Robert Coe wrote:

> I guess I read SMS's comments a little differently. I thought he was pointing
> out that T-Mobile was being honest about their coverage areas and trying to
> avoid selling their service to customers who were sure to be dissatisfied and
> drag down their ratings. To me that's a sound business practice that all
> carriers should emulate.

Yes, that's what I intended. However I should also point out that out in
the western region, T-Mobile is different than the old Voicestream that
people back east are used to. Originally, T-Mobile did a swap with
Cingular, where Cingular let T-Mobile use their 1900 MHz western
network, and T-Mobile let Cingular use their 1900 MHz NY network. The
1900 MHz GSM network out west was particularly bad (I had it for a
year), and it still isn't the greatest. When Cingular took over AT&T
Wireless, T-Mobile got the Cingular 1900 MHz network. Because Cingular,
formerly Pacific Bell Wireless was so late to the party, they had too
problems, first they couldn't put towers in all the prime locations that
AT&T and Verizon had towers, and second they were stuck at the less
desirable 1900 MHz, which is big disadvantage in terms of coverage.
Voicestream had a much longer history, and had good coverage in much of
the country.

I think that one reason why T-Mobile did so well in the CR survey, at
least in many regions, is that unlike Sprint and Cingular, who will sell
service to anyone with a pulse, T-Mobile actually checks to see if the
potential subscriber will have coverage, and if they don't, then they
discourage the potential subscriber from signing up. This policy results
in a lot fewer unhappy customers. With roaming on Cingular, in
non-T-Mobile areas, T-Mobile has pretty good nationwide coverage.

It's rather surprising how poorly Cingular fared, considering that their
network is much larger than T-Mobile's. I'm most familiar with the San
Francisco Bay Area, where Cingular has a lot less coverage than Verizon,
especially in non-urban areas, but T-Mobile also has a lot less coverage
than Verizon in the Bay Area, and was actually ranked the same as
Cingular, and far below Verizon.