"OH NO! I NEED TO REPLACE MY PHONE!" AT&T and T-Mobile, the technical side.

[strredwolf]

Excuse me a minute.

SMACK SMACK THWAP SMACK!

GET A GRIP PEOPLE!

First: if you're on Verizon or Sprint, stop reading.  This article isn't for you.  If you're on AT&T, stop reading.  This article isn't for you ether.

T-Mobile?  Then here's the deal.

You got a year, if not longer.  AT&T and T-Mobile USA needs to get it pushed through the shareholders of both companies, the FTC, the FCC, and quite possibly the Justice Department because it's going to monopolize the GSM network market.

That said, I'm going to say: IF YOUR PHONE IS NEW, YOU DON'T NEED TO REPLACE IT IF AND WHEN THE MERGER GOES THROUGH.

Why is that?  It depends on what frequencies your phone supports.

AT&T and T-Mobile share the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz spectrum for GSM voice, GPRS low-speed (dialup) data, and EDGE medium-speed (ISDN) data.

AT&T also uses those frequencies for 3G data, aka HSPA and it's variants (HSDPA/HSDPA+/HSUPA).

T-Mobile uses 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz for 3G data.

So, if it's a quad band sold in the US, more than likely it'll hit the two shared frequencies AND at least one or two of the dedicated frequencies.

But AT&T has said it'll move all those folks to their spectrum and use the other two for higher-speed (LTE) service. I know that.  I also know the firmware is updated over the air for most phones and the iPhone works quite well on T-Mobile.  All AT&T really needs to do is:

• Push an update on the feature phones to use the new signals (like they did as Cingular to go to AT&T -- something I experienced).
• Push an update on the smart phones as well to update the baseband firmware. (see Android)
  
• Get old phones (near 2+ years old) upgraded.

So, what frequencies does your T-Mobile phone support?

Comments

[tal-greywolf.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, from what I've learned so far, I'm going to be one of those poor T-Mobile users who'll have a dead phone after the DeathStar takes over the Rebel Alliance, and will either have to sign a new contract with Satan, or go over to Verizon/Sprint (assuming they've merged by the end of the year, something that is now increasingly likely). Neither option is really acceptable to me, since it'd mean I'd end up with a higher-priced bill for the same amount of usage, or a higher priced bill just to get the same options I have right now with T-Mobile.

At least I still have my workplace cellphone, since they sold their soul to AT&T (and the conversations from the daily issues meeting hint that it was a bad mistake.)

[kisai.livejournal.com]

You're kinda wrong and kinda right there...

The radio's in the cell phones are fixed frequency (if they weren't, there would be no such thing as "quad band.") The AT&T Wireless and Cingular merger only resulted in a update to the roaming database on the phones sim card (so they all say Cingular "on -orange- devices" ... or AT&T "on -blue- devices." Everyone else was forced to buy a new Cingular phone ("Orange".) Then they renamed Cingular back to AT&T.

With T-Mobile, what is likely to happen is the same roaming update will be sent OTA and absolutely nothing done about migration except via hardware replacement. For people using the phone "as a phone" and not a smart phone, they won't notice a thing. For those wanting to access the 3.5G+ networks, they'll need a phone that supports all the frequencies... which none exist. Which is also why I say wait on the iPhone5/iPad3 to see what frequency set is supported. Even Android... Personally I was holding off till LTE.

re: fixed frequency devices... That's what they are legally certified for, and the phones constantly poll those frequencies for hand-overs. There are counterfeit phones from China that are more flexible, but... are absolute rubbish.