Qwest sees the handwriting on the wall

Dennis Ferguson wrote:
> On 2008-05-06, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>> mentioned is forcing roaming to Verizon). If you have Virgin, MetroPCS,
>> etc., you're using Sprint sites _only_. Yesterday I got a call from a
>> guy I knew and he kept dropping, and I said to him that I thought he had
>> an iPhone on AT&T. He told me that it was too expensive to use all the
>> time, and that he had a MetroPCS phone to use in the Bay Area.
>
> I believe that, but MetroPCS isn't a Sprint MVNO and doesn't use
> Sprint's network so that particular anecdote says nothing about Sprint.
> MetroPCS owns and operates its own network and their coverage in the bay
> area is not too wonderful.

Yes, my mistake. MetroPCS leases infrastructre from Sprint, but they are
not an MVNO. Their coverage is worse than a Sprint MVNO's because they
are using a subset of Sprint's towers. You're still using Sprint sites
only, just not all of them.

---

› See More: Qwest sees the handwriting on the wall

Todd Allcock wrote:

> MetroPCS has their own licenses, spectrum and infrastructure- they
> aren't an MVNO. They typically build tiny systems covering the smallest
> possible area to launch a viable service.

In the bay area they use a subset of Sprint's towers. But yes, they're
not a Sprint MVNO, and I shouldn't have implied that.


>> The latecomers to wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile U.S., got stuck with
>> 1900 MHz, and it works okay in densely populated areas where they can
>> install enough towers.
>
> Fair enough. That generally covers 80+% of the population.

At least in their home area.

>> However an area like mine, a suburb in Silicon Valley, has terrible
>> Sprint and T-Mobile coverage because the zoning in the large
>> residential areas doesn't allow for cell sites.
>
> That's an atypical situation, though.

I don't agree with that. It's a situation that is common in California,
and I suspect in other areas with bedroom communities surrounding large
cities.

>> It's a tremendous battle every time a carrier proposes a site
>> someplace where they aren't permitted. The 800 MHz carriers
>> essentially surround the residential neighborhoods with sites in the
>> commercial areas, and it's good enough to provide good coverage.
>
> That's why it's atypical- in most cases the 1900MHz carriers can do
> exactly the same thing, unless extreme distance or topography interfere.

They can't because 1900 MHz requires far more sites to cover the same
area, especially to provide good indoor coverage.

"Ron" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news[email protected]...

>>> However an area like mine, a suburb in Silicon Valley, has terrible
>>> Sprint
>>> and T-Mobile coverage because the zoning in the large residential areas
>>> doesn't allow for cell sites.
>>
>>That's an atypical situation, though.
>
>
> That's an all too common situation.
>
> With 1900 MHz used by Sprint and T-Mobile doing less well at building
> penetration, all too often Sprint customers discover too late their
> cell phone won't work at home, or at work. One need only to
> read the SprintPCS newsgroup to realize the angst caused by that fact.

"Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or work
during the 14-30 day trial period?

Again, there are 70+ million 1900MHz phone users in the US. 1900MHz has
been used here for well over a decade. Where's the backlash of irate
customers? If this situation was "all too common" we'd all have jumped ship
back to 800MHz carriers long ago.

When I moved to my southwest suburb in the Denver Front Range four years
ago, only T-Mobile, Sprint, and Nextel worked here. Verizon and AT&T, the
incumbent 800MHz cellular carriers didn't cover my neighborhood until
relatively recently, so I can play SMS' "anecdotal evidence" game too...
If "coming late to the party" prevented coverage, why couldn't the two
companies servicing my area for 25 YEARS provide service before the
Johnny-Come-Latelies?

When I visit my mother in suburban Providence, RI, Verizon (800), Sprint
(1900) and T-Mo (1900) provide excellent service, where AT&T (800 MHz!) is
very hit or miss (and was back in the analog/TDMA days as well, so this
isn't a "GSM" issue, either, which ranks a close #2 behind "1900 MHz" in
SMS' list of "Why All Carriers Other Than Verizon Blow Chunks..."

Are their situations were 800MHz performs better than 1900? Sure. So
1900MHz carriers have to compensate with additional towers. In urban and
suburban areas this is generally not a hardship, because more towers are
needed for capacity issues than are required for bare-bones coverage anyway,
so it's not like they need any more towers than 800 MHz carriers do in
populated areas. In rural areas, however, 1900 certainly has a significant
disadvantage, in the number of towers needed for a full build-out, which is
why they typically lack robust coverage in those areas, instead just
covering the interstates, tourist traps, and towns.

Sprint and T-Mobile have building out their networks, and supplementing with
roaming for over a decade. Coverage, for the most part, is simply no longer
an issue for the vast majority of consumers, as a reading of the SprintPCS
NG seems to bear out, despite your insistence that scores of folks are
complaining about coverage.

"Ron" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news[email protected]...

>>> However an area like mine, a suburb in Silicon Valley, has terrible
>>> Sprint
>>> and T-Mobile coverage because the zoning in the large residential areas
>>> doesn't allow for cell sites.
>>
>>That's an atypical situation, though.
>
>
> That's an all too common situation.
>
> With 1900 MHz used by Sprint and T-Mobile doing less well at building
> penetration, all too often Sprint customers discover too late their
> cell phone won't work at home, or at work. One need only to
> read the SprintPCS newsgroup to realize the angst caused by that fact.

"Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or work
during the 14-30 day trial period?

Again, there are 70+ million 1900MHz phone users in the US. 1900MHz has
been used here for well over a decade. Where's the backlash of irate
customers? If this situation was "all too common" we'd all have jumped ship
back to 800MHz carriers long ago.

When I moved to my southwest suburb in the Denver Front Range four years
ago, only T-Mobile, Sprint, and Nextel worked here. Verizon and AT&T, the
incumbent 800MHz cellular carriers didn't cover my neighborhood until
releatively recently, so I can play SMS' "anecdotal evedence" game too...
If "coming late to the party" prevented coverage, why couldn't the two
companies servicing my area for 25 YEARS provide service before the
Johnny-Come-Latelies?

When I visit my mother in suburban Providence, RI, Verizon (800), Sprint
(1900) and T-Mo (1900) provide excellent service, where AT&T (800 MHz!) is
very hit or miss (and was back in the analog/TDMA days as well, so this
isn't a "GSM" issue, either, which ranks a close #2 behind "1900 MHz" in
SMS' list of "Why All Carriers Other Than Verizon Blow Chunks..."

Are their situations were 800MHz performs better than 1900? Sure. So
1900MHz carriers have to compensate with additional towers. In urban and
suburban ares this is generally not a hardship, because more towers are
needed for capacity issues than are required for bare-bones coverage anyway,
so it's not like they need any more towers than 800 MHz carriers do in
populated areas. In rural areas, however, 1900 certainly has a significant
disadvantage, in the number of towers needed for a full build-out, which is
why they typically lack robust coverage in those areas, instead just
covering the interstates, tourist traps, and towns.

Sprint and T-Mobile have building out their networks, and supplementing with
roaming for over a decade. Coverage, for the most part, is simply no longer
an issue for the vast majority of consumers, as a reading of the SprintPCS
NG seems to bear out, despite your insistance that scores of folks are
complaining about coverage.

On Wed, 7 May 2008 09:28:46 -0600, "Todd Allcock"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
>"Ron" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news[email protected]...
>
>>>> However an area like mine, a suburb in Silicon Valley, has terrible
>>>> Sprint
>>>> and T-Mobile coverage because the zoning in the large residential areas
>>>> doesn't allow for cell sites.
>>>
>>>That's an atypical situation, though.
>>
>>
>> That's an all too common situation.
>>
>> With 1900 MHz used by Sprint and T-Mobile doing less well at building
>> penetration, all too often Sprint customers discover too late their
>> cell phone won't work at home, or at work. One need only to
>> read the SprintPCS newsgroup to realize the angst caused by that fact.
>
>"Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or work
>during the 14-30 day trial period?
>


I can't speak for them, all I know is the complaints I see regularly
at alt.cellular.sprintpcs.

Todd Allcock wrote:

> "Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or work
> during the 14-30 day trial period?

Maybe they do, now that their is a trial period. But I know people that
had Sprint for _years_ without any coverage at home. Even after the
contract was up they didn't want to change because of no number portability.

> Again, there are 70+ million 1900MHz phone users in the US. 1900MHz has
> been used here for well over a decade. Where's the backlash of irate
> customers?

No backlash, but look at the numbers of customers of 1900 MHz and those
of 800 MHz. Don't you think that the coverage issues of Sprint and
T-Mobile, which have been endlessly exposed in user surveys by
independent entities, have something to do with them being unable to
catch up to Verizon and AT&T?

You happen to live on one of the very few areas where, according to you,
Sprint has (or had) better coverage. Don't extrapolate this to the rest
of the country, or even to other neighborhoods in your own area.

"SMS" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> "Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or
>> work
>> during the 14-30 day trial period?
>
> Maybe they do, now that their is a trial period. But I know people that
> had Sprint for _years_ without any coverage at home. Even after the
> contract was up they didn't want to change because of no number
> portability.

I have never known a time without a trial period. In the past, it was often
unreasonable (48-72 hours) rather than 14-30 days, but there was no reason
to get stuck with a phone that didn't work at home or work if you actively
worked the trial period.

>> Again, there are 70+ million 1900MHz phone users in the US. 1900MHz has
>> been used here for well over a decade. Where's the backlash of irate
>> customers?
>
> No backlash, but look at the numbers of customers of 1900 MHz and those of
> 800 MHz. Don't you think that the coverage issues of Sprint and T-Mobile,
> which have been endlessly exposed in user surveys by independent entities,
> have something to do with them being unable to catch up to Verizon and
> AT&T?

Perhaps... or it could be Verizon's and AT&T's 15 year head start? Or the
fact that all of these companies are now merger-created amalgams of smaller
companies so the numbers aren't directly comparable? Frankly, Sprint has
done pretty G-D well for building an entire nationwide network from the
ground up. Remember that before the Cingular/AT&T merger, Sprint was pretty
much neck and neck with both of them.

> You happen to live on one of the very few areas where, according to you,
> Sprint has (or had) better coverage. Don't extrapolate this to the rest of
> the country, or even to other neighborhoods in your own area.

I don't. I called it "anecdotal" for a reason. However, I'm enjoying the
irony that MY anecdote "shouldn't be extrapolated," yet yours is "all too
typical!" ;-)

You can suggest all of the personal experience, and "independant surveys"
you like, but you can't answer the simple question- if 1900MHz is so
inferior, why is ANYONE subscribing to a carrier using it? Pricing (except
for maybe T-Mo's low-balling) is relatively competitive between carriers, so
it's not like people jump from AT&T or Verizon to Sprint to save 40%. If
Verizon and AT&T are as geometrically superior due to their frequency
assignments, how are Sprint and T-Mo still in business? How do they hang on
to the 70 million suckers like myself who apparently simply haven't noticed
their phones don't work anywhere? Why hasn't the free market done it's job?

"SMS" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>> MetroPCS has their own licenses, spectrum and infrastructure- they aren't
>> an MVNO. They typically build tiny systems covering the smallest
>> possible area to launch a viable service.
>
> In the bay area they use a subset of Sprint's towers. But yes, they're not
> a Sprint MVNO, and I shouldn't have implied that.

AFAIK, while they might rent space on some of SPC's towers, they don't
really use a "subset" of anything. (Frankly if they negotiated any type of
sharing with Sprint, why wouldn't they extend it to the entire network?)
They have their own spectrum (generally one of the small 10-15k PCS
licenses), equipment and sites. They tend to use a lot of cheap
"microsites" on top of whatever roofs they can negotiate access to.
Compared to the major carriers they are a real shoestring operation, but
represent an excellent value to a particular value-oriented but less-mobile
niche (mostly high-use teens and low-income users substituting Metro for
landlines) with very low-cost unlimited voice/text plans and relatively
cheap phones.

On Wed, 07 May 2008 08:54:39 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> "Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or work
>> during the 14-30 day trial period?
>
>Maybe they do, now that their is a trial period. But I know people that
>had Sprint for _years_ without any coverage at home. Even after the
>contract was up they didn't want to change because of no number portability.
>
>> Again, there are 70+ million 1900MHz phone users in the US. 1900MHz has
>> been used here for well over a decade. Where's the backlash of irate
>> customers?
>
>No backlash, but look at the numbers of customers of 1900 MHz and those
>of 800 MHz. Don't you think that the coverage issues of Sprint and
>T-Mobile, which have been endlessly exposed in user surveys by
>independent entities, have something to do with them being unable to
>catch up to Verizon and AT&T?
>
>You happen to live on one of the very few areas where, according to you,
>Sprint has (or had) better coverage. Don't extrapolate this to the rest
>of the country, or even to other neighborhoods in your own area.


The 1900 Mhz phones have also spawned a thriving industry of cellular
repeaters for folks to use at their home or office.

On Wed, 7 May 2008 09:29:05 -0600, "Todd Allcock"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
>"Ron" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news[email protected]...
>
>>>> However an area like mine, a suburb in Silicon Valley, has terrible
>>>> Sprint
>>>> and T-Mobile coverage because the zoning in the large residential areas
>>>> doesn't allow for cell sites.
>>>
>>>That's an atypical situation, though.
>>
>>
>> That's an all too common situation.
>>
>> With 1900 MHz used by Sprint and T-Mobile doing less well at building
>> penetration, all too often Sprint customers discover too late their
>> cell phone won't work at home, or at work. One need only to
>> read the SprintPCS newsgroup to realize the angst caused by that fact.
>
>"Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or work
>during the 14-30 day trial period?
>
>Again, there are 70+ million 1900MHz phone users in the US. 1900MHz has
>been used here for well over a decade. Where's the backlash of irate
>customers?

Again - Read alt.cellular.sprintpcs. Or look at all the folks
making a good living selling repeaters for folks with 1900 Mhz phones.

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:

> "Discover too late?" You mean people don't try their phone at home or work
> during the 14-30 day trial period?

That would make sense, but you have to understand you're talking to a liar
and troll. Troll because, although he sometimes does post the truth, more
often he posts half-truths in an attempt to make SPCS look bad. Liar because
he repeatedly said a couple years ago that he was never going to post in the
SPCS newsgroup again.


--
Steve Sobol, Victorville, CA PGP:0xE3AE35ED www.SteveSobol.com
Geek-for-hire. Details: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesobol

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Ron <[email protected]> wrote:

> Again - Read alt.cellular.sprintpcs. Or look at all the folks
> making a good living selling repeaters for folks with 1900 Mhz phones.

There have been plenty of complaints here about Sprint. Most of them have
NOT been about coverage. Please tell me to go read alt.cellular.sprintpcs so
I can laugh at you -- as you know, I've read and posted here for years.

--
Steve Sobol, Victorville, CA PGP:0xE3AE35ED www.SteveSobol.com
Geek-for-hire. Details: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesobol

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Ron <[email protected]> wrote:

> I can't speak for them, all I know is the complaints I see regularly
> at alt.cellular.sprintpcs.

The problem with your premise is that you know (well before the trial period
ends) whether the coverage will be good enough, and if you don't cancel before
the end of the trial period, how is that the carrier's fault? (SPCS or
any other carrier)

--
Steve Sobol, Victorville, CA PGP:0xE3AE35ED www.SteveSobol.com
Geek-for-hire. Details: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesobol

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Ron <[email protected]> wrote:

> The 1900 Mhz phones have also spawned a thriving industry of cellular
> repeaters for folks to use at their home or office.

Really. Point me to a company that sells repeaters or antennas for 1900MHz
handsets, that DOESN'T also sell devices for use with 800MHz handsets.

--
Steve Sobol, Victorville, CA PGP:0xE3AE35ED www.SteveSobol.com
Geek-for-hire. Details: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesobol

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:

> Compared to the major carriers they are a real shoestring operation, but
> represent an excellent value to a particular value-oriented but less-mobile
> niche (mostly high-use teens and low-income users substituting Metro for
> landlines) with very low-cost unlimited voice/text plans and relatively
> cheap phones.

Los Angeles is a MetroPCS market. Our local broadcast TV stations are the
Los Angeles stations (we could, by some metrics, be considered on the very
extreme outer edge of the Los Angeles metro area), so I see a lot of Metro
ads. I wish I could get a Metro phone for my daughter.



--
Steve Sobol, Victorville, CA PGP:0xE3AE35ED www.SteveSobol.com
Geek-for-hire. Details: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevesobol