Question

Why is there mysteriously no longer signal in my house after T-Moblile/Sprint Merger?

  • 20 November 2021
  • 30 replies
  • 7374 views

Userlevel 2
Badge

My husband and I have been Sprint customers for years.  We had fairly decent cellular service in our home, maybe losing service twice in 4 years due to major storms messing with the towers.  However, for some unknown reason that makes no sense to me (I’d assume service would improve), we now often entirely lose cell service completely at our home and within a 1 mile radius ever since we were instructed to change our SIM cards upon the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.  Not only is this frustrating, but my business and sanity are suffering.  I did not choose to work with T-Mobile.  We had a contract with Sprint.  Sometimes service is fine, but then for sometimes several weeks at a time, service is completely gone.  We have tried recalibrating our phones, etc.  My husband uses a Samsung Note and I have an iPhone 12 as well as a business cell that is also iPhone.  All 3 phones stop working for calls and texts for weeks at a time.  It is so unreliable and I am ready to find another option at this point unless this can be fixed.  We have tried working with technical support who work with us a bit but then try to tell us service is just sort of weak where we live - which may be true, but why did it work consistently for several years when we had Sprint?  Why all of a sudden do I rarely have signal in my home?  Is anyone else experiencing a similar problem?  


30 replies

I just spent over a half hour on the with someone I could hardly hear or understand. Was told it’s a problem they know about and promise to fix but they don’t know when. I was forced to sign with them and upgrade phone for 5G 2 months ago and am regretting it. I want my contract cancelled as I want to go to Verizon. This is stupid. I don’t know how they get away with selling you a contract to provide service when they don’t have service. I’m going to talk to Verizon tomorrow and look for a class action suit or who you complain to.

 

Badge

You’re not the only one. I switched last weekend and my data speed have gone pre-3G. It’s been totally crappy. I went to the T-mobile store and they couldn’t help. “It’s the towers” they say. 

I don’t live in a rural area, so it’s not the “towers”.

By the way, does T-Mobile actually respond to Community posts or are these forums made specifically for customers to about how bad T-mobile is?

 

This is the same stuff happening to me for 3 months now that gave me the T-Mobile phone chip and keep saying its gonna work March 31st all the antennas will be switched over it's April 16th nothing works the phone's the biggest  I've ever seen I've never been so off in my life about a phone totally everything im trying to do Tmobile . I live in Rosamond Ca.  Turns out they just want people to upgrade their phones they're doing this on purpose they didn't intend to have more covers they intend to shut down everyone's old phone . I have Samsung galaxy 9s plus and they want me to upgrade.  No way I tell them Tmobile CEO nothing but a crook 

Badge

I agree with the SUDDEN NO SERVICE AT MY OWN HOUSE!!!!! PISSES ME OFF EXTREMELY!!!! We have NEVER had service problems at my house have had SPRINT since 2004 and now that T Mobile forced me to get a new SIM card and now it constantly has a message come up that says "my phone isnt registered on a network and can only make emergency calls" !! ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!! I screenshotted that message 28 times in 1 day!!! And T Mobile said i had to get the SIM card in order to have better service. Bullshxt!!! If i continue to have problems im filing a formal complaint with the Consumer Protection Agency and the FTC.. I will also be asking for credit on my phone bill for everyday i cant make calls from my home. I will video every call and screenshot the message that come up for proof.

Userlevel 1

I agree with the SUDDEN NO SERVICE AT MY OWN HOUSE!!!!! PISSES ME OFF EXTREMELY!!!! We have NEVER had service problems at my house have had SPRINT since 2004 and now that T Mobile forced me to get a new SIM card and now it constantly has a message come up that says "my phone isnt registered on a network and can only make emergency calls" !! ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!! I screenshotted that message 28 times in 1 day!!! And T Mobile said i had to get the SIM card in order to have better service. Bullshxt!!! If i continue to have problems im filing a formal complaint with the Consumer Protection Agency and the FTC.. I will also be asking for credit on my phone bill for everyday i cant make calls from my home. I will video every call and screenshot the message that come up for proof.

I have been thinking the same . I mean our contract was with Sprint, if I wanted T-Mobile I would have went to them… but unfortunately I had previously had them and was very dissatisfied….   Sprint has been great to me ; I haven’t even upgraded my phones in 4 years because they have always worked so good , having service at my house is crucial for my work and everything else ….   For them to pulll the rug out from us all promising things and none of it working is a joke. I will definitely be filing for sure . We all need to because if enough do it , maybe a class action suit will take place that makes them pay for us to move to a company who works for the price we pay, at least not make us pay for not being able to use our phones - I work from home and can’t do a damn thing, as I said - if a family member gets in an accident ; I couldn’t even receive a phone call at this point !!! I’m sick to my stomach about it … I went to Verizon and tried to switch to them, well, it seems T-Mobile has a huge cancellation fee they post to people trying to switch companies… Verizon doesn’t even cause you to have contracts anymore which is how it should be !!! Let’s all work together and fix this issue for everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Userlevel 1

My husband and I have been Sprint customers for years.  We had fairly decent cellular service in our home, maybe losing service twice in 4 years due to major storms messing with the towers.  However, for some unknown reason that makes no sense to me (I’d assume service would improve), we now often entirely lose cell service completely at our home and within a 1 mile radius ever since we were instructed to change our SIM cards upon the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.  Not only is this frustrating, but my business and sanity are suffering.  I did not choose to work with T-Mobile.  We had a contract with Sprint.  Sometimes service is fine, but then for sometimes several weeks at a time, service is completely gone.  We have tried recalibrating our phones, etc.  My husband uses a Samsung Note and I have an iPhone 12 as well as a business cell that is also iPhone.  All 3 phones stop working for calls and texts for weeks at a time.  It is so unreliable and I am ready to find another option at this point unless this can be fixed.  We have tried working with technical support who work with us a bit but then try to tell us service is just sort of weak where we live - which may be true, but why did it work consistently for several years when we had Sprint?  Why all of a sudden do I rarely have signal in my home?  Is anyone else experiencing a similar problem?  

Same here. My wife still has her sprint card, I have to use her hotspot just to post here from home

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

@TacoRon they know how bad it is, bit don't typically air their dirty laundry.   You need to post on Twitter to TMobile or call 611 and get a ticket filed.

 

T-Mobile doesn't care. We were in our home for 3 years when all of a sudden phone and text service went wonky. I set my phone to Wi-Fi calling and that helped for a while. But ever since the holidays nothing works. I've called customer service many times and all they say is that they'll work on it when they can. One agent actually advised getting another carrier because he said it will be months or maybe years before they fix the problems. (Sprint doesn't work at my house either.) 

We were sprint customers. We recently upgraded 3 of our lines. Since doing so one of our lines will not work correctly. After arguing with tech

support with t mobile, sprint and apple they finally replaced the phone. Now the replacement is doing the same exact thing as the old phone so it’s definitely not a phone issue. The problem we are having is we are not able to have a phone conversation with the phone. I can hear everything the other party is saying but they can’t make out what I’m saying because the phone cuts out so bad. Any suggestions on how to handle this issue? Tech support has pretty much went through trouble shooting many, many times. I’ve also been to the apple store twice. The second time apple sent the phone in to be checked and no issues with the phone were found. Other than breaking in and out the phone works as it should. We have no problem making or receiving calls. 

Had Sprint in Shelbyville Illinois for 20 years with no problem. Had to switch to t-mobil 3 years ago and have not had service (none, nada) for 1 year now. First two years were ok. Talked to t-mobil and they don’t have towers in the area. The Tech said I should roam off the Sprint Towers, he tried everything he knew and could not get our phone (iphones 6s and 12)to roam. Kind of unbelieveabel  that a city with 12000 people in the area does not get Sprint or T-mobil anymore. I had to buy another phone and hook up to Verizon (excellent service) when we are in that area. Still have t-mobil  it works most of the time just not at our summer home (Shelbyville,IL. and our home in Oak Lawn, IL. (forgot to mention that I had to get a home phone also from Verizon for our home).

Userlevel 1

My husband and I have been Sprint customers for years.  We had fairly decent cellular service in our home, maybe losing service twice in 4 years due to major storms messing with the towers.  However, for some unknown reason that makes no sense to me (I’d assume service would improve), we now often entirely lose cell service completely at our home and within a 1 mile radius ever since we were instructed to change our SIM cards upon the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.  Not only is this frustrating, but my business and sanity are suffering.  I did not choose to work with T-Mobile.  We had a contract with Sprint.  Sometimes service is fine, but then for sometimes several weeks at a time, service is completely gone.  We have tried recalibrating our phones, etc.  My husband uses a Samsung Note and I have an iPhone 12 as well as a business cell that is also iPhone.  All 3 phones stop working for calls and texts for weeks at a time.  It is so unreliable and I am ready to find another option at this point unless this can be fixed.  We have tried working with technical support who work with us a bit but then try to tell us service is just sort of weak where we live - which may be true, but why did it work consistently for several years when we had Sprint?  Why all of a sudden do I rarely have signal in my home?  Is anyone else experiencing a similar problem?  

 I also live in a very small town kind of out in the woods but I am in Bremerton Washington out in a place called seabeck and when I tell you when I had sprint I was the only person that had service out there it was amazing… If you had sprint you can do anything you want it on your phone and I use my phone for work and everything else so I did just that.. been with Sprint for about four years I haven’t even upgraded either phone on our account which means Sprint has no way even lost money to us… So all of the sudden I hear T-Mobile is going to buy Sprint… I think it’s OK because I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about T-Mobile lately and my cousin it works for T-Mobile and she’s pretty high up there and she also has said some good things about the net work… So in my head they are going to switch us sprint users to T-Mobile And even though I love Sprint… I figure I would not only still have perfect network used at my home but it would even be better… Keep in mind that we never agreed to want or need to switch to T-Mobile didn’t have any desire to have any other cell phone service out there but in this situation they kind of cornered all of us and that’s that… As you can guess they must have taken down that sprint tower by my home because I have absolutely no service whatsoever now I can’t make phone calls if someone in my family has an emergency they can’t get a hold of me I can’t do my work at my house anymore like I have been for half a decade… Everything has been completely screwed up ever since they sent me that Sim card and told me that all sprint users had to switch… We were promised a much better Netwerk with little chance of ever having problems… Now I have had more problems with this service than I could even imagine  not only do I not have service out at my house but I even have crappy service in the middle of town which is unheard of these days… What can I do? Don’t you think T-Mobile should give the people like me an option to buy us into another cell phone company that we can actually use since we  had no reason or want to switch in the first place? I have tried all the restarting of the Sim cards… I have tried restarting the networks on our phones… I have tried everything I can think of… The only thing in my head that will work is if they turn back on the sprint towers  and let T-Mobile customers runoff those as well, I mean they own them now right?… Please someone give me an answer besides they are updating their towers and things should be OK soon. I already had a tower that worked perfectly fine why take it away from me?  If things don’t change drastically soon then I have to leave this company at no fault of sprint at all which is very sad because it was nothing but a good company to me

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

unless youre in a contract currently there shouldnt be any issues leaving TMO for V..heck usually carriers will have specials to get you to leave your current carrier to come to them..which they usually will cover some of the costs involved.

 

not that im trying to push you to V..but theres always options.

 

out of curiosity..did they upgrade your sim cards away from the original Sprint sim card to the R15 TMO sim card?

 

i also came over from Sprint..i can say i have noticed zero changes other than i now have 5G where i only had 4G with Sprint. all my former problem areas reception wise are still there..so no massive improvements on my end...but no bad areas i wasnt already used to either.

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

or contact them through Facebook ..

So glad I found this- at least I know I’m not alone! I had had Sprint for years with perfect service at my house and now- almost nothing. It’s extremely frustrating as I work from home and dropped my house phone a decade ago. Seriously considering switching service providers because it doesn’t seem like something that is going to get fixed any time soon. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

have you switched to the TMO sim card yet or are you still using the one that was in your phone already while with Sprint?

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

I suspect that many in rural areas that were former Sprint have the same or similar issues.  either TMobile has worse service in your area (likely), and they have removed the Sprint service (likely), or they're upgrading the service (possibly,  bit shouldn't take weeks, nor continue to have the same issue).

I'd recommend visiting a TMobile store to get some better answers

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

My husband and I have been Sprint customers for years.  We had fairly decent cellular service in our home, maybe losing service twice in 4 years due to major storms messing with the towers.  However, for some unknown reason that makes no sense to me (I’d assume service would improve), we now often entirely lose cell service completely at our home and within a 1 mile radius ever since we were instructed to change our SIM cards upon the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.  Not only is this frustrating, but my business and sanity are suffering.  I did not choose to work with T-Mobile.  We had a contract with Sprint.  Sometimes service is fine, but then for sometimes several weeks at a time, service is completely gone.  We have tried recalibrating our phones, etc.  My husband uses a Samsung Note and I have an iPhone 12 as well as a business cell that is also iPhone.  All 3 phones stop working for calls and texts for weeks at a time.  It is so unreliable and I am ready to find another option at this point unless this can be fixed.  We have tried working with technical support who work with us a bit but then try to tell us service is just sort of weak where we live - which may be true, but why did it work consistently for several years when we had Sprint?  Why all of a sudden do I rarely have signal in my home?  Is anyone else experiencing a similar problem?  

I am experiencing the same exact issue. My wife and I have been with Sprint for years and now with Tmobile in charge service is worse. I used to  get service up at the local ski resort when I was with Sprint. Now…… “SOS only”. Even at my house I only have 1 bar when I used to have 3-4. They said reception would improve because of combined towers. Yeah not the case.

What they’re telling you is a generic response.   “Reception would improve because of combined towers” may help in _some_ locations where T-Mobile/Sprint overlapped.  Service doesn’t improve where T-Mobile decommissioned Sprint towers, and left users to use T-Mobile towers further away.  Fortunately in my area … it appears that most, if not all were ‘added’.  During the tower rebuild (esp a Sprint rebuild), you may be without service for ~1 month while the site is gutted and rebuilt (from my local experience). 

Same here… Service has been bad since I switched from Sprint to T-Mobile. I have a cell spot in my home which doesn’t help much. I’ve tried every troubleshooting step and nothing works. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

The agent may be actually correct this time.   It may a years, if ever to get service decent on T-Mobile in some areas.  If you’re in California, contact the PUC, or send a complaint to the BBB about your issue.  If you want out due to poor (or no) service, a BBB complaint will typically result in T-MObile calling you, sometimes actually letting you out of your device as well as assisting in porting.

In California, T-Mobile is obligated to serve 99% of Californians with100Mbps service, and 94% of rural Californians with 50Mbps. …. by 2026 ?

Userlevel 1
Badge

I read somewhere that T-Mobile decommissioned a lot of the Sprint towers, presumably in areas where they thought they had double coverage.  But turning off a tower is always going to cause issues for some.

 

I consider myself lucky,.I switched to T-Mobile+Sprint because Verizon is total poop in this area and for whatever reason T-Mobile kept the sprint towers -and- the new T-Mobile towers running.

 

I was told by customer service that they’re “upgrading the towers to 5G.” I had 5G with Sprint, what are they upgrading?? On and off with tech support for the last week and a half. Talked to them two days ago and they assured me the “work” would be completed in about 24 hours. 36 hours later and no improvement. I’m calling one last time and then switching to Verizon.

This is the exact same issue i am having right now… I am sitting in my home where i have averages 2-4 bars for years.  Zero bars tonight I have spent the day on line trying to get some help and the only useful thing was to seset my phones network settings which got me service for like 30 minutes.  I work from home, so this is costing me time and money and T-mobile cannot help me.  

 

the final thing the rep told me when my service went back out again was: “I wouldn’t be able to check to see whats going on. But you can call sprint to see if they can see why the network isn’t as good.  Sprint’s number is 1-888-211-4727. Also to get turther assistance with your technical issues you can call T-Mobile customer care.” 

because that makes a ton of sense when  have NO service.  thanks t-Mobile. uugh 

I would like to chime in on this with something I have recently discovered.  Like many or all of you, I too was a loyal Sprint customer since the early/mid 90s.  I think my first cell phone was bought and turned on in 1995 or 1996 via Sprint.  I was with Sprint to the very end and still have the same phone number.  That being said, for all of you who were previously with Sprint and are now disappointed with T-Mobile (like I am), please do the following: 
1.  Click this link to the T-Mobile Coverage Network:  https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/network 
2.  Click “Check your 5G coverage”
3.  Input your mailing address on file for T-Mobile; *not where you may be out an about.
4.  Check the map color codes.
5.  Is there a different colored “Square” around your home address as compared to the majority of your town/city?

I noticed in my area, there is 5G Ultimate Coverage (UC) in just about 95-97% of the city.  Yet, my address shows only 5G “Extended Range” available and drops into the 4G LTE Range almost all day, every day.  I have never seen 5G UC on my phone at my residence.  Step outside, walk one or two houses away, and it’s a miracle, 5G UC!!  I cannot prove anything yet, but a simple check with local residents who seem to be isolated by this map may be an all-telling tale if we, old Sprint customers, are being throttled or getting different (lower coverage) service.  I cannot believe that their 5G UC is “blacked out” at single residences as a technical error but more a deliberate action.  Again, I cannot prove anything, yet.  But this does look highly suspicious.  Each residence is clearly identified by a symmetrical square.  And this looks deliberate.

 

My husband and I have been Sprint customers for years.  We had fairly decent cellular service in our home, maybe losing service twice in 4 years due to major storms messing with the towers.  However, for some unknown reason that makes no sense to me (I’d assume service would improve), we now often entirely lose cell service completely at our home and within a 1 mile radius ever since we were instructed to change our SIM cards upon the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.  Not only is this frustrating, but my business and sanity are suffering.  I did not choose to work with T-Mobile.  We had a contract with Sprint.  Sometimes service is fine, but then for sometimes several weeks at a time, service is completely gone.  We have tried recalibrating our phones, etc.  My husband uses a Samsung Note and I have an iPhone 12 as well as a business cell that is also iPhone.  All 3 phones stop working for calls and texts for weeks at a time.  It is so unreliable and I am ready to find another option at this point unless this can be fixed.  We have tried working with technical support who work with us a bit but then try to tell us service is just sort of weak where we live - which may be true, but why did it work consistently for several years when we had Sprint?  Why all of a sudden do I rarely have signal in my home?  Is anyone else experiencing a similar problem?  

I am experiencing the same exact issue. My wife and I have been with Sprint for years and now with Tmobile in charge service is worse. I used to  get service up at the local ski resort when I was with Sprint. Now…… “SOS only”. Even at my house I only have 1 bar when I used to have 3-4. They said reception would improve because of combined towers. Yeah not the case.

I live in a rural area in Gilroy CA.  In my area Sprint became T Mobile a month ago and my service has gone from good enough to terrible.  I make a living with Zoom meetings and am severely impacted.  T Mobile has reset things and refreshed things 4 times now and nothing helps. 

Reply