T-Mobile Will Soon Say Goodbye to Sprint (and Robocalls?)

It’s been a big week for T-Mobile. The company held a press event to announce new services that’ll help its customers eliminate spam calls. This wasn’t the only big news T-Mobile announced. The company also confirmed it is close to merging the Sprint and T-Mobile brands under one umbrella.

Declaring War on Spam Calls

T-Mobile announced this week that it wants to protect its customers from robocalling. The wireless carrier is bundling a bunch of its tools into a package it is calling Scam Shield.

The program includes free caller ID, free call blocking, a free enhanced caller ID that confirms a number is verified, and an open second proxy number for filtering out scam calls. This proxy number can be shared among the phones on a family share plan.

If these measures are not sufficient enough, then T-Mobile is allowing customers to change their phone numbers for free. Customers who were paying for these services will now receive them for free. The new Scam Shield service is expected to roll out on July 25 and will be available to all T-Mobile, Sprint, and Metro customers.

Wireless customers might also enjoy CallHero, which sends robocallers to voicemail and uses AI to let legitimate calls through.

No More Sprint Customers

T-Mobile and Sprint became one company when T-Mobile and Sprint put the final ink on their acquisition deal. Starting August 2, T-Mobile will no longer allow new customers to sign up under the Sprint brand. T-Mobile will become the primary brand, and Sprint will be moved to the background. The biggest change will be in their retail stores – all yellow Sprint stores will get a new coat of T-Mobile magenta.

T-Mobile confirmed to CNET it isn’t sunsetting the Sprint brand quite yet. A fair number of customers are still loyal to the Sprint brand, and the wireless carrier does not want to alienate those customers.

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“We have tens of millions of people who are on Sprint, who chose Sprint on purpose. And they’re going to learn, and they are already learning, that that’s part of T-Mobile now,” Sievert said. “But we’re not going to turn off that brand association because it’s what they bought and it’s still who we are.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert

To sweeten the deal, T-Mobile said it will announce “new, aggressive offers” sometime next week. These discounts will go into effect early next month as the wireless company enters the next and near-final stage of its merger with Sprint. These discounts will attract new customers by “saving people money, challenging the competition and raising the bar for the industry.”