Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[Dkoellerwx]

31 minutes ago, jreuschl said:

Plus how many phones support N25 SA? The recent N25 update only added NSA

Doesn't seem like many. They added it to the S21 Ultra but then took it away again back in November.

[though]

S22 or Pixel 7?

[dkyeager]

7 hours ago, iansltx said:

Calling n25 "Ultra Capacity" is...annoying, to say the least. It's worse than calling 40 MHz n77 5G+.

Particularly given that AT&T and VZW don't do this for n25/n66 that they have, which is comparable.

Like, PCS NR as an extra layer is great, but... 😐

 

7 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Nationwide n25? How do they come up with that metric? I know I've seen it reported in a few spots, but hardly what I'd call nationwide. Unless I'm missing something.

 

6 hours ago, jreuschl said:

Plus how many phones support N25 SA? The recent N25 update only added NSA

I am going to side with T-Mobile on this one on lumping n25 with n41.  Outdoors band footprint can be slightly bigger than band 41.  Don't forget when comparing the two that their are two sides of the FDD n25 bandwidth versus just one timed on TDD n41. n25 also brings greater upload speeds.  I have not checked recently, but in some portions of the country T-Mobile has 40Mhz of  band 25 iirc.  So it does add a few lanes to the very wide n41 freeway.

As far as nationwide, don't forget the G-block, which will be used with the Space-X satellites.

[the_intern]

7 hours ago, iansltx said:

Calling n25 "Ultra Capacity" is...annoying, to say the least. It's worse than calling 40 MHz n77 5G+.

Particularly given that AT&T and VZW don't do this for n25/n66 that they have, which is comparable.

Like, PCS NR as an extra layer is great, but... 😐

Has anyone actually seen n25 being labeled as "Ultra Capacity" on their device? The times I caught my device on n25 it did not show the "UC" icon in my case. 

[dkyeager]

2 hours ago, the_intern said:

Has anyone actually seen n25 being labeled as "Ultra Capacity" on their device? The times I caught my device on n25 it did not show the "UC" icon in my case. 

I have it on my a32 5g factory unlocked. Even works with Tello, at least for tracking.

[belusnecropolis]

4 hours ago, dkyeager said:

As far as nationwide, don't forget the G-block, which will be used with the Space-X satellites.

The n25 carrier is 20MHz FDD here in coastal Best Carolina, centered at 1989.85. C5+G. The rest of their ePCS holdings are non contiguous. I wonder if it will get shoved around when this Starlink agreement is activated. 

[dkyeager]

6 hours ago, belusnecropolis said:

The n25 carrier is 20MHz FDD here in coastal Best Carolina, centered at 1989.85. C5+G. The rest of their ePCS holdings are non contiguous. I wonder if it will get shoved around when this Starlink agreement is activated. 

Starlink is supposed to operate more like roaming.

[dkyeager]

A reverse compliment for T-Mobile: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20221212/carriers/kagan-what-verizon-and-att-should-learn-from-t-mobile-us

[PedroDaGr8]

22 hours ago, iansltx said:

Calling n25 "Ultra Capacity" is...annoying, to say the least. It's worse than calling 40 MHz n77 5G+.

Particularly given that AT&T and VZW don't do this for n25/n66 that they have, which is comparable.

Like, PCS NR as an extra layer is great, but... 😐

Someone in another thread mentioned that T-Mobile will only call n25 UC if they have 30-40MHz of contiguous spectrum for n25, so it will be pretty similar to your comment about 40MHz n77 being 5G+. Assuming 4xMIMO and 256QAM, a 40MHz NR carrier has around 1Gbps of theoretical bandwidth. Even at half of that real-world, 500Mbps for a single carrier seems reasonable to call it UC/5G+.

At this time, neither AT&T nor VZW have deployed 30-40MHz of contiguous n2 or n66. As they migrate to NR-SA and sunset the related LTE bands, it couldn't surprise me if they do start to use similar marketing.

 

[Dkoellerwx]

16 hours ago, dkyeager said:

As far as nationwide, don't forget the G-block

I know they have nationwide PCS holdings, just questioning whether they can say they have deployed n25 nationwide.

[IrwinshereAgain]

6 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I know they have nationwide PCS holdings, just questioning whether they can say they have deployed n25 nationwide.

Not sure they are claiming that it is deployed nationwide yet.   The way I read it,  was that they are starting to deploy it as part of the 3ca ... nationwide. 

[iansltx]

If the minimum for UC branding on n25 (or n66) is 20x20, that's passable, though folks seems to be seeing 10-12 bits per Hz so hopefully they optimize things further. 40 MHz n41 is still a wider channel for downlink though, as TDD ratios are pretty aggressive in favor of downlink.

In Austin, AT&T has 15x15 of PCS, VZW has 15x15, and T-Mobile has 25x25 + 10x10, with the 10x10 including the G block. They don't have any AWS channels wider than 10 MHz so if T-Mobile wants to go hard on mid-band FD NR, the thing to do would be to stop running LTE on PCS, as the 10x10 includes the G block and 5x5 LTE channels aren't great. At that point they'd be down to 5x5 B12 and 10x10 + 10x10 + 5x5 B66 for LTE, which is sufficient for LTE fallback and NSA 5G.

Or they can run 15x15 + 10x10 n25 and leave 10x10 B2, which is what they had here until they started moving things around. Which is probably fine as we can run n41 at 190 MHz once B41 is gone, but don't slap a UC icon on it.

[xmx1024]

On 12/13/2022 at 12:23 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

I know they have nationwide PCS holdings, just questioning whether they can say they have deployed n25 nationwide.

nationwide = 200m pops

18 hours ago, IrwinshereAgain said:

Not sure they are claiming that it is deployed nationwide yet.   The way I read it,  was that they are starting to deploy it as part of the 3ca ... nationwide. 

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-expands-leading-5g-network-with-additional-coverage-and-capacity

[dkyeager]

11 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I know they have nationwide PCS holdings, just questioning whether they can say they have deployed n25 nationwide.

I reread everthing and can see where you are coming from.  Some aspects are definately foward looking: “We’re rapidly executing on our vision to deliver the highest capacity network this country has ever seen". I need to test on a s22, but that phone is currently not available to me for a few more days.

[IrwinshereAgain]

1 hour ago, xmx1024 said:

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-expands-leading-5g-network-with-additional-coverage-and-capacity

You are correct, it clearly says nationwide.   I might have misread the article that I saw.  Thank you. 

[dkyeager]

More clearly stated here: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/13/23506626/t-mobile-5g-1900mhz-pcs-carrier-aggregation-sprint-3g-lte

[mdob07]

10 hours ago, dkyeager said:

I reread everthing and can see where you are coming from.  Some aspects are definately foward looking: “We’re rapidly executing on our vision to deliver the highest capacity network this country has ever seen". I need to test on a s22, but that phone is currently not available to me for a few more days.

I've tried to force my S22 to connect to n25 but so far nothing. 

[BucketHead25]

I took T-Mobile up on their $25/month home internet deal.  Just connected yesterday and have been using it all morning.  I get about 550 down, 70 up with 19 mS latency.  Full time WFH with a virtual desktop and Zoom calls all day.  I'll use it for the next couple weeks.  Can't beat this deal with no contract.  Would love to send Spectrum packing with their $80 basic internet service.

[chamb]

45 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

I've tried to force my S22 to connect to n25 but so far nothing. 

Same here.  My s22 has the latest update but I get no n25. I did see a statement that the s-22 would be getting a update soon to give it access.  But I saw that comment a couple of weeks ago.  So when is soon? 

[comintel]

I think that by "nationwide", they meant that they had reserved the spectrum slice for it to be used nationwide (not just in selected areas), not that they had necessarily deployed signal to it yet.

Edited December 14, 2022 by comintel
punctuation correction

[Trip]

I've been locking my S21FE to n25 for several weeks now.  Granted, I did the steps in the S22 thread to unlock the bands that the phone supported but weren't enabled...

Separately, I'm on Unlimited Freedom and got migrated to the T-Mobile billing system today.  Got the text during the day, and just now set up my account.  I have to say I liked the old Sprint interface better, but it's not a complete disaster.  Poking around to see where things are as it seems to be scattered all over the place.

- Trip

[Dkoellerwx]

On 12/13/2022 at 11:29 PM, dkyeager said:

I reread everthing and can see where you are coming from.  Some aspects are definately foward looking: “We’re rapidly executing on our vision to deliver the highest capacity network this country has ever seen". I need to test on a s22, but that phone is currently not available to me for a few more days.

Cellmapper seems to show more n25 than I would have expected, but I am not clear on how well Cellmapper is able to identify what kind of 5G it is connected to when it is in NSA mode. I know it finds SA 5G just fine, but the lack of any cell data (that I can see) on n25 makes me question the amount of coverage. That said, if it is accurate, I suppose they could meet the POPs number to claim nationwide. I certainly have not seen any n25, NSA or otherwise. 

[Dkoellerwx]

1 hour ago, Trip said:

Separately, I'm on Unlimited Freedom and got migrated to the T-Mobile billing system today.  Got the text during the day, and just now set up my account.

I don't mind Sprint billing, but I only go on there once a month so probably not enough to be bothered by anything haha.

10 hours ago, BucketHead25 said:

I took T-Mobile up on their $25/month home internet deal.

I was a little annoyed this week that the T-Mobile home internet deal wasn't available to those of us still on Sprint billing. I wanted to sign my parents up for it since their 80/10 internet is getting way to expensive for they get for it. My dad is able to pull 800/100 off the T-Mobile site next to their house.

[Dkoellerwx]

Sorry for back to back posts... but this is unrelated to the others.

12 new sites have shown up in Nebraska on today's coverage map update! That makes 43 new sites in total since the start of October. That does not count the Sprint conversions which number over 100 for our market (Nebraska/West Iowa).

[tremendousjohnson]

20 hours ago, BucketHead25 said:

I took T-Mobile up on their $25/month home internet deal.  Just connected yesterday and have been using it all morning.  I get about 550 down, 70 up with 19 mS latency.  Full time WFH with a virtual desktop and Zoom calls all day.  I'll use it for the next couple weeks.  Can't beat this deal with no contract.  Would love to send Spectrum packing with their $80 basic internet service.

I had this service for nearly a year, at $50/mo with no bandwidth caps.  Here in the Twin Cities area my speeds and reliability were great.  Similar to yours. I ended up dropping it for 2 reasons:  1) Comcast started offering a $50/mo unlimited plan for 2 years, and 2) I needed better router capabilities than the very limited Nokia device allowed.  I couldn't set IP addresses on my internal private network, without using a separate router in double-NAT config.  I couldn't VPN into my home network without setting up a separate 3rd party service.  

I told them when/if they get an improved device with better routing capabilities, I'd be back.  (I don't love Comcast). But with CGNAT who knows if that will even be possible.  

Good luck.  I hope it works for you.