dkyeager

Could it have been through a VPN you use or with an old website when IPs did not always fit the country range? If you have a sim card on another carrier or an unsmashed old phone that could have been compromised as the first step in this hack along with any associated accounts. Check any related accounts in order of unsecured money: bitcoin etc, brokerage, credit cards, bank accounts, other credit. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6294825?hl=en

A lot of the 28mm and 39mm was already purchased, at least for the major cities: - Verizon bought Straight Path Wireless for $3.1 Billion: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/15621814/verizon-buys-5g-wireless-spectrum-straight-path - Verizon bought XO for $1.8 Billion for fiber network and Nextlink Wirlesses 28mm specturm https://seekingalpha.com/news/3239578-verizon-closes-1_8b-buyout-xo-fiber-business - AT&T bought licenses from Fibertower for $207 million, some of which had to be returned to the FCC: https://about.att.com/story/att_completes_acquisition_of_fibertower_corporation.html T-Mobile, 28mm, price unknown: https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-buys-1150-mhz-millimeter-wave-spectrum-covering-ohio-for-5g Here are the totals per carrier by band: https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/verizon-at-t-t-mobile-and-dish-mmmwave-licensed-pops The FCC record type for the new 28mm and 39MM combined is UU (28mm legacy is LD). This gives a totally different picture than before. In Ohio metros, T-Mobile has all the 24mm UU which is 850MHz, Verizon and AT&T have the 39mm UU but it is interspersed. Verizon has 50+250+50+250, AT&T has 100+50+50+100+50+50 in Franklin county Ohio. Eventually they will need to swap spectrum to make it more contiguous. Plus they all may have to start building right away. What was left for the 28mm auction (24mm is the one to watch): https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/editor-s-corner-why-28-ghz-spectrum-auction-only-covers-23-7-u-s-population

I was getting 14Mbps downloads with WiMAX which was about equal to most LTE at the time. Dramatic improvement over 3G. You can argue it was a waste of money because it was an evolutionary dead-end, but the licenses were use it or lose it. It was the last major site expansion for Sprint. You could also talk and use data at the same time (WiMAX and Wi-Fi shared the same circuitry, 3G was separate). My current phone is capable, but has not seen VoLTE yet. lol.

T-Mobile won't have 5G on the 600MHz band until the summer with Qualcomm's 2nd 5G chipset (source: https://www.pcmag.com/news/365578/t-mobile-confirms-samsung-5g-phone) To the best of my knowledge, all of T-Mobile's 28MM for 5G which can be used with the Samsung Galaxy 10 (or whatever) is located in Ohio covering most of the state using LMDS A Block 850+150+150 Mhz leaving Verizon with the paltry B Block with 75Mhz +75Mhz in Ohio*. This does not include the unreleased results to the 28mm auction which is tied to the upcoming 24mm auction. Sprint's Band 41- 5G is included with the 855 chipset thus the Samsung Galaxy 10 (or whatever). You never know what lobbying or special fees/payments/etc occurred behind the scenes to insure what bands were included in their first 5G chipset. AT&T mid-bands also missed. *as these licenses currently stand. In auction 101 for the 28mm, it is stated that both blocks will be 425Mhz each. Auction 102 will have blocks A through G, with each block being 100Mhz, the first two and last five are contiguous spectrum. Since the results of the auction will be released together, I assume they will be effectively treated the same by the carriers -- time will tell. 101 is county based while 102 is Partial Economic Area based (multi-county).

You really want a larger number of people on one plan no matter what carrier. Ideally 4 or more. It should be easier to get such groups together after a merger. The key issue is the phone "discounts" provided by the carriers which must flow back through the bill, as well as the ability/desire of all the group members to make full and timely payments.

This all depends on what the FCC decides to do with 2.5GHz (Band 41). Currently these groups exist because 5% iirc is to be held back when 2.5 EDS is leased to a commercial firm. Some of the new proposals will allow the EDS licenses to be sold (which may interest Verizon) which would end this practice. This reexamination of 2.5 by the FCC is supposed to be occurring about now. It would also allow the 2.5 that is not licensed to be given away to the non-profits/tribes or sold. Many of the places that only have CA is because the FCC has not put more 2.5 on the market. Of course the FCC may choose to delay this until after this merger question is decided.

There will be terms and conditions from the DOJ and FCC. The question for T-Mobile will be if the deal is still worth it.

The FCC historically takes the longest. Rules on coverage retention, transition of customer phones, area where spectrum must be divested are all to be expected. It could be turned over to an administrative law judge and possibly take a year based on Shentel-nTelos merger. I would expect DOJ will add something for the MVNOs. I expect Dish to be ignored.

Since people often don't like change, I could see a mad rush once the merger is approved but before it takes effect. The first of three hurdles has been jumped (national security demand that parent firms get rid of Huawei has reportedly been accepted). DOJ and FCC remain.

At least in Samsung markets with AirHarmony small cells, the PCI of small cells is 450 or greater. EARFCN would be another way, but that sometimes gets location specific. GCI would be another way, but then you would need to know the MM cutoff point for each market (we have those for Ohio)

Accepted and then verbally confirmed on Reddit:

The best incoming SNR or RSRQ is where you want to place the MagicBox. Right now you may have a lot of retries.

Don't forget to check the SNR or use the RSRQ. You might also be better away from the window. Also check to see if it using B41 -- it might be on B25 backhaul. You could also be above the best signal, depending on your floor in the condo.

Sprint is slicing these root metric wins finer and finer. The reality is Sprint came in a distant forth in Seattle. http://www.rootmetrics.com/en-US/rootscore/map/metro/seattle-wa/2018/2H Sprint has one outright win for this six month period when they used to get six or seven in recent years. Some of this is how Rootmetrics counts upload speeds the same as download when the usage ratio is more like 10 to 1. PCmag understands this so Sprint has done better there. When the duo starts doing the same with TDD for their MM 5G spectrum I expect RootMetrics to alter the formula to balance upload speeds with usage . But this can not overcome limited backhaul capacity and years with very limited CapEX. Recently Sprint has done a great job improving its network, but the competition has done better. This will however help with reducing churn.

T-Mobile is going to do as they wish, subject to FCC limitations. The Sprint executives will likely be on some beach figuring out whether their drink umbrellas are adjusted correctly while they watch their enhanced investment portfolios and figure out what they want to do next, if anything. The joys of golden parachutes! Most of the Next gen sites I have seen are rural locations often with only Sprint on the tower. This fits Sprints historical pattern of doing rural areas first. The comments could point to collusion if the merger review drags out for another year like I think and urban former Clear sites are not Tri-banded as permits indicate. The more interesting paragraphs: "So we've recently improved the liquidity again by expanding the term loan B by just over a billion dollars and more importantly in many regards from my respect putting in place this amendment to the term loan B documentation which then allows us to potentially significantly up size the spectrum notes if the merger didn't get approved, and if we had to pay for standalone life." "...this last quarter we returned to wireless service revenue growth year-on-year. We expect that level of wireless service revenue growth to continue for the foreseeable future... ...Now we don't expect that level of growth to expand materially, but we do think that the level of growth that we've now got is sustainable. So once you get through a few quarters of that, all of a sudden you start to generate year-on-year wireless revenue, service revenue on a full year basis. So there's a revenue growth story." source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4226498-sprint-corporation-s-management-presents-bank-america-merrill-lynch-leveraged-finance?part=single

It can take several months to fully optimize B26 LTE 800. Same with 1x800.

OK, so no free lunch. I saw that as they could remain on their Sprint plan but perhaps be limited in some fashion or get a new T-Mobile plan. Traditionally T-Mobile just moves people to new plans that are typically better and then T-Mobile gets the cost savings of reduced back office expense and easier customer service.

"Free agents", this implies that a person could go out and buy a top of the line phone on lease or installments or 24 month contract that they can not really afford and expect that when the merger is approved in the first half of next year, as mentioned by Legere, their outstanding amount would be forgiven. Is that really what you meant to say? I could not find it in the article or transcript (perhaps I missed it). I would hate to see others get in trouble based on this.

I assume they will update firmware for VoLTE for as many phones as economical, along with other bands. This may not occur until an area is moved over.

Assuming approval, the big question for us is where do they want to start market wise. T-Mobile typically goes to where they can get the best return on investment, which has historically meant urban areas. However they could start with old T-Mobile oversubscribed markets, markets where they are losing the most Sprint customers, or the easiest markets to complete (ones with small sprint market share), or areas where Sprint spent the most on roaming which could now overload T-Mobile if present in those areas. The first few markets could also just be used to test their approach.

It is important that we all sign-up, as google uses this as a proxy for interest and whether they should invest time and money.

If the merger is approved, T-Mobile plans on becoming completely self-funded. They will issue bonds in dollars and Euros for $19 billion of debt refinancing, $4 billion for liquidity, $7 billion for loan B debt. This includes bi-lateral with Deutsches Telekom, for a total of $19 Billion. That will give the new T-Mobile $70 billion in high yield debt. They do have consents for Sprint and T-Mobile bond holders. This article also mention $10 billion of integration spending. source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4226264-t-mobile-us-inc-tmus-presents-bank-america-merrill-lynch-2018-leveraged-finance-conference?page=7 Note: secured loan B debt is defined as: "senior debt and are usually not subordinated to other indebtedness of the borrower." It may not be allowed to be prepayed. Source: https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/I03f4d8b5eee311e28578f7ccc38dcbee/View/FullText.html?contextData=(sc.Default)&transitionType=Default&firstPage=true&bhcp=1

I assume that MagicBox Ethernet backhaul has been user tested and failed. Disappointing. Has anyone tested WiFi backhaul?

The early public comments were that band 41 would be shutdown, Sprint users moved to AWS, and Band 41 then brought back up as 5G only. This would rule out keeping Mini Macros and 8T8R. Massive MIMOs would need to be moved to areas with less spectrum if I am correct in that they can only handle 120Mhz (60MHz 4G and 60Mhz 5G initially). Sprint has all the B41 licenses in many urban areas. With gaps, that is 194Mhz of spectrum. Why pay for 4G complexity if you are only going to have 5G? 8 or 9 carriers gets reduced to 2 or 3 carriers with a dramatic increase in upload speeds (depending on whether FCC allows use of the gaps). Uncertain on how small cells would be handled. T-Mobile may go fiber fed for better performance and to free spectrum. They certainly would need to be relocated in many cases and upgraded to 5G. Small cells would be easier to attach to if they were on the primary B41 frequency with the secondary used for backhaul. You would also likely want a 5G MagicBox. Areas with 28mm T-Mobile Spectrum (parts of Ohio for example) may stand a better chance of retaining Sprint sites for use with this band. P.S.: Early plans likely have been modified. Assuming the merger is approved, the FCC merger condition documents will be a must read.

The new T-Mobile is going to boil down to a neighborhood by neighborhood decision for Sprint customers, some of which will depend on what work gets completed by Sprint assuming merger is successful. I am assuming former Clear sites that do not get Triband upgrades are typically toast. Sites with more recent investments stand a better chance of surviving, assuming they are not co-sites. Of course all existing equipment could still be junked. 800 RRHs have the best odds, given they will likely be the last bastion of Sprint CDMA. We are seeing some 1900 firmware changes that would allow for more spectrum to be used for LTE that may affect these RRH's retention. I would also assume cabinets are toast or at least retrofitted. The main factor in keeping some of the equipment would be new equipment shortages and future 5G compatible replacements being needed in coming years. Network needs and leasing costs would be main individual site factors. I would think markets with a low Sprint Market share would lose the most Sprint sites while those with a large Sprint Market share would have better odds for unique Sprint site retention. Of course the FCC might mandate that VoLTE must cover all areas covered by Sprint CDMA, but this would mostly affect rural areas. I am also assuming that the new T-Mobile will start urban in the larger markets given T-Mobile's past history.