Qwest sees the handwriting on the wall

On 2008-05-08, Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:
> At 08 May 2008 02:28:36 +0000 Steve Sobol wrote:
>> Verizon. Formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. Verizon Wireless
>> included those properties plus the properties of Vodafone AirTouch
>> Cellular and PrimeCo (A 1900MHz carrier, Phillippe, FYI).
>
> Funny you mentioned the 1900MHz bit. I was going to throw Consumer
> Reports' cellular survey back at Steven Scharf in my last post but forgot
> to get around to it- despite his "Verizon-dominates-independent-surveys" as
> "proof" 1900 MHz is inferior to 800MHz, CR's survey ranked Verizon as best
> in
> the Miami market (like in many cities) in the No Signal, and Dropped Calls
> categories as well as overall score. The "punchline" of course, is that
> Verizon is a 1900MHz-only carrier in Miami. AT&T owns both 800MHz licenses
> there. (T-Mobile often came in second to Verizon many markets in the CR
> survey, above AT&T, despite AT&T being 800 and T-Mobile 1900. Maybe
> Verizon is just a little better at building out a network than the others,
> and it has nothing to do with frequency? Or maybe an even simpler
> explanation is the "can you hear me
> now" brainwashing is market independent?)

Yes, that's correct. In fact the Consumer Reports survey covers
three markets where Verizon is a 1900 MHz carrier: Miami, Tampa
and Dallas. Verizon's coverage is rated no worse there than anywhere
else in the country. And a couple of the very worst coverage scores in
that survey are for AT&T in Washington, DC and Boston, where AT&T is a
cellular operator.

Dennis Ferguson

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› See More: Qwest sees the handwriting on the wall

On 2008-05-07, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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.

Somehow that just doesn't sound right. I found a MetroPCS phone someone
left in a cafe not too long ago, and I took a look at the system menu
before turning it in. It was connected to SID 5037 and operating on
a PCS block C channel, so they aren't sharing Sprint's CDMA base stations
or operating in Sprint's spectrum. The only MetroPCS cell site I happen
to know the location of (in East Palo Alto) is on a tower all by
itself; the Sprint cell site is on a building on the other side of the
highway. I find it hard to believe Sprint is providing them backhaul
since Sprint itself is short of that around here; they frequently whine
to the California PUC about how much AT&T charges for that. And Sprint
and MetroPCS don't seem friendly at all, in fact MetroPCS is one of the
very few US CDMA operators which Sprint's PRL blocks roaming on.

So what infrasture does MetroPCS lease from Sprint? I believe they
share towers some places just because everyone shares towers some
places; Sprint, AT&T and Verizon share a tower in the parking lot where
I work. Beyond this I don't see, and have never heard of, the connection,
though I may have missed something.

Dennis Ferguson

Dennis Ferguson wrote:

> Yes, that's correct. In fact the Consumer Reports survey covers
> three markets where Verizon is a 1900 MHz carrier: Miami, Tampa
> and Dallas. Verizon's coverage is rated no worse there than anywhere
> else in the country. And a couple of the very worst coverage scores in
> that survey are for AT&T in Washington, DC and Boston, where AT&T is a
> cellular operator.

Last time I was in South Florida (where I am originally from) in
December 2006, I roamed onto AT&T AMPS with my Verizon phone out in the
Everglades. Kind of amusing that the AT&T GSM customers had no coverage
at all out there, nor did the Verizon customers with digital-only
phones. Now of course, presuming AT&T turned off both of their AMPS
network, Verizon and AT&T have equal coverage out there, which is none.

But as to the reason Verizon is not hampered by 1900 MHz in those
markets, it's probably because you don't have the kind of local
opposition to towers you have out West.