Namely, we now know for certain that the Sprint brand will effectively be terminated on August 2, in keeping with a rumor from almost three months ago that seemed extremely reliable from the get-go. The nation’s third and fourth-largest wireless service providers will essentially bring their resources together under the T-Mobile umbrella on that date, which means “most legacy Sprint stores” are set for a major rebranding operation with a “fresh coat of magenta paint and fresh deals on the way.”

Naturally, the latter part sounds far more interesting than a change of colors, but Sprint customers will have to wait until sometime “next week” to check out T-Mo’s “new, aggressive offers” aimed at enticing everyone to stick with the “unified” mobile network operator.

Of course, August 2 is internally dubbed “Day 1” of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, with April 1 considered “Day 0” and the next big phase of the unification process reportedly scheduled for January 2021. In other words, Sprint’s 4G LTE signal will certainly not be switched off next month, and T-Mo will continue to try to transfer customers to the combined and vastly improved carrier for many months to come. 

Meanwhile, it might take years for T-Mobile to fully realize its dream of delivering a 5G network “second to none”, up-leveling the competition in terms of both coverage and speed and “better competing” on price, so although undoubtedly important, August 2 shouldn’t be considered the day T-Mobile solves all its post-merger problems.