Enhanced Coverage on Bois Blanc Island? (michigan)

[Gonz]

Lets hope that for the sake of CDMA users, that Alltel is bought by a CDMA carrier. If they go GSM, and the CDMA were to disapear, it would be one of the first places in the US to have GSM only. Not that thats likely to happen, but from a carrier technology preference standpoint, and that tri-mode phones are being phased out.... Might be interesting. I dont think if congular bought alltel that they'd keep the CDMA? which would then force Carriers like sprint or CV to roam on Dobson's old RFB CDMA or other small carriers in the state (many of which are not CDMA).

Mabey GAIT is a good thing for me to keep.

[Gonz]

Btw, check these guys out, they will equip you to use your digital phone (CDMA or GSM & Analog too) to be the equivalent power of a bag phone for a couple hundred bucks... I love mine.

www.maximumsignal.com

I essentially have a 3w GAIT phone, with ability to force carrier. It works EVERYWHERE.

They have a 5 watt version available now too as well.

[RadioFoneGuy]

RFB old CDMA is turned off and only running analog and was outdated and didnt have many subscribers on it. If Alltel gets bought out there will still be CDMA carriers around. There will Still be IPCS (Sprint) Sprint/nextel and Verizon is trying to make a break in MI.

I did some research on the internet on that tower on BB. It says it belongs to the Bois Blanc Fire Department.

[clock3687]

Originally Posted by Cellonetech

RFB old CDMA is turned off and only running analog and was outdated and didnt have many subscribers on it. If Alltel gets bought out there will still be CDMA carriers around. There will Still be IPCS (Sprint) Sprint/nextel and Verizon is trying to make a break in MI.

I did some research on the internet on that tower on BB. It says it belongs to the Bois Blanc Fire Department.

In addition to that, it looks like Michigan/Island telephone are also colocated there, so more likely than not is a microwave relay. It looks like the tower is only 120 feet (or that may be the location of the microwave reciever on the tower), would that be enough to coverage the entire island if cell one or alltel were to colocate there?

[RadioFoneGuy]

Honestly I am very doublefull any carrier is going jump on to Bois Blanc. Cellone is the only carrier to have 2 towers on Beaver Island, Alltel has a 20 Watt repeater on Beaver Island which only covers about 3/4 mile when it works. One of Alltels field techs told me they havent been out to check on the repeater since they got it working 3 years ago. Beaver Island has alot more people on it and Alltel didnt show much interest in that, so I doubt they would attempt it. Cellone has good straights coverage and we have other projects going on. We pretty much have at least 100 sites to be built before we can do anything else.

If it was up to me I would at least try to get a repeater out there. It would take at least 2 towers to cover BB island. the 120 footer wouldnt cover much. Depending on where the fire department and TDS are, a cell company might only get at 80 feet on that one. We have a 80 foot tower on Beaver Island and it dont cover much. We had to do a 80 foot there because of the airport.

[conis]

I did a little digging and asking around. The tower shown on the maps belongs to the BBI fire department, by the airport. It is nothing more than a tall telephone pole.

BelTel once has the BBI landline. The underwater cable to Cheboygan failed in the winter. TDS bought out Bell, they have a huge steel microwave relay just west of Pointe Aux Pins. Not shown on the maps but you can see it from Cheboygan.

This was all done in the 80s when the fed govt was subsidizing rural infrastructure improvements, ditto for Beaver Island.

I seriously doubt TDS would compete against themselves by allowing cell equipment on their tower (They own it). Nor would we want TDS to bolster theri monopoly by getting into the cell business. A bad situation made even worse.

Concensus of opinion among islanders who have been following things (and have minimal tech insight how this all works) seem to be that the carriers in and around Cheboygan need to be convinced to add directional antennas to the existing towers on the mainland, to better reach BBI. Fastest and cheapest solution. Perhaps there is some sort of gov't subsidy available to aid in cost offset to the carriers.

Beyond that, I am looking at dealer/distributor franchises to sell/install, customer owned booster-repeater systems on BBI. Why not? It ain't rocket science.

Those two solutions seem the most reality based, at least for the time being.

Those on the island that want net are forced to use either satellite or microwave ("Blaze connect", line of sight) to Cheboygan

[RadioFoneGuy]

I know the TDS tech on Beaver Island, funny thing is he has Cell one for his company cell phone. He asked me about personal repeaters for his truck. TDS should has DSL out on Bois Blanc. I have been thinking about getting a side company running to install car kits and repeaters, just cause it doesnt seem like many people are doing it.

[conis]

I hear all of it. TDS land-line is a broke dik that fixes nothing until it's broke, because it is that or no phone, take number if you want to whine.

Personal consumer boosters/amps/repeaters are a response to a lack of contiguous service. Pretty straight forward supply-demand issue... which is EXACTLY the source of this thread.

Folks want basic service. They give a *hit about wireless net and all the tehno BS upgrade new-improved add-on crap/stuff. They don't care how it works as long as it works. That is as straight forward as it comes.

So sorry if I am so tech-short and simple here. The purpose of this thread is to find facts that will hopefully help bring BBI into this millenium. You know... people can relaibly use their CP to make a call, get a call on BBI like the rest of us on mainland terra firma 5 years ago.

Cellonetech, thanks for your input and insights. No tower on BBi anytime soon. Looking at alternatives.
10Q

[conis]

Question:

Comments made about Alltel being bought out?

Is this speculation or is a merger imminent?

If so, I will be rethinking my strategy.

[strunke]

Wirelessly posted (MOT-E815_/00.62 UP.Browser/6.2.3.4.c.1.106 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

Originally Posted by conis

Question:

Comments made about Alltel being bought out?

Is this speculation or is a merger imminent?

If so, I will be rethinking my strategy.

It is speculation at this point. Although if it were to happen the purchaser would get alltel's network in your area.

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by conis

This was all done in the 80s when the fed govt was subsidizing rural infrastructure improvements, ditto for Beaver Island.

Concensus of opinion among islanders who have been following things (and have minimal tech insight how this all works) seem to be that the carriers in and around Cheboygan need to be convinced to add directional antennas to the existing towers on the mainland, to better reach BBI. Fastest and cheapest solution. Perhaps there is some sort of gov't subsidy available to aid in cost offset to the carriers.

I believe the Universal Serivce Fee we pay on our phone lines, that puts money into an account for rural phone companies can also be used for wireless infastructures & has been used by some if not all carriers to put up towers in rural areas.

[COtech]

Originally Posted by conis

I seriously doubt TDS would compete against themselves by allowing cell equipment on their tower (They own it). Nor would we want TDS to bolster theri monopoly by getting into the cell business. A bad situation made even worse.

Please note that TDS already has a regional wireless company, called US Cellular. Its nearest service areas to Michigan are in Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and northern Indiana.

COtech

[Gonz]

When did Cellone shut off the RFB CDMA? Did they actually take down the equipement? That seems kinda foolish from a roaming revenue standpoint. Then again, I'm just disturbed cause the only tower which covers lovells, MI does not have alltel on it. Guess I better keep my Cingular Gait Phone. Until Alltel decides to cover that quarter of the county, Old RFB now cellone will continue to be the only one. Obviously if Alltel gets bought by a GSM carrier, CDMA in that region will be useless for people who want to travel off of highways. It seems rediculous to sacrifice coverage in rural areas to be "unified" with a certain type of radio technology. Its not like sprint or verizon's coverage (will be 1900) will ever match that of a good ole 800 provider for CDMA roamers.

[Gonz]

If they actually do shut off the analog in a lot of rural places, there will be NO SERVICE for a very long time into the future. They want to be unified, and yet, they are willing to sacrifice the ability to communicate to do it. It'll just be a long cycle of them shutting down old technology, then whining that they dont want to spend the money to put up the new. However, Dobson Cell1 in my experience has done a remarkable job at building out the GSM in Northeast Michigan. I'll give them that. One place that GSM will exist where there is no CDMA, if in fact the CDMA from that carrier is gone.

[RadioFoneGuy]

The CDMA has been off for about 4 months now, the equipment is still there but only running in analog mode. We needed the extra antennas to expand GSM. The sites were not well maintained, RFB had a hard last couple of years before they went under. They had a very small customer base. I think Alltel had better coverage than RFB. Now we have merged 2 companies on that side of the site and have pretty good coverage but still working on making it better.

The Federal governments have grants to give to cell carriers to help the costs in putting towers in the sticks. I think the governement relized this problem and thats were this new programm came from.

[conis]

Originally Posted by Cellonetech

The Federal governments have grants to give to cell carriers to help the costs in putting towers in the sticks. I think the governement relized this problem and thats were this new programm came from.

Any added info you can come up with in Fed Grant subsidy for rural towers/equipment would be quite helpful.

This is all going before the Bois Blanc Twp officials very soon. I am certain this subject will come up.

I probed around the net but really didn't come up with much.

[Gonz]

Cellonetech, I haven't seen any coverage improvements on the alltel side. You guys seem to be the ones who are actually working on the area. Does cellone have speculation on when to shut down their analog in that region?

[RadioFoneGuy]

We are pretty lucky in Michigan, Dobson gives us alot of slack far as taking care of our network. We always rank higher than the other markets.
We have been doing a ton of work on the old NPI and RFB stuff. We have been sectorizing sites and converting to either 850/1.9 dual sites or changing to 850. One thing we have going is on some places there was a NPI tower next to a Cell One tower or RFB tower. We have been moving one of the towers to better locations to increast coverage. I havent seen Alltel building many new sites lately. I have no idea what they are up to.

Alltel, Verizon, Nextel and some others only use buildings at there towers. We stopped using buildings and went to outdoor equipment. We can build 5 outdoor equipment sites to 1 building site, so that gives us and advantage.

Another advantage is that we build all of our own sites. All the other carriers use contractors, so those sites take longer than ours to get up and running.

[RadioFoneGuy]

Originally Posted by Gonz

Cellonetech, I haven't seen any coverage improvements on the alltel side. You guys seem to be the ones who are actually working on the area. Does cellone have speculation on when to shut down their analog in that region?

I know the we have to hold on till FEB 2008 but nothing set in stone. The analog stuff is old and tired equipment and needs to go. It cost to much money to maintain dual systems. Once that stuff is gone we will have more money to work on the new stuff. Analog doesnt put out what it did in the old days anyways. Most of the Analog has had the power turn down to keep it closer to the GSM. The power has to be set on analog every 6 months because it fluctutes and could potentially burn up an amplifier if left un-touched.

I dont care for analog anyways, the quality suck and it sucks the life out of your battery. CDMA and GSM carriers need to figure out how to run a digital channel that will work between the two for emergency purposes. Maybe something based on TDMA.

[strunke]

Wirelessly posted (MOT-E815_/00.62 UP.Browser/6.2.3.4.c.1.106 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

Originally Posted by Gonz

Cellonetech, I haven't seen any coverage improvements on the alltel side. You guys seem to be the ones who are actually working on the area. Does cellone have speculation on when to shut down their analog in that region?

Alltel has been working on evdo.

[RadioFoneGuy]

Originally Posted by strunke

Wirelessly posted (MOT-E815_/00.62 UP.Browser/6.2.3.4.c.1.106 (GUI) MMP/2.0)



Alltel has been working on evdo.

Yah my buddy says there having issues up here. They still have to be building new site thou. My buddy wasnt sure how many sites they were going to do yet, bet they usually start work in the spring.

Call me crazy I would rather have coverage over data speeds.

[Alienware_51]

I called Alltel and they told me a bunch of towers that were supposedly being built this year and not a single one was on the northeastern side of michigan, and Alltel has some severe coverage issues over here.

[strunke]

Originally Posted by Cellonetech

Yah my buddy says there having issues up here. They still have to be building new site thou. My buddy wasnt sure how many sites they were going to do yet, bet they usually start work in the spring.

Call me crazy I would rather have coverage over data speeds.

Yes, but most places Alltel does have coverage. There are a few places as Gonz has that Alltel is lacking where Dobson isn't. But there are just as many that it is the other way around. The reason Alltel isn't building as many sites is because they are upgrading Michigan's and most of their native network a very large area of coverage, to evdo. This next go 'round they will be working on voice and data on a much more balanced scale then this past year. They did it for their own customers and the new Sprint evdo data roaming agreement, so it was the cheapest rate possible they showed Sprint what their plans were. So naturally they would go heavy on the evdo the first year or two of the agreement. Unfortunately that's business.

Originally Posted by Alienware_51

I called Alltel and they told me a bunch of towers that were supposedly being built this year and not a single one was on the northeastern side of michigan, and Alltel has some severe coverage issues over here.

That has to do with Alltel not building much during the winter.

[RadioFoneGuy]

I wonder if Alltel will build sites this year due to being for sale? They will probably still build some. Alltel is a big company and it could take a year to complete a sale and get governement approval.

[Alienware_51]

i wish I could get list of most of the alltel construction in northern michigan, it would be a great birthday gift!

[strunke]

Originally Posted by Cellonetech

I wonder if Alltel will build sites this year due to being for sale? They will probably still build some. Alltel is a big company and it could take a year to complete a sale and get governement approval.

Hopefully they will. It seems like they would at the very least continue to build in areas where they know Alltel's network will be used if ever bought. Northern Michigan would one of those areas. I'm kind of hoping a larger cable company or private equity buys them and makes them a fully national carrier. Of course it might just prove to be all rumor.

[Alienware_51]

I hope they start to build more also, here is the reason, Alltel has 3 towers in my county and Cellular One has almost 7 (one of them is being built this spring).
I think out by lewiston alltel needs one. but I think other than that they are pretty good. At the rate Cellular One is pumping out towers, Alltel is up **** creek without a paddle, but like Strunke said Alltel may focus more on building out this year and all those coverage problems may be no more. But who knows whats going to happen....

[bobolito]

Thread reopened. Please continue discussion.

[Gonz]

Originally Posted by strunke

There are a few places as Gonz has that Alltel is lacking where Dobson isn't. But there are just as many that it is the other way around.

I agree. The only problem is, as some have said, after the analog dissapears, one will need more than one phone to take advantage of both 850 carriers.

[clock3687]

Originally Posted by Gonz

I agree. The only problem is, as some have said, after the analog dissapears, one will need more than one phone to take advantage of both 850 carriers.

Is it possible for the island to just buy a booster themselves and have it professionally installed. Do the cell companies even have to get involved at all? Or it may be best to get a consultant... Could it be possible for the island to pull a license to just amplify the signal on the island? Just throwing out some questions maybe itll help out the OP get some answers...