iansltx

They have plenty of capacity, as long as you're in an area where signal is strong enough to CA n66+n70, and network traffic is low enough that deprioritization wouldn't be noticeable. This July 4th it did seem like they actually had subs on the network, as speeds did drop a bit vs. basically unloaded, but 100+ Mbps at a fireworks show on 55 MHz of downlink is still not hugely loaded (VZW was much faster as few people use them here I think). I think I'll stick with $25 Infinite for now, and should either do the mini games for the year of free service or drop my Project Genesis line since now with eSIM I have all four networks available on my S24 (including AT&T and TMo roaming on Infinite). Of note, the roaming above works in-network, so if I network select I really do have a triple-network SIM. And hotspot works even though I guess it's not supposed to.

T-Mobile seems to be paying close attention to how much of B2 they refarm for NR, as on this trip down to South Padre Island I saw both 20x20 n25 and 20x20 B2 (but not both simultaneously) at various points on the trip. At South Padre itself, seems like someone else has 2.5 GHz licensed so the n41 setup here is 20+80 MHz. Speeds are still decent, but VZW has 100+60 MHz n77 live (and AT&T has some 80+40).

Tbh not that surprising. Every ISP seems to want to have an MVNO to pitch to their customers to make them stickier and maybe make some money in the process. And unlike USCC the MVNO should be able to cover TDS's entire wireline area, with infrastructure costs that are borne by someone else. Entertaining, yes. Surprising, not really...particularly when competing against Comcast or Spectrum, or even eventually T-Mobile fixed + mobile. This also strengthens my bet that they'll rebrand all their fixed wireless stuff as TDS, as that runs on spectrum they're keeping for now.

Probably not worth the fiddling given that that's a few percent of the band. Also, if they really wanted to push my assumption is there are still guard bands in play for the n41 carriers so they could fit two "100 MHz" carriers into 194 MHz anyway. Looks like minimum guard band is less than 1 MHz and a 100 MHz channel is only 273 30 KHz resource blocks, which is a bit over 80 MHz total, so if they really wanted to pull another 5% or so capacity out they could.

Looks like another T-Mobile 5G bump happened over the past week and a half, maybe less: n41 carriers are now 90+100 MHz, up from 80+100 (which in turn is up from 40+100 back in early March). This is on top of the new n25 carrier recently. As part of this, it looks like T-Mobile is starting to prefer n25+n41 2CA even when pushing data, rather than having higher levels of CA that would hit higher peak speeds; at least indoors I need to force n41-only if I want to see the full 190 MHz there. To be fair the speeds are plenty quick with that amount of spectrum, and I'm sure they're load balancing, and my guess is this is a little better for battery life? With this expansion, they're now at 10x10+10x10 n25, 15x15 n71, 100+90 n41, for a total of 260 MHz (including FD uplink) of deployed NR here, up from 250 MHz a week ago, 230 MHz two weeks ago, and 190 MHz six months ago. VZW is at 140 MHz minus mmW, 170 if you count n2 DSS. AT&T is at 150 MHz (80+40 n77, 15x15 n5), 210 MHz I think if you count n2 and n66 DSS (guessing they're still running those). With this level of spectrum they should be able to continue offering home internet wherever. Guessing this is the last upgrade they can make before they need to throw new equipment on sites for C-Band. At this rate I figure that'll happen next year on a few dozen high-traffic sites.

Apparently all three used Synaverse for international roaming signaling or similar, so that was a single point of failure.

Austin has now narrowed B2 to 15x15 to support a second 10x10 n25 channel, this time entirely in PCS A-F. So T-Mobile now has 35x35 FD (n71 + n25) and 180 MHz TD (n41) NR live here, and LTE single carrier bandwidth now tops out at 15x15. LTE is down to 5x5 B12, 15x15 B2, 10x10+10x10+5x5 B66, so they now have 5 carriers each of LTE and NR, with 45x45 total LTE.

Mind uploading that image somewhere it won't get dropped? Good to hear re: Aerobile. KDDI seemed to be a bit stronger than Softbank on LTE (they have more spectrum on B41), and I would've jumped at the chance to have 5G on them.

Probably not, mainly because the signal would get attenuated too much by the fuselage thanks to being weak to begin with. Using Starlink to the plane and WiFi on the plane works super well though, and AFAIK Starlink requires airlines using them to offer the service for free with no captive portal.

A heavy n41 overlay as an acquisition condition would be a win for customers, and eventually a win for T-Mobile as that might be enough to preclude VZW/AT&T adding C-Band for FWA due to spreading the market too thinly (which means T-Mobile would just have local WISPs/wireline ISPs as competition). USCC spacing (which is likely for contiguous 700 MHz LTE coverage in rural areas) isn't going to be enough for contiguous n41 anyway, and I doubt they'll densify enough to get there.

Boost Infinite with a rainbow SIM (you can get it SIM-only) is the cheapest way, at $25/mo, to my knowledge; the cheaper Boost Mobile plans don't run on Dish native. Check Phonescoop for n70 support on a given phone; the Moto G 5G from last year may be the cheapest unlocked phone with n70 though data speeds aren't as good as something with an X70 or better modem.

Continuing the USCC discussion, if T-Mobile does a full equipment swap at all of USCC's sites, which they probably will for vendor consistency, and if they include 2.5 on all of those sites, which they probably will as they definitely have economies of scale on the base stations, that'll represent a massive capacity increase in those areas over what USCC had, and maybe a coverage increase since n71 will get deployed everywhere and B71 will get deployed any time T-Mobile has at least 25x25, and maybe where they have 20x20. Assuming this deal goes through (I'm betting it does), I figure I'll see contiguous coverage in the area of southern IL where I was attempting to roam on USCC the last time I was there, though it might be late next year before that switchover happens.

Here's the spectrum breakdown by band. There's some 2.5 in there as well. The remaining spectrum is definitely enough to keep running FWA on while finding a buyer, and since the towers aren't conveying with the subs and spectrum there's nothing stopping USCellular from competing with T-Mobile on FWA until Verizon or AT&T decide the spectrum is valuable enough to take off TDS's hands. If they go that route, I wouldn't be surprised if FWA gets rebranded under TDS.

Most of. Some of the spectrum and all of the towers are staying with USCC. Guessing the 850 is staying with USCC, as T-Mobile has no use for it with their current network setup. Maybe mmW will stay if USCC wants to keep doing the FWA thing with that spectrum (though probably not). Will also be interesting to see who gets their C-Band (probably T-Mobile).

FTTH JVs are city by city as well, so it's not going to really be sector by sector. It sounds like TMo wants to be able to sell everyone home broadband, but if that requires building additional infrastructure that infra will take the form of FTTH builds rather than mobile densification. Which involves tradeoffs, but the product is better than e.g. what AT&T is doing for me right now, which is offering only Internet Air in an area where they have 100/20 DSL available but not (yet) fiber.