On T-Mobile specifically: I would actually go as far as to file a complaint to the FCC arguing T-Mobile hasn't purchased/upgraded enough tower backhaul to utili

On T-Mobile specifically: I would actually go as far as to file a complaint to the FCC arguing T-Mobile hasn't purchased/upgraded enough tower backhaul to utilize the midband spectrum they already own and have active. Just having it on-air does no good if it's not even possible to saturate 50% of it. Spectrum is ultimately a public resource so it should be use it or lose it. On the utilization topic: T-Mobile was able to purchase and consolidate a ton of the available 2500mhz N41 licenses (EBS/BRS it's called). Out in my market most of the towers are hitting around 700mbps as a ceiling on 100+80mhz N41 carriers (combined with another 15mhz x 2 of N25 and N71). Should be around 2gbps with that deployed. Meanwhile TDD configuration on the UL sucks, so upload speeds have actually gone down as more N41 capacity is online because they are inefficiently using something like 90% of the airtime for downlink and handset vendors are rarely using UL-MIMO and UL-CA in devices. On poor historic licensing problems: I'm not exactly complaining that T-Mobile got N41 consolidated, EBS licenses (which covered most of this) ended up being a really scammy setup: Tons of free spectrum was doled to schools and other nonprofits, and they mostly didn't use it... they were allowed to lease it, so there was a whole industry of leasing out these EBS licenses that schools never intended to use. Just doesn't make sense, so FCC opened it up to auction some years back. On antitrust shenanigans after T-Mobile/Sprint merger: Crappy DISH was propped up to be a 4th carrier after squatting AWS-3 for a decade and only having a single test tower to show for it. Post-merger they've been building out their network but it's by no means nationwide yet, they are still mostly a MVNO in most markets (under Boost branding). Part of the terms of the merger's antitrust agreement was T-Mobile also had to make their SMR 850mhz spectrum license from Sprint purchasable by DISH, but DISH couldn't pony up the money they promised to, so now that has to go to auction. Which sucks around me because T-Mobile actually left it on-air on the old Sprint towers NIMBYs won't let them service. So I'll get service gaps when it's eventually gone, but yeah... https://specmap.sequence-omega.net/ https://specmap.sequence-omega.net/ is a really good resource for seeing who currently owns the licenses in a given area.