out of capacity on 2.5...which will take awhile...and at that point they can add in surgical deployments where needed.

As an added bonus, by the time TMo actually *needs* to launch mmWave, they can buy radio gear from vendors who've put an extra year or two of effort toward fine-tuning with VZW...so they'll wind up spending less on better gear. Compare that to right now, where T-Mobile's existing mmWave gear is hit-or-miss, to the point that you can't distinguish performance from n41.

I fully expect that, unlike AT&T and VZW, TMo will have about as many mmWave sites 3-4 years from now as they have mid-or-lower-band sites. Maybe fewer. Whereas by the time VZ and AT&T can start on their own mid-band rollouts, they'll have way more mmWave sites (certainly VZ, maybe AT&T) than they have macros.

Of course, I'm biased here because I don't live in NYC, which is about the only place dense enough to maybe need a mmW overlay in addition to mid-band.

[jebr]

1 hour ago, iansltx said:

As for mmWave, for the time being there's no point to doing more mmWave deployment. TMo can get orders of magnitude more mileage out of getting 2.5 built out, MU-MIMO added, and 100 MHz bandwidth turned up. For TMo, mmWave should only be used when they've run out of capacity on 2.5...which will take awhile...and at that point they can add in surgical deployments where needed.

Generally agree with this. While I wouldn't go so far as to say NYC is the only place that would take advantage of mmWave, that technology is only really useful for areas where you'd probably put a DAS system in now (arenas, airports, etc.) and as the "tower" portion of a fixed wireless ISP solution in cities, where you can point a receiver to a mmWave site and have it stay there semi-permanently, with the advantage of being able to optimize antenna placement and size to have better reception than we would accept in a phone. Outside of those areas, 5G on mid-band will provide more than enough bandwidth, lower pings, etc. for even a next generation of applications/devices.

[Grabber5.0]

I haven't done a lot of speed tests recently, but recently I was out picking up groceries (I think that's where I was.. I need to double-check the location from the test...) and decided to do a test. I'm quite sure this is the fastest I have ever gotten, I just can't remember what the previous best was. Pretty impressed by the  upload speed as much as anything. This is my OnePlus 8 on a ROAMAHOME line.

I

[JDP121]

12 hours ago, Rickie546 said:

Well Swiftel is no more! T-Mobile has purchased it from Brookings and filed application with FCC 2 days ago!

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=12386667

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsEntry/attachments/attachmentView.jsp?applType=search&fileKey=420296911&attachmentKey=21083843

 

Rickie

Nice. Yeah f I’ve been reading correctly that both TMO and Shentel have come to an agreement as well on how much TMO will buy out their cellular part of Sprint as well. Seems to be everything pointing to everything being cleared by the end of 2nd Quarter 2021.  

[mikejeep]

11 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I have to ask.. what did the entire state of Nebraska do to T-Mobile to earn that glaring hole in the center of the country? 😆

[Dkoellerwx]

2 hours ago, mikejeep said:

I have to ask.. what did the entire state of Nebraska do to T-Mobile to earn that glaring hole in the center of the country? 😆

No native T-Mobile until recently in Omaha and Lincoln. The rest of the state is roaming. South & North Dakota were the same until the 700/600 build out started. Why the Dakotas got the love and not NE... not sure. Sprint will fill in some of the gaps... but the rest of the state is pretty bad! Roams on Viaero, and basically doesn't work. 

Edit: Not sure why I forgot this... pretty sure USCC is the reason why. They hold the 700 licenses that T-Mobile typical has across most of Nebraska, so T-Mobile didn't have to build anything out here aside from the more densely populated areas of Omaha and Lincoln.

[bigsnake49]

9 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

No native T-Mobile until recently in Omaha and Lincoln. The rest of the state is roaming. South & North Dakota were the same until the 700/600 build out started. Why the Dakotas got the love and not NE... not sure. Sprint will fill in some of the gaps... but the rest of the state is pretty bad! Roams on Viaero, and basically doesn't work. 

Edit: Not sure why I forgot this... pretty sure USCC is the reason why. They hold the 700 licenses that T-Mobile typical has across most of Nebraska, so T-Mobile didn't have to build anything out here aside from the more densely populated areas of Omaha and Lincoln.

Sometimes, roaming on USCC is the best strategy when there is just low population count in an area.

[mikejeep]

4 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

Sometimes, roaming on USCC is the best strategy when there is just low population count in an area.

USCC has great coverage in Northern New England, where Sprint has almost none (and never planned to, based on my conversations with them over the years). When LTE roaming onto USCC went live it was fantastic.