Carrier support for IPhone 8 A1863

To be really clear, Sprint won’t support the phone. It isn’t anything that Apple can fix. they are trying to cover for their business policy. Verizon will say they won’t, either, but at least with Verizon you can escalate to a tier 2 tech who can add the phone’s MEID to their database. You can try that with Sprint, but they can be pretty stubborn.

Sprint has historically been very stubborn about not supporting devices you did not buy from Sprint itself. As silly as it may sound, that’s been their policy for decades, and there is nothing illegal about it.

Prior to LTE networks, the other carriers were also often very stubborn about forcing people to buy their devices from the carrier whose network they wanted to use.

Yes, that is correct, Sprint especially does not take carry in phones that are not in there database and doesn't accept phones that cannot work on the CDMA network.

Well, the Sprint brand is the one disappearing, not T-Mobile. Supposedly by the fall there will be no more “Sprint” stores, just T-Mobile stores. I’d hope that indicates they are trying to wipe out the Sprint brand of customer (non)service.

Of course it sucks for anyone who recently bought a Sprint 5G phone, as almost none of those will work on the T-Mobile’s (or the ultimate merged) 5G network.

Maybe its best to avoid businesses that don’t actually want your business. Sprint is the lowest-ranked US carrier, and apparently for good reason.

Which is why Sprint is going to disappear this year following the merger with T-Mobile.

But will it be run under T-Mobile’s good customer support policies, or Sprint’s antic-ustomer policy?

There isn't going to be much of Sprint left at all. Similar to when Cingular took over AT&T Digital, the technology stayed, the customer service people went.