Items tagged with Sprint
After a few false starts over the years, T-Mobile has finally completed its merger with Sprint. Sprint was the fourth place U.S. wireless carrier, with T-Mobile sitting in the third-place position. As a combined company -- which will simply be called T-Mobile -- it will remain in third place behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T in total subscriber numbers. With the announcement that the merger has been completed, enthusiastic (and often times foul-mouthed) CEO John Legere is stepping down. This executive change was first announced last year, so we knew it was coming. What was unexpected, however, was that the transition would happen a month early. It was previously stated that...
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Sprint and T-Mobile have been trying to merge on and off for years. The latest effort kicked off in 2019 and some states have been fighting against the merger in court. Today, U.S. District court Judge Victor Marrero ruled in favor of allowing Sprint and T-Mobile to merge despite objections by state attorneys general from California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Opponents of the merger -- which was initially approved by the Department of Justice in July 2019 -- argued that the merger would lead to higher prices, particularly for those who use prepaid...
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Most people have been there at some point; you accidentally drop your smartphone, and the screen shatters. In years past, sometimes that meant it was time to upgrade to a new smartphone and toss the cracked phone in a drawer. With the price of smartphones soaring today, most people opt to fix their devices. Sprint has a deal going on screen repair right now specifically for Samsung Galaxy devices. Sprint will fix the screen on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone for just $49 -- regardless of which carrier you use. That is much cheaper than a regular screen repair costs, often at $100 or more. The fine print says that Sprint will only repair screens at stores with service and repair centers, and that...
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T-Mobile has announced it will launch its nationwide 5G network, which it will use to "do good" around the country. The big announcement is that T-Mobile will light up its 5G nationwide network on December 6, laying the foundation for the massive network that will have the capacity to deliver what it calls "breakthrough connectivity" to millions. That last bit relies on the closing of its merger with Sprint as planned in 2020. T-Mobile says that the combined T-Mobile and Sprint will be a "supercharged Un-carrier" that is bigger and better with plans to use 5G for good. The merged Sprint and T-Mobile is being called the New T-Mobile, and it is outlining three new initiatives focused on using 5G...
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AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon have all teamed up on a new cross-platform messaging initiative called the Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI). CCMI is a next-gen messaging service that will be available to consumers and businesses. It's based on GSMA's Rich Communications Service (RCS) industry standard and will allow an "engaging" way for people to interact with businesses and each other. The wireless carriers note the CCMI joint venture is working to develop and deploy the standards-based, interoperable messaging service starting with Android. The service is expected to deploy with Android devices in 2020, and CCMI promises to: Drive a robust business-to-consumer messaging ecosystem...
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Sprint has announced that it has turned on its 5G network in three new markets. The new markets include New York City, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. Those cities are now live in addition to the previously launched cities including Kansas City, Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth. Sprint says that its "true 5G" network in the new cities is running Nokia 64T64R 5G Massive MIMO radios. Those radios have a split mode that allows Sprint to offer LTE Advanced and 5G New Radio (NR) service on the 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum. Those radios are being deployed on the existing 4G cell sites to provide a nearly identical footprint for the 2.5GHz LTE and 5G NR coverage. As the Sprint 5G network...
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Report Shows Wireless Carriers Are Cheaping Out And Throttling Your Video Streams Whenever They Want
We all know that wireless carriers throttle data. After all, throttling has been commonplace ever since carriers moved from their "buckets" of data in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB sizes, for example. Once carriers started fully embracing unlimited data, they started implementing policies where they would throttle data once customers reached a certain threshold (usually around 20GB) if cell towers are overloaded. But now new research shows that carriers are throttling video streams even when customers have not reached the carrier-set threshold or when "data congestion" isn’t a serious problem on the network. This information comes from Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Amhert,...
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Sprint is going all-in with 5G wireless connectivity, and has announced that it will make available a fourth 5G-compatible device for its network. The fourth-place wireless carrier – which will soon merge with third-place T-Mobile – already sells the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, LG V50 ThinQ and the HTC 5G Hub. The fourth device will be an unnamed smartphone from OnePlus. The most obvious device that Sprint could introduce is the already announced OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. The OnePlus 7 Pro 5G looks largely identical to its OnePlus 7 Pro counterpart, including its Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, 6.67-inch 90Hz display, 4000 mAh battery and 256GB of internal storage. The primary...
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Hot on the heels of news earlier this week that the U.S. Department of Justice was on the verge of approving the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, the news was confirmed this morning. The merger is valued at $26 billion, and will create a strengthened third-place wireless carrier to better compete with #1 Verizon and #2 AT&T. However, there are number of concessions that had to be made for the merger to obtain the DOJ's blessing. For starters, Sprint is divesting its prepaid business including Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile to Dish Network, which is creating its own wireless service. Dish Network will also gain 800MHz spectrum totaling $5 billion from T-Mobile and Sprint along with...
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Sprint and T-Mobile announced that they intended to merge with T-Mobile CEO John Legere leading the newly merged company last year. Today, a report is going around that the U.S. Department of Justice plans to approve the $26 billion merger between the two cellular carriers on Thursday. However, the deal will have some conditions attached to it. The big condition is that certain wireless assets must be sold to Dish. CNBC cites sources close to the matter as saying that the DOJ is requiring T-Mobile to sell its pre-paid mobile division to Dish with the satellite TV provider paying $1.4 billion in return. Dish will also pay $3.6 billion over time for spectrum assets. The sources claim that the merged...
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Amazon as a wireless carrier? It seems like an outrageous idea, but it's a move that could be in the cards according to a new report. T-Mobile and Sprint -- the third- and fourth-place U.S. wireless carriers respectively -- are looking to complete a merger that has seen some pushback from the U.S. Government. As part of the merger agreement, T-Mobile and Sprint have agreed to offload Sprint's Boost prepaid brand; a divestiture that could bring in as much as $3 billion. Boost currently has between 7 to 8 million customers according to recent estimates. According to Reuters, Amazon reportedly wants in on the action and is looking to purchase Boost to grow its empire....
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AT&T and Verizon may have been the first to activate their 5G wireless networks in the United States, but Sprint is looking to have the broadest coverage (to date) available to the largest number of Americans with its initial rollout. Sprint is launching its 5G service in the following major metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Kanas City. Unlike AT&T and Verizon, which have embraced millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum from their 5G rollouts, Sprint is using Ericsson-provided 64T64R (64 transmitters 64 receivers) 5G Massive MIMO radios that support split-mode. Split-mode allows the wireless carrier to deliver both 4G LTE and 5G NR service at the same time, all from...
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Sprint and T-Mobile announced a little over a year ago that they would be merging into one company. However, the United States Department of Justice has a few things to say about this union before the companies can ride off into the sunset. The Department of Justice has reportedly told Sprint and T-Mobile that the government will not allow the deal to be completed as it currently stands. Last spring, Sprint and T-Mobile announced that they would merge together to provide the best 5G network possible. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure noted, “Going from 4G to 5G is like going from black and white to color TV...It’s a seismic shift-- one that only the combined company can unlock nationwide...
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Federal regulators are big on keeping healthy competition in the wireless marketplace and have in the past blocked mergers of major wireless carriers from happening. Last April, T-Mobile and Sprint announced that they intended to merge with T-Mobile CEO John Legere leading the combined companies. The two carriers claim that when combined they would be better able to compete against Verizon and AT&T and accelerate the rollout of 5G. The two companies have attempted twice in the past two join forces. A third attempt likely surprised some considering the previous deals were never successful. Reports claim that even if the Justice Department approves the merger this time around, states...
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AT&T is already embroiled in lawsuits over its “5G Evolution” service, or 5G E, which the company claims enables speeds up to 2x faster than traditional 4G LTE on compatible devices. Competitors, however, have taken AT&T to task over this claim, and allege that 5G E is nothing more than a misleading marketing tactic designed to deceive consumers and gain a leg-up as true, next-generation 5G networks begin rolling out. A study that was just released by Opensignal seems to jibe with what AT&T's competitors have to say. AT&T’s 5G Evolution service is enabled by a handful of key upgrades to the company’s existing 4G LTE network: carrier aggregation, 4x4...
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T-Mobile has been talking up its new 600MHz 5G network that will give coverage using different types of bandwidths around the nation. T-Mobile has stated that its 5G network needs all spectrum bands to provide the best coverage. The company says that its millimeter wave (mmWave) tech is for dense urban areas, mid-band is for metropolitan areas, and the low-band is for nationwide coverage. T-Mobile had hoped that the network would be ready to launch, but announced at MWC 2019 that the full launch won't happen until the second half of 2019. The reason for the second half of 2019 launch isn't that T-Mobile is having an issue with its network or the network hardware; rather, no phones on the market...
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Odds are that most people have multiple devices that need internet connectivity on the go, be it a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. These gadgets represent a significant investment in money and with 5G looming, many might be considering updating their devices to take advantage of the faster connectivity. If all you want is 5G connectivity, HTC has rolled out a new device at MWC 2019 that will bring these faster speeds to all your devices via Wi-Fi. The device is called the HTC 5G Hub. HTC says that this is the first dedicated 5G mobile smart hub on the market and it can share a 5G connection with up to 20 devices via its hot spot feature. The 5G Hub has a 5-inch touchscreen with HD resolution on...
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The war of words between America's top carriers over 5G branding has now devolved into a lawsuit. AT&T started this whole mess then it decided to relabel its LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) network as 5G Evolution (5G E). Competing carriers cried foul as 5G E is little more than extension of 4G LTE technology and is in no way true 5G. Sprint, the fourth-place wireless carrier, has now filed a lawsuit against AT&T for its blatantly misleading advertising. "AT&T has sought to gain an unfair advantage in the race to 5G by embarking on a nationwide advertising campaign to deceive consumers into believing that its existing 4G LTE Advanced network is now a 5G network," says Sprint in...
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We have a lot to look forward to with 5G wireless technology, which is the successor to current generation 4G LTE networks deployed by America's four major wireless carriers. Carriers are promising a lot with their 5G rollouts, with AT&T and Verizon jumping the gun with limited 5G network availability in some of the largest U.S. markets. AT&T lit up its first mobile 5G network at the end of the 2018, but it is only available in 12 markets currently (Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Fla., Louisville, Ky., Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Raleigh, N.C., San Antonio and Waco, Texas). AT&T is using 39 MHz spectrum, with theoretical peak speeds...
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T-Mobile is once again thumping its chest over its accomplishments with the push towards a 5G wireless future. Today, the company announced that it has completed the world's first 5G transmission test using low-frequency 600MHz spectrum -- and of course, the company took the time to needle its competitors in the process. By using 600MHz spectrum, T-Mobile says that it can cover hundreds of square miles with a single tower instead of just a few square miles at best (which is currently possible with millimeter wave technology). T-Mobile achieved this feat with its hardware partner Nokia in Spokane, Washington, and is part of the company's efforts to "provide broad 5G coverage for everyone...
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We’ve already heard straight from Samsung that the Galaxy S10 will not be its first 5G smartphone when it launches early next year. Motorola, on the other hand, will bring 5G functionality to the Moto Z3 courtesy of the 5G Moto Mod in early 2019. Is anyone else willing to step up to the 5G plate when it comes to smartphone? According to a joint press release issued today, LG will be delivering its first 5G smartphone in 2019 with the help of Sprint. The unnamed smartphone will land during the first half of 2019, and it's claimed that it will be the first 5G smartphone available in the United States. We don't know if Sprint will be able to make this claim by actually...
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It seems as though wireless carriers are finding new ways to squeeze out profits and in turn hit customers with further restrictions on their cellular plans. We can credit T-Mobile with causing a resurgence in unlimited data plans, but the term "unlimited" has been butchered recently. The latest carrier to muddy the unlimited data waters is Sprint. The company has announced two new unlimited data plans: Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Basic priced at $70 and $60 per month respectively. Unlimited Plus gives customers unlimited data, talk and text along with 15GB of LTE hotspot. In addition, Unlimited Plus allows you to stream in Full HD and includes free subscriptions to Hulu and TIDAL....
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