Sprint 5G is No More, as T-Mobile Focuses On its Own Network

A day after formally completing the sale of Boost, Virgin and other Sprint prepaid networks to Dish, T-Mobile is pulling the plug on Sprint 5G. From a report: The move is one in a long list of issues that need sorting out in the wake of April's $26.5 billion merger. And like a number of other moves, it's set to leave some customers in the lurch. The end of Sprint's 2.5 GHz 5G comes as T-Mobile opts to focus on its own network. T-Mobile already started the process in New York City, a few weeks after the merger and has since completed it in a handful of other cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. While most of the Sprint 5G handsets won't be able to make the transition, Samsung Galaxy S20 5G users are in the clear here. For everyone else, T-Mobile is offering up credits on leases for new 5G handsets.

Band 41

[Solandri]

Sprint re-purposed one of its 4G LTE bands for its 5G service. Band 41 (2.496-2.690 GHz). It was formerly one of the few TDD LTE bands [wikipedia.org]. Presumably it'll revert back to an LTE band (assuming they didn't remove the equipment from the towers) until the two networks are completely merged.

(And before anyone brings up GSM vs CDMA, the only difference between those now is the voice channel. GSM uses TDMA for voice, CDMA uses CDMA for voice. Both use CDMA for 3G data. Both use LTE for 4G. Modern CDMA phones even use a SIM card since it was decided to require that for LTE network authorization.)

Re:

[_merlin]

Do any networks actually use GSM or CDMA for voice any more? 3G WCDAM supports circuit-switched voice or packet mode voice (the latter often called "Next-G" in marketing material), and voice-over-LTE has been available for ages. I've been seeing the "VoLTE" anunciator on my phone for years now.

Re:

[Ingenium13]

T-Mobile bought Sprint specifically for band 41. It's what they're using to launch 5G / NR, since T-Mobile didn't have the spectrum for a real deployment. Sprint was using most of it between LTE and NR, which was why they had to shut down Sprint NR to re-purpose that spectrum for T-Mobile NR. In many markets Sprint (now T-Mobile) has about 160 Mhz of band 41.

They've also started consolidating LTE in band 41. Sprint was pretty.... loose with allocations. For example, femtos used 20 Mhz at the bottom of the b

Re:

[DewDude]

They outright flipped off Band 41. There was a band 41 tower close to my house that ran LTE.

It's gone. I largely can't make or receive calls on my phone unless I go in to town now. WiFi calling doesn't work. They've basically reduced my service to non-functioning while gladly collecting my money.

They're trying to do "forced migrations" without forcing people. By crippling the current Sprint network...they'll get as many customers to gladly walk "across the aisle" and take a new expensive plan without ha

Summary left out crucial point on 2.5 plans

[Registered Coward v2]

Per TFA:

T-Mobile told TechCrunch in a statement, “We are working to quickly re-deploy, optimize and test the 2.5GHz spectrum before lighting it up on the T-Mobile network.”

So it may return at some point.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

So it may return at some point.

No it won't.

The entire point of a merger to cut costs by eliminating duplication and overhead.

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[Junta]

It seems like this is basically a call on whether to enable band 41 or 5G or just leave it at LTE only.

This seems like it would be tabling that and focusing exclusively on bands N260/N261 for extremely urban deployments and N71 for everywhere else (much easier to get coverage with fewer towers that low).

This allows T-mobile to have a large 5G coverage map (thanks to N71) and high thorughput numbers (in N261) areas for their marketing.

In practice, people in suburban areas will have reduced throughput, as N41

Re:

[DewDude]

Sprint Band 41 LTE is off. I know this because a Band 41 tower was my closest LTE tower and my phone has been searching for signal since leaving town on Thursday.

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[Rick Zeman]

So it may return at some point.

No it won't.

The entire point of a merger to cut costs by eliminating duplication and overhead.

No, the entire point of a merger is to buy market share. The side effects are cutting costs.

What do you mean "won't make the transition"?

[BAReFO0t]

You kneonthe fuckers can just remove the software locks on those phones, and they work in pretty much every network of the generations they are supporting *around the world*, right?

Re: What do you mean "won't make the transition"?

[BAReFO0t]

I meant "know, the", you stupid fuckin touchscreen "keyboard"!!

5G is the devil's toolbox.

[h33t l4x0r]

My sister's youngest went abroad last year to one of them 5g-havin' oriental lands, 'tis true. Only speaks in emojis these days, poor lass. We can barely understand 'er.

5G!!!!!!!!111one1

[samwichse]

Man, an I the only one who just doesn't give a flying flip about 5G?

Like, seriously. You can get non-practically faster internet, and it'll only cost you 40% of your phone's battery life. Whooopety doooo.

Re:

[Bengie]

My wife's 600mhz 5G through USCC has really good signal strength compared to my non-5G phone. She had to get a new phone right now, so it had to be 5G. But I've had good luck with my phone for the past 4 years. I'm trying to wait for next-gen 5G chips that support 5G channel aggregation.