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.

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

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

On Wed, 07 May 2008 23:19:34 -0600, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:


>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"

Consumer Reports did mention how Sprint was WORST for dropped calls.

At 08 May 2008 02:28:36 +0000 Steve Sobol wrote:

> > Perhaps... or it could be Verizon's and AT&T's 15 year head start?
>
> Good point. Let's look at the facts.


In THIS thread? Why start now? ;-)

> 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?)


> Sprint's network, much newer than the incumbents, had coverage at my house
> along Lake Erie in a neighborhood no one else covered until a year after I
> moved there, and Verizon's coverage in Ashtabula was horrible where
> Sprint's was very good. Ashtabula is about an hour east of Cleveland;
> smallish town, but not middle-of-nowhere small.

Bah! Anecdotal! ;-)

> > Why hasn't the free market done it's job?
>
> Well, that's the thing, the free market IS doing its job.
>
> I believe that was your point.


Guilty as charged!

["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

["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, 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:

> 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, 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

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.

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.

"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.

"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?

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.