T-Mobile to Start Phasing Out Sprint Brand This Summer

[MacRumors]

Following its merger with Sprint, T-Mobile is aiming to unify its brand and will start phasing out Sprint branding this summer, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said at an investor event earlier this week (via Fierce Wireless).

Retail stores will be T-Mobile branded with Sprint's name removed, and the Sprint branding will also be removed from things like customer bills.

Sievert said that T-Mobile had always been aiming for a summer timeframe for the phase out of the Sprint branding and the unification of the new T-Mobile, and mid-summer is when the company plans to be "advertising one flagship postpaid T-Mobile brand as well as operating a unified fleet of retail."

Existing Sprint customers will be able to keep their current plans and won't need to swap over to T-Mobile's plans, but new customers will likely need to sign up for T-Mobile plans rather than Sprint plans as the Sprint brand is consumed by the new combined company.

T-Mobile has not announced a specific date for the transition, just later in the summer. T-Mobile had initially planned to begin implementing the changes in early summer, but postponed due to the global health crisis.

As The Verge points out, T-Mobile and Sprint have a long way to go to fully combine their networks, and some problems have already emerged. Sprint and T-Mobile have started combining their 5G networks, and unfortunately, Sprint's existing customers with 5G smartphones can't use them on the new T-Mobile network.

Article Link: T-Mobile to Start Phasing Out Sprint Brand This Summer

 

[eoblaed]

Phasing out the Sprint brand? That's a bold move.

 

[Zaft]

Not surprised. Sprint had a reputation of being terrible.

 

[now i see it]

Smart choice in my opinion. The name "Sprint" brings up bad memories of the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my life. Of course the new company will still be the same dog food, but just with a different label.

 

[Heelpir8]

Phasing out the Sprint brand? That's a bold move.

Is it really though? 😂

 

[ZipZilla]

The Sprint brand and customer base have no value and are not why T-Mobile bought the company. It's all about the spectrum, baby!

 

[brandon87]

I have Sprint.. honestly i've had all major carriers and really i've had issues with service at each. But Sprint customer service at least in my experience have been really good. To each their own.

 

[Capeto]

Sprint, despite the terrible service and support, had some incredible deals for their lines, and it sounds like they are being grandfathered in. Jealous of those who stuck with them.

 

[Cory Fox]

Smart choice in my opinion. The name "Sprint" brings up bad memories of the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my life. Of course the new company will still be the same dog food, but just with a different label.

Worst service too. I lived in San Antonio, one of the first 5 cities to get 4G LTE. Even bought my first smartphone, the HTC Evo to use their new 4G network. For the year I had them, the service was atrocious. Unlimited data got 0.00-0.01 MBPS down at peak times, which was like any time after 9am. I went to the store thinking something must be wrong with my phone- nope, that's just how congested their network was. It wasn't any cheaper than Verizon 3G, unlimited data was $55 a month. I finally had enough of their unreliable service everywhere and went to Verizon. I remember Sprint at one point actually had business class service. My dad got a Nextel with push to talk from his engineering job in the early 2000s, and it was great. They've kept up a heavy advertising push recruiting customers as fast as they can, first 4G LTE, only unlimited 4G LTE, without improving the network. Now, I would never trust my business or government agency industry to Sprint's network.

 

[mtneer]

Would handsets be compatible with the spectra between Sprint and T-Mobile? I thought they lay on either side of the old GSM-CDMA division.

 

[redneckitengineer]

Na Na Na Na... Hey Hey Hey... GOODBYE!!

 

[4jasontv]

Will they at least keep the yellow color? That's what Nextel told us was most important.

 

[curmudgeonette]

Following its merger with Sprint, T-Mobile is aiming to unify its brand and will start phasing out Sprint branding this summer

Aww, and thus the storied name of "Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications" comes to an end. It's a much better name than "T-Mobile", but alas, management drove it into the ground.

 

[sw1tcher]

Will Paul Marcarelli still have a job with T-Mobile?

 

[kinless]

Whelp, there goes 20 years of being a Sprint customer...

Wondering what will happen with Airave devices. It's necessary to maintain decent signal in my tri-level townhome.

 

[2010mini]

Well we all knew this was coming. T-mobile's CEO just wanted Sprint for its bandwidth so he could expand 5g faster. Sprint sucked for a very long time. That merger with Nextel was a horrible decision.

 

[B4U]

Sprint had their sprint and did not do too good.

 

[FHoff]

Are we surprised by this? I thought that was a given.

 

[Professor Rucy]

Poll: who will you miss more, Paul or the Sprintern?

 

[EdT]

My first non-bag mobile phone was from Sprint. The cell service was ok where I lived, and there wasn't internet on phones yet. By the time I did get a smartphone Sprint was already way behind in coverage in my area. I ended up with Verizon and they still have the widest coverage in the state outside of the bigger cities. Get way off the beaten path and no one has very good cell phone let alone streaming coverage.

I didn't have any bad experiences with Sprint but it seems like they missed seeing what direction the industry was going 17-20 years ago.

 

[JosephAW]

Waiting for TMobile tower access for my Sprint iPhone 11. Today I stopped at a gas station in the middle of town and had no data.

 

[TravelsInBlue]

Worst service too. I lived in San Antonio, one of the first 5 cities to get 4G LTE. Even bought my first smartphone, the HTC Evo to use their new 4G network. For the year I had them, the service was atrocious. Unlimited data got 0.00-0.01 MBPS down at peak times, which was like any time after 9am. I went to the store thinking something must be wrong with my phone- nope, that's just how congested their network was. It wasn't any cheaper than Verizon 3G, unlimited data was $55 a month. I finally had enough of their unreliable service everywhere and went to Verizon. I remember Sprint at one point actually had business class service. My dad got a Nextel with push to talk from his engineering job in the early 2000s, and it was great. They've kept up a heavy advertising push recruiting customers as fast as they can, first 4G LTE, only unlimited 4G LTE, without improving the network. Now, I would never trust my business or government agency industry to Sprint's network.

All of this! Back in the day Sprint was serviceable, but man, has Sprint been awful in San Antonio over the last 10 years. I’ve had every carrier over the last 6 years (usually I change carriers with phones) and I only lasted about 3 months before I bought out my phone and went to Verizon.

 

[pallymore]

I've had Sprint for 11 years now and I haven't had many issues.
Yea coverage can be spotty in rural areas but for most places I lived and worked it has been pretty good.

I've been thinking about switching for years but I'm on a pretty cheap unlimited everything plan (including hot spots) and free AAA...

I'm glad that they merged though - T Mobile has been delivering a lot of good stuff.

 

[Agent OrangeZ]

Pre-iPhone, Sprint was awesome! They had a lot of cool feature phones and the SERO plan was such an incredible deal!

 

[Built]

Sprint customer from 1999 to 2007 when I jumped ship to AT&T for the iPhone. At the time, I drove daily through the area where I currently reside on my way to work and it was a dead zone for Sprint. I dropped Sprint completely and dealt with all the AT&T games....rate hikes; billing mistakes; sneaky attempts to cancel my grandfathered unlimited data; upcharges for text messages...

I got so fed up with AT&T, I decided to try Sprint again in late 2014. The service in this area was now amazing. The two issues I’ve had since then with Sprint were quickly resolved.

Frankly, I couldn't be happier with Sprint. Hope that doesn’t change with the merger.