The T-Mobile and Sprint merger is complete, and there’s now one less major wireless carrier in the US.

In the short term existing customers probably won’t notice much change — if you’re a T-Mobile or Sprint subscriber your plan and service won’t change much right away.

But in the long term, the combined company says the merger will give the new T-Mobile US the ability to improve network speeds and coverage in the coming years.

According to T-Mobile’s press release, here’s what customers can expect in the next six years:

  • Up to 14X more capacity than T-Mobile alone has
  • 5G data speeds up to 15X faster than LTE
  • 5G coverage available to 99-percent of the US population
  • 100Mbps speeds available to 90-percent of the US population
  • 50Mbps speeds covering 90-percent of rural areas

While the merger puts the new T-Mobile in a better position to compete with Verizon and AT&T, critics have said the merger will decrease competition in the US cellular market, which could allow carriers to jack up prices, among other things.

One step the companies took to help mitigate those concerns was spinning off Sprint’s pre-paid Boost Mobile brand. It’s been sold to Dish network, which plans to make its entry into the cellular space soon.

The company also promises it will offer “the same or better rate plans for at least three years” following the merger.

The California Public Utilities Commission still has to sign off on the merger, that’s pretty much assured to happen at this point.

As part of today’s announcement, former T-Mobile CEO John Legere is stepping down a month earlier than planned. T-Mobile President and COO Mike Sivert will be taking his place.


Support Liliputing



Contribute to our Patreon campaign


Contribute via PayPal


5 replies on “T-Mobile and Sprint are now one company”

  1. I had not heard that they were selling Boost Mobile to Dish, which is not good news to me, but that’s another matter. It creates an odd scenario. My parents are on Virgin Mobile on Android phones. I wasn’t aware that Virgin either was or has already ceased operation. I know my mom was transferred to Boost. I guess my dad was too. But it’s odd that they were transferred to the sister company which is then sold off at the same time, sending extra subscribers to the new owner.

  2. The alleged reason this was allowed to go through was that Sprint was going to collapse without it anyway, and then their assets would get bought up mostly by AT&T/Verizon, or worse, the Chinese. This wouldn’t matter if companies could be broken up…like, at all, but the existence of google in its current state is a testament to how that’s never going to happen again.
    And of course the prices are going to go up. The prices of everything are going to go up. We can pretty much expect everyone’s standard of living to drop to some really depressing levels.

    The more practical and timely question on my mind is, T-Mobile is GSM. Sprint is CDMA. Going forward, are GSM phones basically not going to work on half of what’s now T-Mobile’s network? Are old sprint phones going to just sorta stop working?

    1. Im 99.9% sure the whole GSM vs CDMA thing, hasn’t been a thing for a few generations of networks. Different companies sometimes operate on different bands, but its not akin to different encoding or multiplexing methods at all.

      I dont really see prices going up due to the merger, if anything prices for “everything” keep going up because we as a people are getting lazier and want more for less, that includes the sad workers that have to do/make everything and that effect trickles up to our wallets.

      As far as standards of living being effected by this, I find that HIGHLY dubious, not even getting into how truly ridiculous peoples perceptions of what the “standard” is or even what they as individuals “need”, NO ONE NEEDS a cell phone, NO ONE NEEDS the internet. Anyone old enough to remember the mid 70s or so is proof of that fact.

      1. In case it wasn’t clear, the downturn I’m expecting isn’t going to be caused by one merger.
        It’s just what happens with fiat currency, fractional reserve lending, and global pandemics.

      2. Yes, no one “needs” the Internet or cellphones like they need air, water or shelter, but no one “needs” a highway system or telephone system or electricity, either. These are things that we have that we have come to depend on for a great variety of things, and without which our modern economy would not function. As OP stated, there are other concerns that will likely cause far more damage, but one should not underestimate how dependent we are on our technology. It is literally representative of our most valuable adaptation as a species.

Comments are closed.