Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[though]

4 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Speeds are too low for the sizes of files/documents I work with and need to manipulate.

Did you actually try it? I've seen speeds upwards of 500/50+.

[RedSpark]

Just now, though said:

Did you actually try it? I've seen speeds upwards of 500/50+.

Oh? If that's the case, I'll check it out. Thanks.

[Dkoellerwx]

1 hour ago, RedSpark said:

Oh? If that's the case, I'll check it out. Thanks.

Only if you have 100Mhz of n41 available at your home address. Otherwise you are not likely to see anything close to what Though said. 

[belusnecropolis]

52 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

100Mhz

We have 80MHz on air, but backhaul is still rate limited to 175Mb p/s across the market 🙃

I was able to utilize the main antenna on my modular radio by locking on to an non modernized site for LTE bands 2+2+66 as anchor. Then on MiMo ports that are tuned to n41 I steered a parabolic to a different but modernized site that has new radio on air. When life gives you backhaul lemons make EN-DC lemonade

Net 225MB p/s through a giant forest with well tuned antenna. Maxxxing gain but yeah it was fun, work and even with huge channels there is a plethora of things that can keep you away from those speeds.

Still faster than available CableCo, so I don't mind the pain.

[tremendousjohnson]

1 hour ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Only if you have 100Mhz of n41 available at your home address. Otherwise you are not likely to see anything close to what Though said. 

I'm in the Twin Cities and I get from 200-250 down and 30-50up.  Just as good as Xfinity for downloads, and way better for uploads.  Pretty sure we don't have 100Mhz here.  At least not current in active usage?  YMMV.  good luck.  

[Dkoellerwx]

16 minutes ago, tremendousjohnson said:

I'm in the Twin Cities and I get from 200-250 down and 30-50up.  Just as good as Xfinity for downloads, and way better for uploads.  Pretty sure we don't have 100Mhz here.  At least not current in active usage?  YMMV.  good luck.  

Yes, smaller channels still can perform well. But it sounds like he needed reliable and fast. Smaller channels can still have fast peak speeds but may not be as reliably fast. We only have 40Mhz on air here in Omaha and I can get peak speeds of over 400Mbps. But, during the day, that falls into the 50-150Mbps range. Perfectly fine for most usage of course, but if you need reliably faster speeds, it may not be the best option.

Edit: My experience is NSA 5G. I'm not sure if the internet offered is 5G only or if it combines LTE channels as well. If 5G only, then you will not even see the speeds I just mentioned if you only have a 40 or 60Mhz channel available.

[runagun]

On 8/10/2021 at 10:22 AM, Paynefanbro said:

T-Mobile Is Launching Fiber Optic Home Internet, Starting In NYC

https://tmo.report/2021/08/t-mobile-is-launching-fiber-optic-home-internet-starting-in-nyc/

Looks like they're reselling fiber from another company called Pilot Fiber. I wouldn't be surprised if T-Mobile considered a possible acquisition and using it as a jumping off point to build out their own network here so that they can use themselves for backhaul similar to Verizon here.

The cynical person in me thinks its only to the buildings they have antennas on.  

[Dkoellerwx]

Our first (known) Sprint casualty in the Omaha market. Sprint used to be the third tier, but equipment vanished between Friday and today.

[iansltx]

On 8/10/2021 at 3:31 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

Edit: My experience is NSA 5G. I'm not sure if the internet offered is 5G only or if it combines LTE channels as well. If 5G only, then you will not even see the speeds I just mentioned if you only have a 40 or 60Mhz channel available.

Home Internet at this point is NSA. SA is possible (the Nokia gateway has an X55 modem) but there isn't much of a point since T-Mobile wants as much available capacity as possible on those devices and SA would be going in the wrong direction.

[iansltx]

On 8/10/2021 at 12:39 PM, RedSpark said:

Oh? If that's the case, I'll check it out. Thanks.

If you have good n41 service in an area, take those speeds, dramatically increase upload speeds, and that's in the neighborhood of what you'd get on T-Mobile. Reports are pretty consistent that their gateway turns in upload numbers that are faster than what most cablecos sell.

[mdob07]

1 hour ago, iansltx said:

If you have good n41 service in an area, take those speeds, dramatically increase upload speeds, and that's in the neighborhood of what you'd get on T-Mobile. Reports are pretty consistent that their gateway turns in upload numbers that are faster than what most cablecos sell.

Yeah when mine is on n71 nsa it easily gets over 100mbps upload. I think when it's using n41 nsa it's around 50 up, but download is over 400 and that's with the gateway in my basement. My Spectrum service is 200/10. There are drawbacks though. If you just need internet for basic needs then it's great, but you can't do much on the router except change ssid and channel configuration. There's no options for advanced options like port forwarding and stuff like that, and the NAT configuration T-Mobile uses hinders things like VPN and VoIP services. 

[mdob07]

2 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Our first (known) Sprint casualty in the Omaha market. Sprint used to be the third tier, but equipment vanished between Friday and today.

I've found a handful here as well. At least it looks like T-Mobile is fully removing all of the Sprint equipment, including the tower racks. Here all of the old Nextel sites are still up and look functional to the untrained eye. Looks like all Sprint did was kill power and backhaul and walked away. The antennas, coax, and the equipment shelters are still in place for most of the Nextel sites here.

[belusnecropolis]

6 hours ago, mdob07 said:

There's no options for advanced options

Have you thought about moving the SIM to a device that can? FOSS like GoldenOrb is doing great work here and Mikrotik has a few solutions working on their latest Router OS beta. 

[floorguy]

On 8/9/2021 at 7:03 PM, The_Chemist said:

My girlfriend's S21, does that, my S21 Ultra , does it and my Note 20 Ultra 5G does it. 

I'm thinking it's more of the T-Mobile system rether than all of these phones. 

Sure would be nice to hear from owners of Motorola and LG devices to see if they get the infamous "No Connection" and band jumping that so many of us with Samsung devices are experiencing. 

All the phones that I mentioned above are factory unlocked non-carrier versions. 

Actually, I just remembered, I have a T-Mobile LG V20, which of course is not 5G, but when I put my T-Mobile SIM in it, the V20 jumped bands and also got the "No Connection" message.

It's got to be growing pains of the T-Mobile system causing these sorts of issues. 

Hopefully in a year or so things will start to settle down as T-Mobile takes over the Sprint sites and converts them. 

T-Mobile tends to work rather rapidly on these sorts of things...

Lets see if I did this right??

Check this link for a screen video of what mine was doing

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZVSWfCT9yx446d5D9

[Cardsfan96]

On 8/9/2021 at 8:40 PM, notsrealinc said:

I'll be floored if they fix this. It's been an issue since last December and IDK why if they fix it that it took this long. That is pretty much the only thing stopping me from going to a T-Mo SIM.

The fact that a Sprint SIM was still unrestricted I guess was a sign. 

I’m still skeptical as well. I trust the source so we will see. Only thing I can think is they want to fix before TNX is mandatory because then people won’t have another option anymore and will be getting fcc complaints.

[dkyeager]

On 8/9/2021 at 9:03 PM, The_Chemist said:

My girlfriend's S21, does that, my S21 Ultra , does it and my Note 20 Ultra 5G does it. 

I'm thinking it's more of the T-Mobile system rether than all of these phones. 

Sure would be nice to hear from owners of Motorola and LG devices to see if they get the infamous "No Connection" and band jumping that so many of us with Samsung devices are experiencing. 

All the phones that I mentioned above are factory unlocked non-carrier versions. 

Actually, I just remembered, I have a T-Mobile LG V20, which of course is not 5G, but when I put my T-Mobile SIM in it, the V20 jumped bands and also got the "No Connection" message.

It's got to be growing pains of the T-Mobile system causing these sorts of issues. 

Hopefully in a year or so things will start to settle down as T-Mobile takes over the Sprint sites and converts them. 

T-Mobile tends to work rather rapidly on these sorts of things...

My LG V20 gets no GPS in many markets.  Then I pull out my AT&T phone for navigation.  T-Mobile needs to fix the Sprint billing migration, including "free" phones and "free" lines.  Then those of us on the T-Mobile network without serious issues can migrate over.  I don't mind picking a new plan.  The Magenta Max looks like a plausible replacement for my ED1500.

[schmidtj]

18 hours ago, dkyeager said:

  The Magenta Max looks like a plausible replacement for my ED1500.

I moved my 4 line ED1500 over a year ago to Magenta. Later I upgraded to MAX for the full function Scam Shield and larger Netflix subsidy. I get my iPhones direct from Apple so loosing the purchased phone subsidy wasn’t a big deal. Service here in Chitown is every bit as good as it was on Sprint IMO. The only thing I miss is the way Sprint handled Apple Watch service activation and deactivation. On Sprint it was fully automatic through the Web site. Not so with T-Mobile. Deactivating an Apple Watch requires calling and dealing with support/retentions. 

[Mr.Nuke]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:38 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

Our first (known) Sprint casualty in the Omaha market. Sprint used to be the third tier, but equipment vanished between Friday and today.

I spotted another one today that is a co-located site. Unfortunately T-Mobile is still only running B2/66 on a lower rack to boot. To me at least, the even more odd thing is Omaha has a significant amount of sites permitted right now, but this one is not.

 

 

[jreuschl]

It sounds like the bad T-Mobile breach does not affect the Sprint side.  The hackers apparently got almost everything under the sun for TM customers...  SSN and DL included.

[Cardsfan96]

On 8/18/2021 at 10:21 AM, jreuschl said:

It sounds like the bad T-Mobile breach does not affect the Sprint side.  The hackers apparently got almost everything under the sun for TM customers...  SSN and DL included.

Is that confirmed? If heard conflicting info on if Sprint was affected or not.

[mdob07]

Looks like T-Mobile is starting to negotiate spectrum swaps. 

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/t-mobiles-spectrum-swap-with-verizon-hints-at-merger-progress/d/d-id/771617?

[JonnygATL]

Does ANYONE struggle with insufficient speeds? I give zero f-cks about the actual Mbps number. Does it hinder you at all , at any time? It doesn't me. It simply works. Is that so bad? And I'm on "just" 4G. Asking for a friend. 

[though]

6 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

Does ANYONE struggle with insufficient speeds? I give zero f-cks about the actual Mbps number. Does it hinder you at all , at any time? It doesn't me. It simply works. Is that so bad? And I'm on "just" 4G. Asking for a friend. 

Yes me. Anything south, west, and north of Kearney, NE until you hit Denver. Phone locks onto AT&T roaming and speeds are horrid

[The_Chemist]

7 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

Does ANYONE struggle with insufficient speeds? I give zero f-cks about the actual Mbps number. Does it hinder you at all , at any time? It doesn't me. It simply works. Is that so bad? And I'm on "just" 4G. Asking for a friend. 

Yes, in the Harrisburg PA area, I have trouble with outgoing voice on some phone calls because the upload speed is so bad. 

 

Web pages can take forever to load as well. 

Usually, I just give up and use my Verizon phone. 

Supposed to get the low frequencies on a Sprint tower near me in about a year. 

Currently said Sprint tower stomps on the very usable T-Mobile 5G stand alone NR  signal. They just don't have the system set up properly yet. 

[BlueAngel]

Finally got n41 in my neighborhood, 100Mz nice and fast.