RedSpark

Nice. This is what real capex looks like. Finally.

Is there an option to do a "differential upgrade" to the S20+ and cover the incremental cost over the base S20?

Dish named the first vendor for its 5G build: https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/dish-network-names-mavenir-as-first-vendor-for-its-5g-network-build Think they'll be able to do it?

When do you think T-Mobile will address the Sprint spectrum on the network? Was this underground coverage system even designed with 5G upgradability in mind?

I'm curious what their original schedule was....

The length of time that it actually took for the merger may be a reason that things are moving so quickly. https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/t-mobile-launches-2-5-ghz-philadelphia-tees-up-nyc-for-entire-layer-cake Perhaps this is applicable to VoLTE going live as well.

DC has certainly grown, and Sprint's network wasn't keeping up in a number of areas across the City. Some of this was probably due to limited capex, but I think it was also further limited because Sprint was waiting on the merger as well.

That sure is a good deal for all that stuff. We're on Unlimited Freedom with Sprint. I had no idea that T-Mobile was congested here. Sprint has congestion issues in certain spots, and it's clear that's where the capex ran out because they have great performance in areas you'd expect to see congestion. I imagine network integration with Sprint won't be long from now. I don't have a 5G device so I can't tell if 5G made it down there. Knowing WMATA, I'm not sure it did. However, I imagine T-Mobile/Verizon/AT&T would want to upgrade it to 5G at some point.

They're not wasting any time here. Wow.

Haha. Yup. It wouldn't be WMATA if it wasn't some kind of mess. I've lived through this history here as well, but at least they're now going to finally finish it. Perhaps with all the metro service cutbacks they've been able to do additional work on it. I've never noticed the brown cabinets before, but I'll look for them next time I ride. What does "CWS" stand for? I've had a good experience with the Sprint service in the stations in the past. So the Sprint devices are now roaming on T-Mobile in the stations? That must have been because you didn't have Sprint coverage for some reason. Would technicians simply have to make configuration changes to the neutral host cabinets/backend to combine the T-Mobile/Sprint network bands onto the New T-Mobile network?

CNET has a great article which summarizes the device offers for those with "legacy" Sprint 5G devices and its plan to shutdown the nine existing Sprint 5G markets and refarm/redeploy the spectrum on T-Mobile: https://www.cnet.com/news/t-mobile-to-redeploy-sprints-midband-5g-spectrum-in-new-york-in-may/

I imagine every Sprint asset/network is getting a review as for how it can fold into the T-Mobile network. I'm also curious what will happen with the network build in the Washington Metro that's being supported by all four carriers. I'm not sure if the carriers were each installing equipment specific to their network, or if it was neutral host/shared equipment. https://www.wmata.com/about/news/Wireless-service-now-available-in-all-Green-line-tunnels.cfm (December 6, 2019) The last update before that was in May 2019: https://www.wmata.com/about/news/Metro-wireless-service-available-in-two-thirds-of-tunnels.cfm Perhaps we'll have an update on their progress next month. If it is separate equipment for T-Mobile/Sprint, I wonder how that will be integrated and consolidated for the New T-Mobile? How would that work?

Although it's heavily redacted, you can get a sense what's going on...

True. But it can if the competition is no longer sustainable.

No I don't. The reason I make this point is that the combined entities/networks of T-Mobile/Sprint provides huge economies of scale and synergy efficiencies to compete agains regional carriers like U.S. Cellular. T-Mobile's 600 MHz spectrum combined with Sprints 2.5 GHz, plus the new cost advantages of building it out won't leave much room for regional carriers to compete in my opinion as the new combined network expands across the nation. Aside from whether or not that's a good thing, I believe it could happen.

....yet. I just don't see a place in the market for U.S. Cellular going forward. Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but I just don't see it.

U.S. Cellular to the rescue? 😎 https://www.uscellular.com/coverage-map Maybe they're willing to sell....

See this newly updated landing page: https://www.sprint.com/en/landings/nationwide5g.html Instructions on how to update your S20 5G devices as well as FAQ's.

The Merger "promise" was that you could keep your Sprint plan/pricing for 3 years. (5 years in the case of CA I believe), so I don't think you'll need to yet. I think the article is referring to T-Mobile as speaking on behalf of Sprint. These offers will likely come from T-Mobile through Sprint, via an email from Mike Sievert (Just like that "Welcome" email he sent out recently over Sprint's email system.) Just my theory on it.

We're operating under T-Mobile's definition of "soon" as opposed to Sprint's.😎

Sprint's 5G build was built as a "maybe" network. If the merger went through, they wouldn't have spent too much on it in the 9 cities it covered so far. If the merger failed, they'd at least have a start on it. I'm glad T-Mobile is going to reset and start over fresh.

Great article by Sascha Segan. I found this section interesting:

Here's another interesting section of that Press Release: Illustrates the difference in the number of LTE sites that T-Mobile has vs. Sprint.

Big News!

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-s-network-build-track-despite-covid-19 So we'll see what happens. I trust that T-Mobile is trying to do this as quickly (and safely) as possible. It's a shame that I couldn't say the same for Sprint over the years.