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2.5GHz install on a T-Mobile site in the Houston area: 29.7018566, -95.7397737 Site is only broadcasting two B41 LTE carriers, no N41 as of right now. Talked with the crew for a bit and the four of them are tackling four sites per day right now.

The problem with covering rural Northern California is that they don't want new towers to be built because it will Martha natural beauty. I understand it but then if you want coverage you have to compromise.

Look in some places T-Mobile had a denser network and in others Sprint had a denser network and in others neither did. It's the nature of the beast. Let's hope that they do an masterful blending of the two networks and then buildout the places where neither was strong.

potential new "uncarrier" announcement this thursday https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/hqhhv5/sievert_you_feeling_like_this_industry_needs/ being teased as being network related

Got my fastest speeds on T-Mobile 5G yet, today. This is on mmWave in Brooklyn. I have a feeling that the reason I never connect to n41 is because I'm either close enough that I can connect to n261 or so far that I can only connect n71. Edit: The site has Band 2/12/46(LAA)/66, and n41 installed but it doesn't have Band 71/n71. T-Mobile really confuses me sometimes.

Right. You can't blink coverage into existence. They want to have their invisible (quinoa) cake and, apparently, eat it, too. No, Karen. Doesn't work like that!

I probably should not repeat myself but I thought that moving/merging band 25/2 should have been job 1. As in move enough Sprint spectrum over to T-mobile RRHs to fill up 20MHz, then when they visit the site to add band 41 they can add another RRH if there is some band 25 spectrum left.

I’m not sure either. I do know that the Sprint name and logo and everything is on the way out... like soon... if we remain an affiliate we were told To expect TMo branding soon - like ASAP soon. All the back office billing and stuff is handled by Sprint. Shentel has its own customer service call centers. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Both Sprint and T-Mobile have roaming agreements with US Cellular. Speeds should be uncapped.

Contrary to my expectations Dish did confirm that they are going to buy 800Mhz from T-Mobile, as if purchasing triband low frequency RRHs (n71, n26 and n29) was not enough: "As part of Dish Network's $1.4 billion agreement last week to purchase around 9 million Boost-branded mobile customers from T-Mobile, the company also quietly said it would purchase billions of dollars of additional spectrum. Dish agreed to move forward on a previously announced plan to purchase 13.5MHz of 800MHz spectrum nationwide from T-Mobile for a whopping $3.6 billion. Based on the terms of the companies' agreement, Dish said it would potentially purchase the spectrum during 2023, and that T-Mobile might continue to use a portion of the spectrum until 2025. The transaction might not actually happen, given that it's not scheduled to close for another three years and much can happen between now and then. That the companies last week reiterated their plans to go through with the deal only underscores the fact that Charlie Ergen – the chairman of Dish Network and a key architect of the company's 5G strategy – ostensibly has an utterly inexhaustible desire for spectrum." https://www.lightreading.com/5g/dish-networks-ergen-has-a-big-appetite-for-5g-spectrum/d/d-id/762196?

So this is in Rockford Illinois.

They are trying to get two different results with the upgrades. The 600 Mhz upgrade was to get more range from the site to cover fringe areas. The 2500 upgrade is to get faster speeds & capacity in major population areas.

I think you had a question a while back about if Tmo 600mhz antenna can use AWS and PCS? I have seen two towers here using B71, N71, B2, B66, B4 and 3G all from the 600mhz antenna so I guess the answer is yes.

And to be quite frank mmwave is largely useless at this point and will remain as such for quite some time. It's just too isolated and doesn't scale. The speeds TMO will get out of 2.5 are gonna be extremely impressive as it is. I think TMobile will find that they don't even need mmwave as much as they were planning when 600 and 2.5 are perfectly capable of blanketing the nation in a very robust and speedy network.

actually just got a call from sprint where I had contacted them and was advised this is due to tmobile working on the towers in my area and should be resolved tomorrow.

Hey Jonny... I used to connect to B41 at my home all the time up until a year ago or so. I think some of it was moved/converted to N41 which was irritating. They have 160mHz or more in this area. They only had 20-40mhz deployed around me and then chose to convert some of that over. You are one of the lucky ones I guess. If Sprint network works great, then you have 2 networks that perform decently. Either one they move you to / shut off, you'll be ok until full integration.

Well who didn't see this coming https://fox4kc.com/news/sprint-center-becomes-t-mobile-center/?fbclid=IwAR3PKPCU7AiV22lt6T3NiXbCWVV89v5hdgZpXZoEHdFBxWqX7bbUd-KeWkA

Sprint has an LTE roaming agreement with AT&T and T-Mobile has an LTE roaming agreement with Verizon. Both of you were probably experiencing some variation of this. AT&T LTE roaming for Sprint users has historically been capped at 128kbps, so quick speeds would be something new...were you able to get a speed test?

So I took a road-trip in northern (way north) California, and the new combined Sprint/T-mobile network was almost nowhere to be found. In fact, found myself roaming on Verizon most of the time...and even got some very usable data! I can't recall the last time Verizon roaming let me use data. How long do we expect that to continue?

From that site on Monday. That brings the total of 2.5GHz currently deployed to 160MHz here (60MHz Sprint LTE, 40MHz T-Mobile LTE, 60MHz T-Mobile NR.) The N41 carrier was bringing in 300-350mbps download in great signal conditions, which is short of the 900 or so it's capable of. However, this could simply be a lack of backhaul at the site. The site kept my phone on a lone 5x5 B66 carrier for the LTE anchor (there is also a 20x20MHz LTE carrier deployed).

as of today band 25 being reduced on Sprint side, EARFCN 8321 is 5 MHz vs 8290 10 MHz here in LES. But when I forced roam to T-mobile it still 10 MHz band 2 EARFCN 750.

Your area must be unique. I NEVER see dense T-Mobile coverage. T-Mobile is actually the worst carrier by far in my eyes. They normally do not know what dense means. To make a good network, it is going to be very very expensive because they are starting with a very poor network. T-Mobile was a great marketing device, but not a great cell phone carrier.

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/tmobile-achieves-significant-5g-firsts The X55 modem can do VoNR (Done on T-Mobile with a OnePlus 8). I would expect T-Mobile to add VoNR via software update to all X55 phones once they have SA and VoNR ready on the network side.

Sigh. In attempting to put the database back on my phone this evening after doing an update, it obliterated the database again. It had been working as normal for several weeks. I think I'm going to [finally] apply the Android 10 update and see what happens. Maybe it'll help... EDIT: When I rebooted, it came back up with data included. No idea what to make of it. Reimported from the file just in case, and it remained present, so we'll see, I guess. Separately, how hard would it be to make it possible to filter the Neighbor Notes? I noticed earlier today that I'm seeing neighbors on Bands 12 and 2 pretty often. Naturally, it tries to look for notes for those PCIs with PLMN 310120, even though they're clearly T-Mobile neighbors. Would it be possible to add a "Sprint transition mode" or something where it matches Band 25/26/41 neighbor notes to 310120 and other neighbor notes to 310260? - Trip

Wow. They're really unloading things now. Holy cow. Money for everything but Sprint. Sad. It's just sad.

It's probably nothing. "Uncarrier" announcements have been worthless PR stunts for a while now.

Here's the press release: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/press/t-mobile-announces-un-carrier-next-on-july-16/ What: Now that Sprint is part of T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS), the company will announce what’s next and how a supercharged Un-carrier will continue to change wireless for good. Who: T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert and other T-Mobile executives in a webcast hosted by Golden Globe and six-time Emmy nominee Anthony Anderson. When: Thursday, July 16, 2020 Webcast at 8:30am PT (11:30am ET) Live Media Q&A with execs immediately following Where: Watch the webcast and listen to the QA at http://t-mobile.com/uncarrier.

I got the same text but I am not doing it until I see them taking away B41 backhaul.

This is actually a common reason that Sprint used to leave unconnected antennas at sites. It allowed them to swap in a new antenna without issue. Sent from my LG-LS998 using Tapatalk

Most sites are just listed as antenna upgrades so as to keep fees down and in most cases no permit is required because they are simply replacing like for like. This not only keeps pricing down, but speeds up processes with less paperwork/hoops to jump through

The OnePlus 8 phone is good post-merger. The first 5G phones such as the Galaxy S10 are obsolete.

Here's what I found Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk

The 5G phones are disconnected they just became LTE phones, just not 5G. Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk

This week I switched from a Sprint 4G phone to a T-Mobile 5G. Connectivity is significantly better, specifically when I am deep inside my apartment building or in an elevator down to the underground garage.

I got a new magic box gold with voice amp from the magic box gen 2. I could not get it to pick up a signal. The gen 2 showed 3 bars. I called sprint and they said the technology the gold uses is not in my area. The reactivated the gen 2. Now I can not get it to pick up anywhere. Makes it to 39% and reboots. I've even tried it on the back porch for testing where my phone gets 2 bars of LTE. Weird.

Here in Midtown Atlanta I noticed my phone was stuck (happily) on TMobile bands for about 5 to 7 days but it's been back on band 41 exclusively (Sprint coverage was THAT GOOD here) ever since. No complaints here!

5mhz+ B2 is live all over Queens. Also hit a couple N41 sites.

My speed with them was 6.68 down but only 0.98 up

The same thing happened to me when I was visiting a friends cottage up in the Thousands Islands and my iPhone began roaming on AT&T when I got past Alexandria Bay exit. Just like what the previous user posted, I actually had awesome and usable service. That never was the case with just Sprint as my iPhone would just show 1X and basically be useless as Mapquest or Google maps would crash. Something tells me New T-Mobile is willing to pay more for usable roaming service in an effort to keep the churn rate down. [emoji1417] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So with "Day 1" rapidly approaching (8/1), what sort of branding changes is everyone anticipating? I'm assuming the websites will be merged more (perhaps all the way) completely. Also with the Note 20 "Unpacked" event taking place on 8/5, it seems more than likely that New TMO will use the launch and device as a showpiece for demonstrating the new combined network's capabilities. I see the Note 20 series as being the first true flagship phone that will be marketed as taking advantage of the combined company's broad and deep spectrum portfolio. This should be interesting. The Pixel 5 may or may not be just around the corner (conflicting rumors, Covid-19 related internal structure changes within Google, etc) but if it does materialize in October would be the second major Android device to trumpet new magenta's full power but at a much easier to digest price. I look forward to the elimination of duplicitous branding and what shakes out this late summer and fall device wise and network wise!

T-Mobile if very dense in my area too. Sprint in my area always needed a densification. So no... it's not Unique.

There's some talk over in the T-Mobile subreddit that the Ericsson equipment might be software upgradeable to run both LTE and NR carriers.

I just lost B41 LTE in downtown Los Angeles. Can’t even get it by forcing band selection—everything is B25 now...

Here we go Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk

NR right now is operating in a mode called non standalone (NSA). LTE has to be the anchor band (primary carrier) and NR is aggregated. It uses the LTE core. For voice calls, it actually drops the NR carrier. Honestly I'm not sure what about those phones prevents them from being able to use B2 or B66 as an anchor other than software/certifications. I'm not aware of any technical limitation of the modem that would prevent it Supposedly standalone (SA) NR is coming by the end of the year. This will use NR as the primary carrier, and use the NR core (and enable VoNR). I think it can still aggregate LTE carriers as secondary, but no current modems support aggregating multiple NR carriers. For that we have to wait for the x60. I guess technically once SA NR comes, these older phones would be able to use it. The issue would be whether or not they're actually capable of SA, and if they can do VoNR with software updates. And I guess also whether or not they'd get those software updates if so. Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Found this part very interesting/telling: "Data provided by research and analysis firm BayStreet Research shows that in the 11 months from June 2019 through April 2020, Sprint sold slightly over 75,000 of the now incompatible 5G phones. That includes around 15,000 Galaxy S10 5Gs, 35,000 LV V50 ThinQ and roughly 25,000 One Plus 7 Pro 5G. Comparatively, Sprint users bought many more Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra devices.Through April 2020 cumulative volume totals for the devices were 90,000; 55,000; and 75,000, respectively, according to BayStreet data. That’s only two months of S20 volumes, BayStreet founder Cliff Maldonado noted, including part of March and April. Through June 2020 that increased to 200,000 for the S20; 115,000 for S20+; and 150,000 for S20 Ultra." While in one sense it may show the appeal of the S20 line, I'd also take it to at least in part be a commentary on the percentage of users that have any interest in being early adopters too. Even that said though, its almost odd that for those early adopters, the Samsung phones were the least purchased of the 3 options. Without having seen the numbers otherwise, I'd have assumed they'd still command the lead there. Unfortunately the article didn't mention numbers differential to other 2nd gen+ 5G alternatives (to whatever extent they exist).

T-Mobile going to Fremont, Nebraska where it had no coverage before, just sprint

I spent Friday evening through Sunday morning in an area with 20 MHz of T-Mobile spectrum deployed: 10x10 of B71, 10x10 of B2. Confirmed when driving back from there (Brackettville) that T-Mobile puts Sprint's network ahead of B71 priority-wise. Also confirmed that AT&T is running MFBI on their sites (PCS -> B25, CLR -> B26) to facilitate Sprint roaming; on US 90 west of Uvalde both T-Mobile and Sprint were nonexistent for maybe ten miles. In Uvalde, T-Mobile B2 was weak and overloaded, while Sprint had B41 there. For those wondering what this has to do with NR, the tower east of Brackettville has it, so maybe ten minutes outside Brackettville I was sitting on B2 + n71. At that point, I was seeing 15 MHz of n71 + 10 MHz of B71. I got a number of decent speedtests along that route, in contrast to basically everything east of NW San Antonio on 410, where n71 is overloaded and even throwing 20 MHz of B66, among other things, at customers still isn't enough to keep the network fast. But in those same areas B41 was solid, with the usual 70-100 Mbps speeds, so all TMo needs to do is throw n41 on those same sites and they'll be set. While coming back this morning I got my best upload speed test ever on mobile:https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/6228326864. I want to say this was on 10 MHz of n71, plus 20 MHz of B66 and maybe some B2 in there. This was on 410 just west of where it intersects with I-10 north of town. Yes, I double-checked to make sure I hadn't found an n41 tower, but if I had download speeds would've been higher anyway. I may post more updaets later. Chewed up plenty of data running speedtests while riding shotgun. It's great seeing how an unloaded network performs, even on relatively narrow channels...which is something I can't really experience here in town.

Slightly different request for help today.. I have finally(!!!) updated SignalCheck Lite, after several years of dormancy. It was stable and didn't need a lot of changes until Android 10 made it completely unusable. Anyone on the SCP Beta Crew is automatically able to opt-in for the Lite Beta as well. The update (version 4.572Lb) should be available shortly.. could you please take a few minutes to install and test it, to make sure it is stable? https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.blueline.signalchecklite (edited link) The code is nearly identical to Pro, but with many components removed. Once you verify it is working, you can uninstall Lite to minimize confusion. Please send me a brief comment (here, PM, email, whatever) after you give it a try and let me know how it looks. I do not expect any issues, but I want to make sure it is stable before it goes out. Thanks!