850 MHz WCDMA in Atlanta market yet?

Originally Posted by XFF

Why would they deploy W-CDMA on 850 if they have PCS spectrum in that market? W-CDMA 850 is like a last resort for markets without PCS spectrum.

Originally Posted by XFF

Why would they deploy W-CDMA on 850 if they have PCS spectrum in that market? W-CDMA 850 is like a last resort for markets without PCS spectrum.

Originally Posted by anubis9278

its set for late 2008 / early 2009. the rate of penetration on the thing has me excited. but it will require that all at&t sales reps and indirects get as many people as they can on 3G equipment. hence uncle Ralph stating everything will be 3G in the upcoming months. and McDonough, Peachtree City, parts of Griffin, Hampton will go 3G in late June. Savannah will get 3G by end of year.

Originally Posted by tkrandall

Are you saying the limiting condition is getting enough people off of GSM only phones so that they can have enough space in the 850 spectrum to give a chunk to W-CDMA? I thought ATT pretty much has GSM on 1900 and 850 already, so I would think they could direct today as many GSM handsets onto PCS as they would need to.

Originally Posted by hammy2003

As a McDonough-ite, the news of 3G in late June is exciting!

Could somebody explain the difference in PCS and 850?

Originally Posted by locust43

If they moved GSM to 1900mhz then those phones would have nothing to fall back on. But since 3G phones can fall back to GSM they put the network on 1900mhz for 3G since it can penetrate as well as 850mhz. And when signal conditions get low, 3G phones can fall back to the 850mhz GSM network if that makes since. But GSM phones couldn't use 850mhz if 3G occupied it. They are running GSM 1900/850mhz and 3G 1900mhz here.

Originally Posted by tkrandall

There should be enough bandwidth to operate both GSM and UMTS on 850 (25 mhz in a cell A or B band) and 1900 simultnesously, unless it's only a 10 mhz PCS market (does AT&T have any otf those?)

Originally Posted by formercanuck

Yup - cellular blocks are good for 2 WCDMA channels at best.


Its possible that there are some PCS 10 MHz markets only, but I suspect those are either GSM only, or use roamers (i.e. carriers in the western areas of low population density).
It 'should' be possible to run both GSM+UMTS 850 and PCS 1900 (GSM +/or UMTS). I don't suspect you'll see that until a higher number of devices IN SERVICE are GSM+UMTS/HSDPA, and AT&T hits the right capacity mix (i.e. significantly more 3G capable devices than GSM only) so that those on GSM 850/1900 won't have service issues.

Originally Posted by formercanuck

In general, there's a couple of reasons:

1. It is typically better (logistically) to have your primary 'pool' of spectrum large, or as large as can be. Having 25 MHz of GSM 850 is 'better' than having 15MHz of GSM 850 + 10 MHz of GSM 1900.

2. You won't have as many calls having to hand off between bands, and GSM 1900 in most GSM 850 areas does not work well in all areas, and will seek GSM 850 anyways.

3. Buildout of another band of UMTS 1900 becomes easy, as little tuning is required, as UMTS 1900 is already deployed. Buildout of UMTS 850 would require significant tuning in an area that currently runs UMTS 1900, IMO.

Originally Posted by formercanuck

In general, there's a couple of reasons:

1. It is typically better (logistically) to have your primary 'pool' of spectrum large, or as large as can be. Having 25 MHz of GSM 850 is 'better' than having 15MHz of GSM 850 + 10 MHz of GSM 1900.

2. You won't have as many calls having to hand off between bands, and GSM 1900 in most GSM 850 areas does not work well in all areas, and will seek GSM 850 anyways.

3. Buildout of another band of UMTS 1900 becomes easy, as little tuning is required, as UMTS 1900 is already deployed. Buildout of UMTS 850 would require significant tuning in an area that currently runs UMTS 1900, IMO.

Originally Posted by i0wnj00

1900 MHz is pretty much out of the question for GSM/EDGE for practical use and for most areas so the only thing that remains is 850 MHz.

Originally Posted by tkrandall

good points, but I would think a system could be optimized for maximum efficiency and coverage robustness/strength by deploying both 850 and 1900 in an overlayed manner. 1900 could handle most of the close range traffic, while 850 would be used for more signal reach and/or relief of 1900 if it is overloaded. calls on 1900 would hand off to 850 if rf strength gets too low, and back to 1900 if 1900 is strong.