This is seriously gruesome news for T-Mobile customers. I dumped Sprint years ago over poor customer service and will dump T-Mobile if Sprint buys them. Fortunately, I'm out of contract with them, so a move should be easy.
Indeed, although it was only a little over a year that I finally ditched Sprint. Unless the present business model of T-Mobile carries over, I'm gone as soon as my contract is up.
I don't see the logic of this move given that they operate on completely different technologies, IIRC.
Except for the newer LTE, yeah.
One could hope at the non-LTE end of things, they kill the Sprint CDMA network (which is not that strong, and depends on voice roaming agreements with Verizon in many areas) and move over to a UMTS one on the Sprint PCS band network.
This isn't entirely implausible; T-Mobile has been transitioning towers acquired from MetroPCS in some areas, and AFAICT is planning in the remaining MetroPCS markets.
Basically, though, it's a business model question; if they keep the present T-Mobile moves towards low cost and openness, they might do a lot better with the bigger network behind them.
If they follow the Sprint "let's outdo even Vz on lock-in" (even Vz kept SIMs for LTE; Sprint ditched them) then they're pretty well just going to produce something less than the sum of its parts.
Originally Posted by
DenverBrian
And in return, you do get truly unlimited data.
Also available with T-mobile, as long as you're not tethering, for a heck of a lot less, and in major metro-areas, with much better speeds.
The down side is by far the worst data coverage once you're outside their strong areas.
Sprint's biggest issue for 2014 is the too-slow rollout of 4G LTE to take advantage of all that unlimited data.
...and poor data speeds where LTE is available. When Sprint first rolled out LTE around here, T-Mobile HSPA+ beat it, let alone any of the other three carriers' LTE.
Originally Posted by
docbert
Unlimited 128kbps (2.5G speeds, basically, whether or not the actual signal is limited to an EDGE connection or not) is sufficient for email, IM, and light use of mapping applications.
The cost to pay for a temporary data package is a LOT lower than most other companies data roaming, as well -- although often pricier than acquiring a local SIM.