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New Cold water from an Android Police contributor.
Shawn DeCesari:

Big deal, it'll switch between Sprint and T-Mobile. Those carriers have nearly identical coverage footprints and both rely heavily on roaming agreements (T-Mobile roams on AT&T and Sprint roams on Verizon). There's a very real possibility that Google's MVNO won't allow roaming, and should that be the case, your coverage footprint just got cut almost in half.

Further, neither T-Mobile nor Sprint currently allow MVNOs to use their "capacity" bands for LTE. That means no bands 12 (T-Mobile), 26, or 41 (Sprint). While that may not sound like a big deal, keep in mind that bands 4 (T-Mobile) and 25 (Sprint) - the only LTE bands you'll likely have access to - are on 1,700 and 1,900 MHz respectively. That means building penetration will be atrocious. Additionally, T-Mobile's HSPA+ (3G) network runs on 1,700 and 1,900 MHz as well, and will have equally atrocious building issues. In practical terms, this means your phone will most certainly spend a noticeable amount of time on T-Mobile's EDGE (2G) or Sprint's EV-DO (3G) networks, both of which run slower than cold molasses. Let's also not forget that every carrier, Sprint and T-Mobile included, give lower traffic priority to wholesale (MVNO) subscribers as opposed to branded customers. Enjoy that while at a bar inside a brick building in New York City on a Friday night.


Good WiFi calling would reduce the cellular issues. But it's not at all clear that WiFi is up to the task (nation-wide) yet. Almost nothing is going to help when one is out on the roads in the Badlands in SD and similar places, especially not WiFi, but we'll see.

I'm interested to hear how this works on international travel. It might have a good market there (again assuming WiFi calling works well enough).

Cheers,
Scott.
New And the roaming agreements are at the whim of the main carrier
Verizon suspends roaming when their infrastructure comes under stress (understandable) but then does not reestablish the service when things are back to normal. E.g. Sprint roaming on Verizon in Vermont ended when hurricane Irene passed through in 2011. The footprint may have a lot of unexpected holes in it if one relies on Verizon's coverage map to decide.
     Google rumored to become an MVNO - (Another Scott) - (7)
         actually google should buy sprint and t-mobile - (boxley) - (2)
             That does make some sense. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                 t-mobile is the cheapest in the business - (boxley)
         More. - (Another Scott)
         This would be great! Rumored capability to switch between T and Sprint based on signal strength - (Another Scott)
         Cold water from an Android Police contributor. - (Another Scott) - (1)
             And the roaming agreements are at the whim of the main carrier - (scoenye)

It's like you ran OCR on a photo of a Scrabble board from a game where JavaScript reserved words counted for triple points.
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