Thinking about T-Mobile in Boston :)

[Cortex]

This cracked me up!

I have a T-Mobile Pocket PC that I use in the Boston area -- or at least try to use....

I was looking at other phone plans and came across this image of T-Mobile's "coverage" in the Boston area.

And I wonder why if I walk 2 feet my phone may or may not work!

What are they thinking??? :?



http://www.brainthoughts.com/tmo.jpg

[Janak Parekh]

It's not deliberate, you know. T-Mobile has one of the younger networks in the US, and it's very difficult to get new towers put up nowadays (especially due to NIMBYs and due to the huge costs).

--janak

[Cortex]

hi janak

what are some of the limitations of setting up the network? i dont know the meaning of some of the abbreviations you used.

looking at the maps of the other providers -- especially AT&T, it was much more solid and i assummed they use more reliable transmitters that cover a larger area.

the map for t-mobiles national coverage shows the coverage following most major freeways in lines and splotchy coverage in many cities.

is it really that it costs too much to put up transmitters, or that t-mobile made a bad choice in transmitters that cover a smaller area?

[Janak Parekh]

what are some of the limitations of setting up the network? i dont know the meaning of some of the abbreviations you used.
NIMBY is the only acronym I used, and it stands for "Not In My Back Yard". It refers to local communities that are resistant to change, and in this case particularly to the creation of new cell towers, often due to fears of "radiation". This is a recent trend, and it has caused tremendous headache for the newer cell companies. The old ones, especially AT&T and Verizon, got most of their towers up in the days when NIMBYs weren't organized against the installation of such facilities, and that's why they have terrific coverage.

looking at the maps of the other providers -- especially AT&T, it was much more solid and i assummed they use more reliable transmitters that cover a larger area.
No. You think T-Mobile would deliberately use "less reliable" transmitters?

is it really that it costs too much to put up transmitters, or that t-mobile made a bad choice in transmitters that cover a smaller area?
It really does cost that much -- first off in fees to do site surveys, counter NIMBYs, make public presentations, etc -- and second the cost of equipment is substantial -- remember, the base stations need telephone trunks, power, batteries, etc. Moreover, they have to budget upgrades twice a decade for new technologies.

There is one other consideration -- T-Mobile uses the 1900MHz frequency band, which attenuates faster than 800MHz (currently, these are the two bands allocated by the FCC for wireless phones). In other words, 1900MHz needs more towers to cover the same area. They use that band because they don't have much of a choice -- the 800MHz band is used up in the US by AT&T, Verizon, and Cingular. (Sprint also uses 1900MHz, largely for the same reason.) Combine the fact that they need more towers in a day and age where NIMBYs are resistant to any new towers, and you've got a huge headache for any new wireless carriers moving into a market.

Which leads me to another point: we're facing a spectrum shortage overall, and the FCC is hoping we'll be done with analog TV's in this decade so that the 700MHz signal spectrum can be reassigned to wireless. A wireless provider's "service busies" are caused by trunk shortages and insufficient spectrum. The latter is a huge problem, and is the reason why companies have been buying as much spectrum as they can. However, such purchases takes billions of dollars, so the entrenched providers, like Verizon, have a leg up.

In short: it's a complicated situation, and T-Mobile's not sucky "because they want to be". Quite frankly, I'm absolutely amazed T-Mobile and Sprint have grown so fast in the last decade or so. Too bad T-Mobile's coverage is bad for me too. :cry:

--janak

[dh]

The town I lived in while in NH was a classic NIMBY.
There was no cellular service service of any kind, everytime anyone wanted to install any equipment there were so many restrictions enforced that the cellular carriers just walked away. Then the state got smart, they built a large mast on a mountain on state property, miles from anywhere. The reason was they wanted to improve communications for the NH State Police.

Amazingly (for the State of NH) they realized they could generate some revenue by renting space on the mast to the cellular companies.

Then the environmental nazis decided the mast spoilt the view and took the state to court. Last I heard the mast was coming down.

At least in this part of Jersey there are no views to spoil so we have pretty good communications.

[Cortex]

No. You think T-Mobile would deliberately use "less reliable" transmitters?


If its cheaper and they do a cost benefit analysis of what is the minimum coverage necessary to generate subscribers.


There is one other consideration -- T-Mobile uses the 1900MHz frequency band, which attenuates faster than 800MHz (currently, these are the two bands allocated by the FCC for wireless phones).


This is more along the lines of what I was thinking. Its just very patchy in Boston. I can literally walk a block and have 4 bar signal strength to 1-2 bars in my backyard (which is tiny) and 0-1 bar in my kitchen.

Its very frustrating and I really need a reliable phone. I suspect this is part of the reason they offered unlimited data access. I've been sticking out the patchy coverage because of the good deal on data (nevermind that the data signal is just as patchy).

[Janak Parekh]

If its cheaper and they do a cost benefit analysis of what is the minimum coverage necessary to generate subscribers.
From what I know, cellular tower equipment is very standardized, so no, this isn't the case.

Its very frustrating and I really need a reliable phone. I suspect this is part of the reason they offered unlimited data access. I've been sticking out the patchy coverage because of the good deal on data (nevermind that the data signal is just as patchy).
I'm sorry to tell you, but you are going to have to switch to a different provider if you want better short-term coverage. They'll eventually improve, but that may be any time between 6 months and 6 years. I'm in the process of switching back to Verizon myself, and while it's not cheap and there's no Bluetooth, once you experience Express Network (1xRTT) you can't got back to GPRS. (I'll be writing a review in a week or two...)

In general, T-Mobile's "newness" is indeed why they have aggressive pricing -- that's common with new networks. Sprint used to be the best deal around, although now that they're more established, their prices have slowly come back up.

--janak

[Cortex]

i guess i will continue to suffer with t-mobile.

i was considering buying t-mobiles unlimited data only plan for 29.99 a month and getting a voice plan with at&t. then i would switch sim cards if i wanted to use the pocket pc phone to make a call or use the internet but i've decided that's too much of a pain in the boodie.

oh well. i guess i could move to austin texas! (t-mobile worked great there :wink: )

[disconnected]

So does anyone know, really, why Sprint and Verizon don't have bluetooth phones?

I know Sprint was supposed to have one, and the company that made them apparently decided North America wasn't going to provide enough business or something.......which sounds crazy to me; I know not everyone has a Pocket PC, but I thought a lot of people wanted wireless headsets. I've also heard Sprint thinks it would make it too easy to use it as a modem and they can't figure out how to price the service, but surely they could find a way.

With all the recent talk about our "Third world power grid", our communication systems seem to be just as bad. Walter Shapiro had an interesting column in USAToday recently, about how all of our big tech advances lately have been in small-sized things (smaller computers, etc), and we haven't been able to do big things since the sixties. I can't imagine a federal highway system being started today. We'd probably have conflicting road standards and never be able to leave our own states without buying new cars.

Well, that got a little off-topic, didn't it? :oops:

[Janak Parekh]

So does anyone know, really, why Sprint and Verizon don't have bluetooth phones?
(Skipping the off-topic stuff... ;))

I've heard nothing definitive, but from the rumors I've heard, Sprint/Verizon are fearful that Bluetooth will make a hash of their pricing plans (e.g., the cheaper deals for cell phones might be used with laptops, increasing use), and would like to rejigger their pricing plans before introducing Bluetooth. The "official" party line, I believe, is that it's not requested that much, and that they'd rather focus on putting more functionality in the phone. :(

The only hope is that as GSM becomes more pervasive here, so will the use of Bluetooth and the pressure on CDMA vendors to sell phones with the technology.

--janak

[ignar]

So does anyone know, really, why Sprint and Verizon don't have bluetooth phones?

That's why I left Sprint for Cingular. (Wanted to get T-mobile for its unlimited data plan, but T-Mo is not available in my area. :() I paired my new SE T616 phone with iPaq 2215 and it worked like a charm. I think phone quality is little better with Sprint, but I will stick to Cingular at least until Sprint or Verizon start to offer BT phones.

[Cortex]

well i could stand t-mobile (for voice at least) no more!

i bought another cell phone contract via amazon.com with nextel and the phone should be arriving this week.

a couple of questions:

1. why are the phones that nextel supports so lame?

sprint, at&t, and t-mobile have really cool tiny color phones with cameras and bluetooth but nextel just has these lame motorola's that look pretty chunky from the photo's...

2. the chunky motorola i90c i purchased apparently uses a SIM card!

has anyone tried the t-mobile or at&t pocket pc on the nextel network using their card just for voice support?

rather than visibly being the megatechogeek i am and carrying both a pocket pc phone and a motorola phone on my belt (isn't t-mobile lame?!?! they make a mockery of a beautiful device like the pocket pc phone in the boston area), perhaps i can just switch SIMs when i want GPRS internet access.

[Janak Parekh]

1. why are the phones that nextel supports so lame?
Because Nextel uses a proprietary Motorola technology (iDEN), they can only sell specially-designed Motorola phones. These phones are less designed for "cool features"; they're rugged, designed for PTT use.

has anyone tried the t-mobile or at&t pocket pc on the nextel network using their card just for voice support?
Won't work. They use iDEN, not GSM/GPRS. The fact that they use a SIM card is a coincidence; SIMs are not limited to just GSM networks.

Your best bet, should you want to keep the Pocket PC Phone for data, is to either get that data cable or to keep T-Mobile just for the unlimited Internet. The latter is probably better because Nextel/iDEN is not that fast datawise.

--janak

[Cortex]

oh well

thanks for the info

i'll probably keep t-mobile for unlimited data and consider a wireless pcmcia modem on ebay for the laptop.

i think it will cost about the same as im paying now; its just annoying to be carrying around two a phone and a pocket pc phone :roll: