I need coverage maps that AREN'T made by the companies themselves!

Does anyone know where I can get service coverage maps that aren't made by the wireless companies? You can't trust those. Only an impartial source doing their own testing can be trusted. Well, they can be trusted more than those crooked companies, at least.

Specifically, I'm looking for Minnesota/Wisconsin area maps.

A lot of companies use a third party company for their coverage maps. The reason why the maps aren't 100% accurate is because there are too many variables that can interfere.

This is from SunCom's website...

"The coverage boundaries for you SunCom Home Coverage Area are based in part on data provided by third-party sources and are approximate. These maps are not a guarantee of service availability, and actual coverage and reliability may be affected by local conditions such as weather, terrain, customer equipment, system capacity limitations or system modifications. Due to these variations, calls near coverage area boundaries may be picked up by other carriers, and traveling and other charges may apply. Coverage not available in all areas. Actual coverage may vary. Service in the Gulf of Mexico is provided by other carriers and is not included in any SunCom plans, Additional charges apply and are subject to change without notice."

S. Cole

[Matt]

For the two major GSM companies in that area (VoiceStream and Airadigm/EinsteinPCS), you can go here:

link to gsmworld

They usually update about every four months.

You won't find them.

Firstly, what is the economic incentive to make the things? Who is going to want that information except the cellular company and their potential clients????
secondly, they wouldn't be very accurate anyway unless someone had done an exact and extensive field check. Time consuming and extraordinarily expensive.

Now, if you could actually find the third party that probably made the map for the cell company in the first place, and if you could get them to release the information that is probably proprietary to their client (the phone company), the best you could hope for is the same map the phone company released in the first place......

[Tommyboy]

There is services that you can subsribe to that will provide maps, among other things, for cellular. One that comes to mind is Cellbytes by the Strategis group. It's probably not cost effective for consumers but companies buy it all the time. The good thing is they are independent of the carriers and only give the facts. Also they are quite comprehensive displaying all the information from all the carriers. They also have contact #s, addresses, SIDS/BIDS, and NPA/NXX info.

Tom

[Bootsie1024]

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] Coverage maps for cellular carriers are determined by the placement of their towers. Since placement of towers is proprietary information outside consultants or companies can only guess what the coverage is like.

Coverage may seem like an easy thing but it isn't. Wireless carriers work off a signal in the air not a cable buried in the ground. Carriers have been awarded licenses to operate in "certain areas" and lately have purchased licenses - but controlling that "signal" in the air is not an easy task.

As far as cellular carriers being crooked - they are regulated by the federal government through departments such as the FCC. There are heavy penalties and very stiff fines if guidelines are not strictly followed. I assure you - any inproprieties if found and reported would be prosecuted to the full letter of the law.

Should you know of anything that you think might be illegal, please report the illegal actions to the proper law enforcement agency.

I disagree with the responses...............

If you haven't noticed, lately carriers have been sued based on misinformation on those maps. The maps are getting more and more detailed. Nextel, Voicestream, and Sprint have very good coverage maps. Admittedly, the older guys have not adapted. Wish I could help ya, I only know Indiana and Michigan.

The only thing I could tell you would take far too much time, that would be plotting the towers yourself.


Tower locations are NOT proprietary information. You can dowload a list of towers from any tower builder's website.

[aiwapro]

Yes, Voicestream is very upfront with their coverage maps. If you go to their website, it shows where coverage is, and where it isn't. You can even pick your STATE & CITY from the list. If it's not in the list, then they don't have coverage there.
Here is an exact link to one of their very in-depth maps:

Voicestream Wireless MAP

Voicestream Wireless MAP 2

The webpage says that you have to pay for roaming, but with their new plans, well all of their plans, roaming and long distance is free.

Voicestream Wireless CITY SEARCH