Thomas L.

This is hilarious, I didn't know this.

It is yet another chunk of spectrum that is available, so every carrier out there will jump on it because it has unlicensed dynamically allocated components.

The US is going to lose to China with this no matter what. There is no way we can compete with three carriers that are owned and financed by the Chinese government using the equipment of companies that are also under the control of the Chinese government, with all three of the mobile carriers also having direct access to the country's fiber backbone, again by order the government, all without the permitting issues the US has because the Chinese government has prioritized deployment of 5G in their national economic plan and there's no such thing as NIMBYs in China. Not to mention spectrum isn't bought in China, it's allocated as a resource for the good the country's economic interest, such as that it's designed for optimal deployments in LTE and now 5G (it's being reconfigured). That type of synergy is unimaginable in the US. This is without mentioning the fact that the government has consolidated the towers of China Telecom and China Unicom (the two smaller carriers in China) into China Tower (again, owned by the Chinese government) so that they basically share towers and are sharing the burden of 5G deployment. China Mobile has a network that was built with a density and spacing that was optimized for Band 41 LTE, which means they alone have more than 1,000,000 deployed cell sites, and they are being reallocated additional 2500/2600mhz spectrum from China Unicom and China Telecom for 5G - they'll just have to add equipment to existing towers which are already spaced with appropriate density. Oh, and the entirety of China's 700mhz spectrum in the APT TDD allocation (band 44, equivalent to bands 12/13/14/29 in the US) will also likely be used for 5G when that spectrum is cleared in a few years. Where US carriers add spectrum to avoid the cost of increasing density, Chinese carriers increase density to make better use of spectrum resources, meaning more bandwidth for 5G while keeping LTE performance. China Unicom and Telecom have been allocated the IMT spectrum in the 3.5ghz band that will be the international standard. A huge amount of the Chinese economy is built around smartphones, mobile payments, the gig economy, etc. - much more than in the US, and it's a massive government priority - T-Mobile combining with Sprint will have a minimal comparative effect on the ability of the US to "win" in the race to 5G considering all of these factors. They are basically bamboozling people who don't know better with what is basically an appeal to economic nationalism.

I agree, in a way that was my point. The claims of Sprint going belly-up if they aren't able to merge are hyperbole, it will just be most profitable for both sides. There are definitely other ways forward that will keep both companies viable, Softbank in particular just wants to be rid of Sprint.

I still don't understand why, if the Sprint and T-Mobile merger falls through, they don't do what Bell and Telus (number 2 and 3 providers in Canada) did 10 years ago when they needed to build a GSM-compliant HSPA+ network after they decided to give up on CDMA and wanted to catch up with Rogers (#1 Canadian provider) which went with GSM and then HSPA+ from the start. The two stayed separate companies but agreed to build a joint HSPA+ network because they knew that neither one could do it alone and build a network quickly enough with wide enough coverage in a competitive way. Sprint and T-Mobile could develop a 5G network equipment and spectrum sharing agreement, pursue their own marketing and business strategies, but share a 5G network infrastructure. It seems to me like it's false to say they have to merge to pursue a shared network. There are more nuanced agreements that could be formed.

Could they have deployed UMTS in the BRS spectrum? It's unpaired spectrum, so it would have had to be some TDD variant like TD-SCDMA in China (which was trash), or am I misunderstanding?

The reality is they put themselves in a situation that would require them to merge because that was what they wanted to do, and they hoped to make that argument to regulators. Again, Softbank didn't want them to exist solo, they bought Sprint with the intention of merging. They're not making business decisions that are best for them as a solo company.

I'm pretty sure they have put into place some throttling after a period of uncapped speeds. I can no longer get anything above 3-4 Mpbs down anywhere I've been roaming on T-Mobile in the San Diego area. I have the same experience that upload seems to be uncapped and I get 30-50 Mpbs up+. This is on a cell that I get 100+ down with my T-Mobile SIM card in the same place on the same phone. I feel like deprioritization isn't that uniform usually in a whole area.

I mean, in the borough of Manhattan they are. You'd think they would be more than tied with Verizon too considering their spectrum position.

I am so depressed with the RF performance of the Essential phone. It's a great phone with everything other than the RF reception, and that's basically a deal breaker. I live in an area that has pretty good coverage so it's not as much of an issue, but when I'm traveling there are places I know I should have coverage and I don't.

Yes, and that I can use non-Sprint approved phones that are compatible with Sprint. I have one that's totally compatible from China but can't be used.

AT&T Band 5 is live in the San Diego area, I have a phone from China that only supports Band 5 in the US and can get LTE.

The Essential phone is also supposed to be supporting upload carrier aggregation, so it's possible that's part of why you're getting higher upload speeds.

I'd like eSIM capability. It would make traveling much easier.

Something that's interesting, when I do a network search on my essential phone, 312-530 shows up as an option, but it is "forbidden" and I can't connect to it. I wonder if anyone knows what that's about.