Technologies

T-Mobile’s 3 Years With Sprint: What’s Changed Since the Merger

T-Mobile has expanded its 5G network and kept plan and phone prices down, but other premerger pledges are still unfulfilled.

Three years ago, T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint was finalized, and the nation’s list of top carriers shrank from four to three. At the time, T-Mobile made promises that the merger would be positive for consumers and the larger mobile industry — and though that’s been more true than not, there are still some pledges that haven’t been seen through.

But it also hasn’t led to a worse situation for consumers, at least not yet. Though having three major carriers to choose from instead of four is worrisome for the future (with Dish so far failing to pose a real challenge), competition has kept plan prices relatively stable and even led to big savings on top-tier phones. Carriers have continued to build out their respective 5G networks, leading to new 5G home internet options for people who aren’t connected to broadband (or are looking for an alternative to their traditional cable options). It isn’t the rosiest future, but it isn’t as bad as some critics had feared.

In an April 10 blog post, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert trumpeted how far the carrier has come in three years, citing everything from better 5G service to the greater availability of home internet to lower prices for all, even people signing up with other carriers.

Indeed, folding in Sprint’s midband 5G towers has given T-Mobile a lead on 5G, letting it achieve nationwide coverage of more than 200 million Americans with faster 5G in 2021, years ahead of both Verizon and AT&T. T-Mobile has also improved 5G access for rural customers, Sievert said.

T-Mobile piggybacked off its larger 5G network to launch and grow its 5G home internet service. For a $50 monthly subscription fee (if they set up automatic payments), the service offers customers higher-speed connectivity compared with dial-up, costly satellite, or underdeveloped DSL or cable alternatives. Though the speeds aren’t as fast or reliable as those of a good cable or fiber connection, T-Mobile’s 5G service can reach consumers who aren’t hooked up to the highest-speed internet networks.

And as Sievert notes, competition between carriers has kept prices on par — for instance, Verizon’s comparable 5G Home service also starts at $50 per month.

Keeping phone plans low

As far as phone plan prices go, the carrier landscape after T-Mobile and Sprint’s merger has preserved competition in consumers’ favor, at least for the time being. Indeed, carrier discounts and deals have even led to a boom in premium phones, which climbed to up to 18% of the phone market early this year, according to IDC analyst Nabila Popal (up from 10% before the pandemic). Carriers have been desperate to get consumers signed to three-year contracts, so they’ve subsidized most or all of the price for phones like the iPhone 14 or Samsung Galaxy S23 series.

T-Mobile remains one the last of the big three providers to still offer two-year options on most of its devices, a more consumer-friendly deal. (A notable exception are pricey foldables like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold line, which requires a three-year commitment to get an upgrade discount.) That said, the carrier has tied some of its best perks and promotions — like free Apple TV Plus and its best device trade-in deals — to a requirement to be on its priciest Magenta Max plans.

On the low end of the price spectrum, T-Mobile did fulfill a premerger promise to offer a $15 per month plan with unlimited talk and text as well as 2.5GB of data, which the carrier has since increased to 3.5GB in compliance with its proposal to increase this cheap plan’s data allowance by 500MB per year. It also has said it’ll keep Mint Mobile’s $15 per month plan should its planned $1.35 billion purchase of the Ryan Reynolds’ owned prepaid carrier go through.

Another major element in T-Mobile and Sprint’s merger proposal was offering low-cost or free data plans; discounted laptops and tablets; and mobile hotspot access to 10 million low-income households. What the carrier branded as Project 10 Million has so far followed through on providing $4.8 billion in services and supplying 5.3 million students with devices through the end of 2022, a T-Mobile spokesperson told CNET.

The carrier hadn’t proposed a deadline for hitting the 10 million marker, but it said the program, which launched in 2020, would last five years, meaning it will expire in 2025. T-Mobile hasn’t said what’ll happen after its commitment period ends.

Merger misses: jobs fall short of promises

T-Mobile doesn’t seem to have fulfilled other pledges made for the merger. The biggest involves jobs, with then-CEO John Legere saying the new combined company would create new jobs and hire 11,000 more workers by 2024. The new T-Mobile started with around 80,000 employees in 2020, according to regulatory filings, but after losing around 5,000 employees in 2021 due to layoffs, along with more jobs shed among network and engineering as well as retail employees, the carrier so far seems to have fallen short of its promise.

When reached for comment, T-Mobile pushed back on the idea that the carrier employs fewer people now than it did before the merger. But it didn’t share exact personnel numbers, saying only that thousands of jobs have been created. T-Mobile also didn’t address whether it’ll make the 11,000-person hiring goal set by Legere.

«Before we merged with Sprint, we said we’d have more employees as a combined company than the two standalone companies would have had on their own without the merger — and we have done just that,» said a T-Mobile spokesperson. In the years since the merger, the spokesperson said, the carrier has also «created thousands of jobs for vendors and partners.»

Granted, the jobs-related proposal was made by a different CEO and before a pandemic led to layoffs and challenging economic conditions across many industries. But the current situation is still gloomier than T-Mobile had originally proposed.

The merger also shifted the balance of power among carriers. In their premerger assurances, T-Mobile and Sprint said they’d divest some of their assets to Dish, turning the satellite TV provider into the nation’s de facto fourth-largest carrier and saving the merger. Dish acquired Sprint’s prepaid mobile brand Boost and has the option to pay $3.59 billion for 800MHz wireless spectrum to form its own 5G network, though it may end up passing on the offer to save money after finishing testing the spectrum. In the meantime, Dish has secured agreements with AT&T and T-Mobile to use their 5G networks while it builds its own.

Though Dish finally opened sign-ups for its 5G service back in August, and launched its own $25 prepaid service in December, progress has been slow to get the carrier in line with the far more established T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T. For now, Dish isn’t a serious threat to its bigger siblings.

What comes after the merger timeline expires?

The US Department of Justice required a lot of assurances, like those listed above, to approve the T-Mobile and Sprint merger, but they all have expiration dates. This has implications for who’s helped by the new T-Mobile’s plans — like students aided by Project 10 Million, which lasts through 2025, as well as regular consumers through plan pricing.

As part of the merger, T-Mobile agreed to lock in pricing on its plans for three years, though it’s unclear what will happen after. Last year, the carrier introduced the similarly named Price Lock as a broad feature for most of its prepaid and postpaid mobile as well as broadband internet plans, but only new customers qualify.

There are still a few other merger pledges stretching into the years to come. By the end of 2023, T-Mobile must provide 5G service to 97% of the population, and within six years 99%. The carrier must cover 85% of the rural American population by the end of this year, and 90% within six years. But beyond that, it’s unclear what T-Mobile has in store for consumers.

Technologies

The Future’s Here: Testing Out Gemini’s Live Camera Mode

Gemini Live’s new camera mode feels like the future when it works. I put it through a stress test with my offbeat collectibles.

«I just spotted your scissors on the table, right next to the green package of pistachios. Do you see them?»

Gemini Live’s chatty new camera feature was right. My scissors were exactly where it said they were, and all I did was pass my camera in front of them at some point during a 15-minute live session of me giving the AI chatbot a tour of my apartment. Google’s been rolling out the new camera mode to all Android phones using the Gemini app for free after a two-week exclusive to Pixel 9 (including the new Pixel 9A) and Galaxy S5 smartphones. So, what exactly is this camera mode and how does it work?

When you start a live session with Gemini, you now how have the option to enable a live camera view, where you can talk to the chatbot and ask it about anything the camera sees. Not only can it identify objects, but you can also ask questions about them — and it works pretty well for the most part. In addition, you can share your screen with Gemini so it can identify things you surface on your phone’s display.

When the new camera feature popped up on my phone, I didn’t hesitate to try it out. In one of my longer tests, I turned it on and started walking through my apartment, asking Gemini what it saw. It identified some fruit, ChapStick and a few other everyday items with no problem. I was wowed when it found my scissors.

That’s because I hadn’t mentioned the scissors at all. Gemini had silently identified them somewhere along the way and then recalled the location with precision. It felt so much like the future, I had to do further testing.

My experiment with Gemini Live’s camera feature was following the lead of the demo that Google did last summer when it first showed off these live video AI capabilities. Gemini reminded the person giving the demo where they’d left their glasses, and it seemed too good to be true. But as I discovered, it was very true indeed.

Gemini Live will recognize a whole lot more than household odds and ends. Google says it’ll help you navigate a crowded train station or figure out the filling of a pastry. It can give you deeper information about artwork, like where an object originated and whether it was a limited edition piece.

It’s more than just a souped-up Google Lens. You talk with it, and it talks to you. I didn’t need to speak to Gemini in any particular way — it was as casual as any conversation. Way better than talking with the old Google Assistant that the company is quickly phasing out.

Google also released a new YouTube video for the April 2025 Pixel Drop showcasing the feature, and there’s now a dedicated page on the Google Store for it.

To get started, you can go live with Gemini, enable the camera and start talking. That’s it.

Gemini Live follows on from Google’s Project Astra, first revealed last year as possibly the company’s biggest «we’re in the future» feature, an experimental next step for generative AI capabilities, beyond your simply typing or even speaking prompts into a chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. It comes as AI companies continue to dramatically increase the skills of AI tools, from video generation to raw processing power. Similar to Gemini Live, there’s Apple’s Visual Intelligence, which the iPhone maker released in a beta form late last year.

My big takeaway is that a feature like Gemini Live has the potential to change how we interact with the world around us, melding our digital and physical worlds together just by holding your camera in front of almost anything.

I put Gemini Live to a real test

The first time I tried it, Gemini was shockingly accurate when I placed a very specific gaming collectible of a stuffed rabbit in my camera’s view. The second time, I showed it to a friend in an art gallery. It identified the tortoise on a cross (don’t ask me) and immediately identified and translated the kanji right next to the tortoise, giving both of us chills and leaving us more than a little creeped out. In a good way, I think.

I got to thinking about how I could stress-test the feature. I tried to screen-record it in action, but it consistently fell apart at that task. And what if I went off the beaten path with it? I’m a huge fan of the horror genre — movies, TV shows, video games — and have countless collectibles, trinkets and what have you. How well would it do with more obscure stuff — like my horror-themed collectibles?

First, let me say that Gemini can be both absolutely incredible and ridiculously frustrating in the same round of questions. I had roughly 11 objects that I was asking Gemini to identify, and it would sometimes get worse the longer the live session ran, so I had to limit sessions to only one or two objects. My guess is that Gemini attempted to use contextual information from previously identified objects to guess new objects put in front of it, which sort of makes sense, but ultimately, neither I nor it benefited from this.

Sometimes, Gemini was just on point, easily landing the correct answers with no fuss or confusion, but this tended to happen with more recent or popular objects. For example, I was surprised when it immediately guessed one of my test objects was not only from Destiny 2, but was a limited edition from a seasonal event from last year.

At other times, Gemini would be way off the mark, and I would need to give it more hints to get into the ballpark of the right answer. And sometimes, it seemed as though Gemini was taking context from my previous live sessions to come up with answers, identifying multiple objects as coming from Silent Hill when they were not. I have a display case dedicated to the game series, so I could see why it would want to dip into that territory quickly.

Gemini can get full-on bugged out at times. On more than one occasion, Gemini misidentified one of the items as a made-up character from the unreleased Silent Hill: f game, clearly merging pieces of different titles into something that never was. The other consistent bug I experienced was when Gemini would produce an incorrect answer, and I would correct it and hint closer at the answer — or straight up give it the answer, only to have it repeat the incorrect answer as if it was a new guess. When that happened, I would close the session and start a new one, which wasn’t always helpful.

One trick I found was that some conversations did better than others. If I scrolled through my Gemini conversation list, tapped an old chat that had gotten a specific item correct, and then went live again from that chat, it would be able to identify the items without issue. While that’s not necessarily surprising, it was interesting to see that some conversations worked better than others, even if you used the same language.

Google didn’t respond to my requests for more information on how Gemini Live works.

I wanted Gemini to successfully answer my sometimes highly specific questions, so I provided plenty of hints to get there. The nudges were often helpful, but not always. Below are a series of objects I tried to get Gemini to identify and provide information about.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for April 26, #1407

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,407 for April 26. Hint: Fans of a certain musical group will rock out with this puzzle.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle isn’t too tough. The letters are fairly common, and fans of a certain rock band might get a kick out of the answer. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

There is one vowel in today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint No. 3: Start letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with the letter C.

Wordle hint No. 4: Rock out

Today’s Wordle answer is the name of a legendary English rock band.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a violent confrontation.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is CLASH.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, April 25, No. 1406 was KNOWN.

Recent Wordle answers

April 21, No. 1402: SPATE

April 22, No. 1403: ARTSY

April 23, No. 1404: OZONE.

April 24, No. 1405: GENIE

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Don’t be afraid to use our tip sheet ranking all the letters in the alphabet by frequency of uses. In short, you want starter words that lean heavy on E, A and R, and don’t contain Z, J and Q.

Some solid starter words to try:

ADIEU

TRAIN

STARE

NOISE

Technologies

T-Mobile Adds New Top 5G Plans, T-Satellite and New 5-Year Price Locks

The new top unlimited plans, Experience More and Experience Beyond, shave some costs and add data and satellite options.

Just two years after expanding its lineup of cellular plans, T-Mobile this week announced two new plans that replace its Go5G Plus and Go5G Next offerings, refreshed its prepaid Metro line and wrapped them all in a promised five-year pricing guarantee.

To convert more subscribers, the carrier is also offering up to $800 to help customers pay off phone balances when switching from another carrier.

In a briefing with CNET, Jon Friar, president of T-Mobile’s consumer group, explained why the company is revamping and simplifying its array of mobile plans. «The pain point that’s out there over the last couple of years is rising costs all around consumers,» Friar said. «For us to be able to bring more value and even lower prices on [plans like] Experience More versus our former Go5G Plus is a huge win for consumers.»

The new plans went into effect April 23.

With these changes, CNET is already hard at work updating our picks for Best T-Mobile Plans, so check back soon for our recommendations.

More Experiences to define the T-Mobile experience

The top of the new T-Mobile postpaid lineup is two new plans: Experience More and Experience Beyond.

Experience More is the next generation of the Go5G Plus plan, which has unlimited 5G and 4G LTE access and unlimited Premium Data (download speeds up to 418Mbps and upload speeds up to 31Mbps). High-speed hotspot data is bumped up to 60GB from 50GB per month. The monthly price is now $5 lower per line than Go5G Plus.

The Experience More plan also gets free T-Satellite with Starlink service (the new name for T-Mobile’s satellite feature that uses Starlink’s constellation of satellites) through the end of 2025. Although T-Satellite is still officially in beta until July, customers can continue to get free access to the beta starting now. At the start of the new year, the service will cost $10 per month, a $5 drop from T-Mobile’s originally announced pricing. T-Satellite will be open to customers of other carriers for the same pricing beginning in July.

The new top-tier plan, Experience Beyond, also comes in $5 per line cheaper than its predecessor, Go5G Next. It has 250GB of high-speed hotspot data per month, up from 50GB, and more data when you’re traveling outside the US: 30GB in Canada and Mexico (versus 15GB) and 15GB in 215 countries (up from 5GB). T-Satellite service is included in the Experience Beyond plan.

However, one small change to the Experience plans affects that pricing: Taxes and fees, previously included in the Go5G Plus and Go5G Next prices, are now broken out separately. T-Mobile recently announced that one such fee, the Regulatory Programs and Telco Recovery Fee, would increase up to 50 cents per month.

According to T-Mobile, the Experience Beyond rates and features will be «rolling out soon» for customers currently on the Go5G Next plan.

The Essentials plan is staying in the lineup at the same cost of $60 per month for a single line, the same 50GB of Premium Data and unlimited 5G and 4G LTE data. High-speed hotspot data is an optional $10 add-on, as is T-Satellite access, for $15 (both per month).

Also still in the mix is the Essentials Saver plan, an affordable option that has ranked high in CNET’s Best Cellphone Plans recommendations.

Corresponding T-Mobile plans, such as those for military, first responders and people age 55 and older are also getting refreshed with the new lineup.

T-Mobile’s plan shakeup is being driven in part by the current economic climate. Explaining the rationale behind the price reductions and the streamlined number of plans, Mike Katz, president of marketing, innovation and experience at T-Mobile told CNET, «We’re in a weird time right now where prices everywhere are going up and they’ve happened over the last several years. We felt like there was an opportunity to compete with some simplicity, but more importantly, some peace of mind for customers.»

Existing customers who want to switch to one of the new plans can do so at the same rates offered to new customers. Or, if a current plan still works for them, they can continue without changes (although keep in mind that T-Mobile earlier this year increased prices for some legacy plans).

Five years of price stability

It’s nearly impossible to think about prices these days without warily eyeing how tariffs and US economic policy will affect what we pay for things. So it’s not surprising to see carriers implement some cost stability into their plans. For instance, Verizon recently locked prices for three years on their plans.

Now, T-Mobile is building a five-year price guarantee for its T-Mobile and Metro plans. That pricing applies to talk, text and data amounts — not necessarily taxes and other fees that can fluctuate.

Given the uncertain outlook, it seems counterintuitive to lock in a longer rate. When asked about this, Katz said, «We feel like our job is to solve pain points for customers and we feel like this helps with this exact sentiment. It shifts the risk from customers to us. We’ll take the risk so they don’t have to.»

The price hold applies to new customers signing up for the plans as well as current customers switching to one. T-Mobile is offering the same deals and pricing to new and existing subscribers. Also, the five-year deal applies to pricing; it’s not a five-year plan commitment.

More money and options to encourage switchers

The promise of a five-year price guarantee is also intended to lure people from other carriers, particularly AT&T and Verizon. As further incentive, T-Mobile is offering up to $800 per line (distributed via a virtual prepaid Mastercard) to help pay off other carriers’ device contracts. This is a limited-time offer. There are also options to trade in old devices, including locked phones, to get up to four new flagship phones.

Or, if getting out of a contract isn’t an issue, T-Mobile can offer $200 in credit (up to $800 for four lines) to bring an existing number to the network.

Four new Metro prepaid plans

On the prepaid side, T-Mobile is rolling out four new Metro plans, which are also covered by the new five-year price guarantee:

• Metro Starter costs $25 per line per month for a family of four and there is no need to bring an existing number. (The cost is $105 the first month.)

• Metro Starter Plus runs $40 per month for a new phone, unlimited talk, text and 5G data when bringing an existing number. For $65 per month, new customers can get two lines and two new Samsung A15 phones. No autopay is required.

• Metro Flex Unlimited is $30 per line per month with autopay for four lines ($125 the first month) with unlimited talk, text and 5G data.

• Metro Flex Unlimited Plus costs $60 per line per month, then $35 for lines two and three and then lowers the price of the fourth line to $10 per month as more family members are added. Adding a tablet or smartwatch to an existing line costs $5. And streaming video, such as from the included Amazon Prime membership, comes through at HD quality.

See more: If you’re looking for phone plans, you may also be looking for a new cell phone. Here are CNET’s picks.