On Wed, 7 May 2008 09:28:46 -0600, "Todd Allcock"
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
>
>"Ron" <ronclifford@peoplepc.com> wrote in message
>news:o17324lk3qm8ni85pb18qnkk607gjaodu9@4ax.com.. .
>
>>>> 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?
>
I can't speak for them, all I know is the complaints I see regularly
at alt.cellular.sprintpcs.
> "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.
"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:sdkUj.16056$2g1.5430@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com...
> 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?
"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:alfUj.14591$V14.7391@nlpi070.nbdc.sbc.com...
>> 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.
On Wed, 07 May 2008 08:54:39 -0700, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
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.
On Wed, 7 May 2008 09:29:05 -0600, "Todd Allcock"
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
>
>"Ron" <ronclifford@peoplepc.com> wrote in message
>news:o17324lk3qm8ni85pb18qnkk607gjaodu9@4ax.com.. .
>
>>>> 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.
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> 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.
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> 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.
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.cellular.sprintpcs.]
On 2008-05-07, Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
>> 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?
Good point. Let's look at the facts.
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).
Now, let's look at the history in my hometown.
** GTE was in Cleveland in the 90's with AMPS. My first phone was a GTE
Mobilnet AMPS handset in 1993. CDMA was introduced in 1995.
** Cleveland had a CellularONE network for quite some time. About the same
time everyone went digital, CellularONE Cleveland became AirTouch.
So, both networks went digital in the mid-90's. In 2000-2001, AirTouch became
Verizon Wireless. Due to anti-trust concerns, GTE Wireless's Cleveland
network was spun off to Alltel.
Now, I've never been an AT&T customer but I believe they went digital in
Cleveland about a year or two after GTE/Airtouch did.
All three networks -- GTE, AirTouch and what used to be Ameritech Cellular
and is now AT&T -- had been around in some form for at least ten years.
Cleveland was one of the last markets T-Mobile launched, in 2000-2001, and
even then they had coverage in some rural spots that I was surprised they'd
cover.
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.
> 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!" ;-)
Heh
> their phones don't work anywhere? Why hasn't the free market done it's job?
Well, that's the thing, the free market IS doing its job.
Qwest sees the handwriting on the wall
Linear Mode
