Trip

You're not familiar with Shentel. In its region, Shentel beats out the other three or four carriers hands-down. In the recent state-by-state wireless company rankings, Sprint was tied for first place in exactly one state: West Virginia. https://www.rootmetrics.com/en-US/rootscore/map/state/west-virginia/2017/2H Shentel operates the network in almost all of West Virginia. Getting rid of Shentel would be a very bad decision, in my opinion. - Trip

I took care of it. - Trip

That has not been my experience at all. When roaming on US Cellular, the moment my phone thinks it sees 1X 800 from Sprint, it immediately ditches the US Cellular LTE signal and tries to connect to 1X 800 until it realizes there was nothing there after all. Very, very annoying. - Trip

Not sure if you have a US Cellular phone, but on mine, it roams seamlessly onto Sprint LTE even while connected to US Cellular 1X. - Trip

What I've been reading is that the combined network would have 120,000 sites, and they're planning to shut down 35,000 of them, leaving 85,000. That's about 30%. Going back to the Spotsylvania County example, counting it that way, there are 30 sites. 12 of the Sprint sites are co-located with T-Mobile sites. Turning those off would decrease the total number of sites by 40%, but there would be no change in coverage. - Trip

To the earlier discussion about the number of cell sites being turned off, I did a little bit of an analysis. I used Spotsylvania County, VA as my example case, excluding the Shentel area. I put both the Sprint and T-Mobile sites on a map. The total number of sites is 18. Of those, 12 are shared between Sprint and T-Mobile. Of the remaining six, 5 are Sprint-only and 1 is T-Mobile only. While the 1 T-Mobile only site is kind of near one of the Sprint-only sites, both are on I-95 and AT&T is actually on both towers, so I would expect them to keep both. So even though 2/3 of the Sprint sites would presumably go away in Spotsylvania County, the actual change in service would be effectively zero. - Trip

I've been in half a panic about this merger because there's been no word at all about what happens to Shentel. I found this article this morning, which is making me feel better, though I want to wait to hear something for certain: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4096992-real-winner-sprint-t-mobile-merger The link to the agreement being discussed in the article is here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/354963/000114036115031058/ex10_2.htm The summary seems to be that in the case of this merger, Sprint either has to buy out Shentel at a premium, sell the T-Mobile customers and network in the Shentel region to Shentel at a discount, or shut down the T-Mobile network in the Shentel region. One of the latter two options would make me happy. - Trip

There are an absolute boatload of sites shared by both Sprint and T-Mobile. There are additional sites that are at adjacent locations. I wouldn't be surprised if that number added up to 35,000. - Trip

It just ended. - Trip

Mostly taking questions about business synergies and other buzz words. I missed the beginning of the call so I missed any discussion about roaming. - Trip

Call is still going on. - Trip

I've asked on Twitter about the Shentel region and SprintCare already wrote back saying they don't know. I hope they address it on the call; I'm listening now. - Trip

I am okay with this if, and only if, Shentel is left in charge of the areas they're currently in charge of. - Trip

https://medium.com/@AjitPaiFCC/on-the-road-again-9a759494d85e Chairman Pai blogs about items on the May agenda for the FCC. Among them, an item about 2.5 GHz band licensing. - Trip

Mike, Confirmed via picture. https://imgur.com/a/ZWewf I'm connected to a Clear site with two 8T8R sites appearing in the neighbor cells. Couldn't get diagnostics before it dropped back to B26 on the DAS though. I'm in too much pain to walk back to the window and try again for diagnostics. - Trip

Mike, I didn't mean to conflate the first two items. In the first, when I'm connected to Clear B41 third carrier on sectors 03/04/05, I'm not seeing the "3" next to it. That's what I was trying to say. I would love if this could be corrected, since it's hopefully a small change. I'll try to send you a diagnostic showing it, but here's a picture from my log: https://imgur.com/a/7zw72 I separately sent you the data on the missing band indicator because you said it was causing you a problem that you were having trouble tracking down, but I had been unable to send you diagnostic data on it previously. I finally tried and successfully sent you the data without getting an error message. I was hoping it helped you track down the issue, as it was sitting there for a very long time with no band indicator. Same thing happened yesterday, actually, on a different site. In that case, it lasted for a long time, measured in minutes. Sounds like an interesting fix, though I suspect you'll have some Band 66/Band 2 overlap. For example, if T-Mobile held AWS-1 A-block, that would be EARFCN 66586, and 66586-65536=1050, a valid Band 2 EARFCN. Not sure what you would do about that. Yes, I agree it would have to be Sprint-only. I think most of the phones I've had since moving to Sprint would show Clear and Sprint B41 in neighbor cells at the same time. (LG G6, LG G5, Samsung S5.) They do/did not, however, show PCI values for US Cellular or other networks. I'll confirm and let you know for certain. - Trip

Agreed in my neck of the DC market as well. I spent a while waiting for a prescription at CVS today and wished for a Magic Box. (The service worked, just not terribly well.) And at Costco, right outside you can see the tower, but inside it's barely usable. - Trip

Mike, 1) As indicated previously, in my area (DC) which I believe is a Samsung Clear market, 03/04/05 are third carrier, but SCP currently doesn't note it as anything other than standard B41. 2) Yesterday, I finally managed to send you diagnostics showing "LTE" without a band indicator while connected to a Clear site. I sent it having watched it not have a band indicator for more than 30 seconds. Hopefully you got it and maybe it'll tell you something you didn't already know about the issue. 3) I don't yet have a B71 phone, though once a cheap Motorola one comes out, I plan to replace my T-Mobile 700 phone with one. What kind of work-around are you considering? Perhaps it could make sense to allow people to select which bands their phone actually supports or which bands they expect to see so you could work around obviously-incorrect data, even if it were in some kind of hidden menu. (In my ideal world, there would be a hidden menu with lots of advanced functions to tweak the behavior of SCP in ways the average user may find unhelpful or confusing. Like forcing all LTE to be identified as LTE 700 on my phone that is locked to 700.) 4) Is there any chance you could add a third mode to the neighbor cell notes beyond matching to PLMN and not matching to PLMN? I'd like to merge my four SCP databases together (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint/USCC) but if I do that, then on my Sprint/USCC phones with the PLMN matching disabled, I'll get a bunch of neighbor cell notes that are clearly not correct since they'll match non-Sprint values. And, of course, if I enable PLMN matching, then if I'm on Sprint, I'll miss Clear notes, etc. It would be nice if there were a "Sprint" mode that matched only to PLMNs associated with Sprint when connected to a Sprint-associated network. For example, if connected to PLMN 310120, have it match also PCI values for 311870 and other Clear PLMNs, but not to other PLMNs. Or if connected to 311870, match to 310120, etc. - Trip

I really want a Magic Box for the "new toy" aspect of it, but I know I don't really need one, so I haven't bothered. I have FiOS available via wifi at both ends of the house, and the moment I step outside, the Clear Band 41 is fine anyway, so I'm not sure it would benefit anyone around me either. I did send a note to one of my favorite restaurants--in a dead zone--and asked them to consider requesting one. Here's hoping. - Trip

Some sites may have old equipment/racks on them. It wasn't that long ago that Nextel, MetroPCS, and Cricket were separate companies with their own gear. Clear gear is often on its own rack as well. I have phones for all five major carriers. (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and US Cellular, in addition to my primary Sprint line.) That gives me a reasonable idea of who is where. I replace my Verizon SIM every 90 days to keep LTE active, and the T-Mobile SIM stays active without service. FreedomPop provides 200MB/mo of AT&T service for free. I have a $10/mo prepaid plan with US Cellular that I put money on when I am going into US Cellular territory. Building permits, if they're available online, can also be helpful in that regard. - Trip

Can you post the address (or coordinates) for one of these sites? - Trip

Interesting note in here: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10326217025032/March 26 Sprint Ex Parte.pdf Sounds like they're trying to get the EBS licensing changed to better utilize the 2.5 GHz band. - Trip

Mike, In my region, Clear sites with 03/04/05 for the last two digits in the GCI represent B41 third carrier. This is a relatively recent development. - Trip

Placebo effect. - Trip

Did some digging for Columbus permits to see if I could help. 3603 Livingston Ave sound right? If so: "DESCRIPTION OF WORK: NEW MONOPOLE CONSTRUCTION FOR CELL SITE OF T-MOBILE." (Emphasis mine.) - Trip