• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

MetroPCS PSA: CDMA Network Shutdown Info

I only mention this because I wish metro was giving out the info sooner, Not these vague its shutting down in 2015 things but actual info, such as the philly shut down, they give you 90 days heads up.

I have to say I agree with this guy. Try and get some specific information out of the reps in a store, or even on the phone with Metro, they are at best not knowledgeable and at worst, outright lying to you.

It is up to average end users to come to sites like this and do their own research. And thank goodness there are a handful of us on here who are up on such things, because otherwise there would really be a dearth of information.

But should the average end user have to do that? No, they shouldn't.

I have been a big fan of MetroPCS for a long time, you could get a great plan for little $ if you lived in a 4G area. But lets be honest, T-Mobile is not handling this as well as they could/should have. It would be very easy for them to publish some more and accurate information, but for whatever reason they choose not to do so, and instead give their customers the mushroom treatment (keep us in the dark and feed us excrement).

I say this as someone who is a fan of Metro and TMO and what they have done for the industry overall. I just wish they made useful information more readily available to the average user (keeping in mind that most of us who have been on these forums for a while are NOT average users).
 
Upvote 0
I agree 100% with TRS-80. There's so much misinformation, lies and cricket chirps out here, its shameful. Been a loyal Metro customer since 2008, and I think I deserve better and more complete answers than what TMo is giving. And I *do* like TMo.
We've been hearing rumors that TMo will be shutting off the Atlanta GA system this month (Jan 2015) or next. Can anyone confirm, or is this a ploy by the Metro vendors to sell more phones and get folks off the CDMA network faster here?
 
Upvote 0
I agree 100% with TRS-80. There's so much misinformation, lies and cricket chirps out here, its shameful. Been a loyal Metro customer since 2008, and I think I deserve better and more complete answers than what TMo is giving. And I *do* like TMo.
We've been hearing rumors that TMo will be shutting off the Atlanta GA system this month (Jan 2015) or next. Can anyone confirm, or is this a ploy by the Metro vendors to sell more phones and get folks off the CDMA network faster here?

Metro has sent out text messages to CDMA users about 90 days in advance before a shutdown. This is how they did it for Northeast (Boston), Vegas, Central California and Philly markets. The message would contain a link that took you to a page on Metro's website which had more detailed information. According to the plan put forth by TMo (over 2 years old) they were hoping to have all CDMA shut down by 2nd half of 2015. I thought I heard that Detroit, Dallas and San Fran would be the next to get shutdown. I could easily be wrong on that. Feel free to ask Metro on facebook/twitter to get a more accurate answer. You could always try T-Mobile's subreddit (www.reddit.com/r/tmobile) as there are confirmed employees who can answer there as well. Good luck and report back if you learn anything new!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zenzele
Upvote 0
I'm in the SF Bay Area and haven't heard anything yet as of 1/29/2015

Metro has the ZTE Zmax for $100 after instant and MIR, so I will probably go with that Phablet to replace my LG Spirit.

Just wondering if the ZMax is too big for a guy to carry in his pants pocket?

I guess it will be Cargo Shorts in the Spring and Summer, and a Jacket pocket in cooler weather.
 
Upvote 0
I'm in the SF Bay Area and haven't heard anything yet as of 1/29/2015

Metro has the ZTE Zmax for $100 after instant and MIR, so I will probably go with that Phablet to replace my LG Spirit.

Just wondering if the ZMax is too big for a guy to carry in his pants pocket?

I guess it will be Cargo Shorts in the Spring and Summer, and a Jacket pocket in cooler weather.
The ZMax is a bigass phone, but once it's in your possession a for day or two. You will ask yourself "how I ever live with such a small screen before?" Remember big phone means big battery too.
 
Upvote 0
Its $99 plus applicable taxes without the MIR if you buy it in store instead of online, now I dont know if they will give you the trade in allowance that they were doing since they have not announced the CDMA shutdown there yet. Anyone with a CDMA phone should upgrade to a heavily discounted 4 GLTE device and get the unlimited 4GLTE plan for 50 bucks before April 1st, as I highly doubt that they will have a promo this good for a long time after! Even in the remaining CDMA areas.
 
Upvote 0
Still no idea when Central FL will lose MetroPCS CDMA service. What is apparent is that they are waiting as long as possible for people to replace their phones themselves and pay the full freight, which is a deceptive business practice when Boston, Philly and Las Vegas customers were given 90 days notice and an upgrade credit.
I have talked to the same corporate store twice this year, once in Jan. and in late Mar. and was told each time that my CDMA phone would not work after April 1 2015 and that text messages would be coming out "...starting next week." advising of the need to upgrade to a GSM phone. The first time they feined ignorance of any upgrade program saying that their cheapest $29 phone was far superior to the LG Connect and doubted there would be a credit offered. The second time I went in for a maxed out ROM problem, they advised I wait as they did not know the upgrade credit amount for the LG Connect but to "...hold off for now and don't buy a phone yet." MetroPCS Live Chat was also just as clueless or told to act clueless. The rep recommended several phones for less than $100 to replace my pending worthless phone as if they had never heard of the upgrade program, nor did they have a date for CDMA shutdown.

I found the MetroPCS three-page pricing list yesterday for all their phones (link to follow) and see that LG Connect and Spirit owners will receive a $109 credit and LG Motion owners would get a $54 credit towards a new GSM phone. Everything else on the list was pretty much $32 with the exception of the SG S III which is $299.

Also of interest is that two authorized dealer stores were telling people the drop dead date for CDMA service was April 1, 2015 which caused a friend of mine to rush to a Metro store and purchase two LG F-60s with her own money, but had she waited, she was due $54 for each LG Motion phone. This was on the redditt site :

https://www.metropcs.com/content/da...adenow/MET01457_Phone-Upgrade-Credit-List.pdf

I just know this. I'm tired of my piece of crap device that is lately running out of ROM (you read that right) My Read Only Memory is within 50 Mb of running out of space. Seriously? What writes to the ROM? Why not the RAM which is more plentiful? And the phone has not been hacked (sorry...I meant "rooted"), still running the same version of Gingerbread it came with.

But as disgusted as I am with the company and the phone, I'm not about to pay for something that should not cost me out of pocket. I can wait until that last day before they shut down CDMA if that's how they want to play it. My life isn't going to fall apart because my cell phone doesn't work for a few days, in fact.

My friend who couldn't wait them out will never see the $108 Metro's stall tactics cost her, plus the sham activation fees for the two new phones, another $30 each, and the rebate BS they force you on you with a gift card to get your money back. Smart business move on the surface, but if it ever got out there nationally and went viral, they would get a max return in bad PR.

If there is a silver lining to all this, it's that the longer they take to do the upgrade, the higher the odds they'll run out of the tepid lineup currently in stores and have something a bit more exciting in the $100 range. Maybe the Samsung Avant will be replaced by the Alpha? They all depreciate after the "gee-whiz factor" wears off anyway. (I am hoping)!
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Well, Mr. Contributor, they are the ones who made the upgrade promise. And I didn't leave CDMA, they're yanking it ...eventually. And if the phone wasn't such a poor performer with all the crap it's dished out over nearly three years, I'd likely continue to put up with that too.
You made the choice of that phone, not metro fault. You were also informed with ample time to switch to gsm, they aren't "yanking" anything. Reps can only tell you what they can tell you. Every market is different with promotions sometimes, was said promotion for your area?
 
  • Like
Reactions: confed
Upvote 0
If I can believe the reps at the corporate store, then "said promotion" will be coming to my area, "...like, this month" (April 2015). To date, I've been informed of nothing other than press releases that are vague and don't apply to Central FL Anything I've learned has come from my digging.
  • Reps have been kept in the dark or told to lie because both corporate and authorized dealer stores gave false information about the drop dead date. We're three weeks past the reported drop dead date, and CDMA is still going strong.
  • It's a con game to get people to upgrade on their dime compared to the way they handled the Northeast and Vegas markets last year.
And to the contrary, I'm happy with a lot of things, but this transition (plus LG's poorly spec-ed phone) isn't one of them. So go ahead and have the last word. Your talking points sound like you work for them. I can go to any Metro store and get that sort of no-customer service attitude.
 
Upvote 0
If I can believe the reps at the corporate store, then "said promotion" will be coming to my area, "...like, this month" (April 2015). To date, I've been informed of nothing other than press releases that are vague and don't apply to Central FL Anything I've learned has come from my digging.
  • Reps have been kept in the dark or told to lie because both corporate and authorized dealer stores gave false information about the drop dead date. We're three weeks past the reported drop dead date, and CDMA is still going strong.
  • It's a con game to get people to upgrade on their dime compared to the way they handled the Northeast and Vegas markets last year.
And to the contrary, I'm happy with a lot of things, but this transition (plus LG's poorly spec-ed phone) isn't one of them. So go ahead and have the last word. Your talking points sound like you work for them. I can go to any Metro store and get that sort of no-customer service attitude.
I don't work for metro, I work for boost Mobile, we reps get it quite bad. I will put it like this, tons of us lie. Its like stock brokers. I am curt because I tire of the fact that because you trust(ed) you feel shafted. Well shafted no more you made the step to become a member of this forum and doing so made you a snake oil phone sales man worst nightmare.. Informed, know that you don't have to go in store and desk with activation fees, know that any time you can buy an unlocked device forgetting about metro paltry selection and getting a device that really suits your needs(unlocked at and T-Mobile best bet) being here you gain power over the reps. Know more than them and you can control their words. Find the liars. They are easy to catch.
 
Upvote 0
I am curious about florida cdma shut down, with the unlimited $50 plan I decided to make the jump, the unlimited $40 I used to have will never be a thing I am sure. So I do spend an extra $120 over the year but on the plus side I ported my other phone back to metro so with the discount on 2 phones on the $50 plan I pay less then I did (between the 2 phones) and have that fully high speed unlimited. The initial cost to get 2 good metro phones was STICKER SHOCK lol but that is to be expected. I bet I could have done better by trading in an esteem and an Galaxy S 3 cdma phone but what ever lol
 
Upvote 0
To date, the most I could find regarding CDMA shuttering to come from this link:

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/t-mobile-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results-2014.htm

"In the fourth quarter of 2014, T-Mobile decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Total decommissioning costs for CDMA network shutdowns amounted to $263 million in 2014. In 2015, the Company has already decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Atlanta and the Detroit metro area, bringing the overall total to 8 market shutdowns so far. The Company expects to decommission all the remaining CDMA markets by the second half of 2015, and expects to incur additional network decommissioning costs in the range of..."

Not FL specific, but again, the April 2015 drop dead date was all smoke as mentioned earlier, but "...expects to decommission all...by the second half of 2015..." implies by mid-year.
 
Upvote 0
To date, the most I could find regarding CDMA shuttering to come from this link:

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/t-mobile-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results-2014.htm

"In the fourth quarter of 2014, T-Mobile decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Total decommissioning costs for CDMA network shutdowns amounted to $263 million in 2014. In 2015, the Company has already decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Atlanta and the Detroit metro area, bringing the overall total to 8 market shutdowns so far. The Company expects to decommission all the remaining CDMA markets by the second half of 2015, and expects to incur additional network decommissioning costs in the range of..."

Not FL specific, but again, the April 2015 drop dead date was all smoke as mentioned earlier, but "...expects to decommission all...by the second half of 2015..." implies by mid-year.
Humm very weird on LA area as my brother still has his Spirit and his wife the Motion and they still work perfectly fine, they never did receive notice of the network shutting down like in other areas....
 
Upvote 0
To date, the most I could find regarding CDMA shuttering to come from this link:

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/t-mobile-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results-2014.htm

"In the fourth quarter of 2014, T-Mobile decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Total decommissioning costs for CDMA network shutdowns amounted to $263 million in 2014. In 2015, the Company has already decommissioned the CDMA portion of the MetroPCS networks in Atlanta and the Detroit metro area, bringing the overall total to 8 market shutdowns so far. The Company expects to decommission all the remaining CDMA markets by the second half of 2015, and expects to incur additional network decommissioning costs in the range of..."

Not FL specific, but again, the April 2015 drop dead date was all smoke as mentioned earlier, but "...expects to decommission all...by the second half of 2015..." implies by mid-year.

That's very weird. I'm the the Atlanta Metro area, and haven't had any issues with my LG Motion...
 
Upvote 0
hey all,

im in south florida (305-786) and i just got the text and a voicemail about the cdma network being shut down. they claim i will get a credit for my galaxy s3 but i doubt ill get anything for a 3 yr old phone...just wondering if anyone had some advice on some of the better phones that will work
 
Upvote 0
they claim i will get a credit for my galaxy s3 but i doubt ill get anything for a 3 yr old phone.

I moved your post to the Metro CDMA shutdown thread :)

If it's like the credits in other regions you'll get a certain discount based on the phone model, regardless of how old the phone is. I believe you have to buy one of their phones though, you can't BYOD a phone and get the credit for your S3. I'd check with a store near you for what they're offering.

The ZTE Zmax is the best phone Metro currently sells, other then the high priced Galaxy S5 and S6.

If you want to BYOD a GSM phone you've got the Moto X, Nexus 5 & 6, and OnePlus One - all of which you can buy unlocked from the manufacturer, and are considered good phones.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MonteK73
Upvote 0
@AP2FTW did the text message contained a shortened link? Maybe a bit.lyxxxxx link for example? That is how it has worked in the past. That link would take you to a page which would tell you the credit you would receive for specific phones if you traded it in for a metro-branded gsm phone. I believe when Philly shut down they were offering $200 for my CDMA S3. I didnt think the S4 was worth the price after discount and the S5 still seemed like it was too much. I opted for the OnePlus One for $350 and I'm very happy I did. If you can let us know what you want to be able to do with your phone, we can offer more specialized choices. @kate gave some good choices. I would say the Moto X and Nexus 6 are overpriced but if you compare them to an off-contract phone such as the S6, they are cheaper and more bang for the buck. GL with your next purchase. I would recommend the Moto G or Moto E for even cheaper BYOD alternatives.
 
  • Like
Reactions: alfick3
Upvote 0
@AP2FTW did the text message contained a shortened link? Maybe a bit.lyxxxxx link for example? That is how it has worked in the past. That link would take you to a page which would tell you the credit you would receive for specific phones if you traded it in for a metro-branded gsm phone. I believe when Philly shut down they were offering $200 for my CDMA S3. I didnt think the S4 was worth the price after discount and the S5 still seemed like it was too much. I opted for the OnePlus One for $350 and I'm very happy I did. If you can let us know what you want to be able to do with your phone, we can offer more specialized choices. @kate gave some good choices. I would say the Moto X and Nexus 6 are overpriced but if you compare them to an off-contract phone such as the S6, they are cheaper and more bang for the buck. GL with your next purchase. I would recommend the Moto G or Moto E for even cheaper BYOD alternatives.
Moto G for the win! I'm using the 1st gen HSPA+ version and love it. I get any where from 4 to 10 Meg download speeds depending on time of day and where I'm at.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones