cellular license maps updated

See http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/regions.html

All regional maps have been brought up to date and should now reflect
the current cellular licensees for each market. In addition to numerous
small fixes and corrections, the latest round of updates reflects the
following major changes:

08/01/03 FL/GA ATTWS completes acquisition of 10 markets from USCC
09/23/03 AZ ALLTEL completes acquisition of 1 market from WWCA
10/16/03 IA Midwest Wireless completes acquisition of 3 markets from
Cellcom
01/11/04 MN/WI WWCA completes acquisition of 2 markets from HickoryTech
02/07/04 LA Cingular completes acquisition of 3 markets from US Unwired
02/17/04 MD Cingular completes acquisition of 1 market from Dobson
Cellular Systems
02/24/04 TX ATTWS completes acquisition of 6 markets from USCC
03/02/04 OR ATTWS completes acquisition of 1 market from Rural Cellular
Corporation

Please feel free to reply with your comments, corrections, and other
helpful contributions.

PS: The Cingular/ATTWS acquisition has not yet been completed, and the
maps will not be updated until the companies have formally merged and
the affected markets have actually transitioned ownership, so there's no
need to comment on these pending changes.

---

› See More: cellular license maps updated

In article <[email protected]>, XFF <[email protected]>
wrote:

> See http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/regions.html
>
> All regional maps have been brought up to date and should now reflect
> the current cellular licensees for each market. In addition to numerous
> small fixes and corrections, the latest round of updates reflects the
> following major changes:
>
> 08/01/03 FL/GA ATTWS completes acquisition of 10 markets from USCC
> 09/23/03 AZ ALLTEL completes acquisition of 1 market from WWCA
> 10/16/03 IA Midwest Wireless completes acquisition of 3 markets from
> Cellcom
> 01/11/04 MN/WI WWCA completes acquisition of 2 markets from HickoryTech
> 02/07/04 LA Cingular completes acquisition of 3 markets from US Unwired
> 02/17/04 MD Cingular completes acquisition of 1 market from Dobson
> Cellular Systems
> 02/24/04 TX ATTWS completes acquisition of 6 markets from USCC
> 03/02/04 OR ATTWS completes acquisition of 1 market from Rural Cellular
> Corporation
>
> Please feel free to reply with your comments, corrections, and other
> helpful contributions.
>
> PS: The Cingular/ATTWS acquisition has not yet been completed, and the
> maps will not be updated until the companies have formally merged and
> the affected markets have actually transitioned ownership, so there's no
> need to comment on these pending changes.


Apparently ATTWs has new all inclusive roaming agreements with Cingular.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040414/nyw030_1.html

Robert M. wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, XFF <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
>>See http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/regions.html
>>
>>All regional maps have been brought up to date and should now reflect
>>the current cellular licensees for each market. In addition to numerous
>>small fixes and corrections, the latest round of updates reflects the
>>following major changes:
>>
>>08/01/03 FL/GA ATTWS completes acquisition of 10 markets from USCC
>>09/23/03 AZ ALLTEL completes acquisition of 1 market from WWCA
>>10/16/03 IA Midwest Wireless completes acquisition of 3 markets from
>>Cellcom
>>01/11/04 MN/WI WWCA completes acquisition of 2 markets from HickoryTech
>>02/07/04 LA Cingular completes acquisition of 3 markets from US Unwired
>>02/17/04 MD Cingular completes acquisition of 1 market from Dobson
>>Cellular Systems
>>02/24/04 TX ATTWS completes acquisition of 6 markets from USCC
>>03/02/04 OR ATTWS completes acquisition of 1 market from Rural Cellular
>>Corporation
>>
>>Please feel free to reply with your comments, corrections, and other
>>helpful contributions.
>>
>>PS: The Cingular/ATTWS acquisition has not yet been completed, and the
>>maps will not be updated until the companies have formally merged and
>>the affected markets have actually transitioned ownership, so there's no
>>need to comment on these pending changes.
>
>
>
> Apparently ATTWs has new all inclusive roaming agreements with Cingular.
>
> http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040414/nyw030_1.html
What does celluar "A side" & "B side" mean?

Casey

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 17:05:08 GMT, Casey <[email protected]> wrote:

>What does celluar "A side" & "B side" mean?
>
>Casey

The original 800 MHz cellular band is actually two bands. These are
labeled "A" and "B". Originally, the "A" side was for cellular
companies who are non telephone company (non-Bell or non incumbent
LEC). The "B" side were typically telephone company owned or
regional/Baby Bell owned.

The 800 MHz band was originally analog (called AMPS or Advanced Mobile
Phone Service). These days the 800 MHz band can be AMPS, TDMA, CDMA or
GSM or any combination.

In modern times, the original structure has mostly faded away. With
modern deregulation and acquistions over a period of 20+ years, you'll
find telco owned cell systems on the A side and non telco on the B
side.

The PCS band (1900 Mhz) has up to 6 bands known as PCS "A" through PCS
"F". The PCS band has no analog, but can be any combination of any
digital format (TDMA, GSM, CDMA)

Typically, Verizon is on the cellular "B" side, Cingular and AT&T are
on the cellular "A" side. Sprint is always in the PCS band as is
T-Mobile.

But these days, it really doesn't matter who is where and many phones
are multi-band compatible. Verizon is in the cellular "A" band in
several markets. And in other markets, VZW, AT&T and Cingular are in
the 1900 MHz PCS bands. So the original order of things no longer hold
true.

Before anyone asks, Nextel, Nevada Wireless, Telus MIKE and Southern
LINC (and a couple of others) are a special cases. These use a
technology called iDEN (similar to TDMA) and are in a special
frequency band called the SMR (Specialized Mobile Radio) band which is
just below the 800 MHz cellular bands.

Dave

Casey <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> What does celluar "A side" & "B side" mean?

It refers to how the cellular spectrum is partitioned into two blocks
to allow for competition between 2 carriers in each market. See
http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/cel.../bandplan.html for
details.

XFF <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> See http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/regions.html
>
> All regional maps have been brought up to date and should now reflect
> the current cellular licensees for each market. In addition to numerous
> small fixes and corrections, the latest round of updates reflects the
> following major changes:

Or, if you should prefer a complete national perspective, the
nationwide Cellular Block A & Block B maps have now also been posted.

http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/Natl_Cell_A.html
http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/Natl_Cell_B.html

Everyone give XFF a virtual pat on the back!

Andrew
--
Andrew Shepherd
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.ku.edu/home/cinema/

[email protected]pamfree (John S.) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> Although your statement about real competition is correct, the rest is sheer
> tripe.
>
> The "B" side of cellular was the local wireline company. If more than one
> wireline company (Southwestern Bell and GTE in Dallas for instance) was in the
> area they competed to get the lisence or made an agreement so that one or the
> other got it.
>
> As for the "A" side, it was open to any company that wanted to compete for the
> lisence. Among other things the companies had to show fiscal responsibility
> enough that they could build the market once they got the lisence.
>
> This was for the MSA (Metropolitan Service Areas). When it came to the "B" side
> RSA's, the wireline companies had to compete in a lottery.
>
> For the "A" side any one could compete for the lisence and small companies and
> large all tried their hand at getting the lisence. A freind of mine won the
> lottery for Illinois 5 and made millions a few years later when he sold it.

All of the above only further demonstrates that Cellular is a wholly
different paradigm than PCS, that Cellular should continue to be
subject to more stringent oversight than PCS.

Two decades ago, Cellular licencees were either given their licenses
gratis or won them for a modest price. Even accounting for economic
inflation - which was exponentially surpassed by the increase in value
of the electromagnetic spectrum - Cellular licensees paid nowhere
near the millions, even billions bid by the PCS licensees in the
1990s. Why should Cellular get the better spectrum plus a free or
reduced-price ride? Thus, it is entirely sensible that the merged
Cingular-AT&TWS should not be allowed to aggregate its overlapping
Cellular licenses. Any comparisons to similar coincident license
acquisitions in the PCS band are purely moot.

> Only occasionally did another regions "Bell" company get the "A" side of a
> market. I can think of only 2 - Chicago (SID 0001) was/is owned by Southwestern
> Bell Mobile Systems ( now Cingular) as was Boston and upstate New York.

In addition to the aforementioned SBC A-side forays into Boston,
Buffalo, & Chicago outside its RBOC region, the following primary
examples also come to mind (some of which have experienced relatively
recent changes in control):

AirTouch nee PacTel Cellular A-side: Atlanta, Cincinatti, Cleveland,
Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco

BAM A-side: Albuquerque/El Paso, Phoenix/Tucson

BellSouth A-side: Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles

SBC A-side: Washington, D.C./Baltimore, New Orleans

Ameritech A-side: St. Louis

I cannot claim to know the complete histories behind the preceding
Cellular A-side licenses. Some, if not many, may not have been
originally awarded to the attributed Baby Bell operating outside its
RBOC region, rather some may have been absorbed into the Baby Bell via
later acquisition.

Some were offset by partnerships. The Dallas, KC, & San Fran A-side
licenses were held by CMT Partners LP, a partnership between AirTouch
nee PacTel & AT&TWS nee McCaw Cellular, and San Fran license was an
A-side *w/in* PacTel's RBOC region. And the Houston & LA A-side
licenses were again partnerships between AT&TWS nee McCaw & BellSouth.

Some came via acquisition. The Omaha A-side license I do believe came
to VZW from AirTouch's purchase of US West's Cellular assets, yet
again another example of an A-side *inside* the RBOC's territory. In
1999-2000, SBC also briefly held the Radiofone A-side license in New
Orleans before it was divested to ALLTEL.


Andrew
--
Andrew Shepherd
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.ku.edu/home/cinema/

[email protected] (LithiaSpgs) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> At the time, as I recall, cellular was thought of as being a very risky venture
> and companies were not chomping at the bit to get into it. The phone company
> and other large corportaions were hesitant to invest billions of dollars into
> systems with unknown potentials and they probably would not have done so if
> they had to pay millions more for licenses to do it. At that time, cell phones
> were basically "car phones" that were installed in a car and cost LOTS of
> money. It was thought that only very high end customers would use them. But as
> the service took off and phones got smaller and smaller (we went from bulky car
> phones to bag phones to brick phones to flip phones), more and more people
> signed up- even at 75 cents a minute.

Nice point.

I understand & appreciate your perspective.

But that was then. This is now.

If Cellular licensees wish to escape greater regulatory scrutiny - as
Cingular-AT&TWS is attempting to do in seeking a waiver of the RSA
cross-interest rule - then simpy let them ante up the c. 1995 value of
their Cellular licenses, just as the PCS licensees did during the
latter half of the 1990s. The fair market price per POP per MHz per
county for each of the license areas could be readily determined based
upon the average results of the various PCS auctions. And we would
not even require the Cellular licensees to pay a premium for their
longer wavelength 800/850 MHz spectrum. Heaven knows, the U.S.
Treasury could certainly use the influx of billions upon billions of
dollars.

A decade ago, the FCC created the PCS band to catalyze the industry w/
increased wireless mobile telephone competition against the incumbent
Cellular duopolies. And now, crying foul, the Cellular licensees wish
to level the playing field, so to speak. But the field has never been
quite level. It has always been tilted - free or reduced-price
licenses, 800/850 MHz propagation, a 10-year buildout advantage - in
favor of Cellular.

So, should the Cellular licensees wish to receive the same relatively
relaxed level of oversight as PCS, let them pony up to the table the
true value of their licenses. Otherwise, until that implausible day,
Cellular bears an abiding indenture to the public service that
necessitates increased governance & tighter restriction.

In other words, in its role as a servant of the people,
Cingular-AT&TWS should have to prove that selected monopoly is the
undeniable best option toward the greater public good. And good luck
to that!

Andrew
--
Andrew Shepherd
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.ku.edu/home/cinema/