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It’s been decent since T-Mobile got a hold of sprint in Oklahoma, there has been several areas that I frequent that didn’t have service a year ago but do now, and there are some areas out in the middle of nowhere that I expect to see service and still doesn’t
 
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Was a Sprint customer for 14 years and for much of that, service on my iPhones (a 4S, 6 and now an XR) was more or less adequate (in eastern Nebraska). Went into a T-Mobile store around Memorial Day and swapped SIM cards out and for the next month, service was surprisingly abysmal. Left a month later for Verizon and haven't looked back.

Despite their pronouncements, I suspect they'll have an uphill battle still.
 
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I have sprint. I went in for help and they offered to switch me over to tmobile. I said sure and they swapped my sim card. I didn't have service at home any longer so I had to go back and beg them to switch me back to sprint. Sucks a little. I will try it again when I am foreced to, but if I have the same results, I will have to go to another carrier. Sprint has been great where I live for the last decade. Cheapest by far for our 2 unlimited everything phones.
 
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Meanwhile, Verizon's CDMA 2G network is still up and running??
On the other hand, AT&T is shutting down their 3G network on February 22, 2022.

CDMA 2G (cdmaOne, identified by the "D" symbol on their phones) was shut down like 2 decades ago... They launched their 3G (CDMA2000 1x) in 2002.
 
Before the merger, Sprint and T-Mobile had stores about 1/4 mile from each other. I’d go to the Sprint store and there’d usually be 2 people working the desk, and they had a machine for people to pay their bills.

After the merger, the Sprint store closed and moved to the T-Mobile store (no new store added in our area), and when I went there, there were only 2 people working the desks with no machine for customers to pay bills. So you have more customers, the same amount of workers, minus the bill paying machine. So you have people lining up to pay bills and wait times are terrible. Not sure what they’re thinking
 
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Before the merger, Sprint and T-Mobile had stores about 1/4 mile from each other. I’d go to the Sprint store and there’d usually be 2 people working the desk, and they had a machine for people to pay their bills.

After the merger, the Sprint store closed and moved to the T-Mobile store (no new store added in our area), and when I went there, there were only 2 people working the desks with no machine for customers to pay bills. So you have more customers, the same amount of workers, minus the bill paying machine. So you have people lining up to pay bills and wait times are terrible. Not sure what they’re thinking

Your phone (and many other computing devices) is also a bill paying machine and doesn’t require your presence in a store.
 
I have sprint. I went in for help and they offered to switch me over to tmobile. I said sure and they swapped my sim card. I didn't have service at home any longer so I had to go back and beg them to switch me back to sprint. Sucks a little. I will try it again when I am foreced to, but if I have the same results, I will have to go to another carrier. Sprint has been great where I live for the last decade. Cheapest by far for our 2 unlimited everything phones.
T-Mobile still has many Sprint cell sites to convert or decommission, and people with T-Mobile SIMs usually can’t roam onto Sprint sites (even though they’re technically T-Mobile now), although it’s more flexible the other way around (Sprint SIMs roaming on T-Mobile sites). Hopefully further down the line they’ll have that wrapped up for you and other folks with that particular experience; generally they are keeping and converting Sprint sites where T-Mobile doesn’t already have coverage.
 
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In defense of Sprint...

I sold cell phones in '97 (first job) and "Sprint PCS" had just opened here in S. California (LA/OC). Ppl got first incoming minute free...no contract...no security deposit...the first cell phone for a lot of people who couldn't otherwise afford one or didn't have enough of an established credit history. TracPhone was the only prepaid option at a whopping $1.99/min but you had to maintain a minimum balance every month; otherwise, you'd forfeit everything.

Compared with AirTouch (now Verizon), PacBell (now AT&T), and LA Cellular (also now AT&T), you got absolutely none of that, and buying a cell phone was like buying a car in those days (e.g., triplicate forms, deep credit check, security deposits, etc.) so Sprint was an "easy sell" for most people, even if the coverage was abysmal.

Anecdotally, my first cell phone (Sony) was on Sprint with a employee plan ($17/mo, 750min, unlimited weekends) and I had so little coverage on Sprint PCS that I gave people my SmartBeep # (lol, remember those?) and call them back from my Sprint PCS phone when I was in a coverage area.
My first cell phone was with Sprint in about that timeframe.

Switched to AT&T to get the iPhone 3G.

“AT&T’s broad and powerful 3G mobile broadband network offers 3G mobile phones download speeds of up to 1.4 Mbps.

iPhone 3G will be available in the US on July 11 for a retail price of $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model in both Apple and AT&T’s retail stores and requires a new two year contract.”

Good times.
 
Most of the complaints are anecdotal in nature. Every carrier has areas in which its signal is less than optimal. For those who have and like Sprint now, there is no doubt that the Sprint towers that work for you will eventually be a part of T-Mobile's network if the T-Mobile signal isn't already solid in your area. But a transition period will be necessary.

As for me, I had T-Mobile 20 years ago and switched back to AT&T because every time I got off the beaten track, I lost a signal. That's not at all the case today, with T-Mobile's investment in LTE band 71 spectrum, which carries signals farther and goes through walls better. I switched back to T-Mobile at the beginning of 2020.

But my signal strength meter means different things on my iPhone 11 than it did with AT&T. For example, when I used to reach an area with one or two bars with AT&T, phone calls were iffy and I couldn't do much with the Internet. With T-Mobile, one or two bars still allows me to use my phone as a hotspot while producing a live radio broadcast from home when the power and internet go out during a storm. And I have never dropped a phone call with T-Mobile.

Some Sprint customers will no doubt experience a few hiccups during the transition. But the T-Mobile of today isn't the T-Mobile of 20, 10 or even 5 years ago. And it's still way ahead of the others with 5G.
 
Was a sprint customer for quite some years up until iPhone 4S and the service was absolutely a joke. The network was so bad, they always blamed the phones so that you would upgrade and run into the same issue but you are stuck in a contract. I left for ATT and never looked back. The funny thing is I pay less with ATT highest tier than I did with Sprint's.
 
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AT&T is too sleazy, and both it and Verizon have very questionable fees and charging practices. With T-Mobile I don't have to deal with that. However, although T-Mobile's network is okay within highly populated areas, it is total crap when you get into the outer suburbs, and non-existent in the rural areas. They truly need to convert those Sprint towers to T-Mobile. Sprint was just the same, good in the urban areas, non-existent in the rural areas. T-Mobile really needs more towers in less populated areas to be a reliable network for those who travel around.
 
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I was with T-Mobile for 7 years, before switching to Verizon in August 2020. When I first got T-Mobile, I was living in the suburbs of Maryland, and having service at my house was a nightmare. I had to get a 4G signal booster from T-Mobile in order to make calls much less use data. I moved into the city 2 years later and the signal was so much better, until I noticed I was getting more dropped calls and no service with my XS Max. With my job I’m sometimes in bad neighborhoods and to protect myself, I need reliable service, so I got my XS Max unlocked and moved my SIM card over to Verizon. The service was much better but didn’t get to where it’s at until I upgraded to the 12 Pro Max. I haven’t been disappointed with Verizon yet. I recently went to Puerto Rico for a week and had excellent service compared to my family that were on T-Mobile.
 
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AT&T is too sleazy, and both it and Verizon have very questionable fees and charging practices. With T-Mobile I don't have to deal with that. However, although T-Mobile's network is okay within highly populated areas, it is total crap when you get into the outer suburbs, and non-existent in the rural areas. They truly need to convert those Sprint towers to T-Mobile. Sprint was just the same, good in the urban areas, non-existent in the rural areas. T-Mobile really needs more towers in less populated areas to be a reliable network for those who travel around.

That was one of the reasons why I switched to Verizon. Too many times my family would go on vacation, and my phone was rendered useless. I had to sometimes drive a mile or 2 from the house or resort we were staying at just to get a signal. No issues with Verizon since switching.
 
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If you have a device that is on the sprint network, how could it be a good transition? Is t-mobile going to buy replacement cars for folks with automobiles that use the sprint network for connectivity? Shutting down any LTE network at this point is way too early.
They're sending us a free adaptor for our Jeep and giving us $5 off per month
 
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Compared with AirTouch (now Verizon), PacBell (now AT&T), and LA Cellular (also now AT&T), you got absolutely none of that, and buying a cell phone was like buying a car in those days (e.g., triplicate forms, deep credit check, security deposits, etc.) so Sprint was an "easy sell" for most people, even if the coverage was abysmal.
Aye. My first cell phone was with Sprint PCS. Trudat about how hard it was to get a cell phone back then. I overheard a customer complain (volumously) because he couldn't get a second line, despite having good enough credit to buy 2 high end luxury cars.😮

Y'all got it spot on about Sprint's spotty coverage back then. I had to go outside to get any sort of signal.😑
 
Was a sprint customer for quite some years up until iPhone 4S and the service was absolutely a joke. The network was so bad, they always blamed the phones so that you would upgrade and run into the same issue but you are stuck in a contract. I left for ATT and never looked back. The funny thing is I pay less with ATT highest tier than I did with Sprint's.

Same here. When switching to Verizon, I had prepared myself to pay through the nose on a new plan compared to my old one. Was somewhat floored when the price actually came in quite a bit cheaper.
 
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I’m not as old as I’m about to sound, but I’ve had Sprint for like 18 years now and I’ve never had any of these issues everyone talks about. I used to travel for work alllll the time in every state and no issues, although travel was only to cities of 500,000 plus so maybe that’s why.

Travel through Europe and Mexico only costs $10/week and service was the same.

Not to mention I’ve been paying ~$50/mo for at least ten years now from some deal a long time ago that I’m grandfathered into, which has 100gb hotpot(useless to me), hd streaming and Hulu.

I switched to the T-Mobile sim and haven’t noticed any difference, but haven’t traveled much since the switch, so I can’t say too much about that yet.
 
Sprint was the 1st cellphone company I was with when I was off my parent’s plan. I stayed for 3 years. I couldn’t do it anymore. It was fine when you are located near or in the city but as soon as you reach the suburbs the service was non-existent. It so bad, that I to break my contract halfway through and go to T-Mobile. I’ve been with them for almost 10 years and I’m still satisfied.

My only issue I have with them is sometimes I have trouble getting a decent signal when I’m inside an indoor mall. That’s it.

I guess it just depends on the area that you are in.
 
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Sprint was the 1st cellphone company I was with when I was off my parent’s plan. I stayed for 3 years. I couldn’t do it anymore. It was fine when you are located near or in the city but as soon as you reach the suburbs the service was non-existent. It so bad, that I to break my contract halfway through and go to T-Mobile. I’ve been with them for almost 10 years and I’m still satisfied.

My only issue I have with them is sometimes I have trouble getting a decent signal when I’m inside an indoor mall. That’s it.

I guess it just depends on the area that you are in.

If I were you, I'd look at ATT or Verizon. You are paying good money and should not have to compromise on quality of service. If you are having issues in a mall, wait until you go to a concert or game. Trust me, been there and done that!
 
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