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@WiWavelengthAny chance you can do one of those antenna performance based on FCC filings for the iPhone 13 series? That would be amazing to see how far they've come with Qualcomm hardware and 5G!

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Just checked out the iPhone 13 Pro upgrade information for our T-Mobile “Migrated” Unlimited Taxes/Fees Included Plan… and unless I’m missing something, there’s no way to do annual upgrades anymore.

I’m only given the choices of 30 Month Payments or to Pay in Full upfront, and I’m only eligible to upgrade to a new device once it’s completely paid off.

Wow, T-Mobile… This really sucks. Are others seeing this too?

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Just now, schmidtj said:

Field Engineering has a totally different look and feel but seems to work. Not that I understand 99.9% of it. 🤒

Yup! It's one of my favorite changes about the update. 

The Field Test mode in iOS 15 now shows you QAM, MIMO, and carrier size for NR and the LTE PCC. Should be much better for those of us who like to track network deployments. 

I just wish that Apple would let apps access that information so that we can do passive cell mapping. That's what I miss most about having an Android phone.

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The more I'm reading about this, the worse of a deal it seems to be.

We have the Unlimited Freedom Tax Inclusive Plan. I've migrated all but one of our lines to TNX. The only line I can't migrate is a Google Pixel 5 which apparently doesn't support TNX yet. Hopefully they get that sorted out at some point.

We have 3 iPhones on our Family Plan that were on Sprint's annual upgrade program, and I was anticipating doing an annual upgrade this year after making 12 Payments on our devices. We're currently at 10 Payments on an 18 Month Lease on those devices. When I checked on the Upgrade Workflow for each line, it seems that I can only do a 30 Month Payment Plan or Pay in Full for the phone at the outset. Would I see something different at 12 Months?

Apparently T-Mobile has introduced a new iPhone Upgrade Plan, but it's every two years instead of every year. Well that's worse than what we had before, and it seems to require us to switch to a new plan as well.... So I go to "Change Plan" and I see something called "Sprint MAX", but there's no fine print about it. It's not even listed on the Sprint Website as a current plan. I'm not about to switch to a new Phone Plan without seeing the Terms and Conditions, so they'd better fix that before I do it.

At this point, we would probably be better off switching all of our iPhone Lines to Apple's iPhone Annual Upgrade Program and bail on getting those devices from Sprint/T-Mobile altogether. We would get an Unlocked iPhone at the outset. We'd get to pay installments over 24 months and we could upgrade every 12 Months without having to Pay Off the device or have to deal with a trade-in value.

Am I missing something here? This seems like a terrible deal/program from T-Mobile.

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T-Mobile?  Being terrible?  Never!

I had ROAMAHOME blocked on my devices because the T-Mobile network was (and still is) so crummy in places I go.  I'm now trying to have MULTOCN put on them since they've started turning off Sprint towers leaving gaps in the coverage.  After nearly an hour, I finally got an answer trying to upsell me to new phones, then after another half hour I was told the G7 and G8X are somehow not compatible with MULTOCN even though the G8 is.  Then I was called and put on hold to talk to "advanced support." 

After 25 minutes on hold waiting, they told me, oops!  I am talking to T-Mobile support, not Sprint support, and they have to transfer me to Sprint support.  I was dumped onto the main Sprint phone tree.  At that point, I gave up.  I'll try again later.  That's 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life I won't get back.

These people are so incompetent it's not even funny.  I really want Sprint back.

- Trip

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Another hour chat this evening but my lines are finally on MULTOCN.  I actually had to argue with the person on the chat who didn't seem to know what it did and thought it would have no benefit for me.  That was after she suggested it required a T-Mobile SIM and I had to show her that one of my lines already had it with a Sprint SIM...

- Trip

 

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10 hours ago, Trip said:

Another hour chat this evening but my lines are finally on MULTOCN.  I actually had to argue with the person on the chat who didn't seem to know what it did and thought it would have no benefit for me.  That was after she suggested it required a T-Mobile SIM and I had to show her that one of my lines already had it with a Sprint SIM...

- Trip

 

Are you seeing a benefit from MOCN? 

Is it true that MOCN is highly biased to using T-Mobile towers? 

Should everyone with a non-5G phone ask for MOCN?

I had the impression it was supposed to be automatic now, perhaps even without being entered explicitly.  Is this not the case? 

I realize that it may take some time to draw conclusions so if you do not know yet that is fine.

Thanks!

Edited by comintel
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1 hour ago, comintel said:

Are you seeing a benefit from MOCN? 

Is it true that MOCN is highly biased to using T-Mobile towers? 

Should everyone with a non-5G phone ask for MOCN?

I had the impression it was supposed to be automatic now, perhaps even without being entered explicitly.  Is this not the case? 

I realize that it may take some time to draw conclusions so if you do not know yet that is fine.

Thanks!

Haven't gone anywhere yet, so I can't speak to benefits.  My issue was that I was out on Monday morning and it appears that T-Mobile has turned off several Sprint towers near me.  I was sitting in a parking lot near Landmark Mall on -118 dBm Band 25 because two of the sites I used to connect to there were apparently not running, so data would barely move.  This is in addition to my home site which has been off for several weeks, but that wasn't an issue because I don't use wireless data at home.  But if they're starting to turn off Sprint sites and leave holes, then there's really no alternative.

So far, I've only seen T-Mobile, but that makes sense since I've only been home and my home site is gone on Sprint, so the site I had been connecting to was a lot weaker.  I'll have to see when I'm out and about, possibly this weekend.

When ROAMAHOME came out, I had that removed and blocked from my account since T-Mobile's network is so lousy, so my lines were not automatically pushed to MULTOCN.  I had to have the block removed and then MULTOCN manually added.  That's probably not typical.

- Trip

Edited by Trip
Checked my logs. I actually never saw two different sites by Landmark.
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On 9/16/2021 at 12:09 PM, thisischuck01 said:

Yep! But that mmWave spectrum has been deployable for quite a while now - last years iPhone supported n260/n261, and so did the Galaxy series as far back as the S10. The only phone that T-Mobile currently sells that supports n258 is the OnePlus 9 Pro 5G.

Having a mainstream device such as the iPhone supporting n258 will greatly increase T-Mobile's amount of deployable mmWave. Tampa, for example, would go from 600MHz of deployable spectrum to 1000MHz (400MHz n260 + 200MHz n261 + 400 n258). NYC, which is currently only operating with 100MHz of n261, will go from 500MHz of deployable spectrum to 900MHz (400MHz n260 + 100MHz n261 + 400MHz n258). Hopefully, having more deployable spectrum will push them to expand deployment.

I was reading the FCC filing for the Pixel 6 yesterday and saw that it included n258 - I was wondering what that was. That will be my next phone so nice to know it will support this new spectrum. 

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2 hours ago, Trip said:

Haven't gone anywhere yet, so I can't speak to benefits.  My issue was that I was out on Monday morning and it appears that T-Mobile has turned off several Sprint towers near me.  I was sitting in a parking lot near Landmark Mall on -118 dBm Band 25 because two of the sites I used to connect to there were apparently not running, so data would barely move.  This is in addition to my home site which has been off for several weeks, but that wasn't an issue because I don't use wireless data at home.  But if they're starting to turn off Sprint sites and leave holes, then there's really no alternative.

So far, I've only seen T-Mobile, but that makes sense since I've only been home and my home site is gone on Sprint, so the site I had been connecting to was a lot weaker.  I'll have to see when I'm out and about, possibly this weekend.

When ROAMAHOME came out, I had that removed and blocked from my account since T-Mobile's network is so lousy, so my lines were not automatically pushed to MULTOCN.  I had to have the block removed and then MULTOCN manually added.  That's probably not typical.

- Trip

Ah, I see.  Thanks for those details! It is great to see some posts on this subject.

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33 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

TNX SIMS are not eligible for ESIM are they? If so, major pain in the butt.

You can activate the new iPhone 13's on Sprint with a system-generated eSim.

Or with a T-Mobile physical sim.

But that is the first iPhone model where you can do that - not for older phones that would not take eSims. 

It is only allowed where the phone allows IMEI1 to be an eSim.

 

 

Edited by comintel
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I got excited when I heard the iPhone 13 would support 2 eSIMs. What I didn't realize it's an either or situation. The first SIM slot is either a physical SIM or an eSIM but not both at the same time. I erroneously assumed I could use a physical SIM and also the 2 eSIMs concurrently. Wrong.  

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On 9/24/2021 at 3:53 PM, comintel said:

You can activate the new iPhone 13's on Sprint with a system-generated eSim.

Is this something that can be done or just an ability of the iPhone 13?  Fighting with Sprint to get an iPhone 13 activated on the Sprint network.  They’re telling me that currently it can only be activated on T-mobile as no Sprint SIM cards will be made to work with the 13. When I asked about eSIM on Sprint they just said no, with no explanation.

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31 minutes ago, fizzicsguy said:

Is this something that can be done or just an ability of the iPhone 13?  Fighting with Sprint to get an iPhone 13 activated on the Sprint network.  They’re telling me that currently it can only be activated on T-mobile as no Sprint SIM cards will be made to work with the 13. When I asked about eSIM on Sprint they just said no, with no explanation.

You can activate it on a Sprint plan and Sprint billing but it has to be a T-Mobile sim or esim for this model.

Edited by comintel
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Updates on MULTOCN.  Went to Rennfest this weekend, and can report on it a bit.

Contrary to what I had read, it prefers T-Mobile a lot rather than evenly splitting T-Mobile and Sprint, though 312250 sites appear as frequently (when available) as T-Mobile sites.  However, when I was actually at Rennfest, where the service was bogged down, it did try to load balance over to Sprint sites.  Neither T-Mobile nor Sprint was functioning with more than a trickle of data, so it bounced back and forth draining the battery without much to show for it.

On Saturday I'll be in Shentel land again, and we'll see how it does there.

- Trip

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Band 41 Upgrades in progress in the Rapid City SD/Black Hills market as well as info on Sprint site transitions by EOY......we shall see. Hopefully this will be paired with NEW sites as T-Mobile is still at least 29 sites short of the other 2 in the Black Hills area....and DISH is starting to move in with sites. 

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