Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[floorguy]

On 7/15/2021 at 2:28 PM, the_intern said:

What's the location of this site? 

Between the Hillfield road and Layton Parkway exits.  Just south of the kia dealership.

Has been an empty tower since the nextel merger.

[the_intern]

On 7/16/2021 at 6:41 PM, floorguy said:

Between the Hillfield road and Layton Parkway exits.  Just south of the kia dealership.

Has been an empty tower since the nextel merger.

I pinged one of the RF managers I know for the Utah market. He's on vacation but said that there are several new site builds in the work in that area in addition to some Sprint Retain site conversions. 

[floorguy]

15 hours ago, the_intern said:

I pinged one of the RF managers I know for the Utah market. He's on vacation but said that there are several new site builds in the work in that area in addition to some Sprint Retain site conversions. 

So when they do keep sites..... Are they keeping the sprint hardware?? or is everything getting swapped out??

I always thought 2500MHZ is 2500 MHZ with the tweaks being on the software side making it compatible for XXX spectrum bands

[Dkoellerwx]

2 hours ago, floorguy said:

So when they do keep sites..... Are they keeping the sprint hardware?? or is everything getting swapped out??

I always thought 2500MHZ is 2500 MHZ with the tweaks being on the software side making it compatible for XXX spectrum bands

It all gets swapped out. The new B41/n41 equipment can handle larger n41 channels. So instead of maxing out at 60Mhz, it can broadcast 100+Mhz. 

Need new equipment to support B12, B71 and B66 in addition to B25 that Sprint uses.

[PedroDaGr8]

I noticed yesterday that T-Mobile upgraded the n41 panel on a local tower from an AAHF to an AEHC.  I am quite surprised they updated that tower so quickly, since it was just upgraded to n41 in Sept. of last year. This allowed them to expand the n41 carrier from 60MHz to 100MHz. Not sure why since the tower speeds are backhaul limited.

[BlueAngel]

With my new S21 Ultra I figured I would run a test on my normal travels, wow. 100MHz of n41! Just wish my tower by my house would get n41, still only n71 10MHz.

Edited July 22, 2021 by BlueAngel

[belusnecropolis]

12 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Not sure why since the tower speeds are backhaul limited.

I drove a 5G router I built across the county last week and every site is still 200Mb p/s peak. They did bring up two band 41 carriers in LTE at 20 and 15 MHz and another 5MHz of Sprint's former PCS. There is a lot of bandwidth on air but looks like they will provision more throughput from fiber after they are finished building.

Enjoy this 4k video of a 4 sector site that is currently being built on the local campus.
 

 

[iansltx]

100 MHz n41 is live in Austin and...Bentonville, Arkansas.

Guessing this went live on Tuesday or Wednesday in Austin; network was acting a bit wonky on Tuesday. Noticed it yesterday, as I'm still a little too far away at home to catch n41. Peak speed in Bentonville 1/3 mi from the site was 675-700 Mbps down, 80-90 Mbps up, with the upload speed only possible with a 20 MHz B66 anchor...which seems congested at times. They also have 5 MHz B2 here as an anchor, which predictably leads to slow uploads. n71 is 15x15 here. Sprint B25 is two 5x5 channels.

Weirdly, seems like I'm being routed through Nashville, so latency is rather high, and tethering performance is somehow quite poor...maybe it's due to congestion on the PCC meaning that the difference between on-phone and tethered priority is the difference between a usable connection and...not.

Also, VZW (with the old Alltel SID for CDMA) is what you end up using inside the Crystal Bridges museum, though the area has WiFi so not the end of the world.

[Cardsfan96]

1 hour ago, iansltx said:

100 MHz n41 is live in Austin and...Bentonville, Arkansas.

Guessing this went live on Tuesday or Wednesday in Austin; network was acting a bit wonky on Tuesday. Noticed it yesterday, as I'm still a little too far away at home to catch n41. Peak speed in Bentonville 1/3 mi from the site was 675-700 Mbps down, 80-90 Mbps up, with the upload speed only possible with a 20 MHz B66 anchor...which seems congested at times. They also have 5 MHz B2 here as an anchor, which predictably leads to slow uploads. n71 is 15x15 here. Sprint B25 is two 5x5 channels.

Weirdly, seems like I'm being routed through Nashville, so latency is rather high, and tethering performance is somehow quite poor...maybe it's due to congestion on the PCC meaning that the difference between on-phone and tethered priority is the difference between a usable connection and...not.

Also, VZW (with the old Alltel SID for CDMA) is what you end up using inside the Crystal Bridges museum, though the area has WiFi so not the end of the world.

At least a few sites in STL are now at 100 MHz.

[the_intern]

On 7/19/2021 at 1:24 PM, floorguy said:

So when they do keep sites..... Are they keeping the sprint hardware?? or is everything getting swapped out??

I always thought 2500MHZ is 2500 MHZ with the tweaks being on the software side making it compatible for XXX spectrum bands

As Dkoellerwx said, everything gets swapped out, including ground equipment. They are also adding generators to a bunch of Sprint Keep sites in Northern Utah. My understanding is that most Sprint keep sites will get three new T-Mobile panels per sector for the entire spectrum portfolio - 600, 700, 1900, 2100, 2500. 

[radem]

A few weeks ago, my company moved its thousands of corporate mobile devices from Sprint to T-Mobile not using TMX but rather a full port to T-Mobile billing.  Each user was sent an email informing them that they would be receiving a T-Mobile SIM card in the mail and that they should not replace their SIM card until they received an email telling them when to do so.  If they switched early, their device would switch to a temporary telephone number and would stay that way until they restarted their phone after the number port.  They had to verify their address and agree to this procedure.  Users could opt to go to a T-Mobile store to do this for them at the appropriate time if they chose not to do it themselves.  If they did not make the SIM switch after the time listed, their device would stop working.  I received my T-Mobile SIM card a few days later in the mail and waited.

I received my email and a text message stating that my number was being ported from Sprint to T-Mobile.  At the date and time listed in my email, my Sprint iPhone started displaying no service.  I powered it down, switched the SIM card and powered it back up.  It came up as T-Mobile with my number and my plan was now changed to a T-Mobile business plan.  Easy to do.

[bmoses]

Found my first sprint only site to t-mobile conversion!

https://imgur.com/a/reKsIRG

wasn't live yet as far as i could tell so must have just been done.

[RAvirani]

On 7/9/2021 at 3:08 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

I think there used to be a way to go back to TNA from TNX, but I don't know if they're doing that any more, and if they are, they likely aren't making it easy. 

Just a heads up for anyone else thinking about making the switch to TNX - I tried for about two weeks and it does not appear you can go back if you don’t like your service with TNX. 

I would strongly recommend staying on TNA for anyone who is hesitant/unsure. 

[Yuhfhrh]

34 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Just a heads up for anyone else thinking about making the switch to TNX - I tried for about two weeks and it does not appear you can go back if you don’t like your service with TNX. 

I would strongly recommend staying on TNA for anyone who is hesitant/unsure. 

Unless something has changed, you can still go back. There are still immediate needs to do so- activating a phone not eligible for TNX yet like a pixel 5 for instance. You just have to do it through chat/customer support as the online portal doesn't support going back to a Sprint sim.

[RAvirani]

30 minutes ago, Yuhfhrh said:

Unless something has changed, you can still go back. There are still immediate needs to do so- activating a phone not eligible for TNX yet like a pixel 5 for instance. You just have to do it through chat/customer support as the online portal doesn't support going back to a Sprint sim.

I went to three stores that had Sprint SIMs in stock, none of which could activate one for my iPhone. I also tried calling in twice as well as speaking with someone on online chat. In every instance, I was told they couldn’t move me back or that the system wasn’t letting them activate my device.

While it may be possible to go back, they are definitely not making it easy. And customers like me (who depend on their phones for work) cannot deal with dropped calls and EDGE in the time it takes to figure it out. 

[comintel]

2 hours ago, RAvirani said:

I went to three stores that had Sprint SIMs in stock, none of which could activate one for my iPhone. I also tried calling in twice as well as speaking with someone on online chat. In every instance, I was told they couldn’t move me back or that the system wasn’t letting them activate my device.

While it may be possible to go back, they are definitely not making it easy. And customers like me (who depend on their phones for work) cannot deal with dropped calls and EDGE in the time it takes to figure it out. 

The direct number to Account Services/Retentions is  844-382-3317 .

I think they might be able to help.

[floorguy]

On 7/25/2021 at 10:08 AM, the_intern said:

As Dkoellerwx said, everything gets swapped out, including ground equipment. They are also adding generators to a bunch of Sprint Keep sites in Northern Utah. My understanding is that most Sprint keep sites will get three new T-Mobile panels per sector for the entire spectrum portfolio - 600, 700, 1900, 2100, 2500. 

I chatted with a foreman the other day (figured out what tmo panels look like lol) but he was also "on lend" from a verizon contractor. So he didn't know a ton.. but enough.

It's going on, it seems like its a little bit of slow process. And things screw up there to (he had an install were the panels S/N didn't match that which was on the paper work back in the office)   AND TMO does more over the phone vs having a eng. on hand like verizon does, so it slows it down a bit if they have a hiccup... Like wrong S/N lol

[iansltx]

Hit San Antonio and Austin this evening (and the stretch of 35 between). San Antonio is up to 100 MHz in many places, though I saw 80 MHz in one. Austin seems to be at 100 across the board. Looks like where that 100 MHz is got reconfigured very recently (last few days); it's now basically 2500-2600 MHz, with B41 2CA sitting at the top of the NR channel rather than below. Sprint B41 is at 2680.

[RAvirani]

19 hours ago, comintel said:

The direct number to Account Services/Retentions is  844-382-3317 .

I think they might be able to help.

Thank you! I would be porting to AT&T today if it weren’t for this!

[Paynefanbro]

T-Mobile did two news releases today.

1. T‑Mobile Has Most Reliable 5G Network (Again) According to New Report

   1. T-Mobile has been found to have the fastest, largest, and most reliable 5G network in the U.S. according to umlaut. Although I don't disagree with the results, I still think we should take it with a grain of salt since it was commissioned by T-Mobile and it doesn't look like they covered a very large area.

2. A 5G Build Update! And a Look Toward the Future of 5G

   1. T-Mobile now covers 165 million POPs with Ultra-Capacity 5G and 305 million POPs with Nationwide 5G.

   2. Neville also bragged about how they fully expect to maintain their spectrum lead well into the future.

      1. T-Mobile will average 100MHz of mid-band nationwide by year-end covering 200 million people for a total of for 60 billion MHz pops. This is compared to Verizon who plans to cover 100 million people next year and use 60 MHz of C-band to get 6 billion MHz pops. That same math for AT&T with their 40MHz of C-band is 4 billion MHz pops.

      2. In 2023 when the rest of the C-band spectrum becomes available T-Mobile is targeting 300 million people covered with 200MHz of mid-band for 60 billion MHz pops. Verizon says they’ll cover 200 million people with 160MHz, bringing them to 32 billion MHz pops. And AT&T will cover 200 million people with 80MHz of C-band, they’ll be at 16 billion MHz pops. 

Also here's an updated (though still low res) map:

[wispiANt]

8 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

T-Mobile did two news releases today.

1. T‑Mobile Has Most Reliable 5G Network (Again) According to New Report

   1. T-Mobile has been found to have the fastest, largest, and most reliable 5G network in the U.S. according to umlaut. Although I don't disagree with the results, I still think we should take it with a grain of salt since it was commissioned by T-Mobile and it doesn't look like they covered a very large area.

2. A 5G Build Update! And a Look Toward the Future of 5G

   1. T-Mobile now covers 165 million POPs with Ultra-Capacity 5G and 305 million POPs with Nationwide 5G.

   2. Neville also went to brag about how they fully expect to maintain their spectrum lead well into the future.

      1. T-Mobile will average 100MHz of mid-band nationwide by year-end covering 200 million people for a total of for 60 billion MHz pops. This is compared to Verizon who plans to cover 100 million people next year and use 60 MHz of C-band to get 6 billion MHz pops. That same math for AT&T with their 40MHz of C-band is 4 billion MHz pops.

      2. In 2023 when the rest of the C-band spectrum becomes available T-Mobile is targeting 300 million people covered with 200MHz of mid-band for 60 billion MHz pops. Verizon says they’ll cover 200 million people with 160MHz, bringing them to 32 billion MHz pops. And AT&T will cover 200 million people with 80MHz of C-band, they’ll be at 16 billion MHz pops. 

Also here's an updated (though still low res) map:

You can get a higher resolution map if you remove the dimensions from the url. Link.

[mattp]

1 hour ago, thisischuck01 said:

You can get a higher resolution map if you remove the dimensions from the url. Link.

Any way  to put it over a state map 

[comintel]

8 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Thank you! I would be porting to AT&T today if it weren’t for this!

Another number that might help is:

Oklahoma Network Center  1-855-423-6623

Normally they ask of a ticket is already open but people say they will usually help even without one. .

 

[iansltx]

10 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

1. T-Mobile will average 100MHz of mid-band nationwide by year-end

So...they'll have areas with >100 MHz? Certainly possible, but would be rather surprising.

[mdob07]

12 minutes ago, iansltx said:

So...they'll have areas with >100 MHz? Certainly possible, but would be rather surprising.

I can see it if they include N2 and N66 along with N41 in that number. Has N2 or N66 been spotted yet?