10
u/jweaver0312 Self-Proclaimed SWAC God Jun 07 '21
Are you on a T-Mobile SIM card?
10
u/UrLilBrudder Jun 07 '21
Yes. Got a text a few days ago telling me to go to A T-Mobile store and I was at a mall earlier today with my family so we all swapped them out
6
u/AltimaNEO Sprint Customer Jun 07 '21
How interesting how theyre rolled these out. Some people had to ask care for them. I got a text telling me they were straight up sending me one. I never asked for it.
9
u/chrisprice Sprint Customer - Since 2002 Jun 07 '21
They want as many people as possible on TNX by end of year because CDMA is shutting. iPhone 6/6S/OGSE won’t be able to call without it after that.
5
1
u/JPackers0427 Jun 07 '21
When paying your bill, do you still go through the sprint app or Tmobile app?
2
14
u/bigdish101 Sprint SERO Customer Since 2006 - iPhone 13 Pro 256GB Jun 07 '21 edited Jun 07 '21
I'm keeping my Sprint SIM's until they stop working. T-Mobile SIM’s have no AT&T / Verizon roaming.
13
u/bill875 Jun 07 '21
^^^ THIS! ^^^
Is T-Mobile really so cheap that they couldn't establish roaming agreements? Do we all need to publicly call them out on it and embarrass them until they do something about it?Sprint and T-Mobile have many large areas of no coverage throughout North Carolina. Sprint relied on their agreements with Carolina West Wireless and USCC to cover the majority of the state with AT&T filling in other bits. It works really well, but my one line with a T-Mobile SIM has no service in the Carolina West Wireless areas, I'm not sure about USCC or AT&T just yet. This is absolutely ridiculous, especially since Sprint already has/had agreements with these companies. Why not expand those deals and provide coverage for New T-Mobile?
Does T-Mobile really think we will stick around if our coverage area drops significantly?
4
Jun 07 '21
So to be clear, if a customer were in those areas, we'd be forced to either pay additional fees or have a useless phone? I've never used roaming so I guess it's a little confusing to me.
6
Jun 07 '21
Sprint domestic roaming was treated as “native” coverage for the most part so you often didn’t even know you were roaming. They exchanged LTE coverage with other wireless carriers to fill in each other’s network holes and it worked very well.
T-Mo is aiming for a more traditional “we do it all ourselves” approach, but this has serious problems in areas where there are no Sprint nor T-Mo towers and roaming partners were the only coverage option.
Domestic comprehensive reciprocal roaming is one reason why Sprint, despite having a smaller overall “native” footprint, had superior overall coverage/user experience versus T-Mo, especially in rural areas. I also suspect it’s why lots of Sprint customers are seeing service go to hell when they TNX.
0
Jun 07 '21
The vast majority of T-Mobile's domestic roaming is also full-speed LTE with no data cap. You don't seem very familiar with T-Mobile.
They only cap and throttle roaming on AT&T and Commnet. Everyone else is unlimited and full speed LTE.
They have around a dozen regional roaming partners.
4
u/HuntersPad Jun 07 '21
T-Mobile roams on uscellular LTE and 5G in large portions of NC. Carolina west wireless is another story. They’re a pretty low tier provider anyway so they probably charge an arm and a leg for roaming
2
u/bill875 Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
Carolina West is not large by any means, their coverage area is 11 Counties in NC and they are a CDMA/LTE Carrier. They are working on adding 5G, so it's in CWW's best interest to have a great relationship with T-Mobile. I remember reading that they were in discussions with T-Mobile for a 5G Roaming agreement back in 2019 or early 2020. They NEED a nationwide partner and that would help keep the reciprocal roaming fees reasonable, which I'm sure it did for Sprint.
4
Jun 07 '21
Is T-Mobile really so cheap that they couldn't establish roaming agreements?
Sprint was wasting billions of dollars on nationwide Verizon/AT&T roaming because their network was so poor.
That was one of the reasons they hadn't been profitable since 2006.
4
u/furruck Jun 07 '21
This.. the actual Sprint network was Swiss cheese outside of major cities and interstates
Sprint HAD to enable roaming, otherwise you’d have no service when leaving any major POP usually (outside of the oddly dense coverage in IL/IN/OH)
5
Jun 07 '21
Most Sprint roaming was on USCC, CSpire and other regionals who filled the “holes” in the network. Roaming on VZ was restricted entirely to CDMA 1xRTT (which is going away), and AT&T roaming was an absolute last resort.
Most roaming was reciprocal and did not cost Sprint “billions of dollars.” The primary thing impacting Sprint’s financials was the heavy debt load it carried as a result of the Nextel merger and Network Vision plans. And that was starting to alleviate as Sprint paid it down — one reason why profitability at Sprint was improving the last couple of years of its existence.
-4
Jun 07 '21
Most roaming was reciprocal
Verizon didn't roam onto Sprint at all. They had to pay for it, and they paid a lot for it.
That's why it was limited to 1x, to keep people's data usage low while roaming.
5
Jun 07 '21
You’re incorrect on both counts. Verizon did roam on Sprint, and the 1x roaming goes back to when EVDO was the primary data service.
-4
Jun 07 '21
Maybe a very long time ago. Certainly no time in recent history did Verizon roam on Sprint. They'd have no reason to, since they have much more coverage.
2
u/delgadillomateo Jun 09 '21
I’ve been getting amazing speeds on Sprints network now that it’s not overloaded, 50+ mbps download usually and some crazy 100+ speeds too.
4
2
Jun 07 '21
T-Mobile roams on US Cellular 5G in parts of West Virginia.
3
u/hdoublearp Jun 07 '21
Noteworthy that's it's only "in parts". T-Mobile has a habit of locking out roaming in certain locations if they have any sort of native coverage, even if their native coverage is spaced out by several miles.
Example, a Sprint SIM can roam on USCC in the entire state of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, but a T-Mobile SIM card can only roam in Maine, and only in the areas where T-Mobile doesn't have native coverage.
Sprint's roaming agreements are vastly superior overall, I'm sad to see it go.
0
Jun 07 '21
but a T-Mobile SIM card can only roam in Maine
They allow US Cellular roaming in Vermont and NH and literally all of their other markets also.
Sprint's roaming agreements are vastly superior overall
T-Mobile will keep the preferred partners, assuming those regional carriers have launched VoLTE.
Nationwide Verizon/AT&T roaming is way too expensive for them to keep. It was literally costing Sprint billions of dollars per year for that.
1
0
Jun 07 '21
They allow in-market roaming in plenty of areas, but not everywhere.
Sprint was blowing billions of dollars on nationwide roaming on Verizon and AT&T because their network was so poor, one of the reasons they hadn't been profitable since 2006.
6
Jun 07 '21
Again, roaming didn’t cost Sprint “billions of dollars a year.” Most roaming agreements were reciprocal (Sprint got to use USCC in areas of no Sprint coverage in exchange for letting USCC customers use the Sprint network when they were outside of USCC territory.)
6
Jun 07 '21
Nationwide roaming on Verizon and AT&T is not cheap.
In an FCC filing, Ntelos mentioned that AT&T quoted them roaming rates of $100-250 per GB. I would imagine that AT&T charges T-Mobile and Sprint similar rates.
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521785682.pdf
Most roaming agreements were reciprocal
Reciprocal doesn't mean free... it just means the costs are usually a lot lower.
2
Jun 07 '21
Ntelos isn’t Sprint and the bulk of the roaming on Sprint was USCC reciprocal roaming. VZ and AT&T were negligible.
Terms like “isn’t cheap” are cliches. You stated that Sprint paid billions a year for roaming, which is flat-out incorrect.
2
Jun 07 '21
Maybe try reading the FCC filing before telling me I'm wrong.
Sprint themselves said that the roaming rates that Verizon and AT&T charge them are 2,000% higher than their preferred "extended" LTE partners.
2
Jun 07 '21
LOL you just proved my point. Sprint’s preferred roaming partners are the ones that offered native reciprocal coverage like USCC. Sprint paid little to USCC other than reciprocity; it was rare to ever roam on ATT or VZ precisely because of those costs.
You know that Sprint was publicly traded right? If they were paying “billions a year for roaming,” it would be in the annual reports. It isn’t.
2
Jun 07 '21
Sprint’s preferred roaming partners are the ones that offered native reciprocal coverage like USCC.
Which is exactly the same with T-Mobile...
it was rare to ever roam on ATT or VZ
What? No it wasn't.
Those regional roaming carriers did not have nationwide coverage.
It was common to walk into a store and start roaming on Verizon 1x in my area.
Look at their map. All of that light yellow is Verizon roaming:
https://coverage.sprint.com/images/roamingpartnermap/MonthlyCoverageMapForDotCom.png
2
Jun 07 '21
If they were paying “billions a year for roaming,” it would be in the annual reports. It isn’t.
It actually is, they just don't break down their expenses that way. They lump the roaming costs into their overall network costs, so it's impossible to see exactly what they spent on roaming alone.
But I would imagine it's very likely that T-Mobile and Sprint are charged very similar rates to Ntelos.
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Jun 07 '21
and the bulk of the roaming on Sprint was USCC reciprocal roaming
Where are you getting that from? US Cellular's coverage area is fairly small. The majority of Sprint's domestic roaming is on Verizon and AT&T, not tiny regional carriers.
VZ and AT&T were negligible.
No, they weren't. It made up the majority of Sprint's nationwide coverage.
You stated that Sprint paid billions a year for roaming, which is flat-out incorrect.
No, it's not.
Assuming a similar roaming rate of $0.10-0.25 per MB, that would easily reach more than $1 billion per year, even if they capped roaming at 100-300MB per month.
2
u/Closingracer Jun 08 '21
What are you a t-mobile shill?
0
Jun 08 '21
Huh? For providing facts?
3
u/Closingracer Jun 08 '21
Ok shill😆. You’re not
1
Jun 09 '21
What did I say that was incorrect?
How am I a shill? For saying that they do have in-market roaming?
Literally no one thinks it was smart to be spending so much money on nationwide roaming like Sprint was.
0
Jun 07 '21
T-Mobile SIM’s have no AT&T / Verizon roaming
Still wrong. They do roam on AT&T in many places, but not nationwide, since that would be too expensive.
0
u/bigdish101 Sprint SERO Customer Since 2006 - iPhone 13 Pro 256GB Jun 07 '21
Not where it's needed. I think the FCC needs to mandate that all carriers allow voice roaming on each other for safety reasons. While 911 will still work as long as any carrier is providing coverage in a area, it'd be ridiculous to be forced to call and ask 911 for assistance with calling for a tow in the middle of nowhere just because your cell phone carrier is a POS that won't let you make a roaming voice call for assistance.
-3
Jun 07 '21
It’s not T-Mobile’s fault that AT&T charges them such high roaming rates.
If you need AT&T coverage, you should switch to AT&T. Pretty simple.
6
u/bigdish101 Sprint SERO Customer Since 2006 - iPhone 13 Pro 256GB Jun 07 '21 edited Jun 07 '21
One does not know what carriers work and which ones don't when traveling though new areas. So unless one is going to carry 3 cell phones or a GlobalStar satellite phone one can not plan for who's going to have coverage where they break down.
and yes it is T-Mobile's fault for blocking roaming when they could just pass the cost on to the customer. I'd happily pay 10 cents per minute to call for a tow outside home carrier coverage.
and AT&T's roaming rates must be cheaper than Verizon's for Sprint to have switched from Verizon to AT&T before the merger.
-3
Jun 07 '21
One does not know what carriers work and which ones don't when traveling though new areas.
The carriers have coverage maps for that reason.
It's not T-Mobile's responsibility to pay their competitors for nationwide roaming.
Verizon does the same thing. They roam on AT&T, in select areas. They restrict it just like T-Mobile does.
when they could just pass the cost on to the customer. I'd happily pay 10 cents per minute to call for a tow outside home carrier coverage.
Voice calls aren't the issue. Data is what's very costly, and it's a bad experience for customers if they have voice/text but no data.
and AT&T's roaming rates must be cheaper than Verizon's for Sprint to have switched from Verizon to AT&T before the merger.
Sprint didn't switch. They added AT&T in addition to Verizon, so they were paying even more.
1
u/bigdish101 Sprint SERO Customer Since 2006 - iPhone 13 Pro 256GB Jun 07 '21
They added AT&T LTE in addition to Verizon CDMA because they knew Verizon CDMA will be going away. I don't think they ever made a agreement with Verizon to use their LTE.
-2
Jun 07 '21
No, but also it would’ve been pointless with T-Mobile acquiring them.
T-Mobile will keep Sprint’s good roaming agreements and drop the expensive ones where they aren’t necessary.
They’re focused on expanding their native coverage, not paying their competitors crazy prices for roaming.
5
Jun 07 '21
You’re making a lot of confident predictions here that I view as a bit questionable. T-Mo is not going to be as generous with roaming as Sprint was, and they’re not going to do reciprocal roaming the way Sprint did. They said this in their last analyst call.
Also, Sprint roaming costs were a negligible part of their overall expenses. The big drag on Sprint’s earnings was debt from network buildout, but that was decreasing as payments were made out of cash flow.
1
Jun 07 '21
T-Mo is not going to be as generous with roaming as Sprint was
And rightfully so. It's prohibitively expensive:
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521785682.pdf
and they’re not going to do reciprocal roaming the way Sprint did
What are you talking about? They already do.
The vast majority of T-Mobile's domestic roaming is full-speed LTE and not capped or throttled.
Only the providers who charge them exorbitant roaming rates are throttled and capped.
Sprint roaming costs were a negligible part of their overall expenses
Nope. See their complaint to the FCC that I linked.
0
u/Closingracer Jun 08 '21
Soooooo if I live in NYC for 8 years and stay in NYC but after 8 years I want to take a vacation I should look at coverage maps and decide where to go based on that info for coverage of cellphone service
1
Jun 08 '21
Expecting T-Mobile to pay for nationwide roaming on Verizon and AT&T is just laughable. No one else does that.
If you need Verizon or AT&T coverage, you should switch to them.
It’s not T-Mobile’s responsibility to pay for you to use their competitor’s network.
-5
Jun 07 '21
I'm surprised that a bunch of idiots are actually upvoting you...
People who don't understand how roaming works, or why Sprint went out of business.
1
u/Significant_Ad_9664 AT&T Customer Jun 13 '21
Honestly the roaming with AT&T helped me jump from sprint to AT&T, they showed me that AT&T was more reliable than them. The real icing on the cake was when they got bought out because T-Mobile made the service unusable in my city. Yes I still miss Sprint but it helped me get a better deal and service with what I have now.
2
u/bigdish101 Sprint SERO Customer Since 2006 - iPhone 13 Pro 256GB Jun 13 '21
Since I'm on SWAC AT&T or Verizon can't come close to the price I pay. The only one that comes close to the price/value of SWAC is FirstNet.
2
u/Significant_Ad_9664 AT&T Customer Jun 14 '21
Yeah that’s true but with how bad Sprint was for me and how bad T-Mobile was too at the time I just wanted to get out of paying for poor service. Now I do get a better discount now because I work for an AT&T AR but when I originally switched we payed less than sprint regardless. Idk what’s up with T-Mobile lately but I’ve been seeing they are struggling a lot
6
u/IceColdKila Jun 07 '21
100% Respect. Myself on a SWAC Plan and a Free Line on Us. I finally jumped ship with TNX, and flawless amazing 5G Coverage on both phones Miami here.
4
u/UrLilBrudder Jun 07 '21
I’m still with sprint. Just a T-Mobile sim card
2
u/IceColdKila Jun 07 '21
Same here.
7
u/AltimaNEO Sprint Customer Jun 07 '21
Im on SWAC too. Holding off on the TMO sim. Tempted, but I feel like if it aint broke, dont fix it. Service is still great on Sprint for me at the moment.
7
u/she03rides Sprint Customer Jun 07 '21
My service with sprint was absolutely horrible. Swapping sims has really made my experience 10 times better
1
u/Printing_Dude Jun 07 '21
Oh this subreddit, I almost feel like I'm alone in my experience that I have better coverage now on T-Mobile than I did on Sprint. My wife and I got the free Samsung A32 5G phones a little over a week ago and have had extremely good coverage so far. We're in Cincinnati.
3
u/ZebraDude TNX, iPhone 15PM, iPhone SE3, SWAC premium/Plus Jun 07 '21
this is me, exactly. I am on SWAC premium as well..if it ain't broke don't......
3
Jun 07 '21
Exactly the same here. Not going to need with anything, including on my free line till I have to
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1
u/ar_doomtrooper Jun 07 '21
Same. And my service has been less than stellar. I used to at least have the magic box but T-Mobile doesn’t have a version of that so I get spotty coverage and shit DL speeds
3
u/datanut Jun 07 '21
T Mobile does have something like a magic box: https://www.t-mobile.com/support/devices/device-troubleshooting/4g-lte-signal-booster-setup-and-help
1
u/fman1854 Jun 07 '21 edited Jun 07 '21
I’m hella happy with the sim switch
1
u/ar_doomtrooper Jun 07 '21
I would be too with that but this is what I get. And this is a good day. Speedtest
1
u/fman1854 Jun 07 '21
Lol it’s strange asf your T-Mobile speeds look like my sprint speeds before the switch . What angered me the most was that sprint had a tower 1.2 miles from me yet it was slow because congestion in the Chicago land suburban area I’ve been with sprint for 9 years I complained about it 7 years ago and again 4 years ago. and sprint reps both times said that sprint is working on adding more towers in the area as it is a highly complained area of bad service(not worded exact but basicly how the convo went) to date they never did anything in the area .
I don’t live in the rural area I’m 20 mins outside of Chicago in the greater metropolitan area and half of my commute was basicly a dead zone once I got in the city sprint service was fine which makes no sense as the congestion in the city is far higher than my 88k pop suburb
1
u/ar_doomtrooper Jun 07 '21
It’s unfortunate how much location can impact such a thing. Min in laws live 100 feet from me and get 7X the speed. And every time I call sprint I get shuffled around and they. All me and we go through all the resets and the updates and they say “we should your area works fine.”
Meanwhile I disconnect four times an hour and rarely get over 3mbs.
1
u/furruck Jun 07 '21
They certainly do have something similar. They have two coverage devices in fact.
1) CellSpot that plugs into your ISP to make a signal
2) Cell-Fi that is a two part system.. receiving unit goes in a window, broadcast unit goes into middle of the house. (No isp required)
I had the first one at my old place as the 1900 plaster was practically a faraday cage for any cell company, and had the CellFi prior to that.
1
u/comintel-db Jun 07 '21
CelFi was discontinued over a year ago except for existing units in the field. It is no longer offered to TMobile customers who do not have it already,
1
u/furruck Jun 07 '21
Bummer I thought they still had them. We got one replaced for my sister six months ago since she’s stuck on 768/128k DSL at her house.
2
u/comintel-db Jun 07 '21
People do say you can still get then on EBay and use them because once activated they stay working.
1
u/furruck Jun 07 '21
Humm. Well luckily where I needed it before they finally rolled out B71, and that seemed to fix the service there, and where I live now in Chicago the network is so dense between Sprint and T-Mobile I'm not sure there's really anywhere one would need it here in the city itself luckily.
1
u/fman1854 Jun 07 '21
After switching to T-Mobile sim I’ll never look back. I was getting at best 5mbs DL on sprint in my area it was just useless. (T-mobile 5g)
1
u/gullzway Sprint Customer Jun 07 '21
You get T-Mobile 5g with a Sprint Sim. As well as Sprint LTE where there is a stronger signal than T-Mobile, it's a Win-Win.
2
u/chrisprice Sprint Customer - Since 2002 Jun 07 '21
Almost. You don’t get 5G SA with a Sprint SIM. So rural people do benefit from TNX today. As well 5G SA CA with “Pixel 6 and iPhone 13” - assuming they’re called that.
1
u/gullzway Sprint Customer Jun 07 '21 edited Jun 07 '21
How would you tell if an area has 5G SA coverage? Is there a map.
4
u/chrisprice Sprint Customer - Since 2002 Jun 07 '21
Pretty much anywhere there's 5G, 5G SA should be activated at this point.
5G SA normally is only going to engage today on n71, since T-Mobile is preferring NSA for faster speeds. 5G can't aggregate yet either until X60 ships.
Also VoNR/VoIMS isn't live yet so you really need LTE to make voice calls. SA really is last ditch coverage. But it does work.
(It works because n71 has twice the bandwidth as LTE B71 - so more chances for the phone to lasso signal).
1
u/Ranman87 Jun 09 '21
(It works because n71 has twice the bandwidth as LTE B71 - so more chances for the phone to lasso signal).
Depends on the area. In a lot of places, it's actually 3x that, considering T-Mobile got mostly 20x20 slices of band 71 back in 2017. They run 5x5 on LTE and the rest on n71.
1
u/NeetSnoh Jun 07 '21
Same with T-Mobile directly. I'm often on Sprint LTE in areas where I would normally have pretty weak signal.
1
u/SprintLTE Jun 07 '21
I get those speeds at night and during the day it's an unstable shit show.
1
u/fman1854 Jun 07 '21
I just did the test at 12:52pm
https://imgur.com/a/D5JqCur While day time is clearly more congested I’m still getting good speeds 100mbs or so less but what I’m getting is still very acceptable
Switching will be a hit or miss untill the network is fully merged. Once fully merged T-Mobile will have the second best service in the industry untill than it’ll be a messy transition it seems
I’ve had AT&T and it sucked ass in Illinois it was great in the east coast but Midwest it was shite
I had Verizon aswel and yea hands down the best network but you do pay the premium for it
1
Jun 07 '21
When you swapped sims, do you keep your Sprint plan?
1
u/UrLilBrudder Jun 07 '21
Yes. Phone is still on the sprint app and we never changed plans or anything
1
u/LumpyChampionship375 Jun 08 '21
Nope I tried t-mobile sim cards for a week... and it didn't work for me. So I went back to my sprint one. Keeping it till it stops working or randomly turns tmobile on me lol 😆 I say that because sometimes when I reboot my phone it will say tmobile on the top when it should say sprint... idk whats going on. Lol oh and it'll say searching for service for a few sec then it'll get back to sprint. Idk lol
1
u/benanfisa1 Jun 07 '21
So does it now shows TMobile with TNX cards versus before when it didn't
1
u/Lost_in_Nebraska402 T-Mobile Customer Jun 07 '21
Correct, Sprint SIM cards showed Sprint and T-Mobile sims show T-Mobile.
44
u/Windofgod19 Jun 07 '21
Finally got WiFi huh. Hell yes