Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[jreuschl]

1 hour ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Just connected to n41-SA for the first time, despite the service menu on my phone (N20U) only showing n41-NSA as an option. 

Good to know that works on the 20 devices (Note 20 has same menu with that option being left off)  Too bad ours doesn't support CA.

[RedSpark]

36 minutes ago, schmidtj said:

Aren’t hotspots on max limited to 40GB per month? 

Yes. However, you can do an add-on upgrade to have 50 GB (+$10/Month) or 100 GB (+$35/Month) on a per-line basis. Curious what the uptake is on that.

[schmidtj]

43 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Yes. However, you can do an add-on upgrade to have 50 GB (+$10/Month) or 100 GB (+$35/Month) on a per-line basis. Curious what the uptake is on that.

If you're address is served you can get T-Mobile Home Internet for $50/Mo (w/Autopay) and that's truly unlimited but technically is suppose to only be used at your address. I think that's a 911 thing. 

[Svengo]

5 hours ago, comintel said:

That one would use SIMOLW416TQ if it does support a Sprint sim but I am not sure if it does because its release date was close to the cutover where new models stopped doing so.

T-Mobile throttles video more widely than Sprint.

Thanks and I investigated it a bit closer and there seems to be some conflicting / unclear info for this one as well as a few other recent phones but it seems to lean to no sprint sim working

[RedSpark]

Some interesting updates in this piece about the Former Sprint Campus, etc.....

[RedSpark]

On 12/22/2021 at 2:41 PM, schmidtj said:

If you're address is served you can get T-Mobile Home Internet for $50/Mo (w/Autopay) and that's truly unlimited but technically is suppose to only be used at your address. I think that's a 911 thing. 

Perhaps the thinking is that they'll be better able to do better congestion management on these Unlimited users at fixed locations (and they'll be fewer of them as well vs the number of heavy/upgraded Hotspot users that there would otherwise be)? They must have run some models on that.

[dkyeager]

59 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Perhaps the thinking is that they'll be better able to do better congestion management on these Unlimited users at fixed locations (and they'll be fewer of them as well vs the number of heavy/upgraded Hotspot users that there would otherwise be)? They must have run some models on that.

I think they hope to offset rural site costs.  The common assumption is the carriers make their money off the urban sites which then subsidize the less populated locations.  They should be able to have more rural sites given the former Sprint customers.  Their wireless internet could allow for the addition of even more sites.

[RedSpark]

12 years is quite the long term deal.

We’ll be on the iPhone 25 Pro by then!

 

[radem]

On 12/22/2021 at 1:17 PM, schmidtj said:

Aren’t hotspots on max limited to 40GB per month? 

On most T-Mobile phone plans, mobile phone hotspots drop to 128kb/s unlimited but deprioritized on non-roaming towers after your hotspot full speed pool amount is consumed.  This throttle remains in place through the end of your current billing period at which time the full speed pool starts over.

[schmidtj]

2 hours ago, RedSpark said:

We’ll be on the iPhone 25 Pro by then!

Forever the optimist. 🙃

[dkyeager]

7 hours ago, RedSpark said:

12 years is quite the long term deal.

We’ll be on the iPhone 25 Pro by then!

 

My guess is this way T-Mobile can get rid of Sprint small cells placed in Sprint's weak coverage areas where T-Mobile now has good signal.

[Paynefanbro]

2 hours ago, dkyeager said:

My guess is this way T-Mobile can get rid of Sprint small cells placed in Sprint's weak coverage areas where T-Mobile now has good signal.

FierceWireless's article provided a lot of details around this. 

It turns out T-Mobile signed on for 35,000 small cells which is Crown Castle's largest order yet. Before that, their largest order was 15,000 from Verizon last year.

They mentioned that they are expecting to see about 5,000 small cells shutdown in 2023 as a result of the Sprint merger but ultimately Crown Castle will be left with a net of 30,000 small cells. So like a lot of folks have been saying over on Reddit and what you're saying, it seems like T-Mobile is decommissioning small cells that are in areas where macros now adequately cover very well and adding 35k new small cells in areas that'll benefit more. 

[RedSpark]

America’s Largest, Fastest and Most Reliable 5G Network Further Extends its Lead

• Ultra Capacity 5G covers over 210 million people nationwide and can deliver game-changing speeds of 400 Mbps or more (Note: T-Mobile ended the year with over 210 million people covered with its Ultra Capacity 5G, reaching over 80% of all T-Mobile customers, and plans to reach 300 million people (more than 90% of Americans) by the end of 2023.) 
• Extended Range 5G covers over 310 million people, reaching 94% of Americans (NOTE: expected to cover 99% of Americans by 2023.)
• A dozen independent third-party network benchmarking reports in 2021 show T-Mobile is number one in nationwide 5G speed and availability

and

• Postpaid phone net customer additions were 844 thousand in Q4 2021 and 2.9 million for the full year 2021. Postpaid phone churn was 1.10% in Q4 2021 as the company ramped up its Sprint customer integration and 0.98% for the full year 2021.

 

 

Look at them go. Wow.

Edited January 6, 2022 by RedSpark
Additional Detail

[RedSpark]

1 hour ago, dkyeager said:

My guess is this way T-Mobile can get rid of Sprint small cells placed in Sprint's weak coverage areas where T-Mobile now has good signal.

I agree with your guess. Makes sense.

[RedSpark]

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

FierceWireless's article provided a lot of details around this. 

It turns out T-Mobile signed on for 35,000 small cells which is Crown Castle's largest order yet. Before that, their largest order was 15,000 from Verizon last year.

They mentioned are expecting to see about 5,000 small cells shutdown in 2023 as a result of the Sprint merger but ultimately Crown Castle will be left with a net of 30,000 small cells. So like a lot of folks have been saying over on Reddit and what you're saying, it seems like T-Mobile is decommissioning small cells that are in areas where macros now adequately cover very well and adding 35k new small cells in areas that'll benefit more. 

It's a massive order. Just incredible.

Edited January 6, 2022 by RedSpark
Clarity

[RedSpark]

6 hours ago, schmidtj said:

Forever the optimist. 🙃

For sure! 😀 I do know one thing though... They'll still be saying this:

 

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

FierceWireless's article provided a lot of details around this. 

It turns out T-Mobile signed on for 35,000 small cells which is Crown Castle's largest order yet. Before that, their largest order was 15,000 from Verizon last year.

They mentioned that they are expecting to see about 5,000 small cells shutdown in 2023 as a result of the Sprint merger but ultimately Crown Castle will be left with a net of 30,000 small cells. So like a lot of folks have been saying over on Reddit and what you're saying, it seems like T-Mobile is decommissioning small cells that are in areas where macros now adequately cover very well and adding 35k new small cells in areas that'll benefit more. 

The other though is they will be used for the c-band.  Don't remember who first stated this else I would credit them.

[dkyeager]

Watching Peter Osvaldik, EVP & CFO T-Mobile at Citi AppsEconomy Conference. 

 

Most of the 35,000 is primary upgrades to existing small cells to add more midband spectrum.   

No update on Dish.  Expect a faster roll-off of Dish with their AT&T deal. 

This would give them "a lot of capacity that we would have to go fill". 

 

They want to compress Sprint migration time to T-Mobile, both billing and network. 

They want a very seamless low touch friction-less billing integration. 

Decommission remaining Sprint sites rapidly at mid year to get synergy savings.

 

Pull Capex from 2023 into 2022 to accelerate network buildout (more in 22 than 21). 

They expect more diversity on router side to help with wireless internet. 

 

T-Mobile plans on up to $60 billion in share buyback in 2023. 

If they are overachieving on plan in 22 they may start buybacks earlier.

    Source:   https://kvgo.com/citi-apps-economy-conference/t-mobile-us-inc-jan-2022

[BucketHead25]

I swapped out all my Sprint SIMs with T-Mobile back in early November and the message on the Sprint site say they will notify me when they are ready to migrate my account.  Anyone know when T-Mobile will start migrating accounts over? 

[dkyeager]

29 minutes ago, BucketHead25 said:

I swapped out all my Sprint SIMs with T-Mobile back in early November and the message on the Sprint site say they will notify me when they are ready to migrate my account.  Anyone know when T-Mobile will start migrating accounts over? 

They have been promising me for months, and meanwhile they started throttling my videos against my contract.

They might be converting by plan. Conversions are expected to be continuing after shutdown so it could be a year IMO. The problem for some of us is we are losing services and money every month compared to if we could convert billing now.

[schmidtj]

Apparently T-Mobile is no longer requiring Sprint Customers change their plans.

https://tmo.report/2022/01/exclusive-t-mobile-wont-make-sprint-customers-change-their-plan/
 

Maybe of interest as well:

https://tmo.report/2022/01/exclusive-internal-slide-confirms-t-mobiles-migration-schedule-for-sprint-customers/

[Paynefanbro]

Signals Research Group is releasing a report testing 5G carrier aggregation on T-Mobile's network.

https://signalsresearch.com/issue/5g-the-greatest-show-on-earth-21/

Some highlights from it:

Quote

With TDD-TDD CA (100 MHz + 20 MHz) and NSA, we observed a peak physical layer (PDSCH) throughput exceeding 1.7 Gbps with 85% of the throughput due to 5G NR. There were two LTE carriers contributing just over 260 Mbps when we made this measurement. When the phone operated in FDD-TDD CA mode, the total throughput was lower – in part due to less total bandwidth in the 5G NR FDD channel (2x10 MHz) and in part to how T-Mobile has optimized its network. However, the true benefit of FDD-TDD CA has very little to do with total throughput and everything to do with Bn41 coverage extension not to mention making the transition to a complete 5G NR SA network architecture possible.

---

The use of Band n71 (600 MHz) as the primary cell (P Cell) results in better performance of 5G NR in Band n41 (2.5 GHz), including higher data speeds close to the cell site, and, most importantly, higher data speeds and extended Band n41 coverage at the edge of the cell.

 

[Thomas L.]

I wonder if any of the small cells will use their mmwave spectrum? Or do we think T-Mobile is not going to pursue mmwave expansion?

[Trip]

Just spotted a T-Mobile small cell this morning; B4/2 only, as best I could tell.  Looked just like the many AT&T ones floating around.

- Trip

 

[floorguy]

36 minutes ago, Thomas L. said:

I wonder if any of the small cells will use their mmwave spectrum? Or do we think T-Mobile is not going to pursue mmwave expansion?

I doubt it, with the shear amount of B41 they got from sprint..

But then again, never say never....

With my limited knowledge, I would think standard bands would be better than MM anyway.. To me MM is for fill in purposes, not general coverage.. but then again thats me