Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[schmidtj]

On 8/25/2023 at 12:28 PM, IrwinshereAgain said:

Does the article show how many employees have ATT and Verizon laid off since 2020?   Just looking for context.

I don't believe so but did ATT & Verizon make a big deal about a "Jobs Positive" Merger promise?

[schmidtj]

Sounds interesting:

It’s Time to Unleash Network Slicing 

 

[IrwinshereAgain]

23 hours ago, schmidtj said:

I don't believe so but did ATT & Verizon make a big deal about a "Jobs Positive" Merger promise?

True.  

Just saying that conditions on the ground have changed for everyone and it has nothing to do with the merger.  All three have cut thousands of jobs since 2020.

That said, I hate to see job cuts.  People need to be able to work and support their loved ones.

[Paynefanbro]

Will T-Mobile buy UScellular? 'Maybe,' says CEO

https://www.lightreading.com/5g-and-beyond/will-t-mobile-buy-uscellular-maybe-says-ceo/d/d-id/786408?

Quote

The question came up this week at an investor event, with a Goldman Sachs investment analyst asking Sievert whether he would consider purchasing a rural asset if it became available. Sievert chuckled and, without naming UScellular specifically, said: "Maybe, but I like our Plan A a lot."

"Our organic strategy is really attractive," he said, adding that T-Mobile is gaining up to 30% of new customers, second only to Verizon, in the rural markets where it competes.

And that, he said, would make any purchase of a rural network operator a difficult proposition financially. "The hurdle would be high," he said of a possible deal.

— — — — —

On 8/15/2023 at 10:49 AM, Paynefanbro said:

They also have a further 60MHz of n77 that covers nearly 200 million people that they plan to start deploying later this year through next year.

Chart released recently showing average spectrum holdings in the top 100 markets.

[dkyeager]

42 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

Will T-Mobile buy UScellular? 'Maybe,' says CEO

https://www.lightreading.com/5g-and-beyond/will-t-mobile-buy-uscellular-maybe-says-ceo/d/d-id/786408?

— — — — —

Chart released recently showing average spectrum holdings in the top 100 markets.

Nice chart at the bottom. Wonder if 800Mhz is included for T-Mobile. Doubtful on US Cellular spectrum in major markets. If so, which ones?

[S4GRU]

Now after Tmo overbuilt almost all USCC coverage, now they want to sell.  Rich.  The spectrum is not all that valuable to them, and they may have to give some up.  It would really just be a play for customers and rural market share.

It would be something if Tmo ends up being the dominant rural provider.  Remember when they were just urban areas practically?  They didn't even equal Sprint's highway coverage. A decade later, it's a totally different story. 

Robert

[RAvirani]

On 9/7/2023 at 10:31 AM, S4GRU said:

Now after Tmo overbuilt almost all USCC coverage, now they want to sell.  Rich.  The spectrum is not all that valuable to them, and they may have to give some up.  It would really just be a play for customers and rural market share.

It would be something if Tmo ends up being the dominant rural provider.  Remember when they were just urban areas practically?  They didn't even equal Sprint's highway coverage. A decade later, it's a totally different story. 

Robert

Even in the rural areas T-Mobile has overbuilt, USCC tends to have a denser/more refined network.

I also think increased rural market share would be a big win for T-Mobile.  Their home internet offering has the potential to be particularly successful in rural areas that tend to lack alternative high-speed options; awareness and customer loyalty in these areas could really boost home internet traction. 

USCC’s 700, PCS, AWS and 2500 would all be welcome increases in T-Mobile’s spectrum portfolio, too. And maybe Cellular could be traded to AT&T/VZW in exchange for midband…

[schmidtj]

T-Mobile Makes Bold Move After Layoffs

[dkyeager]

3 hours ago, schmidtj said:

T-Mobile Makes Bold Move After Layoffs

The stock price is almost the same as a month ago.  Paying dividends and doing stock buybacks was announce at previous quarterly reports, so none of this is new.  However timing wise from a PR and morale standpoint, a rookie move.

[iansltx]

Confirmed 20x20 n25 at LAX today, and 200/40+ on LTE via what must be a DAS in terminal 1.

Will be in (not west) Maui in around a week and a half. Based on the spectrum depth that I expect 20x20 n25 and 20x20 n71, allowing T-Mobile to absolutely stomp everyone else. C-Band doesn't exist there, and I'm guessing that includes DoD, and CBRS PALs aren't owned by VZW, so we're looking at 3-4CA NR vs. like 10 MHz n5.

[RedSpark]

Has anyone else here had an Account Credit Limit applied after being migrated to T-Mobile's billing system?

Our family plan (7 phones + 1 watch) was migrated over to T-Mobile in June of this year. I recently checked on my account to upgrade some of my lines with devices on EIP, only to receive an error message on the page to contact customer service. Oddly enough, full price purchase was available for those lines.

When contacting Customer Care, I was informed that a $1,500 Account Credit Limit had been applied to my account by T-Mobile. I couldn't understand why, as I have excellent credit and always paid on-time via AutoPay. We never had an Account Spending Limit with Sprint and we've been customers for nearly 20 years.

I asked Customer Care to escalate the issue internally and I received a callback that nothing could be done. In fact, I was told that nothing could be done for 6 months, when the credit amount would be "re-evaluated". When I said that I wanted this escalated to the Office of the CEO, I was told to send a letter to the P.O. Box on the webpage. Great.

Ultimately, I sent an email to Jon Freier which explained the situation. I then received a call from someone in the Office of the CEO who said she'd escalate my issue. So hopefully it's in front of someone who can do the right thing for us and fix this, because as it stands $1,500 is little more than enough to finance one iPhone 15 Pro. The person said not to get my hopes up because it would require a policy change by T-Mobile.... and I responded "I hope so".

Furthermore, as I explained to them, we're on Sprint Max. It would cost $35/Month more to switch to Go5G Plus that would give us upgrades every two years, but what's the point since we're already going to have to pay full price for nearly all the device upgrades on our account given the $1,500 credit limit. It would cost $105/Month more to switch to Go5G Next that would give us annual upgrades, but as above what's the point given that we'll have to pay full price for our devices anyway given the $1,500 credit limit.

The "Post-Merger" T-Mobile customer experience really sucks.

[bill875]

9 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Has anyone else here had an Account Credit Limit applied after being migrated to T-Mobile's billing system?

Our family plan (7 phones + 1 watch) was migrated over to T-Mobile in June of this year. I recently checked on my account to upgrade some of my lines with devices on EIP, only to receive an error message on the page to contact customer service. Oddly enough, full price purchase was available for those lines.

When contacting Customer Care, I was informed that a $1,500 Account Credit Limit had been applied to my account by T-Mobile. I couldn't understand why, as I have excellent credit and always paid on-time via AutoPay. We never had an Account Spending Limit with Sprint and we've been customers for nearly 20 years.

I asked Customer Care to escalate the issue internally and I received a callback that nothing could be done. In fact, I was told that nothing could be done for 6 months, when the credit amount would be "re-evaluated". When I said that I wanted this escalated to the Office of the CEO, I was told to send a letter to the P.O. Box on the webpage. Great.

Ultimately, I sent an email to Jon Freier which explained the situation. I then received a call from someone in the Office of the CEO who said she'd escalate my issue. So hopefully it's in front of someone who can do the right thing for us and fix this, because as it stands $1,500 is little more than enough to finance one iPhone 15 Pro. The person said not to get my hopes up because it would require a policy change by T-Mobile.... and I responded "I hope so".

Furthermore, as I explained to them, we're on Sprint Max. It would cost $35/Month more to switch to Go5G Plus that would give us upgrades every two years, but what's the point since we're already going to have to pay full price for nearly all the device upgrades on our account given the $1,500 credit limit. It would cost $105/Month more to switch to Go5G Next that would give us annual upgrades, but as above what's the point given that we'll have to pay full price for our devices anyway given the $1,500 credit limit.

The "Post-Merger" T-Mobile customer experience really sucks.

This issue affects a lot of people, I believe.  I have a higher CL, but I have 16 devices and a measly $5,000 credit line means I will have to pick and choose who can upgrade through T-Mobile and who can't.  As it is, I am going to suggest that extended family members jump to a different carrier to get phone deals as T-Mobile is pretty much dead to me with these very un, unCarrier moves they are making.  Makes me wish Sprint still existed.  I wonder what could have been had USCC been open to a merger with Sprint many years ago.

[RedSpark]

38 minutes ago, bill875 said:

This issue affects a lot of people, I believe.  I have a higher CL, but I have 16 devices and a measly $5,000 credit line means I will have to pick and choose who can upgrade through T-Mobile and who can't.  As it is, I am going to suggest that extended family members jump to a different carrier to get phone deals as T-Mobile is pretty much dead to me with these very un, unCarrier moves they are making.  Makes me wish Sprint still existed.  I wonder what could have been had USCC been open to a merger with Sprint many years ago.

I imagine it does and that's exactly what I told the CEO staffer person - that I couldn't be the only one affected by it. What really infuriated me is that it was done with no customer notice at all. As it is right now, we have multiple lines being financed and we're currently over the $1,500 limit that they applied.  Heck, my account size should have at least your credit limit, but really it shouldn't have any limit at all. We've been customers of Sprint for 20 years and now we're suddenly being treated like customers with bad/no credit on Prepaid.

Unless T-Mobile fixes this, we'll consider doing our iPhone upgrades through Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program instead: https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program

Apple will happily do installment billing and allow for annual upgrades with no BS. Of course, I'll have to pay for AppleCare+ coverage included as part of it (which I don't really want), but whatever I guess.

This is so dumb I can't believe it. T-Mobile is riding high now, but it will eventually put itself into a death spiral and they'll be clueless how it happened.

[jonathanm1978]

2 hours ago, bill875 said:

This issue affects a lot of people, I believe.  I have a higher CL, but I have 16 devices and a measly $5,000 credit line means I will have to pick and choose who can upgrade through T-Mobile and who can't.  As it is, I am going to suggest that extended family members jump to a different carrier to get phone deals as T-Mobile is pretty much dead to me with these very un, unCarrier moves they are making.  Makes me wish Sprint still existed.  I wonder what could have been had USCC been open to a merger with Sprint many years ago.

Definitely affects me. Sprint for 13 years, switched over to T-mo billing and hit with this stupid sh*t. I thought "maybe if I pay off this, pay off that" ..but no...

I paid off a watch and immediately tried to add a new watch...but couldn't do it. Told to call by the website...so I did. I wasn't informed of the CL or any amount... but i'm sure that I'm already over that as we just upgraded back in April to new S23 ultras on 2 lines. I don't understand their motives...but really considering just going with firstnet for all my lines, even though I despise AT&T.

[RedSpark]

1 hour ago, jonathanm1978 said:

Definitely affects me. Sprint for 13 years, switched over to T-mo billing and hit with this stupid sh*t. I thought "maybe if I pay off this, pay off that" ..but no...

I paid off a watch and immediately tried to add a new watch...but couldn't do it. Told to call by the website...so I did. I wasn't informed of the CL or any amount... but i'm sure that I'm already over that as we just upgraded back in April to new S23 ultras on 2 lines. I don't understand their motives...but really considering just going with firstnet for all my lines, even though I despise AT&T.

What really gets me is how these credit limits were applied with absolutely no disclosure to the customer(s) at all. That should be blatantly illegal. Their motives seem to be that they want instant revenue from full price purchases instead of from installment plans over time and any associated risk of failure to pay. I'm not a damn credit risk as a 20 year customer with excellent credit. So given their current terms, the Account Credit Limit will be "re-evaluated" 6 months from imposition, which means this December. I hope T-Mobile makes this right for all of us. I made the best case I could to the Office of the CEO on this being a bad policy and a customer pain point. I guess we'll see what happens.

[schmidtj]

20 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Unless T-Mobile fixes this, we'll consider doing our iPhone upgrades through Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program instead: https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program

I was on the Apple IUP for 3 yrs. It worked as advertised but they did a HARD credit pull each year when I upgraded.
So now I got an Apple Credit Card which lets you finance a device over 24 month with no interest as long as you do a carrier activation. If you don do an activation it works like any other credit card. Since I do an upgrade every year I just trade in my 1 yr old iPhone to Apple and they give me about 50% every year when I purchase the next phone. According to my math which could be flawed I am paying for half a phone every year which is what I was doing on the Apple IUP but this way there is no credit score hit. Buying direct from Apple has a plus of the phones are unlocked (unless you finance through ATT) so you are free to switch carriers any time.

[schmidtj]

17 hours ago, RedSpark said:

What really gets me is how these credit limits were applied with absolutely no disclosure to the customer(s) at all. 

Does this affect ALL customers of just former Sprint customers? This is the first time I've heard of such a policy. I would think if this affects all T-Mo customers the message boards would be on fire.

[RedSpark]

2 hours ago, schmidtj said:

I was on the Apple IUP for 3 yrs. It worked as advertised but they did a HARD credit pull each year when I upgraded.
So now I got an Apple Credit Card which lets you finance a device over 24 month with no interest as long as you do a carrier activation. If you don do an activation it works like any other credit card. Since I do an upgrade every year I just trade in my 1 yr old iPhone to Apple and they give me about 50% every year when I purchase the next phone. According to my math which could be flawed I am paying for half a phone every year which is what I was doing on the Apple IUP but this way there is no credit score hit. Buying direct from Apple has a plus of the phones are unlocked (unless you finance through ATT) so you are free to switch carriers any time.

Appreciate the suggestions and background here. I never thought I'd have to do this, but unless T-Mobile corrects this account restriction, it looks like I'll have to.

[RedSpark]

2 hours ago, schmidtj said:

Does this affect ALL customers of just former Sprint customers? This is the first time I've heard of such a policy. I would think if this affects all T-Mo customers the message boards would be on fire.

When I spoke on the phone with the Office of the CEO person, she told me that a T-Mobile credit determination was run when my account was migrated in June and that this was the result of that. The way she explained it, it was done for all migrated Sprint accounts. What really upset me is that this was done without any customer disclosure at all, and I calmly explained that on the call.

Also see this for how things apply to existing T-Mobile customers: https://tmo.report/2023/06/t-mobile-is-making-big-changes-to-how-customer-credit-limits-are-calculated/

Perhaps things will light up now that we're in the Fall upgrade cycle for iPhones... People might be in for a very rude surprise.

[schmidtj]

Is T-Mobile shifting focus from midband 5G to fiber? Or UScellular?

Is this good?

[S4GRU]

1 hour ago, schmidtj said:

Is T-Mobile shifting focus from midband 5G to fiber? Or UScellular?

Is this good?

Not sure.  They can slow their Capex burn for a little while.  So they are considering what best to do with that money.  Exploring options.

Robert

[schmidtj]

Apparent T-Mobile security breach sees personal data revealed to other customers

Breaking: The T-Mobile Official App Leaked Customer Data To Other Customers

If true, probably not so good. 

J

[RedSpark]

5 hours ago, schmidtj said:

Apparent T-Mobile security breach sees personal data revealed to other customers

Breaking: The T-Mobile Official App Leaked Customer Data To Other Customers

If true, probably not so good. 

J

But it's the "Uncarrier"!

[schmidtj]

18 hours ago, RedSpark said:

But it's the "Uncarrier"!

Yep. Even after numerous breaches they have the nerve to ask for our banking information and give up protections credit cards offer or be charged $10/line. Uncarrier? Maybe more like Unbelievable.

[dkyeager]

https://www.talkandroid.com/382030-t-mobile-uncarrier-data-breach-glitch/

Reportedly a temporary issue during a system update.