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Old 02-13-2020, 01:22 AM   #26 (permalink)
JSH
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5 View Post
That assumes they take greater market share away from their competitors, in which case, they didn't create jobs, they just shifted workers from other companies over to their own.

I'm not sure where this is going. Sprint uses the CDMA protocol and T-Mobile uses GSM. Sprint had previously bought Nextel and the lower bandwidth frequencies they owned. I would guess they will own the broadest spectrum of the radio frequencies with this move, and compatible phones would be international roaming capable due to GSM.

I wonder if Google Project Fi was an early sign of the merger considering the collaboration between Sprint / T-Mobile and Google? Nexus phones have had the capability to connect to either network for years.

The CDMA / GSM distinction went away with LTE which uses a new protocol. Mobile providers are quickly killing off old 2G / 3G networks so they can reuse the spectrum for LTE and 5G
  • Verizon completely killed their 2G / 3G CDMA network at the end of 2019
  • AT&T killed their 2G network at the end of 2016 and will kill 3G at the end of 2021
  • T-Mobile started sunsetting 2G and 3G in 2016 and says 90% of their traffic is LTE today.
  • No word on Sprint but I suspect their CDMA will be going away with the merger with T-Mobile.

As I understand it Google Fi is mostly WIFI calling and voice over LTE. I've had good luck with Fi internationally but have never used it in the USA.

Here I have a company provided phone with a global AT&T plan. My wife is on AT&T prepaid paying $25 a month for unlimited talk and text + 8G of data that works in the US, Canada and Mexico. (Paid a year at a time to get that price) Before that we were on Cricket for quite awhile and a whole bunch of MVNOs.
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