bigsnake49

No break up fee.

You never know they could swap in your area because Sprint/T-mobile could do them a favor and swap them for contiguous spectrum in another area.

If the merger goes through and they can horse trade with the others, the combined company can have a treasure trove of 1900Mhz spectrum.

I am talking about IoT not anything else.

I think that the next step is LAA on the way to 5G. But remember it is shared spectrum but then it is 150Mhz wide. What I don't understand is the business case for 5G. What are the business needs. Don't tell me ioT because a single 5MHz slice will satisfy most uses. The only use for me is possibly cable/fiber replacement for video. Except for that, what is it good for?

Sprint can get access to Dish's 600Mhz if they are willing to host Dish's spectrum.

Dish also has a lot of debt that T-Mobile will assume if they were to merge with Dish. 2.5 GHz spectrum is great for capacity and Sprint has a lot of it. It is very attractive spectrum when deployed on a network as dense as T-Mobile's. Low band spectrum is great for rural and exurban locales and also for in-building propagation. You need high, mid and low band spectrum to have a good network.

I am sure that it will happen. It is in T-Mobile's best interest that it happens. They get Sprint's treasure trove of spectrum and eliminate a price competitor. Sprint could only compete on price not network. This is actually the best time to buy Sprint, before it gets its house in order and improves its network to competitive levels. They are going to get Sprint for cheap! It is obvious that Masa Son made a mistake investing in Sprint. Should have invested in T-Mobile instead. He wants out of the business since it is actually a pretty mature business. Sprint if left on its own will improve the network and be competitive particularly if they maintain their prices lower than all others. But it is not a growth business. Masa wants to get his money out and invested in something more growth oriented.

I know that the iPhone6 and 6s were universal phones in that there was not a GSM and a CDMA iphone. iPhone 7, 8 and X have different SKUs for AT&T and T-Mobile and for the CDMA carriers. 7, 8 and X North American SKUs all support the same LTE bands if I am not mistaken but the GSM carrier models do not support CDMA. The V20 has different SKUs for the 4 carriers.

As soon as the merger is approved they will open up roaming on each other's networks.

I thought that AT&T opened up their network soon after the announcement or their merger with T-Mobile. I could be wrong though... . Maybe I am confusing it with the break up fee...

Pretty much right away.

I like Milan a lot but deducing coverage from speed tests is just wrong.

Not necessarily the debt load but the interest on that debt load ($2.5B/year). They have been and will be working to reduce the 7 and 8% and higher loans into 3% by basically borrowing against the spectrum and their network and the device financing. They can use the savings to accelerate network spending or paying down the principal. In that transcript, Claure more than once mentioned that he wants to address the device acquisition and financing part. Maybe let Apple and Samsung or whoever finance the devices and the carriers get a 5% finders fee?

T-Mobile/Sprint will have 67.7 postpaid subscribers with 77 million and 109 million for AT&T and Verizon. Still weak compared to AT&T and definitely Verizon.

To add to my previous post, it will take them a little while to physically consolidate the sites so that they're using the same equipment rack and the same base stations will probably take couple of years. Also they could probably start using CA on 1900Mhz right away but they have to wait for spectrum swaps to deploy wider channels. The integration will be a technical challenge but I am sure that when complete will result in a very vigorous network.

Ultimately they will need to choose one of the EPCs and integrate around that. Then each enodeB will need to be pointed to the EPC and each integrated site will need to be assigned to each enodeB. VOLTE and SVRCC/WCDMA fallback will be the voice solution but will take time.

It usually takes 180 days or less for the feds to make a decision. As soon as the merger is approved then the first and easiest thing is to let each other's customers roam on each other's network if the appropriate bands are available on the phones. Voice integration based on VOLTE with WCDMA will take a while longer. I expect that 600MHz expansion in rural areas not subject to repacking will proceed uninterrupted. I also expect small cell deployment to proceed uninterrupted. However macro expansion will probably be postponed. I expect massive mimo to proceed as scheduled.

From my own observations, for data, it is Verizon first for coverage and consistency, then AT&T then T-Mobile. Voice wise it is Sprint in third place instead of T-Mobile.

As a Sprint customer you will see immediate benefits since you will be able to freely roam on T-Mobile's data network. Voice integration will take a bit more.

I don't think that any spectrum needs to be divested. However in order to make the merger palatable to regulators Sprint/T-mobile will need to promise to match/exceed coverage of Verizon. They also might preemptively agree to host Dish's network on commercially reasonable terms and might even divest part of the network to them. There will no longer be a need for two EPCs duplicate enodeB can be eliminated, duplicate PCS antennas might not be needed (although I don't think that holds true with multi element, multi-frequency panels). Of course duplicate sites will be eliminated.

You would be roaming on the other if your phone supports it. It will just be unlimited roaming. VOLTE will happen sooner rather than later but WCDMA might be used as a bridge.

Since it looks like the merger might finally be agreed on, there are a few issues to consider, mainly voice integration. For example the AT&T/T-Mobile version of the iPhone 8 and 7 support the same LTE bands as the Sprint/Verizon ones but do not support CDMA. So they will not be able to take advantage of CDMA coverage where there is not WCDMA coverage. On the other hand 6s and 6 variants support CDMA. Conversely the Sprint and Verizon variants support WCDMA so Sprint subscribers will be able to take advantage of expanded WCDMA coverage and simultaneous voice/data. Now I believe that integration will be on VOLTE. Data will be no problem and both sides will benefit from the each other's network especially if Sprint does not postpone network improvements once the merger is announced. I am looking forward to wider PCS channels as they do some spectrum horse trading.

Because Sprint has couple of substantial debt payments over the next couple of years and their cash flow is not healthy enough to make those payments and also maintain Capex. Unless they can reschedule their payments, those loom large in their financial picture.

it's not just Verizon that limits video to 480p. T-Mobile is also.