schmidtj

Any former Sprint customers with Apple Watches who are now on T-Mobile happy with the way T-Mobile provisions the cellular Apple Watch compared to the way Sprint did it.?
On sprint it was a seamless process. You add a cellular plan on the iPhone Watch app or from the Apple Watch itself and your account shows the additional line automatically as an additional line. If you want to remove the watch plan you just reverse the process and the line gets removed automatically. With T-Mobile it's quite different. You add a line but instead of just getting an additional line on your account you get a "Digits" line. Digits is something I don't understand and there are many flavors of "Digits" lines. Looking at your account you see the "Digits" line but nowhere does it say it's associated with an Apple Watch. If you decide you don't need cellular on  the Watch for a while you can remove the plan from the iPhone app or watch but it's isn't removed from your T-Mobile account and you get an annoying popup message every time you restart the Apple watch. The only way to stop the line from being billed to to get that "Digits" line removed. The only way I found to do that is interact with one of the flavors of T-Mobile support. You'd think that would be easy but trying to delete a line usually results in a sales pitch why you should keep it. They don't seem to understand it's an Apple Watch line that is no longer used. It's basically a pain. If anyone else has gone through the line deletion process and had a better experience I'd like to hear how you did it. And if someone can point me to a comprehensive explanation of what all the different "Digits" lines are for I'd appreciate that too. I find bits and pieces here and there in T-Mobile support docs but nothing comprehensive.
Thanks in advance,
J

Rather than upgrade all my lines from Magenta to Max I stayed on Magenta 2.0 and when I need UHD or more HotSpot I just add the $15/mo GoMax AddOn when I need it and remove it when I'm done. That costs me $15 for the month. Rather than taking the $30/mo hit permanently to upgrade the entire account (7 Lines/3 Paid). Since I'm paying for all the lines I don't care if any of the other ones have UHD etc. 🙃

2 hours ago, schmidtj said:

5 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

I usually only use the Radio Access Technology menu on my iPhone 12 Pro. Everything else has always been pretty hit or miss for me. 

But without a time stamp I have no way to tell if those values are current. 

I updated my iPhone 12 Pro Max to iOS 14.5 and Field Test seems dead. The App launches but the values are static as in they don't update. My iPhone Xs Max and iPhone Xr seem unaffected. Anyone else seeing this? Any way to get Field Test to work again on the 12 Pro Max? Tnx, J

Probably considered anecdotal but here is my recent experience with T-Mobile.
I'm on Magenta. I travel from time from northern Chicago to Dubuque,IA/Galena,IL via I-90 to Rockford and US-20 to Galena and then Dubuque..
10 Years I demoed T-Mobile and coverage pretty much ended west of Elgin (sad).
I had the opportunity to make it to Galena,IL last weekend and rode shotgun Saturday and ran SpeedTest many times on my iPhone 12 Pro Max.
What a difference 10 years and a Sprint merger makes.
I-90 to Elgin was pretty much solid NSA 5G and then a mix of 4G and NSA 5G to Rockford with the preponderance of it being 5G, Speed tests consistent 50/100 down and 10/20 up. 
From Rockford to west of Freeport was more LTE than 5G but the speeds were pretty much the same.
This pretty much matches what the T-Mobile coverage map says to expect.
From Lena, IL to Stockton on US-20 the coverage map shows Partner Coverage. This turned out to be Roaming on US Cellular some 5G but mostly LTE with speeds varying more towards 5/15 down and 1/3 up. Quite usable IMO.
Once west of Stockton on I-20 all the way to Galena was back on T-Mobile 5G (25%) and LTE (75%) with speeds a little slower than from Elgin to Rockford but not bad.
Even downtown Galena was stellar whereas even on Sprint it was nearly a Black Hole.
At no time did I loose coverage for the entire trip.
I'm a happy camper.
J  

Is there such a thing as the Field Engineering app for Cellular capable  iPads?    

20 hours ago, jporter12 said:

I think they're slowly switching everyone over to these plans. Mine just switched this current billing cycle, and I have a bunch of lines that are not TNX, in fact I think most aren't even TNA.

I’ve been told and have read that t-mobile will not switch your plan, you must request any plan change. Not sure if that also applies to legacy Sprint plans. When t-mobile improved the Magenta plans recently I had to specifically ask to be switched from Magenta 1.0 to Magenta 2.0 even though there was no change in price. 

1 hour ago, Grabber5.0 said:

LOL I meant how long are they free. From what you're saying, I guess they are free as long as you keep them after the 12 month minimum?

 

Yea the way I understand it if you keep all the free lines at least 12 months you're home free. 

Today’s Announcements:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210407005732/en/

9 minutes ago, Grabber5.0 said:

Wow. Free for how long?

There are no free line promos going on right now but they ran at least 3 last year and one already this year. I find out about them mostly on Reddit but T-Mobile News and Twitter etc. announces them. They usually run for a week.
The stipulation is you hold on to them for a year and they are your free and clear. If you drop a line before 12 month then the free lines left on your account that are less than a year old become chargable. People are creative as to what they use them for. Some rent them to friends others use them for T-Mobile Tuesday benefits. Mine are being held as I said for the grandkids. What's nice is they are usually stackable with promos that require adding a line. Like "Discounted Phone if you add a line". You get the discounted phone but not the monthly charge for the line.

Here is an example of a (now ended) promo: 

16 hours ago, BlueAngel said:

I'm very satisfied having moved over from Sprint.

Same here. Excellent coverage much better than I was getting on Sprint. The price is right too. Initially 4 lines with one free and last year added four more lines for free. Those are in safekeeping for the grandkids when they are old enough. I figure when they are 20 or 30 years old should be about right.

https://www.tmonews.com/2021/03/t-mobile-big-5g-powered-announcement-march-4th/

Pretty sure if you’re on magenta plus you will automatically be on Max come February 24.

9 minutes ago, Cardsfan96 said:

1.5 is bare minimum to load 480p. 2.3 will only load up to 480p.

Personally 1.5 MB’s is perfectly adequate. Others disagree. 

14 hours ago, Cardsfan96 said:

The issue has not been corrected on plans that had no throttle. People on Everything Data that get TNX with go from unthrottled to a 480p 2.3 mbps cap on video.

The T-Mobile support site and Netflix’ FAST App confirms 1.5mbs for 480p. 

19 hours ago, dewbertdc said:

This is interesting. Android Police just published a list of older devices that will no longer work on T-Mobile's network come January 29th due to their inability to receive an update that will allow them to continue working.  According to the article, "T-Mobile confirms the change is not connected to either VoLTE requirements in 2021 or its legacy network shutdown."  I wonder what is going to change then... 

 

Is this the issue? If so looks like they have a workaround.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/12/21/the-internet-wont-break-on-older-android-devices-in-2021-thanks-to-certificate-authoritys-workaround/

15 hours ago, kct1975 said:

Not sure if this is the correct place to add this question, so if this question needs to go somewhere else, please move it to the correct discussion thread...

I am planning on adding my wife to my Wireless Mobile account. So my question are the following... 

First, if I require a new wireless mobile plan, can I get a T-Mobile plan? Or am I stuck with whatever remaining Sprint plans still exist?

Second, if I am able to get a new T-Mobile wireless plan, I can get it without having to 'port my current Sprint phone numbers over to T-Mobile'? 

You can certainly get your wife a T-Mobile plan independently. It will be billed separately. You can add an additional line to her plan and port your sprint number to her plan when you choose. Or not. 
Personally I created a T-Mobile account (Magenta) and ported 4 lines over 2 week period. Compared to my ED1500 plan I’m paying about $90/mo less. I’m in Chicagoland and T-Mobile service is excellent. I am a bit concerned how it will be in more rural areas however. With COVID as it is I haven’t done much reconnaissance in the rural areas to date.  

22 minutes ago, dewbertdc said:

It's really buried down in there.  When first you log in, on the top right corner click on "My account," then "Profile". At the bottom of the next screen, you should see "Multiple Devices."  Click that, and on the next screen make sure that DIGITS is enabled.  Here's what mine looks like.

THANKS.
Truth be told I did eventually find it late last night and was going to update my post here.
I appreciate you reconfirming where this bugger is located.
It's a subtle thing and I wonder how many people even know this iOS feature exists. At least on Sprint is was fairly straight forward as a selectable free feature "Calls on iCloud Devices" if memory serves me correctly.
All the best,

J

On 11/3/2020 at 7:14 AM, dewbertdc said:

You can still use this on T-Mobile, but you may have to go in and make sure “DIGITS” is enabled on your line on the website. It took me quite awhile to figure that out!

I need to do this again but for the life of me I can’t find/remember the page where you select lines to enable. Can you refresh my mind? I’ve tried the digits app and web page but I’m at a loss as to where I need to go exactly. Any help appreciated. I just want to enable digits on the T-Mobile lines with iPhones. When I go into the digits app I see a single line associated with my T-Mobile ID but I have half a dozen lines and they are not listed. The web site just wants to use itself as a digits line. 

Hi, I'm an iPhone user but would like to contribute to things like cellmapper.net. T-Mobile is handing out "free" lines like popcorn so I have a few unused to devote to my quest. I know pretty much nothing about Android phones. Is there such thing as an inexpensive 5G phone capable of running cellmapper? It would need the current LTE and NR bands 71,41,66,12,2 ... Is there a standout favorite I should look for? Do

Thanks,
J

2 hours ago, dewbertdc said:

You can still use this on T-Mobile, but you may have to go in and make sure “DIGITS” is enabled on your line on the website. It took me quite awhile to figure that out!

Perfect.

I moved to T-Mobile Magenta and it’s fine for the most part. I have iPhones. One thing I miss is Sprint’s “WiFi calling on iCloud devices”. This allowed other devices on WiFi to make and receive calls even when the iPhone was off or not on WiFi. Now the iPhone must be on the same WiFi network or within Bluetooth range of the other iCloud devices. You see the difference as WiFi calling on other devices as “nearby” now whereas on Sprint it was “on”. Just an FYI. 

16 hours ago, JDP121 said:

Just FYI. SCP isn’t avail on iPhones. Just android devices. She can open the dialer and type in *3001#12345#* and it will bring up the engineering screen for the iPhone and she can find out what band and stuff she is on for both upload and download. 

iOS 14 pretty much hosed engineering field test. It runs but is missing things iOS 13's version had and is very slow to update/refresh.

Lots of “Unavailable” things. Like Neighbor Cells. Just me? Tried several current iPhone models. I’m over on T-Mobile’s system if that’s significant. 
Thanks. 

Thanks. All the T-Mo cells here are Band 2 and 66. I almost always connect on 66. As far as my cell being MIA it came back that evening. Perhaps my imagination but the few speedtests I performed after it’s return seem faster.