iansltx

I ordered a Boost Infinite SIM a few days back, as the S24 now supports n70, and is being sold directly by Boost, though eSIM is not yet available. Got a SIM via UPS last night...based on T-Mobile. Swung by a Boost store a few miles from me, was given a rainbow SIM, and activated it over the phone in the store. Data speeds vary significantly depending on whether you can get n66/n70, but with those two bands available I saw peaks of nearly 600 Mbps, with comparable latency to what I've had on Project Genesis. VoNR works fine, with 23.85 kbps AMR-WB used as the codec. Unfortunately neither Verizon nor T-Mobile have VoNR interconnection so all that extra voice bandwidth is going to waste. Roaming is on T-Mobile, with ~80ms latency to Dish speedtest servers in Dallas/Houston, including 5G of course (NSA). Roaming speeds are great, and on both native and roaming there's no video speed cap. I was able to manually select the network I was on, but AT&T didn't show up. We'll see whether I keep the service longer than a month since my Project Genesis line is better in every way except the whole "have to carry around two phones" part (due to the aforementioned lack of HD voice interconnection), but it'll be fun to play with on the drive between ABQ and AUS later this month. Hopefully they sell enough of the service to keep the lights on and buy B26, as having basically a CricKet/MetroPCS-like challenger come back ten years later is good for competition, and while the network is a ghost town it's handy for e.g. livestreaming video reliably in places n41/n77 aren't as reliable (e.g. far indoors) and WiFi is flakey.

My S24 arrived while I was out of town on the 26th. Got back in town on the 29th and set it up, mostly, that day; Smart Switch over WiFi did most of the work, with some additional account sign-ins required. I also had to fiddle with Chrome a bit before Passkey notifications came through. I'm keeping my S23 until probably tomorrow to ensure I have everything I need off of it, but at this point I haven't needed to grab anything for a day or two so I think we're good. Re: storage upgrade, yeah, I'm on the standard S24, so 256 is the max, and that's plenty for my purposes (though 128 isn't unless I actually cleaned things up, so it's just as well that I got the double storage upgrade for free as it cost money on the S23 when I bought that phone). Re: warranty, I just got the damage option, not loss + theft + damage, as knock on wood loss/theft haven't been issues for my primary phone. Signal-wise, jury's out on whether T-Mobile connectivity is as good as on the S23, but VZW C-Band seems to be better. In theory my lower speeds on the S24 could've been due to other people hammering the network with *their* new S24s, as things seem to have gone back to normal now. Oh, and I now have one phone that can work on all four networks; I activated a Boost Infinite line last night and hit nearly 600 Mbps on n71 10x10 + n70 25x15 + n66 SDL 20 MHz. VZW/T-Mobile might've been faster at that particular location, but not by much.

Ordered the S24 in orange, 256GB. $550 trade-in credit for my S23, and $24 for two years of Care+. That's as good as trade-ins are gonna get as far as I can figure, so no point waiting. The phone (finally) has n70 support too, so if Project Genesis gets retired or something, or Dish launches a pay per gig eSIM, I'll be able to use that on the same.phone finally.

My setup has been a T-Mobile physical SIM and a secondary eSIM for the past bit (I also have a Boost pSIM but that gets used less). My secondary carrier of choice (on the same phone anyway) is US Mobile (VZW MVNO); their bottom tier unlimited plan has a decent amount of priority data and 5 GB of hotspot for $25/mo, and I can buy that a month at a time so if I'm just bouncing between areas where I don't need VZW for awhile I can let the line lapse and pick it up weeks later without losing the number. Unlocked eSIM is also nice for international roaming, as last year I swapped between an international eSIM from US Mobile and one from Airalo, as the two had different partner networks and IIRC I still couldn't actually pay for better intl data on T-Mobile (maybe it's changed with the T-Mobile plan migration). Even used an international physical SIM in a case or two, though having my T-Mobile SIM in the phone for free intl texting and low-speed proxied-through-the-US data was super useful.

Don't know about leases, but back when Sprint did subsidies I traded my S20 in to Samsung for an S21 well before the contract was up. Phone was locked but Samsung didn't seem to care. A lease is different though of course, if it's indeed a lease.

X75 (which I figure will show up in the S24, announced later this month) supports 5CA, which should be close enough. 245 MHz means 100+90 MHz TD n41, plus 55x55 FD. 20x20 in each of n66 and n25 gets you to 40, so the remaining channels would've been 10x10 (probably n66) and 5x5 (probably n25). So the 5CA -> 6CA bump is marginal in this case. A bigger deal would be 4+ CA over n41 + n41 + n77A + n77C, as that would get T-Mobile to 255 MHz TD in a number of areas (20 MHz DoD + 40 MHz C-Band) on 4CA, plus whatever they can pick up on n71/66/25 in that area (likely to hit 15-20 MHz consistently). Comparable speeds without expecting a super aggressive PCS/AWS refarm quite yet. Speaking of refarms, I've seen two n25 channels in a number of places recently. Atlanta has this IIRC, as do parts of NM, IL/MO. n66 is still MIA in most places, but 25+25+71+41+41 maxes out the S24, and being able to do something useful with 5x5 means small blocks of PCS that T-Mobile sometimes has won't just sit there unused, so I'll take that as a win.

Source? Starlink Direct is going to run over B25 (G block) LTE. Literally any *Sprint* LTE phone and most T-Mobile ones would be able to connect.

Given that they've barely mentioned n25 thusfar, not sure it would come up on the earnings calls? That refarm is continuing apace, with 20x20 n25 in a number of areas. I doubt they'll make much noise on refarming n66 as at this point improvements will be marginal. DoD/C-Band would be newsworthy though. I doubt they'll touch mmW in the next six months, as they still have 2.5 GHz to refarm in most areas, and with sufficient backhaul 100+90 MHz n41 plus 20x20 n25 that'll give you 2+ Gbps with a larger coverage footprint than mmW. C-Band and DoD overlays on top of that will give basically every site plenty of capacity runway. And they also have closure of FWA registrations as another lever for capacity. mmW is such a situational pick here that I think we'll continue to not see it.

So, T-Mobile on Maui is pretty solid, with a few exceptions that are unsurprising. They have n71 20x20, n25 20x20, n41 100+40 (though I've only seen 3CA) in the central parts of the island. In Kahului, I found a site pretty close to the airport with better-than-gig backhaul. They also have 15x15 each of B2 and B66. The catch here is they lose signal a little earlier than AT&T in fringe areas, and in Hana the service is close to unusable (and n71 only for 5G), though in Hana basically everyone is iffy on service quality. But in areas where they have proper service, in the more populated areas, they have stronger signal and faster speeds by as much as an order of magnitude, thanks to C-Band not being available to VZW/AT&T here. AFAIK both of those two only have 10x10 n5 here for NR.

As Phonescoop points out, this makes a fair amount of sense given that Comcast's subscriber base includes a bunch of phones that don't support n71. So even if Comcast deployed it (which would be in a limited area as in most places they don't have 600 bought) not everyone would be able to get the coverage benefits. On top of that, you can make a surgical offload network with n48 small cells, but you don't really use 600 for that. The capacity fills up too quickly. Just as T-Mobile. And you kinda have to put it on macros. To this point, I expect Comcast/Cox/Spectrum to build networks hooked into their own backhaul primarily as another means of offload from the base network they're MVNO'ing to (Verizon). Using n48 for outdoor/large-area offloading and WiFi for indoor offloading gets traffic share on the base network down to the point of diminishing returns. Kind of like Dish building 250 million pops of coverage and then filling the rest in with $1-1.50 per GB, which is probably the ballpark of what Comcast is paying. I figured there was a chance of a cable 3 GHz offload-focused network, though my initial thought was that it'd happen in C-Band. CBRS makes plenty of sense though, as cable networks are dense enough that you can just strand-mount small cells as needed, and with GAA you can probably find 40 MHz somewhere on the band, which is enough NR bandwidth that folks aren't going to complain about perf when each cell doesn't cover much area.

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.

I dunno, VZW and AT&T seem in no hurry to turn on SA, though at this point they could at least do that in areas with n5 (so e.g. VZW couldn't in Austin, and AT&T couldn't in Albuquerque).

Albuquerque C-Band has been bumped to 100+60 MHz, making VZW the fastest carrier here in a number of places. They're also now running n5 at 15x15. T-Mobile still has more FD NR deployed, but VZW has more overall. Also saw 100 MHz n77 in Austin but haven't seen and n77 SCC yet.

I saw 80 MHz n77 in Austin last week (along with 100 MHz VZW n77). Speeds weren't all that great, but the spectrum is indeed provisioned.

Fun times: T-Mobile migrated me over to their billing and nuked data access in the process. Had to hop off the phone with customer service due to needing to hop onto a flight. Good thing I have the other three carriers available to work around this. Hold time was estimated at 30m (was actually less) and they disabled callbacks so I'm guessing I wasn't the only one to have this screwup.

I believe I hit two more sites yesterday with backhaul in excess of a gig, in addition to the site nearest me. I expect more upgrades sooner rather than later now that VZW can hit >700 Mbps on mid-band in way more places (saw 915 Mbps last night on a site that also has mmW...I'm 99% sure I was on C-Band at that point but it may have been bouncing to mmW). So the upgrades *are* happening. They're just being rather surgical about it, though as of literally this week they now have a significant competitive reason not to hold back.

Not a chance heh. WiMAX freqs are an order of magnitude lower, than Clearwire's footprint in Austin alone was larger than VZW's entire mmW footprint, let alone T-Mobile's.

IIRC it's 40 MHz, not 60, of n77, at least in the markets I checked when the C-Band auction concluded. Still, that's a slice of spectrum wide enough to put T-Mobile at ~220 MHz of midband in those markets, and means VZW would have at most 160 MHz in the same markets. To your point, TMo will be fine.

So, AT&T isn't allowed to have more than 40 MHz of 3.45: https://www.comm-law.com/fcc-adopts-345-ghz-service-rules They already have 40 nationwide I believe, and the auction was recent enough that they can't get more. So AT&T can't get the 3.45. T-Mobile can in basically any area where this is in play, while Dish largely can't. And there's no reason for the feds to go back on the 40 MHz limit for AT&T of all people, given that 3.7 GHz is clearing imminently and that'll leave AT&T with 120 MHz n77 for anything that can do 2CA NR or better (last three generations of Qualcomm flagship modems, and older than that for MediaTek stuff). With 3.45 out of the picture, but still in play for T-Mobile, that shifts the balance more in favor of T-Mobile, though AT&T could probably still benefit more even after selling off 3.45 and 600. But it's not as cut-and-dry of a win, and AT&T might be forced to divest 700A as part of the acquisition.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dish tries to trade access to 800 in areas where they've built out for access to 600 in areas where they haven't, with T-Mobile "selling" Dish the spectrum with a loan for an equal amount collateralized by both the spectrum and the aforementioned Dish 600. Complicated agreement, but would avoid Dish having money out the door, gives T-Mobile a but more 600 for the time being, and as Dish makes loan payments to T-Mobile TMo gets cash for the spectrum...and gets it back if Dish goes bust, to then try to sell to AT&T or VZW, both of whom already MFBI B26 for LTE. If this happened, Dish could bring n26 online across their footprint basically instantly, and T-Mobile could bump rural NR capacity a bit, for areas outside n41 range. Which is more valuable than usual at the moment due to Auction 110 license releases being on hold. As an example, where my parents are they're still on 40 MHz n41 last I checked, plus 10x10 LTE and 20x20 NR in 600. Bumping to 15x15 LTE in that band would be reasonably helpful as they don't have 700 there unless Verizon sells it to them. Now, if I were T-Mobile I wouldn't want to take this deal, but if the alternative is continuing to argue with Dish about this, maybe this is the least bad option for TMo...and it'd be amazing for Dish because every site they've turned up supports the spectrum. Heck, they could literally run a "private" 5G network for...someone...on n26 with no contention on the airlink. Not that there's any contention on the airlink on any other band...

Oh, and USCC owns a bit more than 4k towers. Betting Crown Castle or American Tower would happily take those off their hands. Though my guess is Dish won't be terribly happy with that transaction, as it sounds like Dish is renting site space from USCC in a number of places.

I'm guessing VZW will buy, then spin 600 + lower 700 + 3.45 out, potentially all to T-Mobile. VZW seems to like buying up carriers for their B5 licenses, regardless of customer base size, so this wouldn't be much different. VZW could even hold onto 600/700A and run CDMA on a sliver of 850 for a bit to provide a more seamless transition to customers, swapping all customers to VZW but leaving those bands up for customers to roam back onto before dropping the entire thing. Guessing VZW would have to divest 600/700A anyway to make regulators happy. I don't think T-Mobile would want the network/customers enough, given their continued overbuild, and AT&T is probably in the same boat. Also, USCC's mmW FWA matches VZW's M.O. more than AT&T/T-Mobile's, so the positive headway USCC has made there is gonna be more valuable to Verizon. But yeah, USCC is very much sub-scale, and between customer attrition and roaming overbuilds on the mobile side it's getting more and more iffy to run their own mobile network. Better to sell when the FWA customers are continuing to come in...and the mobile customers haven't all left yet. I figure this transaction will happen by year-end 2023, with network phase-out by year-end 2024. I kinda wish Dish was at a spot where they could buy the 600 spectrum as part of this transaction, but I don't think they'll have enough money in time, unless the buyer of everything else basically gives them the spectrum.

Hotspot is no more, as the device they're using doesn't support n70. So it's Moto Edge 2023 or nothing. Flip side is, it's dual SIM AT&T + DishNet so it's a pretty solid deal for what it is IMO. The Genesis app is preloaded on the device, so no need to go through any invite process etc. to be able to do the gamified network testing. Just open the app and after a signup screen or two you'll have the ability to participate in the gamified stuff. I'm currently at the Pro tier but I figure I'll hit Founder by the end of this month. I'd get it sooner, but I've kinda fallen out of the habit of running through the exercises. Got Pro mid-last-month and then went out of the country for a bit. One of the Pro tier gifts is a branded Bluetooth speaker that includes a wireless charger, and the speaker...isn't horrible.

4CA NR (15x15 n71 + 10x10 n25 + 100 MHz n41 + 40 MHz n41) is now live in Austin. Might be site by site as I haven't been downtown recently but I didn't see this last night further north, so they may have turned it on literally today.

Roaming is still borked on my phone so I couldn't upgrade beyond basic data, but I did get coverage nearly everywhere on T-Mobile's Israeli roaming partner, Cellcom (largest network by subscriber count in the country). Saw B3/7/28 LTE (20, 20, 10 MHz, respectively). Not sure if I ever fell back to H+ on Cellcom, but that would've been B5 or maybe B1. B5 got narrowed to 5x5 for the two carriers that have it (Cellcom and Pelephone) a few years back to avoid interfering with neighboring countries' networks running on B8 (900 MHz). As usual, my phone wouldn't do carrier aggregation on the bands used,.beyond NSA 5G. Dangit, Samsung. In addition to the TMo roaming, between my family and I we had three different brands of SIMs/eSIMs, which covered all four major carriers (Cellcom, Pelephone, Partner, HOT Mobile) and all three RANs (HOT and Partner share). My US Mobile Premium Unlimited 10GB roaming eSIM ran on Pelephone (but hairpinned back to Ashburn, VA), which IIRC had B1/3/7/28 LTE, 100 MHz n78 in a limited number of areas, and B1/5 H+ that showed up somewhat often. Also had an Annatel eSIM that ran on Partner, which has B1/3/7/28 LTE, n78 (likewise not in very many areas), and H+ on B8 and maybe B1. Partner's network was definitely weaker than either Cellcom or Pelephone's in terms of coverage. Speeds were around 20-70 Mbps on LTE (again, no CA) and 80-300 Mbps on 5G, with B1/3/7 as the anchor. Hotspot was on HOT Mobile (20GB), so same setup as Partner. Other family members were on a TruPhone based eSIM (also through US Mobile) which preferred Pelephone but could also use HOT Mobile. I don't think VoLTE was deployed for any carrier, but didn't really do voice calls, so was just going by what happened when I got an incoming call (fallback to H+ on my TMo SIM). Of note, in Area A of the West Bank Palestinian carriers are permitted to operate, so Israeli carriers' channels on those bands are a bit narrower. Transmit power on the Palestinian sites seemed turned up pretty high, for both Jawwal and Ooredoo, though both are limited to H+ (10x10 B1) and GSM (some in both B8 and B3 IIRC). Unsurprisingly, I couldn't connect to either network on any SIM I had, so if I had been in Area A I probably would've had poor service.