dewbertdc

It's not visible to the end user, you have to call or chat with support to get them to check. There's been some talk that Neville Ray (T-Mobile CTO) was aiming for the end of this month for "network integration" to be substantially complete, so I think folks are going to start seeing this more and more over the next few days...

FYI for anyone with a recent multi-line T-Mobile plan, they're offering another free line for life if you call in or chat via T-Force on Twitter/Facebook/iMessage. I now have five lines of Magenta Plus for $125, all taxes included. (Three free lines, plus a $15 discount match from when I ported one number over from Verizon that had an corporate discount attached to it).

I am a legacy T-Mobile customer, and can observe that this *seems* to be what's happening now when connected to the 311-490 PLMN. Most T-Mobile and Sprint towers are broadcasting it (Shentel areas seem to be a notable exception), subscribers of both networks can now connect to it, and it will try to balance you across both legacy networks as necessary. I wish I had an Android phone and SCP so I could see better what was going on, but from what I can tell from iPhone field test mode: when I connect to the 311-490 (as of this morning showing as "T-Mobile," not "Sprint") network in the manual network selection screen on my iPhone 11 Pro, Field test mode shows the PLMN as 310-260 when connected to the legacy T-Mobile network and 310-120 on the legacy Sprint network. I was in a CVS this weekend that is directly in the shadow of a tower with Sprint B41, and only a weak B12 T-Mobile (310-260) signal. After a few minutes, my phone popped on to Sprint B41 (310-120) and stayed there, then was back on T-Mobile B66 when I got home. Agree with you here. This should have been step 1 before any of the 5G Stuff happened. It really seems like their initial 5G rollout was pretty slap-dash... T-Mobile is even now texting folks who have 5G devices but didn't get an updated 5G-compatible SIM that they need to get a new one.

There’s some weird stuff happening here. VoLTE is working just fine, but I’ll also occasionally see that I’m on T-Mobile bands with the 310-260 PLMN in field test mode when my phone is showing the Sprint alpha tag. Also I’m seeing B71 at my house for the first time ever. I’m also noticing that force selecting Sprint shows a ton more neighbor cells (both T-Mobile and Sprint) than being on T-Mobile. Will keep an eye on it... progress!!

Looks like we’ve got Sprint network access in Washington, DC now as well...

That’s specific enough for me - was just curious if it had expanded outside of the states we already know about.

Can you share your approximate location?

LOL - my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it's both good and bad - T-Mobile certainly keeps costs low by doing this and passes those savings on to the consumer, however, I've noticed that in DC proper, they haven't been able to keep up with the explosive growth in some of our neighborhoods. The NoMA and H Street NE areas blew up over the last couple of years, and until very recently T-Mobile has been spotty (especially indoors) and had poor data speeds even with a strong signal. The Fort Totten area of NE DC is starting to have the same problems - meanwhile, my AT&T work phone and Sprint iPad are flying along here.

I don't see B41 LTE going away any time soon, either, but I also don't expect that we'll see 100MHz NR carriers everywhere soon either. T-Mobile is famous for only deploying capacity where they need it - I can see them reserving 100MHz of their 2.5 for NR but only deploying the full carrier where they know there's demand, leaving the 40-60MHz carriers in place elsewhere. They could use multiple panels to deliver LTE alongside it, or use the higher-capacity Ericsson AIR 6449 panels that are becoming available to deliver it all. The breadth of their 2.5GHz spectrum holdings gives them a lot of flexibility, but they've got to clear the legacy Sprint stuff out first...

Marketing fluff aside, there's a pretty good explainer video for MU-MIMO in this press release. https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-achieves-mind-blowing-5g-speeds-with-mu-mimo Sounds like we can expect 100MHz NR channels next year, after they consolidate/eliminate Sprint B41 LTE.

I'm wondering if CA was accelerated due to the wildfires. Better to have two networks at their disposal during this time of need.

Lots more of this being reported in the /r/tmobile Subreddit as well. Still nothing here in Washington, DC when I try to force roam. I'm going to try to stop by my office (with a Sprint DAS, but no T-Mobile) later to see if it's enabled there. Dallas Area: Irvine, CA: Las Vegas, NV:

I think selling new phones is a secondary concern for the manufacturers as it relates to this change. The newest Samsung Galaxy phone on that list (the GS6 family) was released in 2015 with Android 5.0, and the last software update that Samsung released for it was Android 7.0 with the November 2018 security patches. There's no way Samsung's developers are going to want to re-open that codebase to include T-Mobile's WiFi calling bits for the few S6 devices that are still out there on Sprint. Anyone using a phone on that list will have a bad network experience with the new T-Mobile anyway, as they all certainly lack B71 and VoLTE. I think 5 years is about the upper limit of what folks should reasonably expect for the useful life of a smartphone, and again, most of the devices on this list are even older than that.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the SprintLink backbone integrated into the Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier network. https://globalcarrier.telekom.com/network

Maybe so, but if a software update to the device is required to enable T-Mobile WiFi calling on these devices, that would require coordination with the manufacturers who have no interest in supporting these old devices.

Sprint's WiFi calling FAQ has been updated to note that a lengthy list of older phones will no longer support WiFi calling as of October 30, 2020. https://www.sprint.com/en/support/solutions/services/faqs-about-wi-fi-calling.html

If your Serving Cell info is B41 (primary carrier) and your CA status has two component carriers on B41, I believe that is 3xCA in B41. I just checked my T-Mobile phone, and I'm on B66 for my Serving Cell, and the CA Status shows Component Carrier 0 as B2 and Component Carrier 1 as B12, so I am also running 3xCA, just across 3 bands. I'd be surprised if they keep 3 Sprint B41 carriers online around here for much longer - the 2.5GHz spectrum is already getting crowded with at least one T-Mobile B41 carrier (potentially two) and their NR carriers.

CA Status

No, the CA configuration is a different screen in field test mode. Neighbor Cells indicate which signals the phone is being instructed to scan for to find other nearby towers and report back signal strength in the event the phone needs to hand off to a different tower.

Interesting stuff - the only place I know nearby that has no native T-Mobile service but a strong Sprint signal is my office in the basement level of a large office building (there's a Sprint DAS there). I may have to find an excuse to go in some day soon to see if my phone connects down there.

Interesting - the folks on that sub were saying that VoLTE wasn't working for them when they forced those bands. Can you share engineering mode or SCP screenshots? I'm intrigued.

T-Mo just issued a press release touting its N41 deployment. Here's the list of cities/towns they've deployed to so far: California Citrus La Puente Los Angeles Paramount San Fernando Willowbrook District of Columbia Washington D.C. Florida Azalea Park Holiday Progress Village Westchase Georgia Atlanta Gainesville Mableton North Atlanta Winder Illinois Bellwood Calumet City Chicago Chicago Heights Glendale Heights Hanover Park Ingalls Park Northlake Indiana Merrillville Maryland Towson Massachusetts Holbrook Waltham Michigan Bangor Decatur Minnesota Maplewood Missouri Jennings New Jersey Camden Cliffside Park Fort Lee Hasbrouck Heights North Arlington Palisades Park Paterson Roselle Totowa New York Copiague East Williston Freeport Garden City Garden City Park Harbor Isle Hempstead Island Park Lindenhurst Long Beach Malverne Park Oaks Middle Island Mineola New York Plainview West Hempstead Williston Park North Carolina Clemmons Kernersville Pineville Stallings Statesville Winston-Salem Oregon Aloha Newberg Sherwood Pennsylvania Braddock Colwyn Darby East Lansdowne Kerrtown Meadville Philadelphia Rankin Yeadon Texas Dallas Houston Nassau Bay Virginia Bailey's Crossroads Bull Run Highland Springs Lake Barcroft Newport News Sudley Tysons Corner Washington Geneva Oak Harbor Snohomish https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/5g-speeds-supercharged-for-millions-more-people

Their 2018-era FCC merger filings indicated that they were going to unify the RANs with MOCN as part of the transition, so hopefully that is still the plan. If the rumors of network integration being "complete" by the end of this month are true, we'll know soon enough.

Some folks over in the T-Mobile subreddit are reporting that they can now connect to Sprint LTE if they force B41/B26 on their devices Reportedly forcing B25 in an area with both networks will just make their device camp on T-Mo’s native B2 (MFBI to B25), which makes sense. https://m.imgur.com/a/eE99oVH I have an iPhone, so can’t test this myself.

I can't imagine T-Mobile would do anything but keep nearly the entire Shentel network - their legacy network in Shentel markets is pretty terrible. If they start to decomm a strong network, they're going to lose customers left and right.