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Kellen

It’s not often that you get to merge personal passions into a professional life, but that’s what Kellen did when he launched Droid Life in 2009. After working years of unsatisfying jobs in the medical and property management fields, he took a risk to try and create an online community while playing with the coolest gadgets on the planet each day, a risk that has turned out to be incredibly rewarding. Outside of Droid Life, Kellen is your typical Portlander who drinks way too much good beer, complains often about the Trail Blazers, and can be found out on the streets for a run, rain or shine.

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  • 3 big companies in Canada has not worked out so well…Canada has been trying all kinds of maneuvers to get a 4th big player up, but has not been easy.

  • T-Mobile should offer transfer of current Sprint employees access to new jobs and setup a program to help Sprint store employees be able to bridge into employment with T-Mobile. A win for sprint employees and a win for T-Mobile Sprint merger PR.

  • Man TMO critics are being crucified today. As much as I want to jump to either TMO or Fi I still can’t do it based on coverage – lots of BFE Kansas where we ride isn’t covered by them; Verizon still kills in areas where the roads aren’t even labeled.

    • North Dakota here – I share your exact same reasoning for sticking with VZW. I can get Awesome LTE in the middle of anywhere, but Sprint-T-Mobile- ATT are hard to get off of the interstates and cities under 10k people (Most of them)

      • Same here in Iowa. Many people here have UScell, but that only works in Iowa basically, if you go to about 40 other states, they have nothing.

      • Sorry.. there are no big 7 or 8. You think Verizon and Boost Mobile, or Virgin, or Mint or any of the other ones, are on the same level?

        I have a bridge to sell you.

        • Haha no not MVNOs. Here’s an excerpt of the video’s transcript:

          “Because reality, this industry is no longer just 4 wireless companies. Industry lines are blurring and wireless, video, and broadband they’re all converging. AT&T is now the number one TV provider in this country. Comcast entered wireless last year and not in more postpaid phone customers than AT&T and Verizon combined! Charter is launching Spectrum Wireless this year. And more than 1 in 10 Americans already uses wireless as their only internet access. They have no home broadband at all. It’s not the big 4 anymore, its the Big 7 or 8.”

  • I can only see the shareholders of the companies benefit from this. I have been a sprint customer for over 10 years and yes, they do have issues, but I don’t know if removing a competitor from the market is the best move. It will be interesting to see what regulators say and do

  • A very similar merger was blocked here in the UK by regulatory bodies a year or two ago.

  • Should this deal be approved, hold them to that. If you don’t see lower prices, you should call them out until you do

    “Call them out?” The only thing they’re going to listen to is a vote with your wallet. If prices aren’t lowered, just LEAVE.

  • I switched from sprint to t Mobile and I think that sprint has better signal at least in my city, but this is good news for me

  • Doesn’t really make sense. Both carriers suck and they can’t really merge the networks due to incompatible technology.

    • CDMA will likely be retired over and the frequencies/towers associated will be reallocated to GSM. Verizon has already established plans to do just that so I’d be surprised if new TMO actually kept the CDMA network 5 years from now

      • This is exactly what I just said. All of sprints current phone line ups are compatible with T-Mobile. Their iPhone’s are the same models Verizon sells. The global models. And, their Android phones are the same. Capable of working globally.

      • Verizon isn’t switching to GSM. Eventually they want to be fully LTE but that’s a long way off since even Verizon doesn’t have a LTE network that matches coverage of it’s non-LTE network.

        • Lol, Verizon already does use GSM. Simple download of LTE Finder on the play store will tell you that.

          • https://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1815513-Verizon-4G-LTE-is-it-still-CDMA-or-GSM

            Not sure if I’m allowed to post other links here… But, this link here is quite informative.

            It is said that LTE is a form of GSM. LTE is a derivative of umts, and GSM and W-CDMA.

            So, actually that does make Verizon a GSM company as they use the current GSM standard for LTE.

            I like this description from the link above

            “I think another way to look at the term “GSM” is divorced from the technology itself, and more descriptive of the standards body that created it originally, the GSM Association. They’re who decided to abandon GSM after EDGE and pursue W-CDMA as a technology and develop their UMTS standard. They’re the ones that identified LTE as the technology for use as the next step after UMTS.

            Really, this just ensures compatible standards, handoffs between air interface technologies, better roaming abilities, and a pooled set of R & D resources.

            All that said, yes, Verizon Wireless is now a GSM company… That is, they’re full members of the GSM Association and using a chosen GSMA technology, meeting their requirements. Yet, they’re still a CDMA company… In that their 3G network is still CDMA2000 until the day they shut off their last antenna”

          • Except LTE is a derivative of GSM. It’s a GSM technology.

            Found this on another forum:

            I think another way to look at the term “GSM” is divorced from the technology itself, and more descriptive of the standards body that created it originally, the GSM Association. They’re who decided to abandon GSM after EDGE and pursue W-CDMA as a technology and develop their UMTS standard. They’re the ones that identified LTE as the technology for use as the next step after UMTS.

            Really, this just ensures compatible standards, handoffs between air interface technologies, better roaming abilities, and a pooled set of R & D resources.

            All that said, yes, Verizon Wireless is now a GSM company… That is, they’re full members of the GSM Association and using a chosen GSMA technology, meeting their requirements. Yet, they’re still a CDMA company… In that their 3G network is still CDMA2000 until the day they shut off their last antenna

            Enough said.

          • I noticed you deleted your other comment, but just to clarify, the band doesn’t dictate whether you are GSM or CDMA. Lots of CDMA carriers use bands shared by GSM providers. For instance, US Cellular and T-Mobile both use band 5 and band 12. Sprint uses band 25 which is a superset of band 2, which is what T-Mobile also uses. Verizon has been using band 2 for CDMA for ages, just like T-Mobile and AT&T were using it for HSPA. You also mentioned Verizon stated on their website they were a GSM carrier now, do you mind sharing a link to that?

            I think you and I are just talking semantics. LTE is based off of GSM, but it’s not a GSM standard. LTE is it’s own standard just like GSM and CDMA were, and was developed by the 3GPP.

            “Long-Term Evolution (LTE) is a standard for high-speed wireless communication for mobile devices and data terminals, based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA technologies.” Key word here is based on, it’s not a GSM standard however.

        • Verizon uses band 2 and band 4 and 13 and 17. 2 and 4 are their X-LTE network. Which is GSM based.

          • For data yes. Verizon still has voice and SMS over CDMA. They aren’t switching that to regular GSM. Eventually Verizon voice service will be all VoLTE but that’s going to be awhile since there are still many areas where Verizon doesn’t have LTE coverage but does have CDMA coverage. Plus, I think Verizon is actually still selling non-smartphones that don’t even have LTE.

    • God, you’re like on repeat with the incompatible story here… Just because sprint has a CDMA network doesn’t mean T-Mobile can’t switch sprint’s phones over to their network. The phones are capable of working on everyone’s networks. Everyone’s. And, pending approval when this merger happens they will transition the networks market by market. And, the part that makes it easy for them is sprints phones being capable of running on their tech.

      This isn’t like when sprint bought nextel and they tried to merge nextels iden tech with their CDMA tech. T-Mobile isn’t trying to use the old CDMA tech. Which won’t affect many of sprints customers. Like at all. This will be such an easy transition for them. In that sense.

      And your point about metro, the reason why tmobile had to make people switch phones is because metro was CDMA ONLY. Their devices weren’t even GSM capable. Which made them incompatible with tmobiles network. Hence the need to force people to compatible phones.

      Sprints phones support GSM. Which makes transition very easy for T-Mobile. Either a simple unlock or firmware update and a simple Sim swap and boom phone works on tmobile. It’s the easiest transition in terms of that.

      • “T-Mobile isn’t trying to use the old CDMA”

        That’s correct. So areas where there is a Sprint CDMA tower but not T-Mobile GSM tower doesn’t help T-Mobile customers and will be shut down eventually which hurts Sprint customers.

        • Just because they refarm the CDMA tower or shut it down doesn’t mean they don’t have their LTE network. And, before they shut down the CDMA portion of sprints network they will make sure customers that are affected by the change are on compatible devices thus making the switch much easier.

          You really don’t get it do you?

          Most people that live in a CDMA based area only still MORE THEN Likely have a compatible phone for tmobiles network.

          So, on the rare chance tmobile says the heck with those CDMA whack jobs… Let’s pull the plug…

          All those people sitting on those new flashy galaxy and apple devices and HTC and LG… Etc.. Etc.. So sad they’ll wake up in the morning and they’ll have LTE speeds instead of crappy CDMA 3G speeds…

          You’re right this is so horrible it’ll wind up making customers have no phones… John Legere is just going to set your sprint phone on fire and say nope not compatible even though it has global capabilities…

          Ughh.. Smh… I really don’t know how many times I really need to say this.

          The transition will be market to market. Meaning tmobile won’t they WON’T shut down the CDMA network until everyone is migrated to the new network. There will be time given and giving the fact that sprints phones ARE GLOBAL devices. Capable of running on ANY network WORLDWIDE. That INCLUDES T-Mobile’s current network!

          One of my friends has a sprint LG V20 and it’s running on tmobile no problems. So, if his V 20 can run on tmobiles network without problems then I’m sure there won’t be any problems.

          So dude, stop seriously. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The ONLY incompatibility is the CDMA network. Which they won’t use.

          But, because sprints phones ALREADY work on T-Mobile network there WON’T be any incompatibilities for their devices. So, in all reality it won’t even be something you notice happen.

          So just stop. Because in terms of transitioning people to the new network isn’t a problem. And again they Can use your current sprint device on their network.

          So, where does the incompatibility lie? Except for a network they can shut down without ever effecting one of their customers?

    • Total rubbish. They will keep the Sprint network up for 2-3 years until they can transition all Sprint users over to compatible phones, which most are these days already. CDMA vs GSM is irrelevant as everything is moving towards LTE and 5G NR.

      • Once everything is fully LTE then you will be right. It certainly will be irrelevant but that’s still a ways off. A full switch right now would actually be a pretty big decrease in coverage. If Verizon, who has the largest LTE network, would have lots of customers with no service because the CDMA network is still larger than the LTE network.

        • I looked at the Verizon coverage map to make sure, and it looks like it’s 99.9% LTE coverage, with just a spot here and there that is still 3G. The only times I ever encounter 3G is if I enter a basement or go out of the coverage area, it will drop from LTE to 3G/1x briefly before going to no service. There probably are only a handful of towers that haven’t been upgraded to LTE yet.

  • I’m with Sprint right now, and I was planning on switching to T-mobile once my service was up. This saves me a step I guess!

    • I switched a year ago. Being able to buy what unlocked phone I want is great and at least in my area the coverage and speeds are better. You have a good year probably before it’s done and even then it will take time to transition.

        • USC is what makes it worth it for a large number of people in the midwest. Before that, coverage was abysmal even with both Sprint & T-Mobile. Throwing in USC makes it actually a contender to ATT/VZW.

  • The video sounds like a direct pitch to Trump – “Let this merger happen and it will help MAGA!” Legere is crazy like a fox. I hope it gets approved.

  • I’m fully aware of Project Fi and the fact that Project Fi uses T-Mobile and Sprint networks is the only reason I don’t use Project Fi.A phone switching back and forth between a GSM network (T-Mobile) and a CDMA network (Sprint). Is very different than having a single network.

    • On Sprint, the CDMA bands are only used for calls and 2G/3G/EVDO data when LTE isn’t available, so it would rarely be used regardless even if you were connected to Sprint’s towers. LTE is GSM too, btw.

      • Interesting point. I did not know that. I guess you can learn something new every day. I was wondering what was going to happen with the switch…. Being a sprint customer boughtout by a GSM carrier

      • I think their problem with that is the lack of LTE coverage. I’ve had multiple family members using Republic Wireless (uses Sprint) and even in more populated places they were still on 3G most of the time. T-Mobile had this issue for quite a while as well but has seemed to be improving much faster than Sprint in the past few years. Hopefully together they can actually get decent coverage.

  • That could be good and bad if they deploy early ,they already said that 5g would be pricier than what we pay currently.

  • So as a current Sprint customer who was planning on switching to AT&T at the end of May, what would you recommend? Stick it out until 2019 and see what happens “New T-MO”? Go with big Orange now?

  • T-Mobile’s coverage isn’t very good and Sprint’s is terrible. Merging won’t solve that because of differences in network technology. So the result is even less competition and not much benefit to consumers.

      • Look at some reports of coverage around the country. You’ll see it’s true. I’ve definitely experienced in the areas I’ve been by talking to family and friends. Although to be fair I can’t comment as much on Sprint in the last year or so because everyone I know has dropped them because of how bad they were.

        The part about the incompatible technology is true.

        • Damn. Maybe Sprint or tmo should have hired you before they completed the merger. Could have saved them a lot of hassle.

          • I would’ve thought that T-Mobile would have learned its lesson after the purchase of Metro PCS. It didn’t improve coverage for customers of either company. Can’t really merge two incompatible networks.

        • Because, tmobile can’t just switch their devices to its GSM networks right? I mean it’s not like we’ve seen them do this before right? Oh… We have. . MetroPCS anyone? MetroPCS was CDMA and T-Mobile managed to merge with them and switch their customers to their current GSM/LTE network. So, incompatibility doesn’t matter. Because, all of sprints devices are global devices. If you know anything… Sprint and verizon sell global devices it’s just that sprints global devices are locked unlike Verizons. So, it won’t be hard for tmobile to just move anyone on sprints newer LTE devices over to their LTE/GSM network. I know this is definitely the case for their iPhone’s and for the galaxy S9 I have from them.

          • Actually everyone who had Metro PCS had to buy new phones and the old Metro PCS network was shutdown. There are many people that don’t care to upgrade their phones every year or two. Metro PCS customers in that situation we’re forced to buy new phones even if their current phones were fine and they didn’t want to get new ones.

            Moving customers from one network to the other will be easier now because of the more compatible devices but they won’t really be getting the coverage of both networks.

          • How would they not get the full coverage? Tmobile, will do what at&t did with alltel back in 2013/2014. They will transition the networks by market. It’s what they call refarming. Not uncommon. And, because sprints devices are compatible with GSM networks it’s not like they wouldn’t be able to just either unlock the device to work on their new network or they’ll send some software patch and have you swap Sims…. It really helps that sprint has global devices. It’s funny because when I ordered my galaxy S9 it came with a Verizon Sim. Shipped with a Verizon Sim and had no sprint bloat wäre on it. Once, I got it activated with sprint though it downloaded firmware updates and had the sprint bloat wäre on it.

          • Sprint and verizon are the only carriers selling global devices. Most of the phones sold on at&t and tmobile are GSM only. Not CDMA capable. Sprint and verizon devices support both. And verizons phones support sprints network. And vice versa actually. So, I just don’t see this being a really big issue for transitioning people over. The only folks that’ll see forced adoptions are those on devices that are running only on CDMA. 99% of sprints phones run on both CDMA, LTE, and GSM. And support all the carrier bands. I only know one person who uses a CDMA only device on sprints network. However he’s 82 years old and has an assurance wireless phone. Although a 3G ZTE smartphone… Still CDMA only. So, he will be forced to get another device once the transition takes place. But, there are not many people on sprints network using CDMA only capable devices. So, this transition actually should be extremely easy for them.

          • It’s very much different. Transitioning over to the new network will take time. But, they’re not stupid. T-Mobile will just do the transitions on a market by market basis. Unlike when sprint bought nextel. Sprint didn’t know how to incorporate nextels iden network with their CDMA. It wasnt actually doable. Sprint actually tried to make that tech work with their tech. That’s where they failed. The difference here is that tmobile isn’t going to even keep the old CDMA tech around. They already have GSM. They aren’t trying to merge CDMA with their GSM tech. They’re just replacing it. Which, is the easiest thing to do because again as I’ve mentioned so many times here sprints devices are global devices. They are compatible with all carriers. And typically support all carrier bands. So, again they got compatible phones with their GSM network, and because of that they can simply will away the old CDMA tech and no one would really notice the difference unless they were on a CDMA only device. Which is very few.

          • You still can’t use GSM and CDMA at the same time. Just because a phone can do both doesn’t mean you are connected to both networks at the same time. Two GSM companies or two CDMA companies merging would be a seamless merge of the networks. Like when the old AT&T Wireless merged with Cingular. It just added more GSM towers to the network for customers of both companies. That’s not the case with T-Mobile/Sprint. Yes, the phones can do both but it’s either GSM or CDMA at any one time.

          • OMG, wow you are something else. You CLEARLY don’t know how things work do you?

            Okay, so I’ll break it down in dummy terms since you really are this illiterate in terms of this.

            They WILL NOT USE BOTH TECHNOLOGIES!

            THEY WILL USE THEIR GSM/LTE NETWORK ON THE SRPINT PHONES! COMPATIBILITY ISSUE RESOLVED! SPRINT PHONES CAN OPERATE WITHOUT A CDMA NETWORK. IT’S AS IF I BOUGHT MY GALAXY FROM SPRINT AND HAD IT UNLOCKED AND TOOK IT TOO TMOBILE RIGHT NOW.

            SAME EXACT THING! THAT’S ALL IT TAKES FOR TMOBILE TO SWITCH THE SPRINT CUSTOMERS TO THEIR NETWORK. A GOSH DARN SIM SWAP!!!!

            DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT? WAS THAT NOT LITERATE ENOUGH FOR YOU? OR DO YOU NEED UNLOCKED PHONES FOR DUMMIES TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THIS?

            SPRINT PHONES ALREADY HAVE THE ABILITY TO RUN ON TMOBILES NETWORK! WHICH MEANS…

            NO COMPATIBILITY ISSUES AT ALL!

            SIMPLE!

          • Then how does it really help anyone?

            Go back to my original comment.

            “T-Mobile’s coverage isn’t very good and Sprint’s is terrible. Merging won’t solve that because of differences in network technology. So the result is even less competition and not much benefit to consumers.”

            Every comment I’ve made since then has been to support that original comment.

            Simply switching all the Sprint customers to T-Mobile doesn’t really help anything. It doesn’t help coverage, signal strength or data speeds. It doesn’t give either T-Mobile or Sprint customers are larger network.

          • If you CAN’T understand what I have told you, then that really sucks for you. I’m done explaining it. It’s clear. And obvious how tmobile will handle it.

            Sprint phones work currently on tmobiles network.

            So, all it takes is a Sim swap once they have refarmed that sprint tower to their tech.

            That’s it! Simple!

          • The phones switch to different networks based on availability and signal quality.

            It would be no different if I was to take my sprint Sim out of this phone and plug in my tmobile or att Sim. The phone will pick whatever network its supposed to use based on the info given from the Sim and what is currently available signal wise.

            How is that hard to understand? The only thing tmobile would have to do is unlock the sprint phones and slap a tmo Sim in it. Boom! You are now on tmobiles network not sprints.

            Do you understand now? The CDMA doesn’t f@#@g matter. It won’t effect anyone.

            The difference between this merger and the metro merger is that metro WAS ONLY cdma. Sprint isn’t.

            Metros old devices before tmo bought them were in fact cdma only devices with no Sim in them.

            Sprints devices are global devices you can put any Sim in them grant it they are unlocked and it will use that carriers network. Not sprints.

            I really don’t understand how you don’t know this. You know GSM phones can be unlocked and moved to another carrier. So, can sprint phones and Verizon phones.

            The tmo and att variants of phones typically do not support cdma. The sprint and verizon variants support cdma on top of supporting GSM and LTE. So, that’s all you need to make things compatible and make a smooth transition happen. They would simply need to unlock your phone and pop in that tmo Sim.

            Get it?

          • Yes, those phones can work on different kinds of networks but not at the same time. Let’s say you put in a T-Mobile SIM card and turn on the phone. The phone will register on T-Mobile’s network. As long as it remeans on it is basically a GSM only phone. You could turn it off, swap in a Sprint SIM card and turn it back on and it would register on Sprint’s network and act as a CDMA only phone. Just because T-Mobile will own all the Sprint towers doesn’t mean you will be able to hop back and forth between GSM and CDMA. You start up and connect to a GSM network and CDMA towers are useless to you. You start up and connect a CDMA network and GSM towers are useless to you.

            The networks can’t be merged. They will not be ONE network. They might even be able to have a SIM card that will allow you to connect to either GSM or CDMA at phone start up(I’m not even sure if that is true). Like you would start up your phone and it would connect to the best network in that area. If it happens to be GSM you’d be on GSM until you restart the phone again. If CDMA was the best in the area you’d be on CDMA until you restart your phone.

            Do you even know how CELL phones work? They work in “cells”. If you are moving away from one cell tower and closer to another your connection will be handed off from one tower to the next. A connection can’t just be switched from a GSM tower to a CDMA tower or from CDMA to GSM.

            When Cingular bought the old AT&T Wireless they were able to just switch AT&T Wireless towers to being Cingular towers and just made everyone Cingular customers. Customers then had access to both Cingular and AT&T Wireless towers at the SAME TIME. It actually improved service for customers of both companies. It only worked because both companies used the same technology. You can’t do that with a GSM network and CDMA network because the technologies are incompatible.

          • By the time it effects the customer Sprints Network will already have been refarmed they’ll continue to provide sprints network coverage while they transition customers over to the new network. That is the only way you do it without hurting customers or creating issues. And again sprints phones are completely compatible with both networks. So, the transition will be smooth.

            As to your concern of customers losing coverage while the transition happens. The above mentioned explains all. It won’t happen.

            The only people this really effects is those on prepaid devices or older devices still running solely on their cdma network. They will be pushed to upgrade.

            There aren’t that many people that have phones on sprint, boost, and virgin who are using a CDMA only device. So, the very few that it does effect really isn’t that big of an inconvenience to T-Mobile. Maybe to those customers but I mean if you’re on a CDMA only device on sprint then gosh dang it’s time for you to update anyways. Just saying.

          • Okay… Okay…

            Let me explain the process.

            Step one: Carrier buys carrier or merges with carrier that has different cell tower tech.

            Step two: the succeeding tech gets laid down by the new combined company while not interrupting customers on the old tech.

            Step three: Carrier begins to transition customers to the new network slowly in select markets that the new network is up and ready to use and has been refarmed.

            Step four: Customer then either swaps phones, or Sims whichever is needed to provide a seemless transition to the newly combined network.

            Step five: Customer enjoys newer stronger better coverage from newly combined company!

            Is that dumbed down enough for you? Lol. Never in my life did I ever think I’d have to sit here and explain this to someone lmao.

          • Holy crap. You still don’t get it. The first 4 steps don’t result in “stronger better coverage”.

            In “step three” you say “Carrier begins to transition customers to the new network”. What NEW network? There is no NEW network. There is the pre-existing GSM network and the pre-existing CDMA network. Those 2 networks are 100% INDEPENDENT FROM EACH OTHER. It doesn’t matter if they are owned by the same company.

            It doesn’t matter what kind of phone you have or what kind of SIM card you put in it. You are either on a GSM network or a CDMA network.

            What you mentioned in “step two” is basically just building a new network or expanding an existing network. It has nothing to do with combining networks.

            Let me give you an example to try and make it more clear. Let’s say you have a phone that works with GSM and CDMA(most do at this point). You put in a SIM card for the newly merged (company merge not network merge) T-Mobile/Sprint. You turn on your phone. It will search the area and find the best tower near you. If a T-Mobile GSM tower is the best found your phone will register on the GSM network. At that point, as long as you leave your phone on it is essentially a GSM-ONLY phone. If you then get in your car and start driving and you reach an area where T-Mobile is weak but there is a Sprint CDMA tower near by your phone WILL NOT SWITCH TO THE CDMA TOWER. That would require a hand off between cells between two INCOMPATIBLE TECHNOLOGIES. If you were to RESTART your phone in that area that had the Sprint CDMA tower your phone when then connect to that tower and essentially become a CDMA-ONLY phone until the next time you restarted again.

            Just because you have a phone that can handle both technologies and a SIM card that gives you access to the towers of two different technologies does NOT mean it will make your coverage better.

            The only way to improve coverage is add more towers of the SAME TECHNOLOGY by either building NEW TOWERS or merging with a company that has towers using the SAME TECHNOLOGY.

          • No no sir.. You don’t get it.

            When the merger goes through they will begin refarming sprints current cdma network. So the CDMA network won’t exist.

            So, why the heck would the phone need to connect to sprints CDMA network if they’ve refarmed that cdma tech to their LTE tech?

            In reality it’s not switching from cdma its switching from sprints TD-LTE to tmobiles fdd-lte which again sprints phones support.

            The way it works is that sprint/tmobile will refarm or repurpose the old cdma tech to their network specs.

            This will happen on a market by market basis.

            I don’t understand how you don’t get this?

            By the time they transition everyone over the old cdma tech will be repurposed. So, YES the networks will be merged. And customers will experience better coverage and data speeds.

            All the steps I mentioned are exactly how it will go down.

            They will make sure that when they are ready to begin transitioning customers over that it’ll be as easy as possible. You’ll get better more reliable coverage. And faster speeds.

            You’re looking way too much into this and maybe that is why you’re confusing this… But, it’s really a simple thing. I mean the behind scenes stuff that the carriers are doing may be more of a process for them but when it comes to transitioning all the sprint customers to the new network that will be easy. And, it won’t effect customers like you think.

            The fact that sprints phones support any network really helps this process along quite a bit.

          • I think we aren’t even talking about the same thing.

            Yes, Sprint’s CDMA network will be shutdown eventually. You are right about that about what the process with happen.

            The problem comes with how you use the term “merging networks”. The way you are referring to “merging” requires physically visiting every cell site and installing new hardware. It’s not really merging. It’s really network build out which could have been done anyways and takes lots of time and money. The two companies becoming one doesn’t help coverage.

            A true merging of networks is like what happened with Cingular and the old AT&T Wireless back in 2004. Both networks were GSM. A few changes to software and some hardware at some centralized locations and almost instantly and with very little cost both AT&T Wireless customers and Cingular customers were on the same network. At (almost) the flip of a switch two networks became one.

            That’s what I meant by MERGING networks. What you were explaining was normal network build out that has nothing to do with two carriers merging (in the business sense).

          • It has everything to do with it. That’s how thsy will merge the networks.

            They will refarm the current sprint network and transition everyone over to it.

            It’s like the all tel and att merger. All tel was CDMA only. They just refarmed the all tel network. And pulled people off the CDMA network by giving them new phones.

          • All it is, is just simply refarming the technology so that it works with their current tech. That’s all theyll do.

          • You say “all it is” like it is some cheap and fast task. It’s hardware upgrades at every cell site. Several years and millions of dollars before any customers see any improvement.

          • Actually these days there aren’t really carrier variants of phones. At least not at the hardware level. You can go to any carrier and buy an iPhone, Samsung, LG, etc and the only difference will be the pre-installed carrier software.

      • I’m fully aware of Project Fi and the fact that Project Fi uses T-Mobile and Sprint networks is the only reason I don’t use Project Fi.

        A phone switching back and forth between a GSM network (T-Mobile) and a CDMA network (Sprint). Is very different than having a single network.

        • @levizx:disqus is totally right. You know nothing of the complete and utter joy of Project Fi.

          • It doesn’t matter if the coverage sucks. If T-Mobile and Sprint (the networks used by Project Fi) had good coverage in my area I’d have Project Fi.

          • Yes, because their coast-to-coast performance hinges on a single customer named JimV.

          • I never said it hinges just on me. T-Mobile and Sprint are bad in a lot of places. Reports of network coverage support what I said.

            I’ve talked to a lot of people about what carrier they use. I hear very little good things about T-Mobile with fewer and fewer people I’ve spoken to being customers.

            One of my co-workers has T-Mobile. He travels a lot and I’ve traveled with him on several times. He is sick of T-Mobile. He gave it a chance for a few years and is switching to Verizon as soon as his current phone is paid off.

          • Are you in the midwest? If so, have you tried it since they picked up US Cellular? I have family members on Fi and they had horrible coverage with Sprint/T-Mobile but once US Cellular got picked up, they’ve had full coverage everywhere needed.

          • No, I live in the San Francisco bay area. An area that appears to not even exist anymore for T-Mobile.

          • I did not not even know that had USC, so I went and looked, and to get the same thing we have on VZW, it would be $40 more per month than on vzw, which still has better coverage. Fi might be good if you never use data, but get a bit of data, and the price seems to sky rocket.

          • Yeah, it’s intentionally designed for those who don’t need a lot or who don’t mind doing things to avoid using it like storing media to the device when on WiFi. I managed pretty well for quite a while until I was able to jump on my parents’ VZW unlimited plan where they only charge me the $20/mo. line access fee. Good thing too because the job I’m in now doesn’t have WiFi and I stream video a lot.

          • Yeah, I have 4 in my family (2 teenage boys), and we normally use 12-15 of the 38gb we have on my brother’s plan. I don’t consider that huge amounts of data (3-4gb per person), but on FI, it would be allot more money than we currently spend, was thinking maybe I could save some money.

          • I used about 3-4 GB before I switched to Fi and learned to adjust. It seems annoying at first but then you get used to it and I still even do some of the things I learned despite being on unlimited data now with little reason to reserve bandwidth. Like I have Google Play Music so I utilize the YouTube Red features to save videos offline, keep my most listened to music saved to my device, hold off updating apps or installing large new ones ’til I’m on WiFi, same with system updates. With just the smallest amount of forethought it’s actually quite simple to drop it significantly. It then became almost a game to see just how low I could get my bill the next month. It all depends on how driven you are to save vs having the convenience of using data whenever.

          • I get that and if see that some people want to constantly worry about how much data they are using, but cutting our usage in half just save $5 (the first place we would actually save money) and still have worse coverage does not seem worth it in my situation. I can see where others would be okay with it. I don’t want to hassle with worrying about data just to save $5 a month. If it were just me, it might be easier, but my wife and kids would be more hassle than it is worse. Was hoping it might make sense.

    • There are many areas where Sprint has a tower that T-Mobile doesn’t, combining both into a single network will increase their coverage a decent amount. The real benefit will be getting to use their 2.5GHz spectrum for 5G.

      • Except they can’t actually combine both of those networks because they use incompatible technologies…at least for now.

        • Sure they can, they just will leave both GSM and CDMA networks running during the migration. They’ll have LTE roaming between the two though

          • No they can’t. A connection can’t be handed off between a GSM tower and a CDMA tower.

          • I said over LTE. you can roam between carriers over LTE since it’s the same standard

          • Yes, it is the same LTE technology. However, it’s not that simple. When you turn on a phone one of the first things it does it registers on the network. Part of this process is to create a “control channel”. This control channel stays open as long as you are in service. It identities you on the network and let’s the carrier know when you are available so calls ring your phone instead of going directly to voicemail, so the text messages get delivered instead of being held for later delivery, etc. It also authorizes your phone for data use. The control channel is over GSM or CDMA even for data usage even though the data transfer itself is over LTE.

            When you jump from one cell to another the two cells have to communicate with each other so that the hand off goes smoothly. GSM and CDMA(which are reasonable for that control channel) don’t speak the same language.

            What this all means is that if you are on GSM and a CDMA tower comes into range you can’t be handed off to that tower which means no control channel to allow access to the LTE.

            Basically you can go back and forth between AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon/Sprint.

          • As far as registering on a CDMA or GSM network yes, but not LTE. Then explain how Sprint can roam on ATT LTE or how TMobile can roam on US Cellular LTE.

          • I don’t think that kind of roaming even works. The process for registration on a cell network, even for LTE data, is done over the GSM or CDMA control channel.

            If that is no longer the case it is a recent change.

    • They explain that in the video. The underlying reason they say this merger is beneficial is because between the two companies they now have the necessary spectrum to build out 5G. Merging will allow them to invest heavily in the wireless network and improve it but also start competing in a bunch of different industries.

      • I think 5G is pointless anyways and actually bad for people who don’t like in big cities. 5G upgrades will start with big cities where coverage, signal strength and data speed is all more than adequate. I mean do I really need more than 30Mbps from a phone anyways? No.

        I’d much rather see the rest of the metropolitan areas get the same kind of coverage and signal strength the big cities have but no, the carriers have roll out another new technology (I guess “Long Term Evolution” didn’t last very long) that won’t even help most people so they can charge even more money.

        I guess just filling in areas of weak or non-existent coverage with existing technology is too much to ask. Instead it’s overkill in areas that are already well covered.

        • I agree with your premise that we are fine in the big cities and it’s the metro and rural areas that need the boost. They spend a significant chunk of the video talking about rural America. Their point is is the most effective way to give rural America more choices is through 5G. That’s more effective than building out 4G and laying more physical land lines down. They said they plan to invest heavily in rural American and of course if they can make money in the cities and in other sectors like home internet and transportation then they’ll be able to invest more in metro and rural America.

          • That’s nice to hear but carriers have said similar things in the past. If history is any indicator what will happen is by the time the big cities are done and they start to work on extended metro areas it will be time to start upgrading to 6G and once again the areas outside the big cities will be mostly ignored.

            And honestly, do the big cities really need any improvement at this point? I live in the San Francisco bay area and go into the city of San Francisco maybe 15 times a year. I’ve been getting signal strength number in the -80dBm range with speeds well over 20Mbps in San Francisco for YEARS. I was there on Saturday and actually hit 100Mbps. I have been in several other big cities in the last year and a half as well(Los Angles, Las Vegas, Chicago, New Orleans, Austin and Denver) and they were all about the same. The big cites are fine.

            In the area I live, work and spend most of my time it’s usually it’s usually triple digit dBm numbers with data speed usually no better than 10Mbps with a fair amount of dead spots. That’s only 35 miles outside of San Francisco in a well populated area.

          • Points well taken. Perhaps the only thing that will make it different this time is they have the spectrum necessary to reach rural America without having to re-do all the infrastructure. If T-Mo/Sprint really do invest in rural American and really do get into the home internet realm then it could happen this time around. Only time will tell.

          • The thing is that in rural areas and even on the outer parts of many metro areas the infrastructure either doesn’t exist at all or is very limited. You can’t upgrade infrastructure that doesn’t exist in the first place.

            Point is I’d much rather see building of towers were there are too few or none at all than upgrading towers in cities that already have a lot of towers where the upgrade won’t really have any impact anyways.

  • So the combined company would have all that sweet sweet 600/700/800 mhz low band….

  • I hope this doesn’t affect Project Fi. Don’t guess it would but I dunno.

    • I think the only thing that’d change is less network swapping once they get all the Sprint towers converted to T-Mobile.

  • I’m no engineer, so forgive my ignorance here…

    How can a GSM network combine with a CDMA network?

    • Well, the wireless spectrum they each use isn’t locked to any particular network type, just the hardware they use to send out and receive the signal as far as I’m aware. I imagine that’ll take some reworking of current towers but that’s something they’ll probably need to do to start rolling out 5G anyway. The most likely course of action starts with getting Sprint users off CDMA. With the way T-Mobile likes to do things I wouldn’t be surprised to see massive discounts from trading in old Sprint phones for new T-Mobile ones and a notice to all Sprint users that they’ll need to switch phones by a certain date while at the same time they get all those towers converted to GSM.

      • Yeah. Once they decom the CDMA in their 800 mhz they will have the ability to deploy wider LTE channels…10×10 instead of 5×5, etc.

    • Sprint only uses CDMA for voice and 3G. Their LTE bands are GSM and if you have an HD voice capable phone you are then running on LTE I believe. So the simple version is they will eventually just phase out all the CDMA devices then convert the towers/antennas over to LTE but all their current LTE bands just need to be provisioned for T-Mobile so that all the bands work together.

      • 97% sure Sprint still relies on 1X Advanced for HD Voice. They never got around to deploying VoLTE.

    • In the case of the T-Mobile and MetroPCS merger back in 2013 (2014?), it most certainly did.

      Too early to tell if that will apply this time around though.

    • Sprint is struggling to remain in business, this most likely will at the very least save jobs. That is if they get the approval to merge, which I have my doubts about considering the recent block of the the att/t-mobile merger.

  • Well that video totally convinced me. They explain why they did it and how it will benefit competition and actually create more options for consumers. I’m down. (Kudos for open captioning the video too.)

    • Why they did it was to have one less competitor around that they have to keep their eye on. Consumers will be the ultimate losers. I say “horseshit” to this creating jobs. How can two companies merging together, with all their redundancies, result in job growth instead of loss? If Deborah at T-Mobile HR and Sally at Sprint HR do the same job, why would they keep both after the merger if one can handle the new workload?

      • They’re not talking about more jobs in the wireless industry (except for they say they now have the ability to expand into Rural America and give them more choices than they currently have). They’re mainly talking about more jobs in the larger 5G economy.

        • They have that ability now with Band 71 and 12! With this merger, they’re getting Sprint’s crappy 800Mhz. There’s nothing stopping them (or has stopped them) from expanding to rural America.

      • Sprint “was” one of the competitors until they flopped on deploying 4G LTE. They wasted their time and resourced on the WiMax.

        • They simply bet on the wrong horse and got out of it. They quickly grew their 4G LTE network. Sprint hurts because they do not have any good low-band spectrum because they’ve been begging to get bought for the previous 3-4 years.

        • I know lots of people who jumped on the HTC Evo with WiMax so I think it sustained Sprint pretty well for awhile. But yeah maybe it did slow them down in deploying LTE.

      • Maybe one can’t handle the work load and maybe they need two now? Lol. I don’t know.

        I mean it would make sense. But, I don’t know. Really.

  • Hopefully 5g will bring a TRULY unlimited data plan like my grandfathered data. No slow you to a crawl after x amount of gb. It is my only internet access, losing this would be like losing a job you’ve had for 10+ years. I wouldn’t know what to do.

        • your lack of affording higher prices, isn’t a limitation of unlimited data. Its a limitation of your income level and your bank account.

          • Dafuq do I or what I can afford have to do with it? I made no mention of my personal or financial preferences, so no need to somehow make it personal. Higher pricing moderates more people from using it while also giving the carrier more money to invest back into infrastructure.

      • Well that’s an odd claim to make. Bandwidth is the limiting factor (not the total quantity of data you use, but the rate at which you use it), so to meet customer demand you just expand bandwidth.

        There’s not a technical limitation to unlimited data.

  • Opening up Twitter today made me realize how many tech focused people I follow. All those hot takes…

    • your point is correct, but Sprint was pretty much dead anyway. They were not really able to offer the same scale as even T-Mobile. So in effect, is anything really changing?

    • Then you know nothing about competition. Sprint is not a real contender, they can’t compete with AT&T Verizon or T-Mobile. Absorbing Sprint will enhance T-Mobile’s chance of competing with the other 2 by landing them on a more or less equal footing.

      • You make a good point but how are less options a good thing? I still respectfully disagree.

        • It actually is not less options for much of the country, as neither of these options were options for many of us.

  • So this means that new T-Mobile devices will get both Sprint and T-Mobile bands, which is great. But both still suck for coverage in rural areas, especially west of the I-35 corridor.

  • I’m cautiously optimistic. The fact that Sprint is basically going away makes this a much better prospect than if they were controlling any aspect of this.

    • I hope it fails since this means less competition and higher prices. Back in 2011, AT&T and T-Mobile whaled about how essential that merger would be for both companies, which we now all know was false. T-Mobile disrupted the industry and skyrocketed to where they are now.

      I say force Sprint to compete and not dick around. If they end up dying, then the remaining three can fight over the carcass (spectrum and customers).

      • It’s no longer the remaining three. There are a bunch of other companies in the wireless industry now and I’m not talking about MVNOs.

          • Well here’s an excerpt of the video’s transcript:

            “Because reality, this industry is no longer just 4 wireless companies. Industry lines are blurring and wireless, video, and broadband they’re all converging. AT&T is now the number one TV provider in this country. Comcast entered wireless last year and not in more postpaid phone customers than AT&T and Verizon combined! Charter is launching Spectrum Wireless this year. And more than 1 in 10 Americans already uses wireless as their only internet access. They have no home broadband at all. It’s not the big 4 anymore, its the Big 7 or 8.”

          • That is only talking about broadband, and all of it is just regional. We need another national, competitive option. Right now neither Sprint nor T-mobile has coverage nationally. T-Mobile is really weak here in flyover country unless you are in a city of some size. Sprint has coverage in most places, but has never updated their network, so it is slow. Take the 2 together, and you may end up with true competition. I have been wanting to switch to T-Mobile, but until they expand, it is just not feasible.

          • I think buying sprint will help them expand though. So, that’s not a bad thing least not in my eyes.

          • The only one I see who could actually compete on the same scale as the Big 4 is Dish Network. They’re the only ones who have a nation-wide spectrum holdings in high and low frequency to actually have any worth, but they’re just sitting on it. I cannot find any spectrum holdings, especially national ones being employed by Comcast or Charter, so they are MVNOs that are probably using T-Mobile’s network since they were mentioned in the video. MVNOs do not count! Hell, any of us can start an MVNO pretty easy, but they’re utilizing the unused bandwidth of the top 4.

      • The difference with this merger is there’s 3 big players instead of 2 big and 1 small if the other merger had gone through.

      • Part of the reason T-Mobile was quick to bounce back was the ridiculous break up fee ATT had to pay them when the deal fell through.

  • Does this mean all current Sprint employees essentially just become T-Mobile employees? And stand alone stores, uniforms, changing to that of T-Mobile’s?

    • It won’t be that clean. I’d imagine they’ll become T-Mobile employees, but you have to consider the idea that a Sprint store two blocks from a T-Mobile store doesn’t make sense to just flip over. So stores will likely close or shift or move around some. How they do that and keep everyone will be something to watch.

      • They won’t keep everyone. That’s the nature of mergers. But, they say that it will ultimately be a net creator of jobs. So, if they let go of 10% of the total combined company’s employees, but hire another 25%, then they did create jobs. I’m sure they’ll do their best to keep the best employees but I’m also sure that some of the best simply can’t be kept due to redundancies.

      • Just what we need more—more B&M retail closures & contraction! In my experience, none of the big 4 had much to get excited about employee-wise but Sprint was probably the worst from what I’ve seen and VZW corporate store employees are probably the best.

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