The talk of the day, Wednesday May 9, 2012. So how does the spectrum of the two interact? Does Metro have 1900 in places T-Mo dosen't? What does Metro have and where?
Metro PCS uses the CDMA air interface. T-Mobile uses the GSM air interface. If the networks are combined, they would have to be converted to the same air interface. Since T-Mobile has the larger footprint, I would expect that GSM would be the final outcome. T-Mobile use Band II for GSM and Band IV for HSPA+. As near as I can tell Metro PCS uses Band IV for LTE services and CDMA on 1900 MHz. Metro PCS roams on both CDMA 850 MHZ and CDMA 1900 MHZ. Go to the Metro PCS website to see where they have native coverage: MetroPCS
You made me go look to see if this was a done deal and I missed the news. Not yet. Here is a Bloomberg article about the possibility of a merger: Deutsche Telekom Is Said to Discuss Deal With MetroPCS
Well I looked up the spectrum details. Metro has 1700 AWS in the western area and northeast, New York City. Plus Dallas and Detroit. This is where they are concentrating. They mainly use 1900 and 2100. Little different frequency, but real close to t-mo Think I saw a little 700 also, but they don't use it. T-Mo has 1700 and is getting more from the AT&T deal. Seems like a play to go big in 1700 AWS.
Today there is some rumblings about AT&T buying Cricket(Leap). A Reuters artcile: AT&T, Leap talked merger in recent months
WoW that could be interesting since AT&T is GSM and Cricket is CDMA . Most folks that use Cricket are there for the Cost . Wait till AT&T gets a hold of them , LOL
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.2; en-us; HUAWEI-M835 Build/HuaweiM835) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1) MetroPCS owns a license for 700Mhz in Boston, but it is too close to a DTV station.