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AT&T buying Tmobile?

I'm not really certain how it all works, but from my understanding, our phones only connect to Tmobile's cell towers? So for some people, if they live on the edge of the cell towers reach, they will get crappy reception. But if AT&T and T-mobile cell towers become shared and could be accessed all at the same time, then wouldn't reception improve overall?

Only thing I don't like about this merger is how AT&T caps their 3g/4g. Though I don't necessarily hit the cap (I use maybe 1-2GB a month), I just don't like to know it's there.


Your understanding is correct the phones will carry all the bands so where there was no coverage there will now be. Also when you look at the maps of the 4G after merger.they will have a bigger footprint than Verizon
 
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Your understanding is correct the phones will carry all the bands so where there was no coverage there will now be. Also when you look at the maps of the 4G after merger.they will have a bigger footprint than Verizon

When they discuss the better signals after merger, are they talking about voice only? I don't see how the merger would improve the data signal on my TMO Nexus S.
 
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When they discuss the better signals after merger, are they talking about voice only? I don't see how the merger would improve the data signal on my TMO Nexus S.


Both towers tmobile and ATT will carry all the frequencies even the LTE frequencies that previous to this tmobile wouldn't get. So when you purchase an LTE phone it will work all over the country and the speeds will be faster. They will have the whole speed spectrum covered 7.2-14.4-21.1- and so on until 100 mbps eventually by 2015
 
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Both towers tmobile and ATT will carry all the frequencies even the LTE frequencies that previous to this tmobile wouldn't get. So when you purchase an LTE phone it will work all over the country and the speeds will be faster. They will have the whole speed spectrum covered 7.2-14.4-21.1- and so on until 100 mbps eventually by 2015

Cool, but how about now? Will my 3G signal get better? I don't know if AT&T can allow all their existing towers to support TMO's AWS, and TMO allowing their towers to support AT&T's 850.

While on this, let me expand the question. Will the myTouch 4G be able to use the same towers that the HTC Inspire 4G uses?
 
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Cool, but how about now? Will my 3G signal get better? I don't know if AT&T can allow all their existing towers to support TMO's AWS, and TMO allowing their towers to support AT&T's 850.

While on this, let me expand the question. Will the myTouch 4G be able to use the same towers that the HTC Inspire 4G uses?


At this point no. Until the deal goes through they are two independent companies but once it goes through they will allow roaming ASAP and then the changeover will happen
 
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At this point no. Until the deal goes through they are two independent companies but once it goes through they will allow roaming ASAP and then the changeover will happen

Even once the deal goes through, current phones won't see any better signals! There are very very few Pentaband phones out there. Current T-Mobile phones will still need to use T-Mobile's network. Supposedly, AT&T won't be taking it down, but they won't be expanding it either, so someone with a Nexus S who lives on the edge of coverage and was hoping to get a better signal sometime soon will never get it at all.

Also, you claim everything I love about T-Mobile will still be there, just called AT&T instead. That's just not true. If you bothered to read my post, you'd see that what I hated about AT&T was the way they tried to screw me over every other month. That's a big part of the reason I left AT&T in the first place. I don't want to have to call them up every other month to dispute some crappy service charge I never signed up for.

And what about those of us who were planning to switch over to the Even More Plus plans next year? I get the feeling that won't be an option at all, and if anyone originally on T-Mobile tries to change their plan, they'll go from a nice unlimited data plan to a shitty 2GB plan.
 
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Thanks. Hmmm...so future phones should get ones with AT&T bands? That also means I can get 3G/4G if I buy phones from Asia/Europe?

It would need to be a Pentaband phone to utilize the full AT&T+T-Mobile network, so it would be like 850/900/1700/1800/2100 MHz. And they would only get 4G if they have a 4G chipset. Phones like this basically don't exist right now.

If you were to get a Nexus S, for example, which has a 900/1700/2100 MHz radio, you'd only be able to use the T-Mobile side of the network, even after the merger.
 
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So according to that, my Nexus S will be pretty useless next year since AT&T will take the 1700MHz AWS spectrum, currently supporting T-Mobiles HSPA+ network, and turn it into an LTE network, with which my Nexus S isn't compatible...Good to know.

Actually, none of T-Mobile's phones are compatible with a 1700MHz LTE band, so no one's T-Mobile phone will work once the rollout is underway.

Yes, long term, T-Mobile costumers will see a benefit, assuming they can keep their grandfathered plans. Short term, we're getting screwed.
 
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So according to that, my Nexus S will be pretty useless next year since AT&T will take the 1700MHz AWS spectrum, currently supporting T-Mobiles HSPA+ network, and turn it into an LTE network, with which my Nexus S isn't compatible...Good to know.

Actually, none of T-Mobile's phones are compatible with a 1700MHz LTE band, so no one's T-Mobile phone will work once the rollout is underway.

Yes, long term, T-Mobile costumers will see a benefit, assuming they can keep their grandfathered plans. Short term, we're getting screwed.


What the hell are you talking about? Do you even hear the words coming out if your mouth. The 1700 spectrum which your nexus S uses for hspa+ will be LTE at that time the nexus S will support the new LTE because that existing band that the nexus is using will access the LTE 1700 so same.phone same frequency different speeds
 
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What the hell are you talking about? Do you even hear the words coming out if your mouth. The 1700 spectrum which your nexus S uses for hspa+ will be LTE at that time the nexus S will support the new LTE because that existing band that the nexus is using will access the LTE 1700 so same.phone same frequency different speeds

Same frequencies does not mean compatible. Take 2G/EDGE frequencies for example. Just because a phone supports GSM 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz does not mean it will work on a HSPA 850/1800 MHz network. It's the same way for LTE and HSPA.

The Nexus S is NOT compatible with LTE, nor are any T-Mobile phones. It doesn't matter if it's still the 1700MHz frequency, the two network protocols are not compatible. LTE requires a different set of hardware from HSPA.

EDIT: There's even an article about it: http://gizmodo.com/#!5783954/your-3g-t+mobile-phone-will-be-useless-after-att-merger
 
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What the hell are you talking about? Do you even hear the words coming out if your mouth. The 1700 spectrum which your nexus S uses for hspa+ will be LTE at that time the nexus S will support the new LTE because that existing band that the nexus is using will access the LTE 1700 so same.phone same frequency different speeds

So even though the Nexus S can't do HSPA+, it can do LTE when AT&T completes the deployment?
 
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Same frequencies does not mean compatible. Take 2G/EDGE frequencies for example. Just because a phone supports GSM 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz does not mean it will work on a HSPA 850/1800 MHz network. It's the same way for LTE and HSPA.

The Nexus S is NOT compatible with LTE, nor are any T-Mobile phones. It doesn't matter if it's still the 1700MHz frequency, the two network protocols are not compatible. LTE requires a different set of hardware from HSPA.

EDIT: There's even an article about it: http://gizmodo.com/#!5783954/your-3g-t+mobile-phone-will-be-useless-after-att-merger


Ok so if that's the case won't they just do what they did when the Cingular purchase happened. I remember when the Cingular purchase happened I got a free phone
 
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So even though the Nexus S can't do HSPA+, it can do LTE when AT&T completes the deployment?

No, it will not be able to. None of the current T-Mobile phones will be able to. They will all be rendered useless.

AT&T says they'll be "upgrading" T-Mobile customers to new phones when the time comes, but I've been through this before. AT&T "upgrades" your fancy Smartphone to a shitty feature or messaging phone of your choice. It's in no way a fair or beneficial deal.
 
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No, it will not be able to. None of the current T-Mobile phones will be able to. They will all be rendered useless.

AT&T says they'll be "upgrading" T-Mobile customers to new phones when the time comes, but I've been through this before. AT&T "upgrades" your fancy Smartphone to a shitty feature or messaging phone of your choice. It's in no way a fair or beneficial deal.


That's not.true when I upgraded from my Cingular smartphone I got.an ATT smartphone.
 
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Ok so if that's the case won't they just do what they did when the Cingular purchase happened. I remember when the Cingular purchase happened I got a free phone

Even if AT&T lets you trade your phone in for a new Smartphone (which they didn't for me, last time they were forcing me to "upgrade" my phone), there's a reason the majority of Android users avoid AT&T. It just doesn't have any good Android phones, and the few they do have are completely gimped by AT&T's policies.

And that's assuming they'd let you pick from any of their Smartphones. Odds are they'll only let you "upgrade" to something like the Aria or some equally disappointing phone.
 
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Even if AT&T lets you trade your phone in for a new Smartphone (which they didn't for me, last time they were forcing me to "upgrade" my phone), there's a reason the majority of Android users avoid AT&T. It just doesn't have any good Android phones, and the few they do have are completely gimped by AT&T's policies.

And that's assuming they'd let you pick from any of their Smartphones. Odds are they'll only let you "upgrade" to something like the Aria or some equally disappointing phone.


This is all speculation and you don't know what the future Android scenario will look like. Especially if the Android team from tmobile stays on like I hear
 
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OK, will my phone be obsolete in the sense of not having LTE when it becomes available?

Or will my phone be obsolete in the sense of not having 3G when LTE is deployed?

Your phone will be obsolete in the sense that it won't get data at all when LTE is deployed.

Edit: You might get 2G, depending where you live. AT&T will be dismantling their 2G networks in most areas by then though.
 
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