T-Mobile delays the Sprint 3G network shutdown date as DISH forces its hand

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T-Mobile delays the Sprint 3G network shutdown date as DISH forces its hand
T-Mobile will shut Sprint's legacy CDMA network down on April 1, 2022, instead of January 1, 2022, and the press release announcing the delay in Sprint's 2G/3G network sunset couldn't sound more sour if the Un-carrier was eating lemons raw while typing it. 

After acquiring Sprint’s Boost prepaid businesses and customers, DISH was given access to the network of the resulting new T-Mobile carrier for no less than seven years, to ease the transition of Boost's subscribers while it's building its own independent 5G broadband network.

DISH also counted on a three-year legacy Sprint CDMA network shutdown period and expressed surprise when T-Mobile announced plans to sunset it earlier than planned, on December 31, 2021.

Cue the outrage, the letters to the DoJ, or DISH's switch to AT&T as a "primary" 5G network threat, and it forced T-Mobile's hand to avoid further trouble by extending the Sprint 3G network shutdown by three months. Previously, it had also postponed its own 3G network shutdown date to April 1, 2022 (formerly October 1st, 2021), and it is now evening out the Sprint 3G sunset date, too.

T-Mobile's Sprint CDMA sunset delay announcement is full of allusions and potshots against some "partners" it says did nothing to prepare their customers for the shutdown despite all the warnings:


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T-Mobile is leaving very little doubt who are these "partners" it expects to do the "right thing" and come better prepared when spring knocks on their subscriber's doors and it will be interesting to hear DISH's reaction on the Sprint 3G network shutdown extension to March 31, 2022. After all, Verizon pushed its 3G network shutdown plans by a full year to the end of 2022, so DISH may deem the 3-month extension insufficient still.

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