On 2008-05-07, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>> On 2008-05-06, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> 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