Re: T-Mobile Sprint Merger: Say goodbye to scam calls

On 8/3/2020 2:21 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
> Someone mentioned that with the combined coverage of Sprint/T-Mobile,
> coverage ius much better.

Wow, who mentioned that?

Sprint and T-Mobile pretty much both had the same very limited non-urban 
coverage, so combining coverage wouldn't have helped much.

What Sprint had (and still has for now according to their map) is 
extensive Verizon roaming, at least for voice, SMS, and 3G data, as well 
as some LTE data.

If you look at Sprint's maps, you still see a lot of cross-hatched 
yellow areas with coverage, where T-Mobile's maps show none, but that's 
for postpaid Sprint, "Extended 4G LTE These roaming areas are included 
in your plan. Some services may not be available." If you switch the map 
to "voice" the Verizon roaming expands dramatically, for now, but once 
CDMA is gone, probably that roaming will be gone.

In the less populated parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Sprint still 
offers (according to their map) a great deal of Verizon roaming for 
voice and SMS. These are not areas "in the middle of nowhere," they're 
often just a few miles outside of urban areas, where neither Sprint nor 
T-Mobile have their own coverage.

I can't imagine that T-Mobile will retain all of Sprint's Verizon 
roaming going forward When Verizon's CDMA network is shut down they'll 
automatically lose vast areas of voice coverage where T-Mobile has no 
native coverage.

If you're a Sprint subscriber that was okay with Sprint's limited native 
coverage, because Verizon roaming compensated for it, then you're 
probably going to be very unhappy when that roaming is no longer available.