dewbertdc

There's a redditor in Chicago claiming to have gotten 2xCA on LTE B41 on his T-Mobile SIM yesterday. As of today, it's gone. Maybe some testing happening? https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/he9mod/tmobile_sim_band41_access/

I’ve seen a few Band 25 neighbor cells registering on my T-Mobile iPhone, but I can’t tell if that’s just MFBI on Band 2 or something else. Is there an easy way to tell?

I'm a T-Mobile customer who works in a building with a Sprint DAS, but not a T-Mobile one. When I had Fi, there was no elegant handoff between the two - I either had to wait for the phone to realize T-Mobile was gone and switch to Sprint manually, or force the switch with a dialer code. I'm hopeful we'll hear more about network integration on or around "Day 1," in August, when the Sprint brand is officially sunset. It'll be great when I can get on that DAS and not have to rely on a prepaid SIM in my office (whenever we return, which may not be until 2021 from what I'm hearing)

The Fi method is also a kludgey hack - the SIM actually has 4 phone numbers assigned to it, one on T-Mobile (your primary Fi number), and three "ghost" numbers for each of Sprint, USCC and Three UK, and the Fi app switches between them based on your location and signal strength. It's a neat trick, but it's a lot of overhead that T-Mobile isn't interested in adding as it's just going to integrate Sprint sites and spectrum into its existing network.

There's no cyberattack (DDoS or otherwise) going on outside the baseline activities we see every day. Seems like a call and SMS routing issue isolated to T-Mobile with other carriers' customers reporting problems because they're trying to reach folks on T-Mobile.

There are mixed reports online about other carriers being impacted, but legacy T-Mobile seems to be hard down at least for voice calling and SMS. Even calling customer service gives a "technical difficulties" message and hangs up.

Not a good day to be a T-Mobile customer... https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/h9mpei/megathread_outages_across_the_country/

Probably only folks who have a VoLTE capable handset with all of the T-Mobile bands, perhaps whose primary usage is in an area where there’s extra capacity on the T-Mobile network. There’s a method to their madness to minimize any negative experiences for existing T-Mobile customers and folks who are being migrated from Sprint, it’s probably just not obvious to those of us who don’t have inside knowledge.

This Redditor seems to have found some 2.5 panels added to a site in Chicago.

Honest question... is there value in referring to bands 2 and 4 separately from 25 and 66 any more, since the former are just subsets? I could see a case for 4 and 66 remaining separate since I think there are places where New T-Mobile doesn't own any AWS-3 licenses, but is there anywhere they don't own PCS Block G at this point?

Looks like the first "Uncarrier" event of the New T-Mobile will be tomorrow at 8AM PDT (11AM EDT)... will be interested to see if it's anything of substance, or just another marketing stunt like they have been lately.

Yep, this article speaks about it a little bit: https://www.speedtest.net/insights/blog/new-t-mobile-spectrum-coverage/

It sure does, which makes me think they're having trouble keeping enough stock of B71/B41 equipment.

Saw this over on the T-Mobile Reddit... “I was able to speak to the tower crew. This site has been planned for nearly a year now. They’re just doing 700/AWS for now and will be adding 600/n41 at some point in the near future. They’ve been upgrading sites in northern NJ and Central NJ with band 41 for the last several weeks. I was told expect an aggressive buildout.”

This thread took a turn and I am HERE FOR IT!

For what it's worth, I've been very happy with the iPhone Upgrade Program - you're eligible for a new phone every year, the payments include AppleCare, and it doesn't cost any more than buying the phone outright + AppleCare in the end, even if you don't upgrade yearly. Carrier integration is perfect with T-Mobile - just turn on the new phone and it's activated, the old SIM is disconnected, and you never have to interact with customer service (or get charged the $10 SIM fee and $20 assistance fee!). The device is fully unlocked, so you're free to leave T-Mobile whenever you want.

With the right equipment in the cabinets, I'm sure T-Mobile could throw an NR carrier up there if they wanted to. From some Googling, it looks like a "leaky cable" setup in the tunnels and antennas in the stations both for their public safety radios (blue cable) and the cell carriers (purple cable), nothing too fancy. http://www.systemintegrators.net/portfolio/neutral-host-das-case-study https://www.wmata.com/about/board/meetings/board-pdfs/upload/101316_3BRadioandCellularInfrastructureReplacementUpdate.pdf https://www.wmata.com/business/procurement/solicitations/documents/RFI 15-219.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaYDxJ7A1Z0

Yeah, congestion on T-Mobile can be really bad during the day downtown and in areas where there has been a lot of growth (think NoMA and H Street NE) but no corresponding upgrade in capacity. I wonder if T-Mobile had been waiting to densify until after the merger completed. There are spots where T-Mo has really done a good job upgrading, like the Shaw-U Street corridor, where I can easily pull 50-100Mbps even when it's crowded.

I've left Sprint and have a T-Mobile account now, their 3rd Line free and Discount Match promotions from the summer were too good of a deal to pass up for my family... $168 for three Magenta Plus lines, two iPads and Premium Netflix... congestion on T-Mobile is a real problem in the city though. I'm hopeful they get network integration in DC done quickly to help alleviate some of that. Anyway, hopefully much of the LTE integration for WMATA can be done remotely... not sure if Sprint 5G ever made it down into the tunnels. I don't think T-Mobile's did. Not sure what "CWS" stands for...

Oh man, that project was such a mess (as with all things WMATA). The project was approved in 2009 with a projected end date of 2012. Metro was required by Congress to provide underground cellular service in order to access a bunch of federal funding. It's a neutral host system built by a consortium of the big 4 carriers. Most stations have large brown cabinets labeled "CWS" tucked into a corner that house the equipment. Before all the COVID-19 mess, I commuted daily to Union Station on Metro. Recently, T-Mobile service on the platform was very congested during rush hour, to the point where I couldn't order a coffee in the Starbucks app until I got up to the surface. I recall when I was on Sprint that Network Signal Info identified service in underground stations and tunnels as a B41 Mini-Macro site.

Right, sorry, I was agreeing with you but also trying to make the point (ineffectively!) that they can limit the bands and towers that they're using MOCN on only to those that are broadcasting the LTE anchor bands for 5G, rather than wholesale for the whole LTE network. T-Mobile described this granular method of integrating their networks in their merger filings, which are unfortunately no longer up on newtmobile.com. Anyway, I guess we'll find out in a few days! I'm a T-Mobile customer now, and wish they'd also do the opposite for Sprint "keep sites" sooner than later. I'm very satisfied with T-Mobile service generally, but there are several buildings with indoor DASes in the DC area that have Sprint but not T-Mobile... I am assuming T-Mobile would want to fold those into their network.

Maybe they’ll enable Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) then, which would bridge the two cores together and allow 5G capable towers to broadcast the Sprint PLMN natively over the NR radios and the LTE anchor bands? I’m on mobile now and can’t find the link to their filings, but T-Mobile indicated they’d be using MOCN to grant Sprint users native access to the network during integration.

T-Mobile has been using its AWS (B4/66) LTE as the anchor band for NSA 5G. It's likely that they're doing the same with this new 5G on N41. The CNET article states: https://www.cnet.com/news/t-mobile-to-redeploy-sprints-midband-5g-spectrum-in-new-york-in-may/?utm_source=reddit.com I don't know enough about the other older 5G phones from Sprint to know if they support the AWS anchor band that T-Mobile has been using.

Good news for T-Mobile low band capacity in a whole bunch of markets. This should help ease some of the transition on the “new T-Mobile” network with Sprint users coming over. “T-Mobile has entered into a three-year arrangement with LB License Co. — a company controlled by the venture capital firm Columbia Capital — for a 600 MHz paid leasing arrangement. The deal with Columbia Capital gives T-Mobile immediate access to between 10 and 30 MHz of additional 600 MHz spectrum in various markets, including St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, among others.” https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/t-mobile-leases-600-mhz-spectrum-from-columbia-capital

Judge Kelly posted his memorandum explaining his reasoning behind ruling in favor of T-Mobile/Sprint. He spent a lot of time explaining how Tunney Act rulings must be deferential to the conclusions of the DoJ and examining comments about DISH not being a good potential remedy, but ultimately dismissing those claims. https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.209577/gov.uscourts.dcd.209577.86.0.pdf