mergers, carriers, & international usage

Here are some email comments I received from a biz that has several
international sales/support travellers. The company has tried to
consolidate their wireless - right
---

I just got someone a T-Mobile 7100t today. Nextel's implementation of
accommodating international travelers is pretty bad. The 7100t is a
quad-band phone and T-Mobile seems to have a more extensive partnership
with
carriers in more countries. You don't have to call any one and you
don't
have to swap the sim chip to another phone, the service just follows you
if
you are enabled for international service.

The 7100t is a much nicer phone than anything out there right now.

T-Mobile is much less expensive than Nextel too. We seem to have really
sucked it up with Nextel and just blindly go with them on this kind of
stuff. I am hoping for positive feedback from my T-Mobile test subjects
so
I can justify a change.

AT&T has been a real PIA to deal with these past several months. Hope
things settle down once they come to grips with Cingular. I'm ready to
dump
them too. They are deconstructing their analog partnerships, so
coverage
issues seem to be the same now between carriers. They all have strong
markets and weak markets - nothing like the coverage AT&T used to be
able to
provide. Understand the progression in technology, but coverage seems
like
a step backwards.

KS -

Phil Schuman wrote:
> Here are some email comments I received from a biz that has several
> international sales/support travellers. The company has tried to
> consolidate their wireless - right
> ---
>
> I just got someone a T-Mobile 7100t today. Nextel's implementation of
> accommodating international travelers is pretty bad. The 7100t is a
> quad-band phone and T-Mobile seems to have a more extensive partnership
> with
> carriers in more countries. You don't have to call any one and you
> don't
> have to swap the sim chip to another phone, the service just follows you
> if
> you are enabled for international service.

Well, duh. That's because T-Mobile has cellular networks in more countries
than anyone else.

--
JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net
PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED)
Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids.

"Steve Sobol" <sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote in message news:coqf21$3a5$1@ratbert.glorb.com...
> Well, duh. That's because T-Mobile has cellular networks in more countries than anyone else.

Actually Vodafone has that honour. From their web site:

Vodafone Group Plc provides an extensive range of mobile
telecommunications services, including voice and data
communications, and is the world's largest mobile
telecommunications company, with a significant presence in
Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States
and the Far East through the Company's subsidiary undertakings,
associated undertakings and investments.

The Group's mobile subsidiaries operate under the brand name
'Vodafone'. In the United States the Group's associated
undertaking operates as Verizon Wireless.

If you go to their website and click on About Vodafone -> Global
Footprint then they they show their subscriber numbers. (They
count based on proportion of company owned, so they count only
44% of VZW customers as theirs as well).

The total comes out as 146 million customers.

For T-Mobile the best information I could find was this statement:

At the end of 2002 approximately 82 million people used the
mobile communication services of companies where T-Mobile or
Deutsche Telekom have a controlling interest or minority
participation. These services are realized through a common
technological platform based on GSM, the world's most successful
digital radio standard.

Although that number is old, they haven't pro-rated it based on
percentage ownership.

That still leaves Vodafone as the largest, even if you subtract
out the people who aren't using a "common technological platform
based on GSM".

[And I just noticed that you are counting cellular networks as
opposed to customers. That is a harder claim to find raw numbers
on.]

I would however agree with the statement that VZW doesn't seem
to care too much about the existence of the rest of the world.
That however is fairly common for many US based companies.

Roger

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.attws - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <4f6882-rif.ln1@home.rogerbinns.com> on Fri, 3 Dec 2004 23:42:53 -0800,
"Roger Binns" <rogerb@rogerbinns.com> wrote:

>"Steve Sobol" <sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote in message news:coqf21$3a5$1@ratbert.glorb.com...
>> Well, duh. That's because T-Mobile has cellular networks in more countries than anyone else.
>
>Actually Vodafone has that honour. From their web site:
>
> Vodafone Group Plc provides an extensive range of mobile
> telecommunications services, including voice and data
> communications, and is the world's largest mobile
> telecommunications company, with a significant presence in
> Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States
> and the Far East through the Company's subsidiary undertakings,
> associated undertakings and investments.
>
> The Group's mobile subsidiaries operate under the brand name
> 'Vodafone'. In the United States the Group's associated
> undertaking operates as Verizon Wireless.
>
>If you go to their website and click on About Vodafone -> Global
>Footprint then they they show their subscriber numbers. ...

The original statement above is "cellular networks in more countries," not
total subscribers.

--
Best regards, HELP FOR CINGULAR GSM & SONY ERICSSON PHONES:
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/#Cingular>

"John Navas" <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in message news:rZksd.9410$_3.109645@typhoon.sonic.net...
> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.attws - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

> The original statement above is "cellular networks in more countries," not
> total subscribers.

And if you had bothered reading my whole message you would have seen this:

> [And I just noticed that you are counting cellular networks as
> opposed to customers. That is a harder claim to find raw numbers
> on.]

Roger