Well, that didn’t take long. It was less than two weeks ago that Dish essentially formalized its dissatisfaction with T-Mobile’s Sprint CDMA network shutdown timeline by filing a complaint to the FCC, and the “Un-carrier” is already striking back with its own lengthy letter addressed to Jessica Rosenworcel, the Commission’s Acting Chairwoman.
Unsurprisingly, Magenta sees the delicate situation in which millions of Boost Mobile customers could find themselves come January 2022 differently than Dish, pointing the finger at the satellite TV market veteran turned aspiring wireless service provider for “not holding up its end of the bargain” that basically got the T-Mobile/Sprint merger across the finish line.
The sooner CDMA goes away, the better
As you may already know, CDMA is an obsolete technology that no longer provides satisfactory service from both a general consumer standpoint, and perhaps more importantly, a public safety angle. As such, T-Mo vehemently disagrees with Dish’s “mischaracterization” of its swift transition away from CDMA as an “anti-competitive” move.
If anything, the company strongly believes its CDMA shutdown operation can be considered “pro-competitive”, resulting in “significant public benefits” as former Sprint subscribers and current Boost customers are migrated to a vastly superior 4G LTE or 5G network.
T-Mo claims it provided Dish with ample notice of its plans for Sprint’s legacy CDMA network, in full accordance with an agreement “freely negotiated” over a year and a half ago, which both the FCC and DOJ then reviewed and approved “in connection with their clearance of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.”
What can Boost Mobile customers do to get out of this pickle?
The fairly obvious and easy answer to that question is probably to turn your back on the Dish-owned, T-Mobile-hosted MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) before 2021 ends and go with a different option.
If instead you choose to give Dish another chance to right all its wrongs from the last few months, you might be in for a very nasty surprise at the beginning of next year. Granted, “surprise” may not be the best way to describe a situation you’ve been repeatedly warned about, so at the end of the day, the ball is firmly in your court.
Even if you don’t fully agree with T-Mobile‘s arguments and feel that Dish could have been given more time to work towards launching its own 5G network before needing to migrate everyone to newer-than-3G cellular standards, the fact of the matter is that your wireless service is in danger of being terminated relatively soon if you stick to Boost Mobile. If that doesn’t scare you, well, it should.
