What is going to happen to the CDMA service?

[imprttuner2]

I am a current Alltel customer, and have a question about the change over of service from Alltel to AT&T in my area. I live in Fairview, MT (59221) and our area is almost solely covered by a single Alltel tower (Lat 47.83, Lon -104.06). I am looking forward to the change in service since I have an Alltel Data card and I know that the AT&T network is capable of producing better speeds, but I am concerned as well. The problem is that no one seems to be able to answer one question for us. What is going to happen to all the Verizon customers that are using cell’s in the area. When they flip the switch from CDMA to GSM is this going to effectively turn off anyone using Verizon as a carrier. It was never a problem before since Alltel let Verizon piggyback on their towers, but with these changes I am concerned. This is a very rural area, and many people have switched over to cellular service to replace their aging landlines, and without notification this could leave some families in a dangerous position. You may think I’m exaggerating, but we live in an area where -22 degrees without wind-chill on the way to work is the norm in the winter, not an extreme.

Thank you for any information you could provide.

[shango6]

They are required to leave the cdma and gsm on just the way it is for 3 years. If anything the cdma network becomes a little better because all the Alltel customers are moved to the new att 3g network, the only ones using the cdma are the roamers.

If Verizon in fact does not have their own customers their and they have customers depending on the Alltel cdma network they should move over to att in the next few years when their contract runs out.

[imprttuner2]

I have my Data card/aircard/cell modem through Alltel right now because it's the only reliable internet over 56k in the area, but my cell phone is from verizon. Picked it up in Fargo, Nd where they have great reception, but I'm going to try calling their cust service today and see if I can change over without an ETF. Since the area where I live now is not officially a vzw service area I'm hoping not. My Godmother lives 3 miles from me, down worse gravel roads then I do, and she had no idea about the change over. She only has her Vzw phone and had to call for an ambulence a few months back. I just don't want to worry about her safety due to corporations not telling people what is going on. Thank you for the Info, I'm glad it's going to be around for 3 years. That is very comforting. Thank you.

[Getintothegame]

What did you hear about the ETF?

I'm really not sure I want to go to AT&T and this wait is really taking forever.

[Jordan T]

He's on Verizon and wants to switch to AT&T to be sure he'll have coverage rather than roaming all the time. Good luck with that, I imagine saying you have bad service will get you further than mentioning that you're roaming. LOL. Verizon doesn't care.

Why don't you want to switch to AT&T? And the wait has been under a year - to build a brand new network. That's great!

[imprttuner2]

Allrighty... Sorry for the long update... After an hour conversation with Verizon they sent me to a lvl2 tech who started looking up service calls for my area. Apparently I'm not the only one who has complained, so instead of sending out a technician to do a site survey the response was basically "you live in a marginal zone"... which I asked for the non official version in english. The tech said something to the effect that he was shocked that I could talk at all and wondered why it took me this long to call. Needless to say he flagged my account for disconnect without early termination and I've switched to Alltel for now. Got an HTC Desire, and am loving the android os. Best part is that I'm getting insta upgraded to a Samsung Captivate. Actually, I shouldn't say that. The best part is that I CAN TALK WHEREEVER I WANT AGAIN! Full reception, full EVDO, stupid me didn't try a speedtest though lol.

I did get some interesting info when I went into the Alltel/AT&T store though. There were 2 tower techs there. As was said earlier they are planning on keeping CDMA alive on these transition towers for 2-3 years. They were unsure how repairs to the towers were going to work though. Something about maintance on the CDMA wasn't spelled out very clearly.

Just a side note, I know everyone is itching for the transfer to happen as well, but I'm glad they pushed it back a bit though. The winter, even here in ND, has been more harsh then it's been since the 80's and I'd rather see them push back the rollout a bit, then have AT&T Tech-icicles decorating their towers. It has been hitting -50 deg F with windchill on a regular basis this winter and that's asking them to risk their lives to get us a bit faster network. The store manager did confirm that new handsets are shipping, and a customer stopped in with their new AT&T phone to ask what to do with it while I was there, so fear not that things are coming.

Thank you all for all your help, and I'll be hanging around here alot more from now on.