T-Mobile Completes Merger With Sprint, Promises 'Transformational' 5G Network

[nutmac]

I hope New T-Mobile will roll out a postpaid plan that combines the best of Sprint and T-Mobile. I suspect they will simply refine Magenta a bit. But it would be great if the plan offers consumers a choice of bundled streaming service, for instance. Sprint currently offers Hulu, T-Mobile offers Netflix (and soon Quibi), and MetroPCS offers Amazon Prime and Google One.

 

[V_Man]

As compared to the side-splitting, attention-grabbing “T-Mobile”?

T mobile works for me. Don’t need a funny name. Need the to provide what I pay for. So far they do.

 

[jerryk]

I’m not so sure this will ever happen. Considering that technically for this to happen Dish has to buy Boost and now Boost (😂) is the 4th major carrier (LOL I can’t believe I just said that). Anyway, it’s possible I guess , but “Technically” we still have 4 “major” carriers.

I know what you’re thinking and it’s true, but technically speaking Boost is the 4th carrier now lol.

I thought Boost was riding on Sprint, I guess now T-Mobiles, network. Does Boost have their own mobile network operations center and towers they maintain? That is what I mean by a carrier the likes of AT&T and Verizon.

 

[Hazmat401]

I was trying to hold on and stay with sprint but me and my girl just couldn’t take the poor service and the dropped calls

We were waiting for a buy 1 iPhone get one free, or in our instance.... $700 off another type of deal on Verizon and we made the switch last week

and we are also getting $300 in promotional gift cards as well

with our fios discount our bill is $208 a month.... I’m very happy because it’s cheaper than what we were paying Sprint

 

[jarman92]

Wondering how quickly my T-Mobile plan will dramatically increase in price...smart money is on within a year

 

[hagjohn]

I used to have ATT and recently switched to T-mobile. my indoor experience with T-mobile has been pretty poor. Their signal doesn't do a good job penetrating buildings. I also noticed my speed to be much lower than ATT. <10Mbps compared to >35Mbps with ATT. My speeds were in the DC area.
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DC now has the AT&T 5G Evolution, which is much quicker (in my experience) than normal LTE. I wish I had it up where I live.

 

[cocky jeremy]

T-Mobile just spent almost another billion dollars on 37-47GHz spectrum in the most recent auction that ended early March. They also spent almost 8 billion on 600MHz in an auction a couple years ago. They have really tried to upgrade their network. Sprint customers will benefit a lot by being able to connect to T-Mobile's vastly improved network.

When I drive back to my old hometown I almost always see noticeable improvement in certain areas. 5 years ago there was no T-Mobile at all within an hour or more of my hometown. Now I get 3-4 bars in most places and LTE in more than I'd expect.

 

[4487549]

Unimaginative branding, missed the opportunity to be
T-Sprint
Sprint-T
MobSpri
Sprintobile
or any other new combo ...

Sprin-T-mobile would have been the obvious portmanteau but nothing beats T-Mobile because of the brand's excellent customer service.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

And then there were 3. How long before we are down to AT&T and Verizon?

Hmmm.... I don’t see it.
People don’t tend to be that loyal to telcos anymore. As much as they try & try not to be- honestly, they are mostly “dumb pipes”.
Tmo seemed to be growing ok, simply based on price & customer friendly business decisions (inclusion of taxes, etc.).
Honestly, if they could do that well as the “cheap w/ crappy slow service” provider... keeping the same price/policies, but finally with a network as good as the big two, I could see them capturing at least 20% of customers from those carriers in just a few short years.
I’m definitely not concerned about the lowest cost provider going belly up w/ a bit of a recession/budget crunch upon us... they seem well-positioned right now.

 

[munpip214]

Yay...50-100Mbps. Let me see, I thought I had a gigabit LTE modem...Considering limitations of 5G implementation, wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to improve LTE infrastructure?

 

[McG2k1]

Promises to break the laws of physics.

 

[The Oak]

Sprint has soooo much sub 6 Ghz spectrum it is scary. Once T-Mobile turns that on to 5G ... I think a lot of folks are going to jump on the T-Mobile band wagon.

 

[dampfnudel]

Unimaginative branding, missed the opportunity to be
T-Sprint
Sprint-T
MobSpri
Sprintobile
or any other new combo ...

No, T-Mobile is just fine.

 

[gsmornot]

What nonsense

I don't follow. I could be wrong and happy to hear about it but make the claim with more than two words or say I agree and think the process is nonsense. Either way, take a few minutes to expand on the reply so we know what you're talking about please.

 

[Pennypac]

Sprint-Mo
Sprint-Mob
Sprint-Bile
Mo-Sprint

 

[Steve.P.JobsFan]

Wondering how quickly my T-Mobile plan will dramatically increase in price...smart money is on within a year

No. They had to agree to not raise prices for 3 years.

T-Mobile and Sprint Merger FAQs | T-Mobile Support

 

[Emanuel Rodriguez]

Can you explain this:


Are they saying that former Sprint customers will only be connecting to Sprint antennas and former non-Sprint T-Mobile customers will only be connecting to those T-Mobile antennas? I assumed after the merger it wouldn't take long for both sets of customers to be connecting to a combined network.

They have a few incompatible technologies. They'll eventually get all the customers on the same network, no doubt, but they definitely won't be able to do it immediately.

 

[Patriks7]

None of these names are particularly interesting or funny.

And he missed the most obvious one, S-Mobile

After a recent merger in my country, they have been renamed to Magenta. Has taken some time to get used to.

 

[BuffaloTF]

I don't follow. I could be wrong and happy to hear about it but make the claim with more than two words or say I agree and think the process is nonsense. Either way, take a few minutes to expand on the reply so we know what you're talking about please.

I did... they both use LTE. It's a firmware upgrade -- iPhones could use the full breadth of both immediately; Android phones are tied to whatever frequency bands their manufacturer blessed them with but whatever extras they have can be used immediately as well... it's also a firmware upgrade and every Android phone has penta-band UMTS and all Sprint devices are already roaming on T-Mobile. Bringing up CDMA and GSM would've been an issue in 2002, it is not an issue in 2020. GSM, for one, doesn't exist anymore; it's been refarmed to UMTS - UMTS, which even had it's service depreciated in 2015 when HSPA+ was shut down - full shutdown for UMTS is 2022. CDMA is effectively dead, Verizon cut off roaming last December and the full shutdown is Dec 31st this year.

This is going to be very quick...

 

[Septembersrain]

I still can't help but feel dread. Less competition always backfires. Yes, I'd love to actually get service with T-Mobile where I am but what kind of cost increases will I eventually face?

As it is, insurance has already gone up again for the like third time in a few years. It's going up on all tiers.

I think another concern I have is that we'll start moving back to data caps or lowered amount prior to throttle.

Edit: Also I'm wondering how customer service will be affected. I'd like to see all their centers in the USA because it's been hell dealing with AT&T (My other line I had to get due to no service with T-Mobile). I also remember working for Boost Mobile and I know Sprint CS is a nightmare.

 

[BeatCrazy]

No they do not use different technologies. They're both LTE. GSM is long dead- replaced by W-CDMA/UMTS; CDMA gets its plug pulled at the end of the year. It's a firmware update, and could be done today. Sprint is already 'roaming' on T-Mobile. Android phones are trickier than iPhones because their purpose-built to the carriers frequency bands. iPhones could effectively use the full breadth of both immediately.

Same LTE technology, two different mobile packet cores. Not even close to a “firmware update”.

 

[GreenPixel]

Wondering how quickly my T-Mobile plan will dramatically increase in price...smart money is on within a year

Smart money? No. Smart money says 3 years since that's what they agreed to in order to get permission to merge.

 

[dampfnudel]

Wondering how quickly my T-Mobile plan will dramatically increase in price...smart money is on within a year

Some older plans can’t go higher unless you change plans.

 

[Tanbam]

I live in a rural area with no hardwired internet options. I can get satellite, which is expensive, slow, capped way too low, and with a 2-year contract, or a microwave-based local provider that is expensive to install, slow, high monthly cost, and a 3-year contract.

I had been using a third-party reseller for AT&T and using a MiFi hotspot, which worked for the most part, but the speeds varied a great deal. A few weeks ago, I switched to a T-Mobile-based plan, and it works amazingly well - if I use a custom setup.

I’m using a cheap, open source MiFi router that comes with DD-WRT installed, so I have a great deal of control over the settings. If I don’t lock on to band 71, the device will use the “better” LTE bands like 12 which are very slow where I live. Locked to only use 71, I’m getting 30-60Mbps down and 25Mbps up. Not amazing speeds, but still very useable. My iPhone will get 60Mbps if I use it in the middle of my house where 71 penetrates, but if I go outside or too close to the edges of my home, it drops down to 2Mbps on the “better” band.

I tried to get T-Mobile home internet, but it’s not available in my area yet. My plan costs $70/mo for unlimited and unthrottled service, but it’s the best I can get now.

Supposedly, my plan includes 5G when it rolls out, so hopefully I can just switch out my LTE radio module for a 5G version when it’s available. I’m looking forward to that day. Hopefully the merger will make that happen sooner.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Same LTE technology, two different mobile packet cores. Not even close to a “firmware update”.

Totally the same. Since it's all LTE, it's a packet core - eNodeB....

It's kinda... mandated... by the GSMA/3GPP for interoperability, the same GSMA/3GPP that Sprint has been a member of for about a decade now... it even encapsulates non-UMTS networks like WiMax and CDMA 1x/EVDO.

Sprint has literally been roaming on T-Mobile since May 2018. How? Carrier Firmware update.