Hawk Analytics continues to closely assess the ever-changing dynamics of the Sprint & T-Mobile merger. Here is what we have learned most recently:
- The Sprint CDMA (aka 3G) network will likely be shut down in early 2022. All legacy Sprint customers will be switched over to the T-Mobile network. This will result in all call detail records for Sprint and T-Mobile customers to be provided in the standard T-Mobile “CDR Mediations” report format.
- The Sprint L-Site will remain for the foreseeable future. Access to the L-Site is still being granted and managed.
- All of the Sprint fax numbers have been decommissioned. You will need to submit requests through T-Mobile’s fax and/or email addresses, which are available on the Hawk Toolbox Compliance Center website. (https://support.hawkanalytics.com/resources/compliance-centers/)
- Timing Advance information is being provided in two report formats.
- The more common version is the typical T-Mobile Timing Advance file with several header rows at the top with the T-Mobile logo. These records are provided in UTC.
- The less common Excel file we’ve seen since the merger was generated by a system called “Quantum”. The Quantum system is no longer in use, but T-Mobile still occasionally provides Timing Advance information in an Excel spreadsheet with only one header row (beginning with columns for “imei” and “imsi”). Typically the information in this file should also be provided in UTC. However, sometimes the data is given in local time. Hawk Analytics strongly encourages you to follow up with T-Mobile to verify the time zone of the records when you see this file format before you upload the report and begin your analysis.
- We continue to see call detail records provided in both the typical Sprint and T-Mobile report formats. More importantly, we are increasingly seeing cell site location information from both networks in the same record. You will need to refer to cell site lists from both Sprint and T-Mobile in order to correctly map all of the data. Some files make it more obvious to determine if a cell site occurs on the T-Mobile or Sprint network, while other files give no indication at all. You will need to review the records carefully to ensure all of the mappable data is mapped. If you are a CellHawk customer, the File Upload Report can assist you with this. Hawk Support has several white papers for the different file types that can help you load the records so all of the mappable information shows up on the map in CellHawk.
As always, if you have any questions, please contact us at support@hawkanalytics.com
