Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[RedSpark]

Pretty incredible.

Of course, I wonder what percentage of Magenta Max Plan users forget to activate (or don't activate) UHD streaming on their devices.

[schmidtj]

Rather than upgrade all my lines from Magenta to Max I stayed on Magenta 2.0 and when I need UHD or more HotSpot I just add the $15/mo GoMax AddOn when I need it and remove it when I'm done. That costs me $15 for the month. Rather than taking the $30/mo hit permanently to upgrade the entire account (7 Lines/3 Paid). Since I'm paying for all the lines I don't care if any of the other ones have UHD etc. 🙃

[dkyeager]

Columbus Sprint conversion site to T-Mobile update: tower hands arrived before sunset and unloaded. Said Sprint stuff will be demoed first, but Microwave and b25 will remain. Will only be adding AWS. Said no n41, 600 or 700.  So I took pictures of antennas but not a big pile under tarp. Personally think they are not allowed to admit and 5g equipment. Lots of wackos out there.

Checking on the visible antennas, there are three Nokia VBNAEHC-01, which are AirScale MAA 64T64R 192AE B41 320W AEHC (AAEHC) capable of 5g.  There will also be larger racks with plenty of room for them to stand on.

[stlman314]

Found another fully converted Sprint standalone site in STL. It is still broadcasting B25 but not G Block

[bmoses]

How sure are we about the sprint keep site 312250 PLMN theory? I'm asking because there are a few spots in my area where tmobile just upgraded their tower and there are sprint towers pretty much right next to the upgraded tmobile towers that are broadcasting as keep sites.

[Dkoellerwx]

16 minutes ago, bmoses said:

How sure are we about the sprint keep site 312250 PLMN theory? I'm asking because there are a few spots in my area where tmobile just upgraded their tower and there are sprint towers pretty much right next to the upgraded tmobile towers that are broadcasting as keep sites.

We have a couple like that in Omaha. It seems that after they permitted the T-Mobile site for upgrades, they decided the Sprint site might be a better fit, but went ahead with the work on the T-Mobile site anyway. All conjecture of course until we see official permits filed on the sites in question. Many of the sites with the keep PLMN here have had permits filed in the last week for conversion.

[bmoses]

Thanks, sounds plausible for some of them here. For reference Merle hay Mall in Des Moines here had the tmobile tower, which is right next to the mall, upgraded a few months back. The sprint site, which is on the actual mall building, wasn't broadcasting the keep PLMN until the last week or so. 

[RAvirani]

26 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

We have a couple like that in Omaha. It seems that after they permitted the T-Mobile site for upgrades, they decided the Sprint site might be a better fit, but went ahead with the work on the T-Mobile site anyway. 

Oftentimes they're locked into contracts with their contractors, otherwise they would just cancel the T-Mobile site's upgrade. 

[Dkoellerwx]

14 minutes ago, bmoses said:

Thanks, sounds plausible for some of them here. For reference Merle hay Mall in Des Moines here had the tmobile tower, which is right next to the mall, upgraded a few months back. The sprint site, which is on the actual mall building, wasn't broadcasting the keep PLMN until the last week or so. 

This one I found particularly interesting. They filed to upgrade the T-Mobile (orange) to n71 and n41 a while back. Then this week, they filed to keep the two surrounding Sprint sites (blue). The T-Mobile one is very tall with a huge footprint, so I understand why they might want to use the Sprint sites, but just very interesting they filed to upgrade it and then decided against it (as best I can tell).

[RedSpark]

Unfortunately, I'm seeing the gaps in the customer experience for TNX and I'm wondering if I should just leave the "T-Mobile Unlimited Freedom Plan with Included Taxes/Fees" behind and bring everything over to a T-Mobile Plan/Account at a certain point for usability and management sake.

iOS: The experience on iOS has been fine. When I upgraded my 3 iPhone 12 Pro's it was easy to update the E911 Address for Wi-Fi Calling right on the device. Quick and done.

Google Pixel 5: The experience on a Google Pixel 5 on eSIM for Sprint was mediocre. I received conflicting information about whether the device was eligible for TNX. Chat said yes, so I ordered a SIM and installed it. The device threw an error and said to take it out. Chat then said that device wasn't eligible for TNX. Is this in fact the case? Has anyone here put a Google Pixel 5 on TNX?

Samsung: The experience for two Samsung Galaxies on our account was actually terrible.

For the S20+ 5G: I put in the TNX SIM and after I enabled Wi-Fi Calling, I wanted to update the E911 address on the device. Nope, the address update button in the device menu took me to the T-Mobile Login Screen. I contacted chat and they said I had to do it on the Sprint website. Ok, so I went to the Sprint Website and to Account Dashboard. I selected "Options" for the device, and selected the Update E911 Address link. I then got taken to an absolutely ancient portion of the Sprint website that hadn't been part of the recent redesign and I was able to update the address.... but the interface looked terrible and like it wouldn't actually work. I still can't update the E911 address on the device itself. Ridiculous.

For the S21 5G, which was a device upgrade on that line from an absolutely ancient BlackBerry KEYone (Don't ask. They held on forever hoping keyboards would come back): After activating the device with the T-Mobile SIM Card that came with it, I went to activate Wi-Fi Calling on the device. I then went to update the E911 address on the device and the button took me to the same T-Mobile Login page as it did on the S20+. So I went to my Account Dashboard and it showed the S21 on the line and that it was on the T-Mobile network. It showed that Wi-Fi Calling was enabled under account services. I then went to Manage Device -> Options -> Update E911 Address for WiFi Calling, and the ancient content page loaded.... and it still showed the old device on the account. I contacted Customer Care via Chat and they removed the old device from the account and it then showed the S21 on the page. I then tried entering the address for WiFi Calling and it wouldn't accept it. When I hit "save" it threw an error for the address, which makes no sense since this was the valid shipping address for the device via UPS. So I put in a ticket with the Advanced Tech Support to have the Network Team go and manually try to enter the address on the backend or figure out what's going on here.

C'mon T-Mobile..... TNX is good. The customer experience for account services management you're having Sprint run on the Sprint website actually stinks, and we're starting to see the cracks where Sprint's legacy content that was never updated (and probably never will be) or that customers get misinformation about device eligibility for TNX (Google Pixel 5) can negatively affect the TNX customer experience. In my case, I'm having a miserable time trying to update the E911 Addresses for Wi-Fi Calling on my Samsung devices and its because TNX broke Sprint's E911 Address management on Android devices. iOS devices however seem to work fine for these updates to be made on the device. Not sure why that is.

Interested in what people think.

UPDATE: Looks like the folks on the backend fixed the E911 Address issue for the line with the S21 as the Sprint Website is now accepting the address as valid.

Edited May 12, 2021 by RedSpark
Made some edits for clarification and resolution

[Dkoellerwx]

4 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Unfortunately, I'm seeing the gaps in the customer experience for TNX

I may have missed it, but what are the the benefits of moving over to TNX on a 5G device that would automatically have TNA (prefer the T-Mobile network). It doesn't seem like it would change the network experience all that much. My devices are all TNA, and on the T-Mobile network all the time except while near Sprint Keep sites. I'd prefer to keep the easy access to Sprint sites since Sprint have a bigger network than T-Mobile here.

[grapkoski]

On 5/5/2021 at 9:18 AM, Trip said:

I still have yet to see any Sprint sites converted to T-Mobile around here, or even permits for any. 

- Trip

I've been stalking DCRA's new permit searching system and nothing yet. Grr.

 

How does T-Mobile usually file permits... I've seem T-Mobile and Tmo before. Not sure if there are any other variations they use.

[dewbertdc]

27 minutes ago, grapkoski said:

I've been stalking DCRA's new permit searching system and nothing yet. Grr.

 

How does T-Mobile usually file permits... I've seem T-Mobile and Tmo before. Not sure if there are any other variations they use.

What is DCRA's new system?  I had been looking at this site but it stopped working at the end of 2020.

https://eservices.dcra.dc.gov/DCRADataConnect/Home/Permits#

[grapkoski]

20 minutes ago, dewbertdc said:

What is DCRA's new system?  I had been looking at this site but it stopped working at the end of 2020.

https://eservices.dcra.dc.gov/DCRADataConnect/Home/Permits#

https://scout.dcra.dc.gov/dashboard-old-8932

[Trip]

37 minutes ago, grapkoski said:

I've been stalking DCRA's new permit searching system and nothing yet. Grr.

 

How does T-Mobile usually file permits... I've seem T-Mobile and Tmo before. Not sure if there are any other variations they use.

The new system is awful, IMO.  Not that the old one was fantastic either.

https://scout.dcra.dc.gov/login

I've not been watching DC for permits, so I can't really say what might be going on there.

In Fairfax County, they're filed as "T-Mobile" but I've also been searching by address just in case.  I was told by someone in the permitting office that apparently antenna towers do not require antenna permits, but building-mounted antennas do.  Of course, if they're doing massive electrical work like running new circuits, that may require a permit from the electrical side of things, but then that's not an antenna permit.

I've also been searching by address in Alexandria and Arlington for 312250 (or suspected 312250) sites, without success.

- Trip

[swintec]

12 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I may have missed it, but what are the the benefits of moving over to TNX on a 5G device that would automatically have TNA (prefer the T-Mobile network). It doesn't seem like it would change the network experience all that much. My devices are all TNA, and on the T-Mobile network all the time except while near Sprint Keep sites. I'd prefer to keep the easy access to Sprint sites since Sprint have a bigger network than T-Mobile here.

You get access to 5G-NR which is not (or was not) available on TNA.

[RedSpark]

13 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I may have missed it, but what are the the benefits of moving over to TNX on a 5G device that would automatically have TNA (prefer the T-Mobile network). It doesn't seem like it would change the network experience all that much. My devices are all TNA, and on the T-Mobile network all the time except while near Sprint Keep sites. I'd prefer to keep the easy access to Sprint sites since Sprint have a bigger network than T-Mobile here.

I've noticed substantially fewer scam/spam calls since switching to TNX and using T-Mobile's Scam Shield App.

[Cardsfan96]

13 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I may have missed it, but what are the the benefits of moving over to TNX on a 5G device that would automatically have TNA (prefer the T-Mobile network). It doesn't seem like it would change the network experience all that much. My devices are all TNA, and on the T-Mobile network all the time except while near Sprint Keep sites. I'd prefer to keep the easy access to Sprint sites since Sprint have a bigger network than T-Mobile here.

Only advantage is standalone 5g.

[dewbertdc]

4 hours ago, Trip said:

The new system is awful, IMO.  Not that the old one was fantastic either.

https://scout.dcra.dc.gov/login

I've not been watching DC for permits, so I can't really say what might be going on there.

In Fairfax County, they're filed as "T-Mobile" but I've also been searching by address just in case.  I was told by someone in the permitting office that apparently antenna towers do not require antenna permits, but building-mounted antennas do.  Of course, if they're doing massive electrical work like running new circuits, that may require a permit from the electrical side of things, but then that's not an antenna permit.

I've also been searching by address in Alexandria and Arlington for 312250 (or suspected 312250) sites, without success.

- Trip

Oh, this is really terrible.

I had been keeping an eye on the old DCRA site and just searching for T-Mobile... up until the end of 2020 all I had seen were permits to add 2.5GHz antennas to existing sites, which match up with what I had been able to observe in my limited travels around the city.

[Dkoellerwx]

5 hours ago, swintec said:

You get access to 5G-NR which is not (or was not) available on TNA.

5G has been available from the start on TNA. All my devices are on T-Mobile 5G, n71, n41 with n66 showing as available once it's deployed.

4 hours ago, RedSpark said:

I've noticed substantially fewer scam/spam calls since switching to TNX and using T-Mobile's Scam Shield App.

I never get any spam calls, there is a spam blocker active from Sprint or T-Mobile, don't remember which at the moment.

3 hours ago, Cardsfan96 said:

Only advantage is standalone 5g.

Don't really see that as an advantage at the moment. n71 isn't all that impressive, need the anchor band to really deliver real 5G speeds.

So to me... don't really see a reason to use TNX yet.

[Cardsfan96]

46 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

5G has been available from the start on TNA. All my devices are on T-Mobile 5G, n71, n41 with n66 showing as available once it's deployed.

I never get any spam calls, there is a spam blocker active from Sprint or T-Mobile, don't remember which at the moment.

Don't really see that as an advantage at the moment. n71 isn't all that impressive, need the anchor band to really deliver real 5G speeds.

So to me... don't really see a reason to use TNX yet.

For most it’s not an advantage. But to me in a rural area at edge of cell it’s the difference between 5 MHz b71 LTE and 15 MHz n71.

[Dkoellerwx]

Just now, Cardsfan96 said:

For most it’s not an advantage. But to me in a rural area at edge of cell it’s the difference between 5 MHz b71 LTE and 15 MHz n71.

That's fair. Very few places around me where I normally travel that AWS/PCS isn't available. 

[RedSpark]

17 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

5G has been available from the start on TNA. All my devices are on T-Mobile 5G, n71, n41 with n66 showing as available once it's deployed.

I never get any spam calls, there is a spam blocker active from Sprint or T-Mobile, don't remember which at the moment.

Don't really see that as an advantage at the moment. n71 isn't all that impressive, need the anchor band to really deliver real 5G speeds.

So to me... don't really see a reason to use TNX yet.

I was using Sprint's Spam Blocker App and I was still getting quite a few Spam Calls. After switching to TNX and using T-Mobile's Scam Shield App, I'm getting almost zero. T-Mobile has a much better Spam Call Blocker system and I'm glad I made the switch.

[mmark27]

6 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

I was using Sprint's Spam Blocker App and I was still getting quite a few Spam Calls. After switching to TNX and using T-Mobile's Scam Shield App, I'm getting almost zero. T-Mobile has a much better Spam Call Blocker system and I'm glad I made the switch.

However, the T-mobile one let's in a lot of SMS spam that I've seen. The Sprint version was blocking that garbage too, the T-mobile seems to let the SMS through but does catch calls pretty well. 

[RedSpark]

16 minutes ago, mmark27 said:

However, the T-mobile one let's in a lot of SMS spam that I've seen. The Sprint version was blocking that garbage too, the T-mobile seems to let the SMS through but does catch calls pretty well. 

I used to get a few SMS spam messages on Sprint. Since I've made the switch to TNX, I haven't gotten any at all.