bigsnake49

2 hours ago, shaferz said:

Intriguing.  Their CEO's bio is full of Sprint.  Hmmmm

He learned what not to do while dealing with Sprint.

1 minute ago, JDP121 said:

I know the Sprint Stores are third parties. Not sure about the T-Mobile stores. 

I have no idea what will happen to the third party stores. I guess location and volume should play a role or they could just let them all compete. Some of them could become Dish/Boost stores or Verizon/AT&T. There is sure to be some upheaval.

We also don't know what role Amazon will play in this scheme with respect to Dish. I could see them reselling Dish/Boost phones bundled with service. They cannot be a Dish MVNO during the 7 years while Dish is an MVNO of T-Mobile. 

7 hours ago, JDP121 said:

Here where I live we have 4 Sprint Stores and 2 T-Mobile Stores. With one T-Mobile and one Sprint store in the mall up the street I’m sure one of them will close. With the other Sprint locations either rebranding or closing completely. 

4 official Sprint stores and 2 official T-Mobile stores or are some of them owned by third parties?

I know that are as part of the merger Dish agreed that they will will convert a number of Sprint's stores into Dish stores.

In our town, the Sprint and T-Mobile stores are within a quarter mile from each other. Something tells me they will close the Sprint store. Or maybe rebrand it as a Boost or Dish store. 

They are a project management company. They do have one product https://www.infinigy.com/products. My opinion is that they are the program management company in charge of antenna replacement and RHH install. I don't know if this is an effort associated with the merger yet.

They are installing new RRHs according to the screenshots. Who is the vendor?

36 minutes ago, jroepcke51 said:

I saw that quote. I guess its time to start of new search of building permits on Tmo towers.

I wonder if they need a permit.

TMO has been stockpiling M-MIMO antennas for about 6 mos now.

5G is underperforming, and is underbaked both on the handset and the network side. The new Qualcomm chipset X60 is finally a chipset worth incorporating on the handset side.

For those that are interested, Kelly Hill has been running a series called Insights from the Sprint/T-Mobile US merger ruling on rcrwireless.com. The judges ruling is a 170 pages long. In part 4 what stood out to me is that T-mobile has a network efficiency model (NEM) that it used to predict sector congestion in order to direct investment to alleviate it. It is used to predict traffic patterns over a a 5 year period. A version called the Montana Model incorporated a combined network model. The Montana Model calculated that New T-Mobile’s network marginal costs would be 1/10 of standalone T-Mobile and the value of its increased speeds would be more than $15 per month per subscriber. Sprint of course did not have such a model for its network and were flying by the seat of their pants. Why am I not surprised!

Another nugget was the fact that by the time Claure came on board in 2014 Sprint was already $33B in debt and was losing $5B a year. That's when they decided on small cells and monopoles. But, "That plan, Marrero wrote, “failed massively.” Sprint, he went on, “installed only 2,000 of its projected 75,000 small cells and only one of its projected 35,000 monopoles, which was also removed in short order.” While that effort was failing, Sprint was only spending about $1.3 billion in traditional network investments, he said, while competitors were putting at least $6 billion each on their respective networks. In addition, Marrero wrote, Sprint is currently underperforming on its five-year infrastructure plan from 2018: it has deployed only 14,000 of a projected 24,000 small cells and only 200,000 of its projected 776,517 Magic Boxes. In 2019, it underspent the five-year plan’s network investment by about $1.5 billion."

While underinvesting in its network, Sprint went on a massive price cutting and handset subsiding spree that denied the revenue to invest in its network.

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20200220/carriers/insights-from-the-sprint-t-mobile-us-merger-ruling-part-4

Like I said, a fascinating series. 

All these cable cos and direct satellite cos are losing a lot of customers and  I don't think it will stop any time soon. I can see ala carte as one thing that might stanch the flow out. At least Dish is trying the Sling skinny bundle technique. I can see me dropping cable altogether with their cable box rental and relying strictly on my Apple TV+HBO+ESPN+Disney+Netflix. 

Back to the subject at hand. I, along the rest of you can't wait for the merger to close so I hear the technical details about network integration and any new plans and offerings by the New T-Mobile.

1 hour ago, dro1984 said:

Merger closing is scheduled "for on or before April 1, 2020" according to the press release.      I'm assuming they are going to work hard to finish up the CPUC approval by then.    

The merger will close with or without CPUC approval.

2 minutes ago, belusnecropolis said:

I remember when a guy from Japan came to the states and prescribed a Tokyo style small cell deployment. This seems a bit different so I hope it works out better.

Haha...I remember but the big mistake he made is that he actually took out macro sites that were working really well and replaced them with small cells that don't have the range or capacity or were not implemented in in enough numbers. The strategy might have worked in NYC and in the downtowns of American cities but not in the uptowns and the suburbs and exurbs.

An article that promised details about Dish's deployment but was kinda short on those. One little nugget is that they will follow Rakuten's deployment strategy in Japan in deploying their network in the US.

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2020/02/19/dish-reveals-new-details-on-its-5g-plan.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

Rakuten promised to be the first cloud native, fully virtualized RAN based on open source. Basically what that means is that the whole RAN network as well as the core resides on the cloud. The advantage is resiliency and fault tolerance. At the site level there are only RRHs and antennas. I don't believe that they have virtualized the RRHs yet but that would be next (anybody remember Artemis Networsk?). The disadvantage of moving all this functionality in the cloud is that you will need lots of low latency, high bandwidth connections.  

Maybe T-Mobile should employ the virtualized deployment strategy not on their existing sites (at least not yet) but on the approximately 11,000 Sprint sites they will retain and the approximately 10,000 additional sites on top of that. AT&T has been working on network virtualization for a while now and claim they have virtualized 75% of the end to end network. 

31 minutes ago, Trip said:

This might already have been done. 

The screenshot:

https://imgur.com/a/W6wxVTd

- Trip

Thanks, my interpretation of that screenshot is that you are roaming on T-Mobile band 2 in your area which then presents itself as band 25 to Sprint roamers through MFBI. So yes the MFBI part is done but the actual hosting of the Sprint spectrum by T-Mobile has not been done. There is a little bit of work involved, even if it ends up being mostly software configuration, such as setting the filters at different points depending on the additional Sprint licenses. So this has to be done for each license area separately. 

17 minutes ago, dro1984 said:

It's all interesting spetrum-wise....   Hopefully we get to use some of it now.

I had PM'd you the other day... What's your prediction for California (Lawsuit Appeal wise and the Cali - Public Utilities Commisson)?    

I don't think the AG will appeal. The CPUC might impose some conditions but the merger is going forward no matter what.

Sorry about just noticing the email notification.

Couple of thoughts:

1. It is apparent from the rcrwireless.com article above that T-Mobile has been stockpiling 2.5GHz equipment (Massive MIMO antennas/RRHs) for a while so that they can hit the ground running. They are also making basestation changes. Installing these M-MIMO will require a tower climb. In order to minimize the number of climbs they will try to combine it with other work on the site such as new RRHs, installing T-Mobile equipment on non-colocated Sprint towers that they're keeping, etc.. Installing brand new equipment on the additional 10,000 sites will of course require a site visit/climb

2. I am thinking that adding band 25 spectrum capability to all 65,000 T-Mobile sites so that they can take advantage of the combined spectrum holdings is a software task that can be done remotely. They will need to turn on MFBI for Band 2/25 compatibility. So this should happen rather quickly.

3. 800MHz, this is where it gets interesting. Dish has agreed to purchase Sprint's 800MHz spectrum after 3 years and then keep it along with Sprint sites and equipment to help them build their network. If they elect not to (penalties apply) then T-Mobile can elect to keep it or auction it off. I am not sure that they want to keep it. They would have to deal with 600MHz, 700Mhz and 800MHz. If they don't want to keep it who would want to buy it? Well, AT&T and Verizon and USCC who have 850Mhz holdings adjacent to it (Celullar A) might be interested. I hope this is what happens and then the FCC and the cellular carriers can rationalize the SMR+cellular band so that it can be a 15Mhz Cellular A side and 15Mhz Cellular B side and leave a 2MHz guard band. If Dish decides to buy Sprint's 800MHz spectrum they will have 600MHz, 700Mhz and 800Mhz to deal with and it might get a bit complicated. Even if Dish decides to purchase Sprint's 800MHz, T-Mobile may elect to lease back a portion of the 800MHz for an additional 2 years. Like I said, it's interesting.

4. 700 MHz - T-Mobile will probably keep their Block A spectrum and will probably try to purchase the rest of Block A from AT&T. Dish should probably sell their 700 E Block to AT&T particularly if they decide to purchase Sprint's 800Mhz spectrum and try to purchase the rest of the block from AT&T that they don't own (New York+New England, California) if they decide to pass on 800MHz.

5. 600Mhz - T-Mobile & Dish have agreed to enter negotiations to lease some or all of Dish's 600Mhz while Dish is constructing their network. That'll reduce Dish's MVNO payments to T-Mobile and enable Dish to build their network sooner. Comcast should lease or sell their 600Mhz spectrum to T-Mobile and get a good MVNO agreement from T-Mobile.

6. AWS-3, AWS-4 (Band 66, Band 70). I don't think that T-Mobile will lease any of Dish's paired AWS-3 spectrum. There is just not enough there to make a fuss about. The additional 20Mhz of downlink 2180-2200Mhz is attractive but they won't touch it. Same thing with Band 70. Dish is on it's own and I am thinking that as Sprint's sites are decommissioned Dish will install their Band 66 and 70 equipment on the same racks. 

A great article by Jim Patterson on rcrwireless.com. Some nuggets format

2.5GHz:

“Braxton, Mike and John have authorized me to do some work at risk this year in getting ourselves ready to deploy the 2.5 gigahertz spectrum as soon as the deal closes. Nobody is more impatient for this thing to close than me. I wish I was deploying 2.5 radio on the network right now, but we’ve done work at low cost in terms of securing, permitting, and authorization to deploy 2.5. So as soon as this deal closes, we’re in a position where we can start laying down 2.5 radio on the new T-Mobile network.”

Enterprise:

T-Mobile inherits not only a trough of spectrum with the Sprint acquisition, but hundreds of seasoned enterprise sales executives.  As Mike Sievert recently acknowledged in his appearance at the Citi conference a month ago, T-Mobile is under-indexed in enterprise.  

Sprint’s enterprise roots are significant, having commanded close to 20% of the enterprise data market as recently as 2006.  There are many sales executives who cut their teeth with fleet management solutions (Nextel and Sprint), wireless access solutions (Clearwire and Sprint) and IP MPLS (Sprint). 

*Without going through all of the details it’s important to note that the Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 (and their variants) have the 2.5 GHz band already installed in the GSM (T-Mobile) version, and that the CDMA (Sprint) version of these devices already has T-Mobile’s Low Band 700 MHz spectrum, a.k.a. Band 12 (and Band 66 in the case of iPhone 😎 already enabled.  The CDMA version of the iPhone SE also has Band 12 enabled. Bottom line: there is the potential for backwards compatibility within the current handsets. And the iPhone XS (and variants) and iPhone 11 (and variants) are universal devices and include T-Mobile’s 600 MHz band which will be have a big benefit for Sprint customers.

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20200216/analyst-angle/the-sunday-brief-new-t-mobile-cat-5-hurricane

Those people that think that T-Mobile does not need to offer attractive offers to upgrade the handsets just imagine what kind of offers AT&T and Verizon will start offering to Sprint customers. A brand new iPhone on us or an attractive trade-in offer if you bring your number to us and you won't have to worry about these integration pains. Oh and these attractive per month plans. They will try to poach each and every Sprint customers. So T-Mobile will have to fight for each and every customer. They better come prepared.

For people worried about Shentel with respect to this merger, I found an old article from when the merger was first proposed:

"Specifically, the analysts at Macquarie Research wrote that the proposed Sprint and T-Mobile merger “could lead to one of several positive outcomes: 1) New T-Mobile could buy Shentel’s wireless business; 2) Shentel could buy T-Mobile’s subs in its footprint at 75% of their value with financing help from New T-Mobile (if needed); or 3) T-Mobile would have to turn off the competing network; with this, Shentel would get rid of a competitor and gain access to T-Mobile’s spectrum. For the right deal, including the purchase of T-Mobile’s subs, we expect management could take leverage up to 4.5x.”"

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/shentel-carrier-at-crossroads-sprint-and-t-mobile-merger

2 hours ago, Brad The Beast said:

That's for closing. Not when we can utilize both networks. 

Why would they wait until the end of the year? It behooves them to open up both networks as soon as possible. Like the next day or within a week.You don't want Sprint customers leaving Sprint because of bad network coverage . You also don't want T-Mobile customers to have to put up with congestion any longer when you can solve both problems immediately by basically flipping a switch. There is free roaming on T-Mobile in some places already. Now the reverse is not true but there are plenty of iPhone 10's and 11s and S10's and S9 that can accommodate both sets of bands. So I expect that there will be new updates to the carrier settings on both sides and then updates to the databases to allow roaming from the business point of view. Maybe it's not a week maybe it's two weeks or a month. It does not matter, it's the first step after the merger. Does that mean that people's coverage will immediately improve? In places that T-Mobiles's coverage is better than Sprint's then yes. In some places it might not because the reverse it true or the networks are equal. But I am excited and I can't wait for the roaming to happen.

27 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

Nobody knows. 

Sometime soon after the merger closes.

1 hour ago, dro1984 said:

Craig Moffett eats a little crow because he's surprised the Judge went with the merger.   

On his best day he never thought their chances were better than 50/50.  

After accepting the facts, this is a go now,  he does have some positive incite  on what the combined company The New T Mobile. 

 Will the Sprint/T-Mobile Deal Ever Be Finished?

Craig Mofett is a clown. He needs to eat a whole lot of crows, feathers, beaks, claws and all. The man has never being right.

One side benefit of the merger is that now I can use T-Mobile as the eSIM and have Spectrum mobile as the physical SIM. Two CDMA providers (Sprint physical Verizon eSIM) works but not flawlessly (it freaks out when either phone goes down to 1x).