T-Mobile is going to let the ghost of Sprint, which the former company first moved to acquire in 2018, stick around for a few months longer.
The years-long process of merging of the two companies is nearly complete, but one nagging headache remains: Sprint’s aging CDMA network, which provides service to 3G customers. Some of those customers are actually on Boost Mobile, a former Sprint subsidiary that was sold to Dish Network as part of the acquisition terms.
T-Mobile had previously set an end-of-2021 deadline for unplugging Sprint’s 3G network, but in a statement the company blames unnamed “partners” for delaying the process and forcing a three-month delay. So now the former Sprint CDMA network will close up shop on March 31, 2022 rather than at the start of the new year.
(If you’re confused about the distinction between older networks like CDMA,
“Recently it’s become increasingly clear that some of [our] partners haven’t followed through on their responsibility to help their customers through this shift,” a
It’s likely that at least one of the unnamed partners — if there is more than one at all — is Dish. Back in April 2021, the Boost Mobile owner appealed to the Federal Communications Commission for help, noting, in part, “[w]e believe that T-Mobile’s actions raise significant competition and public interest concerns.”
As The Verge pointed out,
In
The corporate back-and-forth here that seems to skew in T-Mobile’s favor is undermined to some extent by
It’s a messy situation that apparently still hasn’t been fully resolved. Mashable reached out to Boost Mobile via Dish and we’ll update this story when we hear back.