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August 12, 2005. And Even More Cell Sites. Just days after we reported on the addition of lots of new cell sites, especially in whole new markets, Verizon announced yet another whole market coming online. They will be lighting up Little Rock, AR with a whole new system of about 280 new cell sites, soon. This introduces a whole new competitor to Little Rock, and reduces the need for Verizon to depend on roaming partners even further. Verizon claims over 100 of those sites will be active for their Grand Opening next month.

With the addition of Little Rock, Verizon arrives at the benchmark of 98 served markets out of the Top 100. Serving the Top 100 has been the wireless Holy Grail. This leaves just Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK as the remainder of Verizon's Hot 100, and Verizon does now have the spectrum for those two markets. Our guess is they'll be active within the next year. What will be the next conquest? The Top 200?

With these additions, Verizon will depend even less on their primary roaming partner, Alltel. With less than five years left in the mutually-beneficial Alltel/Verizon roaming agreement, Verizon needs to prepare for the day they'll be negotiating with a much more powerful roaming partner. Alltel is a sleeping giant that is poised to cash in on their dominance of rural U.S. coverage.

We are also hoping that now that the Sprint/Nextel merger has been approved, both networks will cooperate on a sizable expansion of coverage, greater than possible by either network alone. Yes, lots more cell sites. Of course that's the upside of such a large merger, but the reality is one less competitor means we are closer to potential higher prices. We don't expect the new Sprint to be a price leader, but we have heard rumors they will be firing some new ammunition in the 'minutes' wars.


Dude, What Happened to My Phone? Occasionally, we hear stories of how some users are wronged by their wireless carrier. We do feel your pain, but can offer little help other than suggest being persistent. But when it happens to one of our own, we really feel the pain. A few days ago, my prepaid Cingular phone went deader than the proverbial doornail. Oh, sure, the screen would light up, but no service. Hey, the account is all paid up...I'm no deadbeat.

Ultimately, the service was restored, but it took more convincing than should be necessary, and all was not restored exactly as we believe it should be. We asked Cingular to explain what happened and they investigated. The problem was a fairly simple human error. As regular readers would know, we often make several calls to customer service to get more than an answer, but rather a consensus in the solution to a problem. In this case, the agents were trying to be genuinely helpful, and properly executed all the steps...but one. I'm actually surprised we don't hear more stories of this sort knowing the size of the top wireless carriers, and the difficulty of maintaining a fully-trained customer support staff.

Our advice remains, be persistent. Our account is back to 100%. Unlike previous encounters, I commend Cingular for their thorough response to this question.

July 22, 2005, Road Trip in the Midwest. We travel though various parts of the Midwest each summer, mostly centered on Ohio. The big news here is brand new Verizon PCS coverage along I-77 and I-70. Less than a year ago these were areas where Verizon customers would roam on Alltel and Sprint PCS. Now, there is Verizon coverage (SID 21) along these interstate highways. Away from the interstate, you'll still access those roaming partners. This is the Northcoast PCS license Verizon purchased recently. It does not yet show on Verizon's Coverage Locator.

Also, new and improved Cingular coverage has appeared. Actually, it's just improved access. First, the Orange & Blue networks (old Cingular & ex-AT&T) are now better (if not fully) integrated. A year ago we complained about the AT&T signal fading away, dropping, and the phone taking time to find a Cingular signal. Now, it seems to work seamlessly. While this appears to have improved service, we still find holes in their all-PCS signal, so they still need some new sites in some locations.

One of our favorite places to visit in the midwest, the islands in Lake Erie, also has greatly improved service. This trip was to South Bass Island which previously had a strong Sprint PCS presence, and a nice new T-Mobile site. This year, we found a much stronger signal for Verizon, and all Cingular GSM customers, including our cheap-o Cingular prepaid phone, now access that huge T-Mobile flag-pole site. The old AT&T TDMA phone was nearly worthless unless it could access the Alltel analog signal from the mainland (yes, mainland Ohio).

As luck would have it, there was a crew installing a brand new cell site right at the neck of the town's new water tower. I stopped by and asked the first worker and he said it was "some-tell, uh, All-tel, or Nex-tel." Asking around a bit more I found it was really Nextel. Normally a cell site antenna is a thing of beauty to us, but this installation was surprising ugly in a very visible spot, right in the middle of this resort town (Put-in-Bay).

20 years ago, a trip to the top of the 350 foot Perry's Victory & Peace Monument was an exercise in DX-ing the VHF ham bands to see if we could converse with Canadian hams. Now, with the ham bands much quieter, time at the tower is spent writing down SID and sector numbers and making phone calls. Same activity, different frequencies.

One of the most notable observations we can make about cellular service in the midwest is the overwhelming presence of 200-foot self-supported antenna towers. They appear as frequently as every mile along most major highways, some shared, some not. And where there aren't big towers, there are lots of 150-foot monopoles. To a westerner, this is quite foreign. Sure, we have tall towers in the west, but not in this quantity. Most towers out west are much shorter or better-hidden. It is one of very few things to envy about the midwest. How do they get away with it? It's gotta be the trees.

July 15, 2005, Road Trip in the Rockies. Our travels took us through parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The ultimate destination was Yellowstone National Park. Our last report was from that road trip and things were somewhat predictable up until that report. But my oh my in Wyoming.

The Verizon phone with America's Choice II was disappointing. The only time the phone would work off-network was roaming on Western Wireless (Cellular One) and only in northern Utah. In the good old days of our Single Rate West plan we could roam on all sorts of carriers, usually analog. No longer. In Yellowstone Park itself, there is only one active Verizon site, near the Canyon area, but they do have good coverage at each entrance to the park. They do not allow roaming on any other carrier there, and oddly, they no longer support their own licensed cell site at the south entrance to the park. In the cities around the park service is very good. Verizon otherwise has relatively poor coverage in Wyoming, but being number 3 overall isn't too bad.

Old Faithful, our AT&T TDMA phone, not the geyser, had much better coverage. Most of the time it was roaming on TDMA with a couple stretches of analog from Verizon. Our phone is similar to Free2Go and spent most of its time on Western Wireless, and when that failed, UBET Cellular. The bad news, since it's always roaming, the rate quadruples. That's not too bad if you have a Beyond Wireless phone.

The big, and I do mean BIG surprise was our Cingular GSM phone. Since it's a prepaid phone, the Cingular prepaid map shows no coverage in areas where there is no native Cingular coverage..the phone just doesn't roam. Ah, but it does! Service is supplied by many different roaming carriers who must be using the Cingular network code because the phone would always display "Cingular". Off the beaten path in Utah and Colorado, Cingular just wasn't there. But then we discovered Cingular service where we didn't expect it.

First, in the wonderfully typical small town of Vernal, UT, there was what appeared to be a single site of Cingular service. But when we crossed the Green River dam in the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, the only signal was from UBET Cellular...and Cingular! Crossing the line into Wyoming, the Cingular signal centered on Rock Springs and a handful of islands of coverage north of that, including Jackson Hole. But in Yellowstone Park, there was excellent Cingular coverage in twice as many areas as Verizon. That's two sites: Old Faithful and Grant Village.

A sidelight in Vernal was the comparison of cellular stores. Cellular One is housed in a converted gas station. UBET is in a huge building that could easily be mistaken for a substantial bank, and possibly was one in a previous life. The Nextel "store" was one of those chain saw sharpening shop-looking buildings.

Then there's the rock solid Cingular coverage across Wyoming on I-80. Once again the phone always said "Cingular", and there weren't those big annoying holes like Verizon's. And none of this showing on Cingular's prepaid map, and some of it not even shown as current coverage on their regular map. It was touch and go for some time since we didn't expect to use the Cingular phone at all, so we didn't pack the Nokia charger.

The coverage king in that region of WY is Union Cellular who just recently converted to GSM, and I suspect supplies some of that new Cingular coverage. Otherwise, we rarely roamed on them. The old Verizon plans would roam on Union's analog signal, alas, no longer. The Verizon phone also roamed on Commnet Wireless, digital and analog, along I-80, through a long gap in Verizon coverage..

Sprint PCS and T-Mobile only appeared in Jackson and Cheyenne, WY, and all along I-70 from Denver to Grand Junction. I thought I heard the Sprint phone beep in Yellowstone, but didn't look to check. We just didn't expect coverage there, but if it indeed is there, it could be supplied by Western Wireless. Otherwise there was no other useable signal in WY. Laramie showed some Sprint signal, but it constantly dropped out.

Western Wireless also has a few areas of coverage in Yellowstone which we accessed with our AT&T phone...some digital and some analog. Western Wireless also owns that infamous Old Faithful cell tower. You wouldn't see it at all except for the fact that it is clearly visible as you drive up the entrance to the Old Faithful parking area.

Nextel did a good job with sites in all the towns and along major corridors, but we couldn't check them in Yellowstone Park. Don't laugh, I forgot to turn on the Nextel phone there...oops.

With the dozen or so cell sites in Yellowstone, you'd think coverage would be great. But since no one phone can access all sites, it's not. For a time, Verizon phones would, although with the old America's Choice plans some roaming charges may have been seen. Although I am being a bit critical, coverage in these areas has improved significantly over the past year. Of course we want more! Enjoy your summer, but keep it on 'vibrate' in the park, OK?

July 8, 2005, On the Road with All These Phones. Several of our contributing members are on vacation and, of course, constantly checking our phones. Some are visiting some mainstream locations, but I started out actually looking for 'shortcuts' with poor coverage.

First, I must say some of the more out-of-the-way attractions are a whole lot more interesting than their location would imply. We started with a destination in mind and programmed the "scenic route" into our plans and packed up the family. We figured we'd get to our ultimate destination with more days left in our vacation than we would know what to do with. Today's article is not about those actual destinations but more of an overview of the roaming scene today. But we have yet to arrive at our ultimate destination...we're at least two days behind...some of those places were far more interesting than expected. This time there are fewer roaming surprises.

Verizon's new "No-Roaming-Charges" plan, America's Choice II (AC 2), does indeed have new areas of 'no service'. No, it isn't critical, but it is a little annoying. This is where we realize they are still limited to coverage created by those hurriedly-installed cell sites in the 80's by Commnet Cellular. Where are their "hot" spots? In the oil fields, of course! In the 'cold' spots I finally tried the 'forced' roaming technique (making calls on carriers that should not be available under normal roaming circumstances). Some of this actually occurred unintentionally, just as it would with someone on the old "AC 1" plans. You dial the number, the phone can't complete the call on a 'Preferred' carrier, so it sneaks into the Roaming mode and completes the call with potential roaming charges. This is easy to do in some locations.

Cingular has service that is appearing in more of these small, rural towns, usually in the form of a single site provided by Commnet Wireless or Western Wireless, or roaming on Edge Wireless or Union Cellular. Service appears like new buds on a rose bush, with nice little circles around these isolated little towns.

T-Mobile is still MIA in all but the most major of markets and highways, although we have word of them designing a plan to add sites in smaller towns with a minimum of their own expense.

Sprint PCS, like T-Mobile, has appeared in new interstate corridors, and they still are the coverage champs in many of the resort towns of the west.

And, as we always love to see, the real coverage kings in some of these really rural areas are the local, small cellular operations. In our travels that means companies like Cellular One/Western Wireless, Union Cellular, UB-TA Wireless and a few others. Pick another area and you'll find another rural carrier or co-op leading the pack

And if there is work to be done, referring to the need for their Direct Connect service, Nextel makes a pretty good showing especially where business brings more than just the family farmer to town, meaning companies in chemicals, agri-business and the oil patch.

The Winner? So far it's our old ex-AT&T TDMA phone. Yeah, we're paying higher roaming rates, but when it comes to coverage, there's no better. That phone even seeks out some Verizon analog where necessary. But make no mistake about it, we're in one of those areas of the country where there is NO coverage, and with a look around after driving through, you wouldn't expect any.

As we stop in to the local bait & tackle & camping supplies store, we overhear more than one conversation about how their cellular phone "doesn't work very well around these parts." What they mean is their phone went dead about 20 miles away and now sits in the glove box with no chance of interrupting the silence at the campground. Of course, I'm ready to casually mention to these people that their choice of carrier would make all the difference in service at their favorite vacation spot. But I am far more concerned about finding a can of Deep Woods Off.