Trip
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Posts posted by Trip
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All I can think while reading all of this is how very user-hostile it all is. They had two years to plan for the integration and this trainwreck is the result?
- Trip
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8 minutes ago, RedSpark said:
Stuff like this is why I'm happy to be with Magenta now:
To me, ads don't matter. Service does.
- Trip
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14 minutes ago, davidtm said:
Trying to figure out what this will mean in C'ville. TMo has historically had terrible coverage here (I believe). Will TMo merely switch over existing Shentel towers?
We'll find out. Given the prevalence of 312250 in my area, I have to imagine T-Mobile will ultimately keep most Shentel tower sites, except ones that are co-located or perhaps on immediately adjacent towers.
- Trip
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Yes, that's my experience as well, and comports with what I was told by someone in the know when I asked if there was a "keep" list.
Given they had two years to plan, I'm not sure why they didn't work this out then, but...
- Trip
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Here's the (very short) SEC filing:
https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1283699/000119312521025274/d262639d8k.htm
I do find the math to be interesting. The entire Sprint network with its ~41 million non-wholesale customers went for $26 billion, while Shentel was valued at $2.1 billion with just 1.1 million customers (not sure if wholesale customers are included or not, assuming not as I assume Shentel can't do wholesaling). Had Shentel been valued as low as Sprint, the purchase price would have been under $1 billion.
Speaks to the quality of the Shentel part of the network.
- Trip
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And here's the sale announcement:
- Trip
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And here's the Shentel announcement:
- Trip
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I have a pay-as-you-go prepaid SIM, which requires $10/month to activate. I throw $11 on it during a month when I want to use it for logging.
- Trip
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I'm a lot less skeptical than I was a few months ago about the future of the Shentel region. Based on what I've seen in this area, almost every non-co-located Sprint site now seems to be running the 312250 PLMN, implying they're all "keep" sites. I would expect similar in the Shentel region, so presumably they would be keeping the network together.
Of course, I'll believe it when I see it. You never know when it comes to the more rural areas. I would like to see Shentel leave the Network Vision panels in place with PCS on them, and add a 600/700 panel to each site. Cheap and easy. Where extra capacity is needed, like Charlottesville, swap the Network Vision panel for an AWS/PCS panel and add 2.5 GHz panels. Instant top-quality network throughout the region.
But in any event, since the sale hasn't gone through yet, as long as you aren't on ROAMAHOME and haven't swapped out your SIM for a T-Mobile one, you should still be on the Shentel network and little should have changed. I assume there will be an investor call in the next week or two which may or may not have information in it about the progress. Last one was in early November, so we're due soon.
- Trip
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37 minutes ago, dkyeager said:
An alternative way to store hits would be the last date it was hit, then it would be easy to see Sprint sites disappear (eventually) or better yet, get converted. How were you thinking of using the counter?
Thanks
SignalCheck already has a last_time field.
- Trip
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2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:
It's being estimated that T-Mobile has spent $4 Billion on C-band so far. I'm most surprised to see that Dish hasn't spent more. While I'm not surprised that Comcast and Charter have spent a ton I didn't expect them to spend more than Verizon. I wonder what they plan to do with all of this spectrum that they're hoarding.
What is the source for this? I see a reference to "analysts" but no source link. Auction participation data is confidential at this stage in the process, so as best I can tell, these numbers are made up.
- Trip
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5 hours ago, mikejeep said:
I saw your diagnostic report.. it's just null. That's it, null. Nothing else at all.. it literally just says the word null! The only devices I've ever seen do that were non-phone tablets like a Kindle fire. Impressive!
I don't have APKs, I deploy with bundles that Google Play determines how to handle on a case-by-case basis.. but I'll try to figure something out for you.. check your e-mail. Did previous versions work on these phones? New beta is rolling out now, give that a try in a few hours.
Yikes. That seems like bad news. I hope it's not a result of being required to target Android 10. If so, it implies a lot more software is going to break as it updates and that I need to upgrade my phones much earlier than I anticipated. (I really thought I was set for a few years.)
EDIT: I noticed that Tower Collector had also updated to a version released on 12/5, and it still gets data. So hopefully that means there is a solution to be had and it's not strictly caused by targeting Android 10.
Yes, I have both the latest beta before 12/2 and whatever was before that installed on other phones that have yet to be updated and they work fine. It's just the 12/2 build, and now, the build you just uploaded. I just installed it, and can tell you that both are failing to show anything. I sent new diagnostics, but in case they don't contain anything, this is a sampling of what I see when I enable Diagnostic Mode:
The rest was related to the database update or repeats of that EGL_BAD_ATTRIBUTE message, as far as I could determine.
Let me know if there are any other diagnostics I could run, even with other software, to help point you in the right direction. These phones are all rooted, so I have more flexibility than most.
Alternatively, I could try to unroot them, install any more recent updates, reroot them, and see if anything improves. Or factory reset. Or try unofficial ROMs, which is not something I've done before.
- Trip
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Realizing I should provide additional details. Phones are Moto E5 Play and Moto G4 Play, so they run Android 8 and 7.1, respectively. Aside from SCP losing its mind with this update, they otherwise seem to still work, and I was able to use them with Tower Collector this morning to record data to submit to MLS/OpenCellID and store locally for export. (So I did confirm some things while I was out and about.)
This is all I see out of SCP in the latest build, this image is from the E5 Play: https://imgur.com/a/afOTXuG
I won't be going anywhere that I really want to have them until 12/19, so hopefully the cause can be determined--or a rollback made to work--before then.
- Trip
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I just tried pulling the previous beta off my US Cellular phone and my AT&T phone, both of which hadn't been updated, and now even that version just crashes on startup on my T-Mobile phones. Sigh.
- Trip
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Just installed the latest beta on both T-Mobile test phones (that was a bad idea), both Moto E5 Play and G4 Play and SCP is completely broken on both, reporting no data at all. Works fine on my LG G8X (Sprint).
Diagnostics sent. Can you send me the APK for the previous version?
- Trip
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I hate articles like this.
https://www.lightreading.com/ossbss/t-mobile-outlines-sprint-network-shutdown-plans/d/d-id/765997?
Title sounds informative, article doesn't even deliver a sliver of what the title promises.
Actual webcast is here: https://investor.t-mobile.com/news-and-events/events-and-presentations/event-details/2020/UBS-Global-TMT-Conference/default.aspx
If I find time, I'll give it a look later. If anyone else beats me to it, then I won't bother.
- Trip
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That's nearly a month old. Nothing new there.
- Trip
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1 hour ago, davidtm said:
Really? I'm afraid of losing Shentel's network quality if I switch SIMs.
There are quite a few areas where T-Mobile severely underperforms Shentel right now. Except for actual roaming, none of the measures T-Mobile is using in Sprint territory are currently implemented in Shentel land right now, which means you don't fall back on Shentel when T-Mobile is too weak--you can only roam after everything falls off a cliff.
- Trip
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I believe this $400 phone is as cheap as you're going to get right at the moment:
https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone/t-mobile-revvl-5g
5G-NR is just too new, and the really cheap phones don't have it yet.
- Trip
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Having made the round trip down to Farmville and back yesterday, I can say that a number of additional sites are now broadcasting 312250. I'm pleasantly surprised how many there are. Interestingly, two of them are actually co-located with T-Mobile sites, if I'm not mistaken about the locations of one or the other. But the others are all not co-located and would provide T-Mobile with extra density.
I need to drive into Old Town Alexandria again and check on the three sites I had checked a few weeks ago, but if this is more representative of what T-Mobile intends to keep, I'm much happier than I was a few weeks ago.
I can also confirm that 312250 is still not present in the Shentel region.
- Trip
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30 minutes ago, mdob07 said:
I'm hoping so, I've found several 312250 sites around here but some that I would have thought would be kept haven't been broadcasting it. Ill keep checking those sites.
Could it be simpler than this? Could 312250 be real-world testing--see which non-overlapping sites actually end up with substantial amounts of traffic on them to identify holes that these sites could fill?
The thought just occurred to me, though if that were the case, then I'd expect to see 312250 everywhere at once, I suppose, with sites gradually filtered out rather than added in.
- Trip
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On 11/1/2020 at 7:30 AM, Trip said:
3) Sprint keep sites seem to be less common than I would have thought. I've tracked the number of 312250 PLMN sites and I count 10 so far. One was a site I did not expect, while the others were expected or, at least, unsurprising after plotting on a map. I've specifically driven up to three more I did expect to be kept which either are not keep sites or have not yet added 312250; I don't know if they're still rolling it out or not to know the answer with certainty. In all three cases, I suspect outdoor coverage would be okay without them, but I'm less sure about indoor coverage, and in at least one case, Sprint is the only carrier at that site. (312250 is not yet deployed in the Shentel region, where I would expect to see many more.)
Follow-up to this post. One of the sites I had driven up to suddenly showed up as a 312250 site this morning even though it did not when I first checked. So perhaps they are rolling it out in stages after all?
- Trip
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On 11/10/2020 at 4:45 PM, BlueAngel said:
Well that's what they need to do, add T-Mobile to all of their sites boom problem avoided!
And as long as they do that, then all will be well.
I'm just not putting money on it happening.
- Trip
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I am, by contrast, extremely wary of T-Mobile buying Shentel. Shentel is a known quantity, and T-Mobile is not. I'm very concerned they will try to cover the area as cheaply as possible rather than providing the best service as Shentel does today.
If they keep all the Shentel sites, then great. If they decide to thin them... that's bad.
- Trip
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Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread
in T-Mobile Merger/5G NR Deployment
Posted
If it was solely about where I lived, it wouldn't matter. I have Verizon FIOS at home, so wireless service is irrelevant to me. What matters is where I go. In those places, Sprint beats the stuffing out of T-Mobile all day long.
I have mapped towers (over 16,400 now) for a number of areas, not just places I go regularly, where Sprint has no service, but T-Mobile has sparse service. By contrast, there are places where Sprint built out a real network, but T-Mobile also built out a sparse network. Evidence suggests to me that T-Mobile builds in less populated areas to fill out the map. Sprint built to provide real service. It means there are areas where Sprint has no service, but in those places, they would let you roam pretty freely so at least you had service. While in other places, Sprint had a real network, but T-Mobile was just trying to keep people from roaming and make the map look good.
To the extent that they're not letting customers roam onto the Sprint network, which they own and thus costs literally nothing to roam on, that seems like serious malpractice. I would have thought that with two years to plan the merger, they would have figured out that the spin about Sprint's network being bad everywhere wasn't true. If they still believe that nearly a year after the merger, what does that say about the future of T-Mobile for Sprint customers?
In any event, I was commenting more on the fact there are at least three different methods of moving people from Sprint to T-Mobile, all of which are different and inconsistent with no clear information on what benefits or detriments each one confers. It feels unnecessarily complicated and likely to cause frustration. I don't see why it's not set up so as to be as smooth and streamlined an experience as possible.
- Trip