Cingular ATT merger. Better coverage?

I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
at&t provide better coverage?

planetx wrote:
> I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
> to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
> get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
> some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
> at&t provide better coverage?

No.

If you need semi-rural coverage then stick with a tri-mode from Verizon.

If you only need semi-rural coverage occasionally, then get a PagePlus
prepaid account for the tri-mode phone, and at least you can make calls
in the semi-rural areas. You could leave a voice-mail greeting on your
Cingular account to tell people to call you on your PagePlus account.

It is alleged that planetx claimed:

> I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
> to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
> get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
> some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
> at&t provide better coverage?

The network merge happened years ago. This is a corporate merge, a
completely different thing. It would be like if GE bought Ford, there
wouldn't suddenly be an increase in Ford dealers, because GE has no
auto dealers to start with.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol

"Thanks, I owe you." "Import another steak." "I don't owe you +that+
much." (Cmdr. Sinclair and Mr. Garibaldi, B5 "Believers")

No. I would stick with verizon... unless you can find a cost
effective plan for you on Cingular... I've been an AT&T / Cingular
customer for 6 years -- they suck. The customer support is horrible.
The only thing that keeps me from switching is that verizon / sprint /
nextel's photo selection is garbage... and all the service comments
I've heard regard many other providers as poor.

On Feb 2, 12:57 am, Jeffrey Kaplan <nom...@gordol.org> wrote:
> It is alleged that planetx claimed:
>
> > I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
> > to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
> > get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
> > some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
> > at&t provide better coverage?
>
> The network merge happened years ago. This is a corporate merge, a
> completely different thing. It would be like if GE bought Ford, there
> wouldn't suddenly be an increase in Ford dealers, because GE has no
> auto dealers to start with.
>
> --
> Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
> The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol
>
> "Thanks, I owe you." "Import another steak." "I don't owe you +that+
> much." (Cmdr. Sinclair and Mr. Garibaldi, B5 "Believers")

It's just one data point, but in rural North Georgia (lots of mountians as
well), Cingular works much better than Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. The
area is dominated by Cingular stores. Sceptics might say it's because alot
of very highup Cingular and BellSouth executives have weekend homes up here.
;-)

Verizon stores are very, very few and far between, no Sprint or T-Mobile
stores to be seen North of Canton, GA.

Best bet would be to get a Cingular phone and give it a try for the trial
period in the area you are concerned about.

Don
"planetx" <planetx@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1170386302.191466.99870@k78g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
>I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
> to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
> get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
> some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
> at&t provide better coverage?
>

In article <1170404076.732375.265780@s48g2000cws.googlegroups .com>,
"Ryan Sinn" <ryansinn@gmail.com> wrote:

> No. I would stick with verizon... unless you can find a cost
> effective plan for you on Cingular... I've been an AT&T / Cingular
> customer for 6 years -- they suck. The customer support is horrible.
> The only thing that keeps me from switching is that verizon / sprint /
> nextel's photo selection is garbage... and all the service comments
> I've heard regard many other providers as poor.
>
> On Feb 2, 12:57 am, Jeffrey Kaplan <nom...@gordol.org> wrote:

Aside from the Treo, Cingular's current phone selections are pretty bad.
Motorola used to be great.
No wonder everyone is so excited about the iPhone.

--
To reply by email, remove the word "space"

"planetx" <planetx@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1170386302.191466.99870@k78g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
>I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
> to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
> get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
> some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
> at&t provide better coverage?
>

It is my understanding that VZW has restricted access to AMPS for most of
its digital customers.

If you require AMPS you might want to look at Sprint, as they also use CDMA
for digital, but we can roam onto analog networks if necessary.

It is alleged that Ryan Sinn claimed:

> No. I would stick with verizon... unless you can find a cost
> effective plan for you on Cingular... I've been an AT&T / Cingular
> customer for 6 years -- they suck. The customer support is horrible.
> The only thing that keeps me from switching is that verizon / sprint /
> nextel's photo selection is garbage... and all the service comments
> I've heard regard many other providers as poor.

I've been with Verizon and Cingular, I'm currently with Cingular.
Verizon is more expensive for voice and data plans. Verizon cripples
their phones with proprietary requirements of leaving basic functions
out, such as the simple ability to transfer data directly to or from
your computer with either a wired sync or BT in favor of making you use
their expen$ive data connection. In my experience, Verizon's network
isn't any better than Cingular's, except maybe in data speed.

At least around where I live, Cingular's network has better coverage -
I have Cingular coverage where Verizon is dead, and I've yet to find a
place where Verizon has coverage where Cingular is dead.

Customer service wise, Verizon does have a slight edge up. But if you
don't need to talk to them, it doesn't really matter.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled Send personal mail to gordol

"If I am ever the Hero top 100 list: #93. When I am about to enter the
Evil Overlord's hideout, I will have it surrounded by friendly forces
so that they can detain him if he sneaks out the back door while I kick
down the front door.

jeremy wrote:
> "planetx" <planetx@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1170386302.191466.99870@k78g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
>> I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
>> to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
>> get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
>> some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
>> at&t provide better coverage?
>>
>
> It is my understanding that VZW has restricted access to AMPS for most of
> its digital customers.

Yes, this appears to be true. If you look at the AMPS areas between
Americas Choice, and Americas Choice II, a lot of non-Verizon AMPS
roaming disappeared. Under Americas Choice, it was paid roaming, under
ACII they eliminated all paid roaming.
>
> If you require AMPS you might want to look at Sprint, as they also use CDMA
> for digital, but we can roam onto analog networks if necessary.

Possibly, but the problem with Sprint is that in areas where Sprint does
have coverage, they usually don't allow off-network roaming. For
example, in most parts of California, if Sprint has a network then you
can't roam onto Verizon, even when Sprint coverage has gaps. Of course
the converse is also true, but Verizon has much better coverage than
Sprint in almost all areas, by virtue of their 800 MHz spectrum, and
their earlier deployment before the NIMBYs started screaming about towers.

Look at Consumer Reports, and you'll see the differences in quality of
coverage, at least for the metro areas. Verizon is almost always better
than Cingular, sometimes by a little, but often by a significant amount.
Since the CR survey used an exceptionally large sample, their data is
better than anecdotal Usenet reports.

On 1 Feb 2007 19:18:22 -0800, "planetx" <planetx@gmail.com> wrote in
<1170386302.191466.99870@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups. com>:

>I have been been on Verizon for several years and have always wanted
>to move to Cingular, because everyone I know is on Cingular and I can
>get free mobile to mobile. But I was always worried about coverage in
>some semi-rural areas where my verizon tri-mode works. Will the new
>at&t provide better coverage?

AMPS will soon be going away, so that would be a poor criteria.
Cingular digital coverage is arguably the best of any carrier.
That said, you should compare the detailed coverage maps of areas
important to you -- no one carrier is best in all areas.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
<spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:

>AMPS will soon be going away,



Name the date. You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
still far off.

Karl wrote:
> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
> <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>AMPS will soon be going away,
>
>
>
>
> Name the date. You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
> still far off.

When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.

However, remote areas, where AMPS is the only service, will almost
certainly not have AMPS shut down, at least by the rural CDMA/AMPS
carriers. There are several reasons for this. First, a lot of emergency
call boxes are in areas with no digital coverage, and these call boxes
use AMPS. Second, a lot of the AMPS coverage is by smaller carriers in
rural areas, and AMPS represents roaming revenue. Third, AMPS provides
the only coverage for locals in a lot of the area covered by these
carriers. There is no cost savings in turning off AMPS unless there is a
capacity issue, and the rural carriers don't have capacity issues.

For AMPS areas that are currently covered only by Cingular AMPS, they
will almost certainly turn off AMPS even in their areas that have no
digital coverage. For example, I was recently out in the Florida
Everglades, roaming onto Cingular's AMPS network from my Verizon
tri-band phone (Verizon doesn't have an AMPS network in South Florida,
both the A&B side 800 MHz networks are now AT&T). 95% of Cingular's
customers can't use that AMPS network, and had no coverage. It makes
Cingular look bad when only Verizon, Sprint, Alltel, etc's customers can
use one of their networks. Hence, I think that Cingular will turn of all
AMPS as soon as they can, even though this means vast areas with no
coverage will be created. Fortunately, there are not a lot of areas
where Cingular is the only AMPS carrier.

Metro areas with rural areas surrounding them, will suffer when AMPS is
permitted to be turned off. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area,
there are a lot of areas outside the urban core, sometimes only a few
miles from the urban core, where AMPS is the only coverage you're able
to get. A lot of these areas are city, county, state, and national
parks, where they are unlikely to permit enough towers to cover the
areas in digital, but where you currently get decent AMPS coverage from
towers outside the parks. All the coverage in these areas will be lost
when AMPS is turned off. This is good news for Cingular, which has much
poorer coverage, at least in my area, by virtue of their lack of AMPS.
I'm hoping that the state of California will insist that all the
roadside call boxes remain operational, which will give AMPS a bit more
life, even in the semi-urban areas.

SMS wrote:

> Yes, this appears to be true. If you look at the AMPS areas between
> Americas Choice, and Americas Choice II, a lot of non-Verizon AMPS
> roaming disappeared. Under Americas Choice, it was paid roaming, under
> ACII they eliminated all paid roaming.

Following up on my own post, but it seems that the "Extended Network"
indicator on Verizon phones is not a good indicator of whether or not
the roaming is included, or at extra charge (on the old America's
Choice plan). When I was calling from the Everglades, the "Extended
Network" was solid rather than flashing, so I should have been charged
for those calls--but I wasn't. They never showed up on my bill.

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:51:57 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote:

>Karl wrote:
>> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
>> <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>AMPS will soon be going away,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Name the date. You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
>> still far off.
>
>When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.


It will more likely be delayed many times as Congressmen from Rural
areas complain.

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:54:49 -0600, Karl <karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net>
wrote in <dvufs21g8elrcflcdmmaoncml1g1kjntj5@4ax.com>:

>On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
><spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>>AMPS will soon be going away,
>
>Name the date.

February 18, 2008

>You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
>still far off.

It's only one year from now.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:51:57 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45c81774$0$69008$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.
>
>However, remote areas, where AMPS is the only service, will almost
>certainly not have AMPS shut down, at least by the rural CDMA/AMPS
>carriers. There are several reasons for this. First, a lot of emergency
> call boxes are in areas with no digital coverage, and these call boxes
> use AMPS. Second, a lot of the AMPS coverage is by smaller carriers in
> rural areas, and AMPS represents roaming revenue. Third, AMPS provides
> the only coverage for locals in a lot of the area covered by these
>carriers. There is no cost savings in turning off AMPS unless there is a
> capacity issue, and the rural carriers don't have capacity issues.

In fact there's considerable cost in maintaining AMPS coverage, which
will probably be turned down in rural areas as well, in part because the
spectrum can be more profitably migrated to high margin digital roaming.
Conversion of emergency call boxes is a non-issue.

>Metro areas with rural areas surrounding them, will suffer when AMPS is
>permitted to be turned off. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area,
>there are a lot of areas outside the urban core, sometimes only a few
>miles from the urban core, where AMPS is the only coverage you're able
>to get.

In fact digital coverage is quite good over most of the Bay Area,
including areas with no AMPS coverage. There are relatively few areas
with AMPS but no digital coverage, and even fewer as digital coverage is
expanded.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:10:47 GMT, Karl <karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net>
wrote in <sgogs25suu7r2cua1dc579n082poi67trh@4ax.com>:

>On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:51:57 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Karl wrote:
>>> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
>>> <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>AMPS will soon be going away,
>>>
>>> Name the date. You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
>>> still far off.
>>
>>When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>>certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>>service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.
>
>It will more likely be delayed many times as Congressmen from Rural
>areas complain.

Doubtful, since there is now far more lobbying on the side of sunset.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Karl wrote:
> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:51:57 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Karl wrote:
>>> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
>>> <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> AMPS will soon be going away,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Name the date. You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
>>> still far off.
>> When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>> certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>> service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.
>
>
> It will more likely be delayed many times as Congressmen from Rural
> areas complain.

That's what I'm hoping.

I also wrote the FCC about this issue, and received a non-committal
reply that they understand the issues of lost coverage if AMPS is
allowed to be turned off. Unfortunately, the FCC has essentially become
part of the broadcasting industry under the Republicans.

"John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message
news:f67hs2llmsqlt5ndvqat1m07p2r4l5g65t@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:54:49 -0600, Karl <karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote in <dvufs21g8elrcflcdmmaoncml1g1kjntj5@4ax.com>:
>
>>On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
>><spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>>AMPS will soon be going away,
>>
>>Name the date.
>
> February 18, 2008
>
>>You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
>>still far off.
>
> It's only one year from now.

As I understand it, the FCC decided to no longer *require* A and B carriers
to support AMPS service as of 2/18/08. That's hardly the same as it "going
away". The FCC did not mandate a cutoff of AMPS on 2/18/08.

If there are areas that would go uncovered witthout AMPS and a carrier could
make money with it, why would it go away? I would suspect that AMPS could
well go away in areas already well covered by digital services. In rural
areas, where it is the only infrastructure in place, why turn it off and be
left with no footprint? That just does not make sense.

don

Don Udel (ETC) wrote:

> If there are areas that would go uncovered witthout AMPS and a carrier could
> make money with it, why would it go away? I would suspect that AMPS could
> well go away in areas already well covered by digital services. In rural
> areas, where it is the only infrastructure in place, why turn it off and be
> left with no footprint? That just does not make sense.

I think that in rural areas where the AMPS carrier is Cingular, it will
be turned off, and there will be no footprint. When I was out in the
Everglades recently, the only coverage was AMPS from Cingular. No GSM,
no CDMA, and I presume no TDMA (I didn't have a TDMA phone with me). I
was able to use my Verizon tri-mode phone and make calls on Cingular's
network. Cingular's own customers had no coverage at all (unless they
were part of the few percent still on TDMA/AMPS). It looks pretty bad
for Cingular when Verizon and Sprint customers have coverage but not
Cingular customers, so I think that Cingular will be anxious to turn off
AMPS in areas like this, and equalize the coverage to no coverage. The
FCC shouldn't allow this to happen, but this is not your father's FCC.
They no longer look out for the public interest, they look out only for
the interests of the broadcasters and wireless operators.

On Tue, 6 Feb 2007 12:25:00 -0500, "Don Udel \(ETC\)"
<donudel@ellijay.com> wrote in <eqadle05nk@enews5.newsguy.com>:

>
>"John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message
>news:f67hs2llmsqlt5ndvqat1m07p2r4l5g65t@4ax.com.. .
>> On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:54:49 -0600, Karl <karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net>
>> wrote in <dvufs21g8elrcflcdmmaoncml1g1kjntj5@4ax.com>:
>>
>>>On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:13:49 GMT, John Navas
>>><spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>AMPS will soon be going away,
>>>
>>>Name the date.
>>
>> February 18, 2008
>>
>>>You been scaring folks with that for years, and its
>>>still far off.
>>
>> It's only one year from now.
>
>As I understand it, the FCC decided to no longer *require* A and B carriers
>to support AMPS service as of 2/18/08. That's hardly the same as it "going
>away". The FCC did not mandate a cutoff of AMPS on 2/18/08.

While no cutoff is mandated, carriers are eager to do away with AMPS in
order to migrate valuable spectrum to profitable digital. As noted
below, most industry analysts and major AMPS users expect AMPS to be
turned off very quickly.

>If there are areas that would go uncovered witthout AMPS and a carrier could
>make money with it, why would it go away? I would suspect that AMPS could
>well go away in areas already well covered by digital services. In rural
>areas, where it is the only infrastructure in place, why turn it off and be
>left with no footprint? That just does not make sense.

It does actually make sense:
* Relatively little AMPS revenue
* Cost of maintaining inefficient AMPS service
* Greatly increased capacity with digital
* Opportunity for much greater digital revenue

See "The Future of AMPS" at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Phone_System#The_Future_of_AMPS>:

In Canada, where rural is a bigger issue than the USA:

Rogers Wireless is in the process of dismantling their AMPS (along
with IS-136) network, with full shutdown expected in May 2007.

OnStar is a major user of AMPS in the USA:

... Cellular companies who own an A or B license (such as Verizon and
Alltel) must still provide analog service until February 18, 2008.
After that point, however, most cellular companies will be eager to
shut down AMPS and use the remaining channels for digital services.
OnStar is transitioning to digital service with the help of data
transport technology developed by Airbiquity, but warns customers who
cannot be upgraded to digital that their service will permanently
expire on January 1, 2008.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:26:44 GMT, John Navas
<spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:

>>>When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>>>certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>>>service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.


That makes no sense at all. Perhaps it might be sold to other
carriers? Why would Cingular forego all the income they get from
those Analog towers???

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:13:42 GMT, Karl <karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net>
wrote in <bbvhs2lnigep203q1m4nohgvas7ikhp2qm@4ax.com>:

>On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:26:44 GMT, John Navas
><spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>>>>When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>>>>certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>>>>service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.
>
>That makes no sense at all. Perhaps it might be sold to other
>carriers? Why would Cingular forego all the income they get from
>those Analog towers???

Because there simply isn't much AMPS income.
Digital is far more efficient and lucrative.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

SMS wrote:
> I also wrote the FCC about this issue, and received a non-committal
> reply that they understand the issues of lost coverage if AMPS is
> allowed to be turned off. Unfortunately, the FCC has essentially become
> part of the broadcasting industry under the Republicans.

Nice political hit job, but they weren't any better under the Democrats.

--
All relevant people are pertinent.
All rude people are impertinent.
Therefore, no rude people are relevant.
-- Solomon W. Golomb

Karl wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:26:44 GMT, John Navas
> <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>>>> When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>>>> certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>>>> service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.
>
>
> That makes no sense at all. Perhaps it might be sold to other
> carriers? Why would Cingular forego all the income they get from
> those Analog towers???

First, the CDMA carriers aren't really selling may tri-mode phones, so
the amount of income Cingular gets is very limited. Second, it makes
Cingular look bad when their top competitors have coverage in areas that
they lack coverage. They'd be willing to fore go the small amount of
roaming income in order to worsen their competitors coverage.

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:41:08 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45c97485$0$68974$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Karl wrote:
>> On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:26:44 GMT, John Navas
>> <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>> When the FCC permits AMPS to be shut down in 2008, it will almost
>>>>> certainly immediately be shut down in areas that are covered by digital
>>>>> service, because it uses a lot of bandwidth unnecessarily.
>>
>> That makes no sense at all. Perhaps it might be sold to other
>> carriers? Why would Cingular forego all the income they get from
>> those Analog towers???
>
>First, the CDMA carriers aren't really selling may tri-mode phones, so
>the amount of income Cingular gets is very limited. Second, it makes
>Cingular look bad when their top competitors have coverage in areas that
>they lack coverage. They'd be willing to fore go the small amount of
>roaming income in order to worsen their competitors coverage.

Please cut out the silly anti-Cingular trolling.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On 2007-02-06, Don Udel (ETC) <donudel@ellijay.com> wrote:
> If there are areas that would go uncovered witthout AMPS and a carrier could
> make money with it, why would it go away? I would suspect that AMPS could
> well go away in areas already well covered by digital services. In rural
> areas, where it is the only infrastructure in place, why turn it off and be
> left with no footprint? That just does not make sense.

Note that to make money from this service they need to have more than
a little bit of use. Just having those towers costs money. There's a
power bill to pay, they need to pay for tower rental or taxes on the land
it is constructed on, and they need to spend a bit on maintaining
both the physical infrastructure (so the tower doesn't fall on someone
or cause a fire) and the electronics for both the cell and the backhaul
network connecting it to the PSTN. The cost of repairing or replacing
old electronics continually increases, so at some point they'd need to
pay for new investment to keep the cost of continuing maintenance
reasonable. Also, the coverage in rural areas with only AMPS is seldom
"complete" any more because the tower spacing is designed for significantly
higher power handsets than are now available for purchase.

So they need to make some investment to keep this stuff viable and to
keep ongoing maintenance costs reasonable, and to pay for all of this
they need to have people using, and paying for, the service they provide.
The carriers who own these towers know how much it costs to maintain the
service, and how much use they are getting to pay for it, and from that
they can figure out whether there is money to be made from keeping the
service or whether it is just going to be an ongoing loss. And, to
tell the truth, if there were serious money to be made from these
services they already would have added digital service to the tower.
There's no shortage of spectrum in rural areas, digital service would
improve (though probably not entirely fix) the coverage situation with
low power handsets, and modern electronics would help with maintenance
costs. The fact that they've not made this investment in some places
should suggest that the business prospects may not be that rosy.

Or, at least, this is the argument the carriers might make. I have some
suspicions arising from the unanimity of the big carriers (including
Verizon and Alltel, whose customers can still use AMPS service) that
they are keen to turn this stuff off just as soon as it is permitted.
While I believe that AMPS is a goner regardless, my suspicion is that
they're playing chicken with the FCC over rural coverage because they'd
like to coax yet another handout from the government (to add to your
bill), like the landline carriers get, to keep coverage turned on in
places with small populations or where the terrain is rugged. We'll
see how that goes.

Dennis Ferguson

In article <slrnesk9cf.8p.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com>,
dcferguson@pacbell.net says...
> On 2007-02-06, Don Udel (ETC) <donudel@ellijay.com> wrote:
> > If there are areas that would go uncovered witthout AMPS and a carrier could
> > make money with it, why would it go away? I would suspect that AMPS could
> > well go away in areas already well covered by digital services. In rural
> > areas, where it is the only infrastructure in place, why turn it off and be
> > left with no footprint? That just does not make sense.
>
> Note that to make money from this service they need to have more than
> a little bit of use. Just having those towers costs money. There's a
> power bill to pay, they need to pay for tower rental or taxes on the land
> it is constructed on, and they need to spend a bit on maintaining
> both the physical infrastructure (so the tower doesn't fall on someone
>
That's assuming there are towers with nothing but AMPS. If there is any
digital on the tower at all then all those costs must exist anyway. Are
there any such towers--most likely both digital and analog are there but
the analog is either further up the tower or is cranked up powerwise or
both to support a few callers at greater range than digital reaches. To
reach the same area as analog with digital would take more towers.

> While I believe that AMPS is a goner regardless, my suspicion is that
> they're playing chicken with the FCC over rural coverage because they'd
> like to coax yet another handout from the government (to add to your
> bill), like the landline carriers get, to keep coverage turned on in
> places with small populations or where the terrain is rugged. We'll
> see how that goes.
>
Could be. Whatcha want to bet if nothing has been done when the AMPS
sunset is reached, they'll turn off AMPS--BUT LEAVE THE EQUIPMENT IN
PLACE--waiting for enough public to scream and the politicans to jump on
the FCC and congress to subsidize the carriers maintainance of AMPS in
those areas. The trouble with that is if there are no AMPS phones being
made then eventually the problem is going to have to be addressed with
expanding the digital signal to where it should be in the first place.
--
Jud
Dallas TX USA

On 2007-02-07, Jud Hardcastle <I5i5changethistodash5rbo@xemaps.com> wrote:
> dcferguson@pacbell.net says...
>> Note that to make money from this service they need to have more than
>> a little bit of use. Just having those towers costs money. There's a
>> power bill to pay, they need to pay for tower rental or taxes on the land
>> it is constructed on, and they need to spend a bit on maintaining
>> both the physical infrastructure (so the tower doesn't fall on someone
>>
> That's assuming there are towers with nothing but AMPS. If there is any
> digital on the tower at all then all those costs must exist anyway. Are
> there any such towers--most likely both digital and analog are there but
> the analog is either further up the tower or is cranked up powerwise or
> both to support a few callers at greater range than digital reaches. To
> reach the same area as analog with digital would take more towers.

No, I don't think the last bit is correct. AMPS had greater reach when
everyone had 1 or 2 or 3 Watt RF output phones, and had an antenna mounted
on the roof or the trunk when they used a phone in the car. Now we all have
200 mW or 300 mW RF output handsets, and expect to be able to shove the handset
to our ears inside cars and have it work. You can't buy high power phones
any more. There's little you can do at the tower to make up for the fact
that the phones we have now transmit 10db less power than the phones we had
when the tower spacing was engineered (not to mention the crappier antennas),
and are hence harder for the tower to hear. The digital stuff, if you trust
basic physics, should give you better distance than AMPS when run at the
same power level, which is the situation we have now with our
power-constrained handsets. AMPS has no advantage.

As for the other issue, any tower that has digital service now is one
which sees enough use that the carrier could justify investing in its
upgrade. You are correct they won't turn these towers off, but there's
a pretty solid chance they'll be getting rid of the AMPS and replacing
it with more digital, since the digital stuff should both work better
and support higher revenue services (like data). I think AMPS is gone
anywhere there is digital service already; the spectrum it occupies can
be more profitably used for digital service. The only issue is what
happens to those towers which only support AMPS, which apparently
provide so little revenue that they could never justify upgrading them.

>> While I believe that AMPS is a goner regardless, my suspicion is that
>> they're playing chicken with the FCC over rural coverage because they'd
>> like to coax yet another handout from the government (to add to your
>> bill), like the landline carriers get, to keep coverage turned on in
>> places with small populations or where the terrain is rugged. We'll
>> see how that goes.
>>
> Could be. Whatcha want to bet if nothing has been done when the AMPS
> sunset is reached, they'll turn off AMPS--BUT LEAVE THE EQUIPMENT IN
> PLACE--waiting for enough public to scream and the politicans to jump on
> the FCC and congress to subsidize the carriers maintainance of AMPS in
> those areas. The trouble with that is if there are no AMPS phones being
> made then eventually the problem is going to have to be addressed with
> expanding the digital signal to where it should be in the first place.

I guess I should have made it clearer. I don't believe they are hoping
for subsidies for the AMPS service, I'm sure every one of the big carriers
wants that to go away. What I suspect they might want the subsidies for
is to pay for the conversion of all that rural infrastructure to digital,
along with its future maintenance. We'll see what they get.

Dennis Ferguson

"Dennis Ferguson" <dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:slrnesk9cf.8p.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com...
> Note that to make money from this service they need to have more than
> a little bit of use. Just having those towers costs money. There's a
> power bill to pay, they need to pay for tower rental or taxes on the land
> it is constructed on, and they need to spend a bit on maintaining
> both the physical infrastructure (so the tower doesn't fall on someone
> or cause a fire) and the electronics for both the cell and the backhaul
> network connecting it to the PSTN. The cost of repairing or replacing
> old electronics continually increases, so at some point they'd need to
> pay for new investment to keep the cost of continuing maintenance
> reasonable. Also, the coverage in rural areas with only AMPS is seldom
> "complete" any more because the tower spacing is designed for
> significantly
> higher power handsets than are now available for purchase.

> There's no shortage of spectrum in rural areas, digital service would
> improve (though probably not entirely fix) the coverage situation with
> low power handsets, and modern electronics would help with maintenance
> costs. The fact that they've not made this investment in some places
> should suggest that the business prospects may not be that rosy.
>
> Dennis Ferguson

Dennis here is an example of people still using AMPS bag phone for rural
farming applications. The bag phones have higher power and range than
digital handheld units. There are lots of farmers who use this to monitor
pivot irrigation systems. Sometimes we are so focused on our own personal
situation that we fail to understand that others are still finding use for
an older technology that, in this case, works better than the newer.

http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/doc...37&id=cellular

Don