Lately there has been a lot of talk about T-Mobile and Sprint merging, as the two sides are reportedly close to agreeing to terms for a merger, once again. It is definitely a subject that is gaining a lot of headway these days, and it has a lot of people wondering what this might mean for customers of either carrier. Well Mosaik has put together a map showing what the spectrum of a combined company of T-Mobile and Sprint may look like, and it looks really good for customers.
Right now, neither T-Mobile nor Sprint covers the entire US with spectrum, although T-Mobile is a bit closer now with its purchase of 600MHz spectrum in the most recent auction. However, the two of them together would net around 100MHz to 150MHz of spectrum in most areas. With some having closer to 200MHz of spectrum. Which means more bandwidth on their current bands, and what that means in laymans terms is that more users can use the network without speeds slowing down to much. This would actually put them ahead of Verizon, who has around 50-100MHz in most areas. With very few areas having over 150MHz of bandwidth. Now, unfortunately this wouldn’t help the new network instantly, since GSM and CDMA don’t really work well together, customers would really see the network bolster once 3G is phased out and both go full 4G LTE in the next few years. But it is definitely promising.
Of course a big part of this is due to Sprint’s 2.5GHz spectrum, which the company doesn’t want to sell even though it needs the money. And that is because the 2.5GHz band is going to be crucial for 5G in the coming years. On top of that, between the two carriers, there is a ton of low band spectrum – 600MHz and 700MHz from T-Mobile and 800MHz from Sprint thanks to its Nextel purchase all those years ago. And low band spectrum is going to be important for the new combined company to cover more area than mid and high-band spectrum would allow them to do.
