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Hopefully this indicates T-Mobile hasn't completely abandoned mmwave and/or small cells? But then again this is the loop, so take that as you will. Hopefully now that most macro activity is done (besides rural colo/builds), they will start working on small cells.

At some point over the weekend, T-Mobile bumped the Omaha metro from 100+40 to 100+90 of n41! That's a pretty large increase from what we had just a few weeks ago when we were sitting at 80+40Mhz. Out of curiosity, tested a site on my way to work and pulled 1.4Gpbs. That's the fastest I've ever gotten on T-Mobile! For those that know Omaha, this was on Dodge street in Midtown so not exactly a quiet area!

This has been approved.. https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/fcc-approves-t-mobiles-deal-to-purchase-mint-mobile/

"The company’s unique multi-layer approach to 5G, with dedicated standalone 5G deployed nationwide across 600MHz, 1.9GHz, and 2.5GHz delivers customers a consistently strong experience, with 85% of 5G traffic on sites with all three spectrum bands deployed." Meanwhile they are very close to a construction deadline June 1 for 850Mhz of mmWave in most of Ohio covering 27500-28350Mhz expiring 6/8/2028. No reported sightings. Buildout notice issue sent by FCC in March 5, 2024 https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/letterPdf/LetterPdfController?licId=4019733&letterVersionId=178&autoLetterId=13060705&letterCode=CR&radioServiceCode=UU&op=LetterPdf&licSide=Y&archive=null&letterTo=L No specific permits seen in a quick check of Columbus. They also have an additional 200Mhz covering at 24350-25450 Mhz and 24950-25050Mhz with no buildout date expiring 12/11/2029.

In the conference call they had two question on additional spectrum. One was the 800 spectrum. They are not certain what will happen, thus have not really put it into their plans either way (sale or no sale). They do have a reserve level. Nationwide 800Mhz is seen as great for new technologies which I presume is IOT or 5g slices. T-Mobile did not bite on use of their c-band or DOD. mmWave rapidly approaching deadlines not mentioned at all. FWA brushes on this as it deals with underutilized spectrum on a sector by sector basis. They are willing to take more money to allow FWA to be mobile (think RV or camping). Unsure if this represents a higher priority, for example, FWA Mobile in RVs in Walmart parking lots working where mobile phones need all the capacity. In terms of FWA capacity, their offload strategy is fiber through joint ventures where T-Mobile does the marketing, sales, and customer support while the fiber company does the network planning and installation. 50%-50% financial split not being consolidated into their books. I think discussion of other spectrum would have diluted the fiber joint venture discussion. They do have a fund which one use is to purchase new spectrum. Sale of the 800Mhz would go into this. It should be noted that they continue to buy 2.5Ghz spectrum from schools etc to replace leases. They will have a conference this fall to update their overall strategies. Other notes from the call are 75% of the phones on the network are 5g. About 85% of their sites have n41, n25, and n71, 90% 5g. 93% of traffic is on midband. SA is also adding to their performance advantage, which they figure is still ahead of other carriers by two years. It took two weeks to put the auction 108 spectrum to use at their existing sites. Mention was also made that their site spacing was designed for midrange thus no gaps in n41 coverage, while competitors was designed for lowband thus toggles back and forth for n77 also with its shorter range.

Yes! That does keep it from wandering off Dish and most importantly, reconnecting immediately (at least where there is n70). Thanks!

I have my Dish phone locked to NR-only. That keeps it on Dish and only occasionally will it see T-Mobile NR SA for brief periods before going to no service. I also don't have mine band locked beyond that, except that I have some of the unused bands turned off just to try to reduce scan time. Fortunately, my Dish phone is the one with the MediaTek chipset, so it has NR neighbor cells, and I can usually see n71, n70, n66, and sometimes n29 (market-dependent) through those regardless of which band it's connected to as primary. - Trip

T-Mobile Delivers Industry-Leading Customer, Service Revenue and Profitability Growth in Q1 2024, and Raises 2024 Guidance https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-q1-2024-earnings — — — — — I find it funny that when they talk about their spectrum layers they're saying n71, n25, and n41. They're completely avoiding talking about mmWave.

T-Mobile and EQT Announce Joint Venture to Acquire Lumos and Build Out the Un-carrier’s First Fiber Footprint https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-eqt-jv-to-acquire-lumos

Drove from Omaha to KC this weekend. There were a number of n41 sites that previously only had 50 or 50+20Mhz on air and didn't allow for the n41 channel to be the primary channel on SA NR. As of this past weekend (probably sometime last month) all of them had 100 + at least 40Mhz of n41 and had n41 as the primary channel. A couple of them had 100+90. The network in KC was also increased to 100+90 since the last time I was here, giving a total of 15 n71, 20 + 5 n25, 100 + 90 n41. Pulled 1.2Gbps on a random site at 5pm Saturday afternoon.

https://www.phonearena.com/news/t-mobile-older-rate-plan-prices-june_id157821 We're on Sprint Max for our seven phone/two Apple Watch (with Cellular) family plan... Because it doesn't make sense to switch to anything else, especially if we can't even finance all of our devices. Some of you may recall that T-Mobile suddenly cut our credit limit to $1,500 (which is barely more than one iPhone 15 Pro) with no notice at all. I escalated it to the Office of the CEO and was told to pound sand, even though I have 800+ Credit as a longtime customer and was suddenly being treated as a deadbeat. I ultimately upgraded my three iPhone lines directly through Apple and they're Unlocked. I haven't bothered to check on whether my Credit Limit has updated, but I don't plan on upgrading them through T-Mobile again. I guess we'll find out if "Sprint Max" counts as "older" soon enough.

From just under a week ago: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-announces-163-million-in-completed-network-upgrades-for-arkansas Progress!

Was true in my market. Likely means a higher percentage of 5g phones in your market.

Definite usage quirks in hunting down these sites with a rainbow sim in a s24 ultra. Fell into a hole yesterday so sent off to T-Mobile purgatory. Try my various techniques. No Dish. Get within binocular range of former Sprint colocation and can see Dish equipment. Try to manually set network and everybody but no Dish is listed. Airplane mode, restart, turn on and off sim, still no Dish. Pull upto 200ft from site straight on with antenna. Still no Dish. Get to manual network hunting again on phone, power off phone for two minutes. Finally see Dish in manual network selection and choose it. Great signal as expected. I still think the 15 minute rule might work but lack patience. (With Sprint years ago, while roaming on AT&T, the phone would check for Sprint about every fifteen minutes. So at highway speed you could get to about the third Sprint site before roaming would end). Using both cellmapper and signalcheck.net maps to hunt down these sites. Cellmapper response is almost immediate these days (was taking weeks many months ago). Their idea of where a site can be is often many miles apart. Of course not the same dataset. Also different ideas as how to label a site, but sector details can match with enough data (mimo makes this hard with its many sectors). Dish was using county spacing in a flat suburban area, but is now denser in a hilly richer suburban area. Likely density of customers makes no difference as a poorer urban area with likely more Dish customers still has country spacing of sites.

Good catch! I meant 115932/119932. Edited my original post I've noticed the same thing lately and have just assumed that they're skipping it now because they're finally able to deploy mmWave small cells.

Nissan Skyline

Correction: T-Mobile has 100+80 MHz n41 live here. I didn't see it yesterday so either they just turned it on, it's temporary capacity for the eclipse, or maybe something else. But that means that T-Mobile has as much mid-band online here as they do in Austin, though I'm 99.9% sure their sites here only have a gig of backhaul (which is plenty for the area tbh). Also, VZW has B48 on some of their macros here, so a bit better than just AWS-or-less LTE. And AT&T actually *does* have n77 here (standard 80+40 setup), albeit with hit-or-miss coverage so I'm guessing it's only on a couple of sites.

On the Florida Atlantic coast this weekend and have watched VZW and T-Mobile. FLL had VZW mmW in Terminal 4. T-Mobile has decent (not perfect) n41 coverage with 100+50 MHz, with 20x20 n25 on top of that. Heading north, n41 switches pretty quickly to 100+80 MHz, with pretty consistent coverage along I-95 and the Turnpike. A-1A coverage is patchier between Stuart and Fort Pierce, so I switched to VZW (which was more consistent there) on part of that drive. VZW has 100+60 MHz n77; coverage is less consistent than n41 but there are a number of areas where VZW clocks 500+ Mbps when T-Mobile is 300-400 Mbps. Some TMo sites do have gig+ backhaul though; I got a 1.1+ Gbps test indoors yesterday in Stuart. I'll report on AT&T and Dish later.

New AT&T speed record for me. I encountered an AT&T site with upgraded backhaul in Crown Heights. I'm certain I can hit 1Gbps on this site off-peak.

I've always wanted to go Newfoundland. And possibly Labrador. And Saint Pierre. Don't forget to stop at Mary Brown's Chicken. They're great. They are all over Canada now, but the chain started in Newfoundland. Robert