Even after the merger of MetroPCS and T-Mobile USA, MetroPCS customers will still find themselves roaming on Sprint Nextel’s network. And T-Mobile USA may find itself footing the bill.
Right now, new MetroPCS customers can roam for free on Sprint Nextel’s CDMA network when outside of native coverage. If T-Mobile USA follows through with its plan to gradually retire MetroPCS’s CDMA network in favor of LTE, more and more of the prepaid carrier’s customers may find themselves on Sprint Nextel’s CDMA network should they not make the transition to LTE. Those CDMA customers won’t be able to connect to T-Mobile USA’s GSM-based network for voice calls because it uses GSM call flow, while MetroPCS and Sprint Nextel use CDMA.
T-Mobile USA is in the midst of rolling out its LTE network, with plans to migrate MetroPCS’s LTE phones to that network. The process may be largely transparent to the customer; T-Mobile USA says it can be accomplished with over-the-air SIM card updates, since both networks use the 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum band. However, phones running on MetroPCS’s CDMA network, which constitute a vast majority of MetroPCS’ current customer base, do not have SIM cards.
Voice-over-LTE could be a key technology for the pending T-Mobile USA/MetroPCS merger. MetroPCS recently rolled out the technology on one device – the LG Connect smartphone – and in one market – Dallas. VoLTE allows voice calls to be transmitted as a data session over the LTE network instead of having current voice calls placed over LTE devices travel over the carrier’s CDMA network. Once implemented across more devices and additional markets, along with consumer adoption, MetroPCS will be able to gradually turn down its CDMA network, freeing up valuable spectrum resources and limiting its roaming reliance on Sprint Nextel.
