bigsnake49

They have not. The government is on their behinds and may soon start repossessing some of that spectrum. Dish actually wanted to acquire Clearwire and then Sprint but were rebuffed but managed to make it more expensive for Sprint to acquire Clearwire and then for Softbank to acquire Sprint. Then when that failed, they drove the price for AWS-3 spectrum to stratospheric heights. They made quite a few enemies on the way. They bet on spectrum shortage and speculated that it will be lucrative. They were wrong particularly with the 3.5GHz spectrum and then the C-Band spectrum being made available. They oppose the merger because they think T-Mobile will acquire them for their mid band spectrum if the merger does not go through. T-Mobile has no intention of doing anything of the sort and will try to acquire 3.5GHz and C-Band spectrum should the merger fail.

Dish? They have no leg to stand on. They need to get off their behind and actually deploy their spectrum. They might even get some Sprint network elements at a discounted price if the merger goes through.

I don't see why not if they have an agreement with Sprint.

Well, I was thinking of measuring coverage in terms of square miles and not POPS covered. BTW, both Verizon and T-Mobile were caught exaggerating their coverage according to the RWA.

I foresee no spectrum divestitures. Other conditions maybe imposed such as: 1. Any Sprint MVNO is automatically grandfathered in. 2. Any Sprint authorized dealer becomes a New T-Mobile authorized dealer. 3. Any roaming deals of CCA members with Sprint will be grandfathered in. 4. Any deals with rural wireless companies to use Sprint spectrum and in turn provide cell service to Sprint for free will be grandfathered in. 5. The combined company shall expend their coverage to match Verizon's or AT&T's coverage within 5 years. 6. There shall be no loss of coverage resulting from this merger 7. Companies shall allow current subscribers to keep their phones and plans for at least 2 years or provide incentives to current subscribers to move to new plans and phones.

Well you don't want to do anything that if the merger goes through, it becomes a stranded asset.

You probably will have to create a new account on T-Mobile with just one phone until they merge the two billing systems.

Well, well I just ran another speedtest at the most distant point but the most clear of obstructions (walls). It registered 33.4 Mbps. Now we're talking!

SNR around 10, RSRP around 100. Definitely fed by 2500Mhz backbone.

Interesting article over at ArsTechnica.com about 5G phones. Basically it tells us that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 does not have a 5G modem on the chip. It does have a 4G modem. The X50 modem is external chip. Also because of signal attenuation you will need up to 4 antenna chips to ensure good reception. The author's conclusion: 5G phones in 2019 will be clunky, hot and short on battery life. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/dont-buy-a-5g-smartphone-at-least-not-for-a-while/

The SNR of the incoming signal or the outgoing signal from the box? The outgoing SNR is phenomenal, in the high 20s to mid 30s.

Right at the window yes. The signal dies quickly and so does the speed...By the time I am at the other end of the condo I am lucky to get 1-2. There are also couple of dead spots, one right by my side of my bed.

I did and it failed to connect.

So I received my MB 3. Great signal everywhere in my 2185sq ft condo. Did a speedtest, before installing it by the front door window. Got 22-25MBps. Turned it on, let it sign to Sprint, RSRP around 50, did another speedtest, got around 5Mbps and increased ping and jitter. I repeated the speedtest several times and it got worse. Well, I will repeat the speedtest later on tonight to see if it improved. But if it does not within couple of days, off goes back to Sprint.

RCRWireless has an interview with the Sprint CFO. He emphasized the fact that the Capex they are spending this year is foundational to the combined company, for example putting band 41 on all their sites, Massive MIMO, etc. They are very careful not to spend anything that will be stranded if the merger is approved, like back office systems that need to be updated. He also said that the $10B of integration expenses/investment includes a substantial amount for termination of long term leases. https://www.rcrwireless.com/20181213/business/sprint-cfo-merger-strategy

Well, I have no idea what they're waiting for to make it nationwide.

They have built out all of their 1900MHz. Block G was the first 1900Mhz spectrum to be used for LTE. They have not made all their macro sites triband. The only fallow spectrum is the rest of the 2500MHz on which 5G can be quickly deployed.

Yeah, maybe T-Mobile will allow VOLTE on older iPhones rather than iPhone 8 and above.

Well, it definitely has not been turned on around here. I fall down to 1x or EHRPD occasionally.

Are they turning on T-Mobile roaming on a market to market basis?

There is no possible way to accommodate 50+ M of Sprint customers with just 1900 and 800MHz. Band 41 LTE will be around for a while and 2.5GHz will be shared between 5G and LTE. As more and more phones include 5G then more and more spectrum will be assigned to 5G. Already we have instances in some areas of T-mobile's network being oversubscribed in some areas.

I am getting an MB3. AllI wanted is for my phone to be able to roam on T-Mobile so I called customer support. My phone still does not roam on T-mobile but I got an MB3 out of it. I will let you know if it improves my LTE experience.

What about the 2500MHz RRHs?

It is a bit more nuanced that that. They will use 10,000 of Sprint's sites that are not colocated or close to T-Mobile sites and add 10,000 more. They would probably reuse some of the network equipment (RRHs) and also some of the small cells. But I like the fact that he said that every citywide be analyzed as to what is the best integration strategy.

Spectrum mobile is selling the iPhone X for $600 or the 64GB version. That's an excellent price!