T-Mobile | A Loyal Customer Running Out of Patience
By Mr. 848days - October 25, 2020
Let me start by saying I'm biased towards T-Mobile as I had worked for them in their Seattle area offices as a Principal Engineer. I left T-Mobile at the beginning of 2017 to pursue other opportunities in Central Florida. Specifically, I live in the Space Coast area in a growing master-planned community. Since arriving in 2017, I've observed consistent poor signals and data rate throughput in my area to the point that it's mostly unusable. My wife and daughter asked me to switch to either AT&T or Verizon as their friends always have good coverage. I told them soon, T-Mobile will have better coverage due to their low band coverage (band 71 in the 600Mhz) which they will target smaller town and rural areas. Band 71 was detected in my area but the signal is very weak or unusable and my iPhone would switch, mainly to band 2 (1900Mhz) and sometimes AWS-3 band 66 (2100Mhz). But as you can see from the snapshots below, my T-Mobile phone is mostly not usable, RSRP signal less than -100dBm.
Although, my diagnostic phone shows "EN-DC" which is indicative of a 5G NR (New Radio) in NSA (Non-Stand-Alone) mode; EN-DC stands for E-UTRAN New Radio or dual-connectivity for mobile devices supporting both LTE and 5G NR. Naturally, my iPhone X Pro Max is not 5G capable to take advantage of this dual connectivity. Nevertheless, I'm telling my wife and daughter that T-Mobile has the best 5G strategy with its low band (band 71 - 600Mhz); mid-band (band 41 - 2500Mhz from their merger with Sprint); and mmWave (millimeter wave - 28Ghz and higher). Combining all three bands, they will be able to light up the 5G icon coast to coast. In the rural areas, we'll be able to enjoy the equivalent of a 4G high-speed data rate while in urban areas, the short-range high-frequency millimeter wave will deliver super-fast speeds and low latency. Thus, I had high hope for T-Mobile. Verizon has been fighting T-Mobile at the FCC trying to slow down their acquisition of more band 71 spectrum licenses. Verizon may be heading down the path of turning on their CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) or in the United States, it's band 48 or 3.8Ghz frequency range as well as using DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing) between their existing 4G spectrum and 5G.
Although, my diagnostic phone shows "EN-DC" which is indicative of a 5G NR (New Radio) in NSA (Non-Stand-Alone) mode; EN-DC stands for E-UTRAN New Radio or dual-connectivity for mobile devices supporting both LTE and 5G NR. Naturally, my iPhone X Pro Max is not 5G capable to take advantage of this dual connectivity. Nevertheless, I'm telling my wife and daughter that T-Mobile has the best 5G strategy with its low band (band 71 - 600Mhz); mid-band (band 41 - 2500Mhz from their merger with Sprint); and mmWave (millimeter wave - 28Ghz and higher). Combining all three bands, they will be able to light up the 5G icon coast to coast. In the rural areas, we'll be able to enjoy the equivalent of a 4G high-speed data rate while in urban areas, the short-range high-frequency millimeter wave will deliver super-fast speeds and low latency. Thus, I had high hope for T-Mobile. Verizon has been fighting T-Mobile at the FCC trying to slow down their acquisition of more band 71 spectrum licenses. Verizon may be heading down the path of turning on their CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) or in the United States, it's band 48 or 3.8Ghz frequency range as well as using DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing) between their existing 4G spectrum and 5G.
About Mr.848days
Mr.848days is an engineer for a leading American technology company. In his spare time, he enjoys weight training, stock market investing and option trading, traveling, and spending quality time with his beautiful family.