By 
T-Mobile and MetroPCS have announced that their deal has successfully closed following regulatory and shareholder approvals. The two companies will combine to form a new corporation — dubbed T-Mobile US, Inc. — and will be trading as a new company under the New York Stock Exchange as TMUS as of this morning.
That doesn’t mean much right now for each company’s consumers: T-Mobile is still T-Mobile, and MetroPCS is still MetroPCS. Each service will continue to operate independently for the time being. But this means T-Mobile can begin its trek to launching a vast 4G LTE network using the newly-acquired capital this sale afforded them.
T-Mobile mentioned the sale afforded it 20+20 MHz of 4G LTE spectrum coverage that would help deliver LTE to 90% of the nation’s top 25 metro areas in 2014. We’ll have to wait a bit to see if the company feels differently about rolling MetroPCS customers into the T-Mobile banner, but it won’t give us a clear indication of its plans either way.
I’m so glad that AT&T couldn’t buy T-Mobile :)
If nothing else, this! ^
I’m sure we all let out a sigh of relief when that happened.
I just miss old plan when the at&t merger was announced I jumped ship to Verizon now I’m back on T-Mobile my old plan was the same but I got unlimited tethering something I didn’t care about until the jb update on my s3 where WiFi tether app no longer works unless I install a custom ROM but I like my phone how it is
First
Really?
I know I couldn’t believe it either. I see at least 15 people are jelly.
Good thing the new FCC chairman wasn’t in charge during the proposed ATT/Tmo merger, the new guy was for it, whereas Genechowski was against it, saw an article about it recently on Engadget.
Read this:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113028/susan-crawford-high-speed-internets-elizabeth-warren
Great article about the telecom industry and how far behind we are to other countries.
This is a win win! Metro gains the ability to get better handsets and more coverage, as t-mobile gets more customers and more revenue to expand and deploy a better lte network. That number 3 spot is looking mighty close!
They also get an LTE network. In my area (Mendocino County, NW CA) Metro PCS is all LTE, while T-Mobile is 99% EDGE, and has only started putting up 3G here (in Fort Bragg). Verizon and U.S. Cellular are LTE here now too, and AT&T is HSPA and HSPA+ w/EB, T-Mobile’s data is S L O W EDGE.
It’s good to know tmobile will get some areas that are edge converted to 4G with this merger. Expanding their footprint can only be beneficial in every facet of their business
Boy, you get around don’t you…You live in the middle of no where…That’s why!
t-mobile is finally in a great position to do something in the US – for years they struggled with inadequate spectrum, etc but now all the roadblocks seem to be gone. i hope they run with it; this could be great but it requires tmobile sticking to their guns and that’s something that could go either way. (to be fair, they do have a great track record here – i’m only saying “the war isn’t over just because this battle is won”)
I love TMobile, but it’s biggest weakness for me has always been signal penetration. All the new spectrum they aquired from MetroPCS is 1700 and 1900, so we will all still have the same issues getting signal inside of buildings. Verizon and AT&T have the low frequency spectrums locked down unfortunately.
T-Mo has never had a problem with signals in buildings, at least in my experience. Maybe if you have a low end phone, but the flagships never have an issue. The signal isnt full but its far from low, and making calls is not a problem.
In Wal-Mart and Smith’s/Kroger just to name a few buildings around me (I get signal at home everywhere but in the bathroom) I have zero bars and lose my internet, when I step outside I get full bars and super fast data. It’s annoying but generally when I shop I don’t need my phone anyway….
Same for when I’m at Target. But some Target have open wifi now so you can still surf and do wifi calling which is awesome.
high frequency spectrum is a blessing and a curse. it is capable of supporting higher throughput data rate, but it is absorbed and reflected by environmental elements more easily than lower frequency equivalents.
in many many places t-mobile’s coverage is solid enough that absorption and reflection fail to degrade service significantly (see yankeesrule587’s comment – clearly in his/her area this is the case).
that’s just for their 3G service though (there is no such thing as 4G on any network yet, but for those who believe the marketing this also applies to tmobile’s 4G). their 2G service operates on 850MHz (as well as 1900); see:
http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4986
t-mobile’s 2G service (and at&t’s for that matter) is identical to Verizon and Sprint’s “3G” service (i put it in quotes for a reason: calling EvDO ‘3G’ is just as much of a lie as calling ANYTHING 4G today, perhaps moreso).
in fact, only the 2100MHz spectrum can be really considered significantly higher frequency than their competitor’s spectrum. everyone has spectrum ranging from the ~1GHz to the ~2GHz range, but only t-mobile goes over the 2GHz mark to reach 2.1GHz. that’s not a HUGE difference, but it does make an impact.
The T-Mobile CEO is aiming to get lower frequency. He said he wants more rural coverage and better building penetration.
Makes me glad i have been a T-Mobile customer since 2003.
I will be a T-Mobile customer as soon as they get LTE in my area. I live on the first floor of an apartment and I don’t get the HSPA+ signal inside for some reason, but I do get ATT HSPA+ signal in the same place. So I guess I’ll have to do a test or something to see how their LTE signal is.
This is because they run on the 850Mhz spectrum. T-Mobile has a higher spectrum(which doesn’t penetrate walls as good). Only good side about the 2100 is that it can handle more people(which is why AT&T wants some).
T-metro would have been a much better name
I would love Tmobile if they could get their building penetration together….I used them 1 month and went back too ATT cause I get 5 bars in my apartment and with Tmobile 1 bar and flips between Edge and 3G..hopefully this will fix it. Just cant have my phone be a paper weight in my home.
If you have internet at home you can do wifi calling and its usually free (doesnt use your minutes) if you have the $50 plan and above. Also I have the same issue at home and they gave me a signal booster for free and now I get signal in my home without needing to use my home internet for wifi calling or surfing.
Doesn’t Tmobile have some sort of plan to re farm 2G to 3G or something? I certainly hope so, cause EDGE 2G is completely unacceptable in mid-2013!!!!!
It’s even worse than that, they actually still have large areas of GPRS, that’s downright sad in 2013.
Just an FYI-
3. If I am a MetroPCS customer, does this mean I am now a T-Mobile customer?
No. T-Mobile and MetroPCS will operate separately, and MetroPCS will maintain its brand name and its customers.
Some of the key benefits for our customers include combining the best of MetroPCS and T-Mobile so that we may soon provide access to a faster, nationwide 4G network, as well as a wider selection of cutting-edge smartphones.
http://www.metropcs.com/metro/support/faqTemplatePage.jsp?whichFAQ=About