radem

The free international roaming package only includes free texting and data. Phone calls are 25 cents per minute if you are not on WiFi and using WiFi calling. Best practice to avoid surprise phone call fees is to put your phone on Airplane mode and connect to WiFi before making any calls if you can.

The other thing about fiber is that it is never deployed as a single strand. A strand is usually a single highly reflective plastic fiber tube that light pulses of different colors are rapidly sent through. A fiber stand is almost always part of many strands of fiber run as a fiber optic bundle. A fiber optic bundle of 24 or more strands within the same protective structure that looks like a cable or other communication line is often run inside a flexible plastic water resistant tube that is colorful (orange is commonly used) if it is buried or black with a steel cable in it for support is used if it is hung on poles. Some strands of that fiber optic bundle may be used at other locations the bundle passes by or some strands may currently be dark and not be in use at all waiting for a customer. Each strand has a maximum data capacity based on the equipment on each end which is often 100Gb/s today. This allows a cell site, business or other data consumer to use a massive amount of data based on the number of fiber strands in use at that location. For example a site using 24 strands of 100Gbp/s for each strand could effectively use 2.4Tb/s ( 2.4 terabits or 2400 gigabits per second). Dark fiber can be used simply by deploying the equipment at both ends to authenticate and send and receive data over that fiber connection. Fiber strands can also be shared by multiple customers and even over-committed when bandwidth is not guaranteed business class service with each customer being assigned part of the bandwidth of a single strand but totaling more than the strand maximum. That is how the 1Gb/s fiber that runs to my house works as that is capped at 1% of a 100Gb/s fiber by for my home use but since I rarely use all of the 1Gb/s throughput there could easily be well over 100 homes and businesses sharing that single 100Gb/s fiber.

Birthday Cake

I stumbled across some interesting maps on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/cellmapper/comments/tlqk6w/tmobile_us_equipment_vendor_map/ That link has a vendor market map for T-Mobile and one of the posts under it has a link to an engineering market map.

T-Mobile is currently operating 5 networks. Sprint 3G CDMA, Sprint LTE, T-Mobile 3G GSM/UMTS, T-Mobile LTE, T-Mobile 5G. Each network requires licensed wireless bandwidth, antennas, site leases, cabling, networking and compute power at the antenna site. Each network also requires networking from the antenna site to the core network location and compute power, data, messaging and voice call routing from the core network location. They cannot decommission a large number of Sprint sites freeing up the licensed bandwidth and all the equipment to run those networks until they shut down the 3G CDMA network. The Sprint LTE network appears to be mostly integrated with the T-Mobile LTE network but some of the Sprint site leases cannot be ended as they are still running Sprint 3G services. The goal of the Sprint 3G CDMA shut down will be to decommission all the Sprint equipment and networking for 3G and the Sprint LTE equipment that they no longer require. This will also free up additional licensed wireless bandwidth that can be used by the T-Mobile systems. When they are done with the Sprint 3G CDMA shutdown there should be no Sprint networks running for either 3G or LTE. Following this work, T-Mobile has announced that they are shutting down the T-Mobile 3G GSM/UMTS network starting in July 2022. This will eliminate the licensed wireless bandwidth, some antennas, cabling, networking, and the T-Mobile 3G core network. This will significantly simplify T-Mobile's operations from operating 5 networks and all the associated equipment to operating just 2 networks consisting of LTE and 5G. All of this simplification and eliminating unnecessary parts of their operations are a large part of the cost savings from the merger.

I wish the other providers would add satellite communications to many of their sites. Low bandwidth sites could run entirely on a satellite link and other sites could use it as a low speed backup for when other communication methods are down.

This entire FAA argument is stupid with no evidence at all that there is an issue with C-band. You may be right that there is some conspiracy nut involved. The guard-band between what aircraft altimeters use and cellular C-band is 220MHz. If any safety critical aircraft altimeter is reading signals from 220MHz away from the frequencies it is designed to use, that is a very broken safety critical device and should have been replaced long ago. Everything in an aircraft is designed and certified for precision and is checked regularly. The aircraft is not designated as airworthy for instrument flight if the systems in it are not certified to be precise and in good working order. If an altimeter is so broken that it is off by more than 220MHz from the frequencies it is designed to use, it could just as easily be off by 1GHz or more which would likely cause it to fall into other frequencies that are also already in use.

On most T-Mobile phone plans, mobile phone hotspots drop to 128kb/s unlimited but deprioritized on non-roaming towers after your hotspot full speed pool amount is consumed. This throttle remains in place through the end of your current billing period at which time the full speed pool starts over.

So are the Shentel sites not broadcasting the Sprint keep PLMN? If so, this would make the coverage very poor for T-Mobile users in Shentel land as they would have to lose the T-Mobile signal completely before they would connect to a "roaming" Shentel site. If they are broadcasting the keep PLMN, supported phones would seamlessly roam back and forth between T-Mobile, Sprint, and Shentel sites.

I am not a nationwide expert on coverage but as a general rule if you are not roaming on a Sprint partner network which sometimes appears as native coverage, you will often (but not always) get very similar coverage on the T-Mobile network to your Sprint coverage. The vast majority of the Sprint keep sites needed to fill in T-mobile coverage holes are broadcasting a PLMN which will let you continue to use those sites when using a T-Mobile SIM. Roaming coverage (including roaming that appears as native coverage) is not nearly as good on T-Mobile as it is on Sprint native so if you roam at all, you may find T-Mobile coverage to be significantly worse.

Orange Crate

There is a common misconception in many companies today that their company is not an Information Technology (IT) company. It does not matter what business you are in, your data and your computer systems are a core part of how your company operates and they are valuable to others who would like to steal that data or prevent your access to your computer systems without paying them money (ransomware) or to use your servers for other processes. If that data and those computer systems are not treated as if they were a target of others by a company's staff, then they will be sloppy with handling the company's data and the security of the computer systems and bad things will occur. Many large companies have an IT security or IT compliance checking department that ensures that all the common security issues are taken care of such as server patching, scheduling penetration testing, verification of user accounts on the computer systems, and verifying that testing systems do not have access to production data. Hopefully T-Mobile's new consulting partners will help them build this capability if they do not already have it in place. It appears that information security is a systemic problem in T-Mobile and I wonder how many additional problems have occurred that have not appeared in public so we do not know about them.

A few weeks ago, my company moved its thousands of corporate mobile devices from Sprint to T-Mobile not using TMX but rather a full port to T-Mobile billing. Each user was sent an email informing them that they would be receiving a T-Mobile SIM card in the mail and that they should not replace their SIM card until they received an email telling them when to do so. If they switched early, their device would switch to a temporary telephone number and would stay that way until they restarted their phone after the number port. They had to verify their address and agree to this procedure. Users could opt to go to a T-Mobile store to do this for them at the appropriate time if they chose not to do it themselves. If they did not make the SIM switch after the time listed, their device would stop working. I received my T-Mobile SIM card a few days later in the mail and waited. I received my email and a text message stating that my number was being ported from Sprint to T-Mobile. At the date and time listed in my email, my Sprint iPhone started displaying no service. I powered it down, switched the SIM card and powered it back up. It came up as T-Mobile with my number and my plan was now changed to a T-Mobile business plan. Easy to do.

I just opened a letter from T-Mobile for Business. It states the following: Dear Valued Business Customer, <SNIPPED out a bunch of junk> As a valued customer, we are providing notice that T-Mobile is retiring Sprint's LTE network on June 30, 2022. Select devices that are not compatible with the T-Mobile LTE or 5G network will need to be upgraded to continue getting service, including the ability to make 911 calls depending on your location. <SNIPPED out a bunch of junk> Customers using a Sprint device that is compatible with the T-Mobile LTE or 5G network and who have already replaced their Sprint SIM card with a T-Mobile SIM card will not be affected. No further action is required. What this means for you: The good news is most Sprint LTE and 5G devices are compatible with the T-Mobile LTE or 5G network and will continue to operate on T-Mobile's LTE and 5G networks after June 30, 2022 if the Sprint SIM card is replaced with a T-Mobile SIM card and Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is enabled in device settings for voice calls (on applicable devices). <SNIPPED out a bunch of junk> Between now and the time that the Sprint LTE network is fully decomissioned, capacity and coverage of the Sprint LTE network may change in certain areas. <SNIPPED out a bunch of junk> We want our customers to experience the T-Mobile LTE and 5G network as quickly as possible, and we are dedicated to making sure you are comfortable and ready for this transition. Thank you for being a T-Mobile for Business Customer. T-Mobile for Business

I wish these network testing and speed testing organizations would hit the providers with a big negative for areas with unusable or very slow coverage. The difference between 1mb/s and 1,000mb/s in download speed or between 3g/4g/LTE/5g/etc. doesn't matter very much to most people who are not using their mobile device as a hotspot or casting to another screen. The difference between no service and 1mb/s is very important to all users in all areas and its importance should be taken into account on these tests. Upload speed should always be a minimum of 5% of the download speed for the download speed to be counted as useful.

I was just notified that all the Sprint business mobile devices that my company has are being transitioned over to T-Mobile sim cards.

You can do most everything you would normally do on a mobile device other than video, downloading apps, podcasts, etc. or hotspot on a 64kb roaming connection so long as you only do one thing at a time and assuming that you do get to use all of the 64kb. Streaming audio and navigation at the same time on that slow of a connection may not work well as an example.

In any merger or buy-out it is usually office staff that lose their jobs. The workers who physically keep everything running are the ones most likely to move over to T-Mobile. The sales people, office managers, help desk, HR, finance, etc. are the ones that if Shentel does not have a landing spot for them, they will be out of a job as T-Mobile already has people for these roles.

Any new 5G device purchased is automatically moved over to T-Mobile if possible as the primary mechanism. Next would be modern devices that support all bands in good T-Mobile coverage areas that get assigned ROAMAHOME over the air. Third would be those devices that get a new sim card.

That is tracking quite nicely with my estimate that at least 2% of customers will be moved from Sprint's network to T-Mobile's network each month.

T-Mobile is not about to put the newest Apple flagship 5G devices on a network that does not have 5G. No way they allow these to use the Sprint network as their home network where they would be stuck on LTE and almost never see a 5G icon.

Network roaming was their first step but roaming is not particularly useful in that it requires a user to lose their home network connection before the roaming connection gets established. In weak signal areas and overloaded network areas, users stay on the poorly performing network. Their second step was moving 5G from Sprint to T-Mobile. This was for bragging rights but lost them some customers when 5G Sprint customers were forcibly moved from the Sprint network to the T-Mobile network in areas where the T-Mobile network did not work well for them and users with certain 5G devices lost 5G altogether. They also started taking away Sprint bandwidth and moving it to T-Mobile causing some Sprint users to experience a worse network experience in certain areas. What should have occurred as the first step as chamb stated, they should have moved as quickly as possible to get the LTE networks to be integrated into a single native network where users did not have to wait to lose their home network before attaching to a "roaming" network. The network would have pushed users back and forth to the antenna and bandwidth that worked best for those users no matter if the antenna was a legacy Sprint or legacy T-Mobile. This should have occurred before they took away any LTE resources from either network and they should have avoided forcing users to move to the T-Mobile network before they were sure they would have the same or better experience. With proper planning this should have occurred within weeks of the merger date.

Antique Furniture

Big assumptions here but these numbers look possible. The Apple September 10th announcement is expected to include the release date for the 5G iPhone 12 and possibly an iPad 5G and Apple Watch 5G. The release date is currently expected to be sometime in October. T-Mobile is not allowing new 5G devices to be activated on the Sprint network and requires a migration of that line to T-Mobile's network when activating a new 5G device. If we assume that more than 2% of Sprint legacy customers purchase a new device each month and that Sprint has ~50 million legacy customers still on its network and that Apple devices make up ~50% of Sprint's devices, we should see the mass migration of ~500,000 Sprint customers monthly from the Sprint network to T-Mobile's network once the iPhone 12 and other new Apple devices are released in October. Most customers with Apple devices in the US will purchase one of the Apple 5G models when upgrading their apple device. These numbers do not include the other 50% of Sprint's customers that have Android or other devices of which I assume that at least half of those ~500,000 customers will upgrade to a 5G compatible device each month. My big assumption (you know what happens when you assume) using the above assumptions is that we should see around 750,000 customers with 5G devices moving from the Sprint network to the T-Mobile network each month starting in October due to purchasing a new 5G device. This does not include the monthly new customers that T-Mobile usually gets. I hope the new T-Mobile network can handle the load.

I am going to go with DSS to allow T-Mobile LTE and 5G to be shared with each other.