red_dog007

If there is a merger, I hope Sprint customers can go out and get non Sprint phones fairly soon. Being able to go out and get OnePlus would be great.

Im interested... Thought Airave was dead. New box coming out? I can't find anything with Google.

This is true. It will be interesting. I go less places that are VZW, but they exist. All these places look to have ATT LTE, so new roaming agreements could still be had. Also, it'll be interesting to see what VZW does after CDMA is shut down for their standard customers. Select customers will continue to have CMDA services until 12/31/2022. So Sprint could potentially be a customer for these continued services. But VZW could be doing it in such a way they could still also shutdown CDMA on towers, so they still still operate CDMA for 3 more years, but the coverage could still shrink.

If the merger happens, I wonder what will happen to Sprint's roaming agreements. Several places I go I get LTE roaming or even 1x/CDMA from VZW. If those agreements go away I will end up with No Service as it currently stands.

Doesn't really matter if you personally had an issue or not. Fact is, they have had big problems with it that includes the G5. Enough to have a lawsuit filed that they lost. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/1/31/16957332/lg-bootloop-lawsuit-settlement-g4-v10-v20-nexus-5x-g5 LG was even doing free repairs outside of warranty. Thus I brought it up due to experiences that friends have had and mine with various LG models.

Wonder if LGs are in-particular effected because of the issues many of their devices have had with bootloop of death and similar other issues. One of my friends LG phones restarted pretty often under stress before it just stopped working. Games or anything else do it as well?

Isn't the X50 just a mmWave 5G radio?

Seems like everyone is forgetting about AT&T. End of 2017 they were at 165billion in short/long term debt on $160 billion in revenue. This year they have acquired some more companies so will be adding billions more debt. Why doesn't AT&T get these doom and gloom debt talks? Companies are in Sprint's situation. Or even AT&Ts. Its so common it's expected. A combined New-TMobile will be in a good spot. If Sprint still had to go at it alone, they still could be in a better spot, but they aren't going to go anywhere. Sprint doom and gloom over debt has existed on forums or poo poo article writers for years now, but look at where Sprint is. Still here.

If this did become a thing, I think 256Kbps w/ soft data cap on AT&T, would be a solid way to migrate off PCS 3G. I wonder why Sprint is only doing this with AT&T and not VZW. I know AT&T could have just given them a better deal, or allowed them to do it at all. I wonder if a previous merger acquisition favored Sprint here at all when they inquired AT&T about services.

Is there carrier to carrier VoLTE handoff? Could be a sort of test for 3G PCS shutdown?

You don't. I don't. Others do. It's also plug and play. People love that. Covering a house with WiFi is cheapish. But still not free. And these are meant for more than just houses. A business blocks access to WiFi or has consent pages to protect themselves and their network. If they are a Sprint customer or have a lot of Sprint users, a MB is a free way to cover your building/office area. Every place I have ever worked blocks or has guest captive portal on WiFi. Yet still have a DAS. It's isn't a way to abuse the network, it's a way to waste Sprints financial resources (people who don't need it but want to use it like me).

2022 is a long ways away. Phones are dead in 2020, but M2M is 2022. The other carriers will use so little for 1x/evdo/hspa it won't even really matter. ATT 2G is dead, HSPA is a solid fallback. TMobile already has 2G in guard bands.

I think some of these recent reports don't help the merger argument. TMobile has been adding customers like crazy. TMobile is on par with VZW and Sprint is on par with AT&T. With minimal capex these past few years their speed and time on LTE is on par with AT&T.

That's different though. Requires user provided backhaul. Also, WiFi doesn't have the coverage the MB has. A lot of places offer WiFi but you have to have access to it, or go through a captive portal. I think it's a great tool to have and offer. It is a fairly hidden tool they have. So that should help limit the waste of these MBs. Their Wi-Fi calling push was a free ASUS router. Wonder how many of those they handed out.

Dude, yes they have native service. BUT it does not cover the entire state. So they still have off-network roaming. ? Just wondering if you knew who that carrier was...

No they don't. Check their map. AT&T maybe? TMobile still has off-network working. In some cases too cheap so provide no service instead. ?

Every carrier has domestic roaming. Even AT&T and VZW, which have a decent amount themselves. As long as it is counted as native, it doesn't matter.

Do you know who TMobile roams on in that state?

Are their spectrum constraints there on B4? In BHam I only came cross lower EBS 2.5GHz range sites. Every other place I have been has been upper BRS, in the 2.6GHz range. It seems like that area does have a lot of high capacity B25 sites though. The speeds were pretty awesome for B25 standards.

Well, this is why people use programs such as Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. Because their friends use it gives them RCS like capabilities, while being able to import their "low class" SMS messages. It isn't really worthless when more than half the USA market uses Android. iPhone has even less share around the world. For example the Chinese market share for Android is almost 75% whose market is 3x larger than the USA. So yeah, RCS is a big deal. Many other apps support RCS, such as VZW messaging, but have yet to implement the universal profile.

Ah, I knew they were looking at selling it. Actually went through... So, goes to show that spectrum really isn't an issue.

B14, B66, B71, B5, B2, B30 The fact that 3G/HSPA still exists, some bands have not been deployed on yet, or that some of these have not been deployed as heavily yet. Then there is unlicensed spectrum too that carriers are getting their feet wet with. How many Sprint direct customers will really see a benefit though? Not everyone will. I know if this merger goes through, I won't see a single benefit. Sprint continues to get faster. My speeds are as fast as everyone elses. Many already get talk/data over LTE. My lines are at > 90% over LTE. VoLTE will be live by then. Sprint is continuing to dump billons into the network this year. They have a lot of extended LTE roaming that makes up for a lot of TMobile's coverage. The only difference I will see the change from Extended LTE to being on TMobile's network. In the areas I go, it will be a reduction in coverage so I hope the extended LTE agreements stay in place. Then there are the MVNO users. This place has the chance to get slammed extremely hard. I think only government merger mandated rules will protect MVNOs but will contain a sunset.

8 major carriers? There are only 5 major spectrum holders, and one of them isn't even a carrier. How would the New-TMobile truly benefit customers having twice the spectrum as the next holder (if they don't have to shed assets for the merger) when both TMobile and Sprint already have loads of unused or under utilized spectrum. Even VZW/ATT still have increasing speeds, with spectrum not on LTE yet and have unused / under utilized spectrum. Carriers are getting into unlicensed spectrum, and just between 600/AWS-3 there is still a lot of unsold licenses and plenty of the license holders are squatters.

Instead of being glad with the merger, go to one of the three other carriers that will satisfy your needs. Especially with these large acquisitions, the consumers never win unless there are restrictions placed on the merger that directly benefit or protect the consumers. In this case, the only people who might benefit are Sprint customers. But these guys could just switch providers if they really needed to change providers.

I thought the FCC approved EBS to change to move away from radius and go per county as well.