T-Mobile announced Wednesday that its planned March 31st shutdown of Sprint’s 3G network is happening as anticipated. The company said in a statement that the move was made as part of the shutdown procedure.
Earlier sources indicated that the closure date was being delayed to May 31st, marking the second delay; T-Mobile originally planned to phase out the network in January but said in October that it would extend the deadline to March 31st.
Dish bought Boost Mobile in July 2020 as a condition of the T-Mobile / Sprint merger, which closed in 2020, with the intention of dislodging Sprint as the fourth wireless carrier in the United States. Following T-announcement Mobile’s that it would phase out Sprint’s CDMA network, the two companies traded barbs; Dish chairman Charlie Ergen compared T-Mobile to the Grinch; T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert wrote in a blog post that Dish was “dragging their feet” in upgrading customers to the superior 4G/5G world.
The shutdown’s impact on Dish’s Boost Mobile subscribers is at stake. In a July 2021 letter, the Department of Justice expressed “grave concerns” about Sprint’s legacy network shutdown and encouraged the firms to take “all appropriate actions” to mitigate the impact on network customers.
