bigsnake49

OK I was moved to TNX on the iPhone 6s. Did a few speedtests. Most of them averaged around 10 down/5 up but then there was that 77 down/24 up that I got close to a site. The latency is pretty bad almost all above 100ms. The process itself was fast and painless.

My iPhone 6s prompted me for a Carrier Settings update. It is now at 44.1. Has anybody had the same update prompt? What changed in 44.1? Or was it a PRL update? My PRL is now 55576. I have not seen any outward changes.

T-Mobile have initiated the third party appraisal of Shentel assets: Regional US operator Shentel and T-Mobile US have agreed to initiate a new appraisal process as they seek to establish an agreeable valuation ahead of T-Mobile’s planned takeover of the wireless unit. On 3 November the parties ‘aligned in principle to resolve such disputed items’. For the purpose of the exercise, the appraisers will assume the T-Mobile/Sprint merger did not occur, and that Shentel remains an affiliate of Sprint. The appraisers expect to complete their valuation on or about 20 January 2021 and the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021, subject to receipt of customary regulatory approvals. https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2020/11/09/shentel-t-mobile-deal-going-ahead-sale-should-conclude-in-2q21/?

Yeah and T-Mobile has been running these promotions quite often.

That's a brilliant move by AT&T, buy high, sell low, use the losses to lower your tax bills for years to come 🤣.

Let them fix their network first. Then they can worry about T-Vision.

TM is much better in this area. They were neck and neck (with TM slightly ahead) 5 years ago until Sprint started replacing macro sites with mini macros. What a disaster!

My Gold version MB is still going strong, using B41 as backhaul since T-Mobile has done no work to move us Sprint subs over to their admittedly superior local network. Where is my TNX SIM card T-mobile?

Which reminds me, the new iPhones are out or will be shortly. So all of you guys that have 5g even if it is just one tower can rush and buy them 🤣. Me, I will wait until they have basically blanketed the area with 5G before I upgrade. Meanwhile I will wait for the integration of the 4G networks or they move me to T-Mobile whichever comes first.

I think you missed the point above. I said in places that T-Mobile has the superior network, throwing up B41/NR41 and moving Sprint customers to it will improve both Sprint and T-Mobile's customer experience. Later on they can add new sites, fill in with Sprint sites for capacity, etc. For example, in my area, T-Mobile has a much better network than Sprint since Sprint decommissioned full macro sites and replaced with mini macros. My experience will immediately improve if I am moved to T-Mobile's network fortified with B41 M-MIMO. I understand fully that in some places the reverse is true. In those cases they will need full integration before moving Sprint customers over.

Fine, in those cases that you had the superior network, just add a B41/NR41 128x128 M-MIMO antenna on every T-Mobile site and then for a particular market move everybody to the T-Mobile network. When you have accomplished that, then you can reuse the Sprint B41 spectrum for added NR41 bandwidth.

I am also disappointed in their integration strategy. I was expecting them to integrate the 2 networks market by market starting with the biggest markets first. That would include 4G & 5G. Is there an actual strategy?

I hear that switching part from a lot of my Sprint friends. Locally, Sprint's network is nothing to crow about and T-Mobile has a better network so I keep telling them to hold on and test the T-Mobile network before they jump ship but T-Mobile brought this upon themselves.

I am happy that they are reusing the Samsung equipment. It would be really stupid if they didn't.

Probably so.

This is part of the TMX test program to allow people to migrate to the T-Mobile Network with a T-Mobile Sim but tay on the same Sprint plan. It is limited to Seattle and KC which just happen to be the HQs of T-Mobile and Sprint respectively.

A few very limited areas.

Well, I have no idea why or why not it is working for Mexico but if the additional spectrum is shared with FirstNet which then wholesales it, I think it can work pretty well. Firstnet already covers 99% of Americans and 2.61M sure miles and will cover 2.74M square miles or 76.2 % of the land mass.

T-Mobile has a lot more N71/B71 than the measly 7MHz/3Mhz in border regions of B26

One can dream, right? Any way the Department of Defense has let out an RFI (Request for Information) for a Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) of DOD spectrum in the 3100-3550MHz spectrum band. No they don't want to clear it for a future auction, they want to share it and make it available for 5G for commercial purposes. Of course the CTIA, the representative body for the major cellular operators is opposed to the idea since it will devalue whatever spectrum they just paid and will pay for in the C-band auction. Anyway, here is an interesting blurb from the article: "According to the Wall Street Journal, supporters of the Pentagon's proposal said it would be similar to FirstNet, a government program that allocated spectrum and billions of dollars for the creation of a nationwide wireless network for public-safety users. AT&T won the contract to construct the FirstNet network in 2017, and today the network covers 99% of the US population and counts 1.3 million connections." https://www.lightreading.com/security/us-military-looks-to-use-dss-for-5g-spectrum-sharing/d/d-id/764085? Now, I don't know about you but I see a major leap between sharing the spectrum with commercial entities and building a nationwide wholesale network. Could the spectrum be added to FirstNet network and shared with the military? Then the surplus bandwidth not absorbed by public safety entities shared with commercial entities? I bet the cable companies and entities like Google, Facebook and Amazon would jump at the chance to have cheap wholesale access to about 450Mhz of spectrum. I would love to see something like this happen. Stay tuned my friends, this can get interesting!

So what happens to the tracfone subs that are on other networks? There is an inherent conflict of interest.

From the sound of it, the TMX program that they are just now implementing is a response to a lot of Sprint customers leaving. I have been a proponent of taking care of the 4G customers first and worry about 5G later. You have to secure your customer base first. I am not sure that iPhone 12 will be the savior people are portraying. It might be an added incentive for people to leave while T-Mobile's network is in flux.

Tracfone has 13 Million of their 21M customers on the Verizon network, which leaves 8M on other networks. I am thinking that the regulators should make Verizon spin those customers off.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/09/14/2092937/0/en/Verizon-to-acquire-Tracfone.html I wonder if this will pass regulatory muster. I think they will need to shed some brands.

Some decent info in this reddit thread: