Crowd of people

Opensignal & Tutela Join Forces

Earlier this week, Comlinkdata announced that it will acquire Opensignal, a company that collects crowdsourced data about the performance of cellular networks. A few years ago, Comlinkdata acquired Tutela, another company crowdsourcing performance data. It’ll be interesting to see whether Comlinkdata continues to operate Tutela and Opensignal as more-or-less independent brands.

I’ve previously argued that network evaluation involves all sorts of weird dynamics and conflicts of interest. I expect putting Tutela and Opensignal under the same roof will cause a shift in the incentives at play, but I haven’t made up my mind about the implications of that shift.

Calendar visual

Dates For T-Mobile & Sprint’s 3G Phase-Outs

T-Mobile has been moving towards phasing out its 3G network for some time, but until recently, the company had not committed to a specific date. In a recently published webpage, T-Mobile shared a deadline of July 1, 2022 for shutting down its native 3G network. Here’s an excerpt from the page:

  • As of January 1, 2022 Sprint’s older 3G (CDMA) network will be retired
  • As of June 30, 2022 Sprint’s LTE network will be retired
  • As of July 1, 2022 T-Mobile’s older 3G UMTS network will be retired

We’ve also shared that we plan to retire T-Mobile’s older GSM 2G network as well, but no date has been set. We will update this page with any additional information in the future.

With T-Mobile’s latest announcement, all of the major US networks now have dates set for their 3G phase-outs. I won’t be shocked if one or more of those dates are pushed back.


Credit to Mike Dano of Light Reading who tweeted and posted about this topic.

People shaking hands

Dish Plans To Acquire Gen Mobile

Today, Dish’s Boost Mobile announced its plan to acquire the MVNO Gen Mobile. While the deal hasn’t officially closed and will need regulatory approval, I don’t expect any major hurdles will get in the way.

Gen Mobile focuses on budget-friendly plans, and Dish may be hoping to use the brand to market services to customers that are eligible for subsidies through the government’s Lifeline program.

Dish has now acquired four carriers in a relatively short span of time:

  • Boost Mobile
  • Ting
  • Republic Wireless
  • Gen Mobile

While I don’t know how large Gen Mobile’s subscriber base is, I expect Gen Mobile has substantially fewer customers than any of the other carriers Dish has acquired.