T-Mobile and Sprint officially became one company this year, but Sprint’s former network still exists as a separate entity. T-Mobile customers had the ability to roam Sprint’s cell towers in September (at least with the right devices), and if recent news is correct, the legacy network could only last another year.
T-Mobile has reportedly started sending out notices to its business customers, stating that the company will close Sprint’s CDMA network “on or around January 1, 2022” in full. Devices that support Sprint’s LTE connection will continue to work after that date, but only CDMA phones can not be connected. T-Mobile will no longer activate CDMA devices after January 1, 2021, so if you are nostalgic and want to put your SIM in an old phone, you only have a few days to switch.
It is noteworthy that the source specifically refers to business customers, so the closing times for regular T-Mobile subscribers may be different. T-Mobile had earlier said it would block 3G access on its own network by January 1, 2021 and close devices that do not support Voice over LTE.
