Thomas L.

Out of curiosity, where did you go exactly? Do you have a band 71 capable device? Almost all of T-Mobile's new coverage in north NorCal is band 71, Sprint has totally ignored the area for ages. US Cellular is usually pretty good up there, if your phone has band 13.

How would it blow up?

I looked up coverage in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato - you should have decent coverage there, if not LTE, at least HSPA+, which is plenty fast. Have fun!

I have one Sprint line that I use for fixed internet from a Mobile Citizen reseller, but am stuck with an extremely awful Coolpad Surf (you can't switch devices), it works in some other android devices when I have it set to LTE only with the right settings, so I'd like to build a device that supports multi-carrier aggregation and maybe even upload carrier aggregation on band 41.

Can you talk about how to build your own? Or do you have a guide? This sounds like a really fun project for me.

Do you know where I can find a list of bands that THEORETICALLY can support upload carrier aggregation? I don't know why it seems SO DIFFICULT to find that list - Thank you!

Unfortunately, based on LTE standards, I believe that 2xCA upload is the maximum CA supported for upload for ANY band, so it's a technology limitation at this point. I don't think that will change until 5G becomes more widespread.

$100 Billion? That's outrageous.

So does anyone know when we might get access to T-Mobile spectrum more regularly? T-Mobile roaming is disabled in my market.

I don't think that Dish can even be brought into this. Yes, it seems insane to make Sprint and T-Mobile divest spectrum when Dish has so much, but let's not pretend that the current FCC and DOJ have any interest in things that would benefit CONSUMERS.

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.