National 3G Maps

[fraydog]

Ilvla2, read the book "The Rape of Ma Bell" on the Bell System Memorial page. That explains a lot about divesture and how the government screwed that up very badly.

[ilvla2]

Ilvla2, read the book "The Rape of Ma Bell" on the Bell System Memorial page. That explains a lot about divesture and how the government screwed that up very badly.

Wow, somebody that agrees with me on the AT&T break up, I was beginning to think me and my dad were alone in that!

[fraydog]

Wow, somebody that agrees with me on the AT&T break up, I was beginning to think me and my dad were alone in that!

I read that and it gave me a way different perspective. Bell would have received competition from the other wireless providers. That was going to happen. Also, more checks and balances would be in place on Bell.

[ilvla2]

I read that and it gave me a way different perspective. Bell would have received competition from the other wireless providers. That was going to happen. Also, more checks and balances would be in place on Bell.

It would be interesting to imagine what it would have been like had the break up not happened. It took affect on January 1st, 1984, I was 12 and finishing up my final months of 6th grade, and getting ready to start Junior High School later that year, ahh, good ole days!

[ggore]

If WCDMA is deployed on the tower south of ggore at Putnam, then Taloga probably gets back to 3-5 bar coverage. That is just very odd that AT&T would not want to cover the county seat first and say screw the rest of the county. Standard operating procedure of AT&T where I live is to hit POP's first, ask questions later. All the AT&T towers where I live are close to the middle of population centers.

I think that the county and city leaders should call up the Regional VP again and point out Pioneer's LTE program, and then state "we get HSPA+ now or we tell everyone in the county to ETF and go to Pioneer/Verizon."

Threats! Threats can get it done!

See the graphic above, we do NOT get 3-5 bars here in town. I have an AT&T 3G iPad, tried it last night, it kept switching between 1 bar and No Service, and was non-functional. I use it on wifi at home and at the office, and only turn the cellular data on when I am out of town. If weather conditions are right, once in a while you can get 3-4 bars here in the valley, but that doesn't mean you have a functional signal at all, it can be completely unresponsive even at that level since it's only EDGE anyway. Pretty good situation when there is a tower 7 miles away and another 10 miles away, huh? It's a dead spot. No use in complaining any more, sending any more Mark the Spot reports, or anything else. AT&T has spoken, they don't care about this, this county seat, at all.

When Pioneer/Verizon turns on their LTE in the Spring, while AT&T still has only EDGE here, or nothing, the remaining AT&T holdouts, who are mainly iPhone users, will flee AT&T to Pioneer/Verizon in a heartbeat, assuming Apple introduces an LTE-capable iPhone that will work on this network, which no doubt they will. There are already people picking up Verizon service in anticipation. When I told the manager of the AT&T store this yesterday, he said "but our LTE is still faster than Verizon's", I just had to remind him that Pioneer/Verizon is turning on their LTE HERE, in the SPRING, while there is NO AT&T LTE within 150 miles of that store, and probably never will be, and that the ONLY 3G in this quarter of the state is 4 towers in the city of Woodward, and that it took action by State Representatives *****ing at AT&T to get that 3G installed in the first place! What stupid idiots are working for AT&T??

If it took legislative threats to get AT&T to put 3G in a city of 15,000 people, why should we have ANY faith that AT&T will make good on its promise to roll out 3G to its entire native EDGE footprint this year?

[ilvla2]

See the graphic above, we do NOT get 3-5 bars here in town. I have an AT&T 3G iPad, tried it last night, it kept switching between 1 bar and No Service, and was non-functional. I use it on wifi at home and at the office, and only turn the cellular data on when I am out of town. If weather conditions are right, once in a while you can get 3-4 bars here in the valley, but that doesn't mean you have a functional signal at all, it can be completely unresponsive even at that level since it's only EDGE anyway. Pretty good situation when there is a tower 7 miles away and another 10 miles away, huh?

When Pioneer/Verizon turns on their LTE in the Spring, while AT&T still has only EDGE here, or nothing, the remaining AT&T holdouts, who are mainly iPhone users, will flee AT&T to Pioneer/Verizon in a heartbeat, assuming Apple introduces an LTE-capable iPhone that will work on this network. There are already people picking up Verizon service in anticipation. When I told the manager of the AT&T store this yesterday, he said "but our LTE is still faster than Verizon's", I just had to remind him that Pioneer/Verizon is turning on their LTE HERE, in the SPRING, while there is NO AT&T LTE within 150 miles of that store, and probably never will be! What stupid idiots are working for AT&T??

We're not much closer to any LTE, it ends in San Rafael, 110 miles south of my place. AT&T, Verizon and U.S. Cellular all plan to get LTE up here eventually, I expect VZ to be first, then a tie between USCC and AT&T.

[fraydog]

WCDMA does not have the hard distance limits GSM has. You kind of missed my point there ggore.

Thankfully I have not had to deal with people as dumb as the manager you talked to in the AT&T store. I'm sure that, deep down, he is VERY panicked and very AFRAID he's going to lose his job because of the bloodbath that will soon happen there. If he isn't afraid, he should be.

Big Red is coming. Maybe he will get it when Verizon purchases Pioneer. I think that would get his attention. Maybe using the words "buildout" and "FCC" would help as well.

[zephxiii]

GSM isn't totally limited at 22 miles or whatever either, it has methods to extend that distance which should be no problem given the equipment there is these days.

[ggore]

WCDMA does not have the hard distance limits GSM has. You kind of missed my point there ggore.

Thankfully I have not had to deal with people as dumb as the manager you talked to in the AT&T store. I'm sure that, deep down, he is VERY panicked and very AFRAID he's going to lose his job because of the bloodbath that will soon happen there. If he isn't afraid, he should be.

Big Red is coming. Maybe he will get it when Verizon purchases Pioneer. I think that would get his attention. Maybe using the words "buildout" and "FCC" would help as well.

I understand, evidently they are pushing those limits in that location and nowhere else in the country or they would have better overall coverage in all their native RSA's.

The manager is just a paean, I'm sure. It is an AT&T-owned store, very nice and fully staffed. But I'm sure it is a lot of fun for those people to sell the latest hot 3G or 4G phone to someone while telling them oh by the way, the 3G only works within a 5-mile radius of that store and that the closest other 3G is at least 80 miles away in any direction and that it is 130 miles to the nearest 4G in Oklahoma City. So go ahead, buy this shiny new Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket 4G phone, take it home and enjoy your EDGE service. Really good for sales, LOL.

[formercanuck]

I cancelled my AT&T account today after visting the AT&T store one last time. The manager told me that their goal in 2012 is to convert all EDGE sites to 3G and do away with EDGE entirely. An admirable goal. This still doesn't help us here, because 3G will stand no better chance at reaching into the valley than EDGE did, so I am done with AT&T. Verizon/Pioneer are launching 4G/LTE in a couple months, so AT&T can just sit and stew in its 3G as long as they want to. Sayonara!

I'm glad to see that you're voting with your wallet! I would expect anyone to do the same on any carrier. No service = no customer. I did the same thing with VZW ten years ago back here in LA for similar reasons.

[zephxiii]

Interesting the manager said that! It confirms what we read in that leaked FCC document!! Looking forward to 2012 then ...and it looks like I'll be busy with the maps lol.

Sent from my Nexus One using HowardForums

[TWX]

Interesting the manager said that! It confirms what we read in that leaked FCC document!! Looking forward to 2012 then ...and it looks like I'll be busy with the maps lol.

Sent from my Nexus One using HowardForums

I hope it's true!

[Jordan T]

zeph, GSM is indeed hard limited by design at 35km (about 22 miles). Some base station equipment can extend this to 70km by using two time slots per user, but this halves capacity and disables data entirely.

[Guest 214]

zeph, GSM is indeed hard limited by design at 35km (about 22 miles). Some base station equipment can extend this to 70km by using two time slots per user, but this halves capacity and disables data entirely.

Extended GSM actually works *OK*, not as well as CDMA long range but oh well. I have used it in China and clarity was decent while at a standstill but kinda choppy while in motion. Primarily why they have CDMA in more rural area's and now TD-SCDMA I guess to migrate from *western* dependent tech's.

Never understood why GSM set the hard limit at 22 miles, guess it was the best trade off for distance and performance..

iDEN a TDMA based tech has no such built in hard limit, its set by the engineers at the site.

Iridium Sat. phones use a TDMA based technology and of course transmit over 22 miles

[Guest 214]

Updated to 01/06/12