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One million Sprint customers are in for a big T-Mobile surprise next week

Jun 12, 2020, 7:19 AM

Adrian Diaconescu

One million Sprint customers are in for a big T-Mobile surprise next week

Because the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint has been such a long time coming, it wasn't exactly surprising to see the nation's third-largest wireless service provider meaningfully improve its network starting the very day the deal was officially completed.

Magenta then continued to rapidly integrate the "Now Network's" mid-band spectrum and thus boost its currently disappointing 5G speeds in many places while also expanding the "nationwide" low-band coverage even further. At the same time, select Sprint customers were granted access to the "New T-Mobile" network in late April as part of the first stage in a long-term migration process expected to ramp up soon.

We're talking really soon, mind you, at least according to an internal document addressed to "all dealers" leaked on Reddit just yesterday. This pinpoints June 15 as the start of the program's "second phase", which will give approximately one million Sprint subscribers the opportunity to get an early taste of the future.

While it's certainly no big secret that the T-Mobile/Sprint merger was primarily about industry-leading 5G advancements, many people are still using 4G LTE-only phones, and if you're one of the lucky aforementioned million with a "compatible" such device running the most up-to-date software, you might be in for a very nice surprise next week.

With "Enhanced Coverage", your handset will switch to using T-Mobile as a primary network without you having to lift a finger, which should enable an "immediate coverage improvement." Unfortunately, if the first wave of upgrades is any indication, you won't be able to actually join this program yourself, with "eligible customers" instead automatically selected based on criteria like device type, usage area, and the potential for improved network quality.

On the bright side, that means that if you are chosen for an "immediate coverage improvement", said upgrade should be instantly noticeable, at least in theory. Keep in mind that this doesn't equate to Sprint's dissolution, although the end is definitely drawing near for the wireless industry's number four player. For the sake of healthy market competition, we sure hope Dish will be ready to fill that void before long.