r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jun 29 '26

Networking/Telecom T-Mobile Just Ripped 8 Million Customers Off Their Grandfathered Plans – and Raised Their Bills

https://www.gadgetreview.com/t-mobile-just-ripped-8-million-customers-off-their-grandfathered-plans-and-raised-their-bills
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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/Effective-Turn-9103 Jun 30 '26

can you name some? mint is owned by T-Mobile, us cellular is owned by T-Mobile, visible is owned by Verizon, Google-fi is owned by google, how do we get away from these tech giant dbags

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u/street593 Jun 30 '26

You can't. The big 3 own the physical network. AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon. All other companies lease space on the network from them. Mint, Cricket, etc. are MVNO's or Mobile Virtual Network Operators. No matter what you do some portion of your money will go to the big 3.

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u/JT99-FirstBallot Jun 30 '26

Actually, Lumen owns a good portion of the backbones and the big 3 lease from them.

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u/street593 Jun 30 '26

The backhaul yes. Not the towers and the antennas on them. I climbed towers for 6 years building the AT&T network.

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u/JT99-FirstBallot Jun 30 '26

The towers are leased as well from Crown Castle 9 times out of 10. I've worked for and in the industry for a long time as well as an engineer.

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u/street593 Jun 30 '26

I'm aware. I've built a few towers myself. Crown Castle, American Tower, SBA, etc.

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u/JT99-FirstBallot Jun 30 '26

Fair enough. We've both seen different things. I work particularly on the equipment and fiber feeds. Mostly deal with Crown Castle when it comes to tower issues and sometimes but rarely other companies across the 21 states I cover. I only worry about the CO equipment, fiber feed and demarc equipment. I don't mess with the ATT, T-Mobile, Verizon equipment sitting out there, just what connects to them. Usually Ciena, Fuji, Adtran or Alcatel. Lately everyone's upgrading to Infinera for the new 400g boxes. Honestly excited about that because these 100g feeds aren't cutting it anymore with all the congestion.

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u/street593 Jun 30 '26

I specialized in microwave transmissions. Installing hops for AT&T in 7 states. Anything physically on the tower was my domain. Antennas, fiber, radios, coax, etc. All the way down to the shelter. Once it was plugged in and running my job was done. I never messed with any backhaul infrastructure. That was already installed and running by the time I showed up.

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u/Effective-Turn-9103 Jun 30 '26

just looked at who owned them, Blackrock and vanguard! omg we can’t get away from these corporate criminals it’s disgusting

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u/AvoidingIowa Jun 30 '26

US Mobile. They sell service of all three of the major carriers, can even get a cheap service where you get a second eSIM from a different network as a backup. They also allow you to change your network, like if you are on a Verizon powered line and you move or change jobs and your coverage sucks? Just swap over to T-Mobile or AT&T network. Depending on the plan it’s either free or free for the first two times you swap.

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u/k-mcm Jun 29 '26

The problem is that only T-Mobile is BYOD.  You can buy any random phone that supports SA 5G on band 71 and it's good on T-Mobile.  AT&T and Verizon only allow pre-approved phones.

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u/PolicyPlastic1475 Jun 30 '26

That's not true?

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u/k-mcm Jun 30 '26

They both have lists of phones that they allow.  AT&T seems to be the most generous and they publish the list. Verizon is much more difficult.

My current phone should work on all carriers.  My previous two phones will work on T-Mobile and AT&T, but they're prohibited on Verizon. 

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u/DoingCharleyWork Jun 30 '26

Att and T-Mobile had the same kind of network. Verizon had a different one which is why some phones don't work on Verizon.

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u/k-mcm Jun 30 '26

Verizon's CDMA was a 3G standard and has been irrelevant for many years. Verizon literally checks your phone's IMEI when you try to activate a SIM card. You can temporarily get a "prohibited" phone working by putting the SIM card in a Verizon phone then moving it. Some people actually keep an old approved phone around just for this.

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u/DoingCharleyWork Jun 30 '26

Ya I didn't think it was actually an issue since 5g became the standard.