Coverage notes from long road trip (GA/AL/TN)

[roamer1]

I just got back from a long road trip (Atlanta to Birmingham to Nashville back to Atlanta through Chattanooga...) Here are some coverage notes:

- Verizon has cut over the western metro Atlanta area (Douglas, Carroll, etc. counties) to a new switch (shows up as SID 41/NID 1)
- All Nextel markets in northern Alabama are backhauled to Atlanta (switch GA02); this explains why Direct Connect works between Atlanta and Bham/Huntsville/etc.
- Birmingham AT&T/SunCom coverage (which IIRC was never even listed on suncom1.com) is C-block...odd...
- My AT&T/CallPlus phone cannot send or receive SMS when on "Telecorp" SunCom systems. IIRC, it worked fine a few months ago... [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] (I don't think I ever tried it in a Triton area...)
- SPCS coverage along I-20 between the GA line and Birmingham is still ridiculously weak, to the point of "no service" in several spots. (That's not unusual for US Unwired territory, which most of I-20 is.) Nextel, VS, and Cingular (I now have a nearly-new 5165 with a Cingular IRDB for testing purposes only -- I still don't plan to get service with them) are all fine; Verizon doesn't have licenses for the entire route and thus roams on SPCS and on RCC Unicel (analog only, as RCC is IS-136, and NOT part of America's Choice network) in some areas.
- Nextel has two major holes on I-65 between Bham and Nash (one in AL from north of Warrior to around the Cullman County line, the other in TN from the AL/TN state line to the Columbia area. Nextel's coverage maps do reflect the gaps, but still, I find the mere existence of them rather puzzling.) SPCS also has very spotty coverage in TN (US Unwired again; you don't hit native SPCS until either Maury or Williamson counties) from the AL/TN line to Columbia. Verizon had the best coverage along I-65; AT&T/SunCom was a very close second, and VoiceStream and Cingular weren't far behind.
- Not much to say about Nashville -- everyone's fine.
- From Nashville to Chatt, Verizon wins again for most seamless coverage, with AT&T/SunCom tying with SPCS for second place. Both Nextel and VS had large areas of choppy calls and even "no service"... Cingular can't even compare, they roam on a small rural carrier with relatively few towers (Advantage Cellular) for about half the way, as they always have.
- In Marion County TN (in the Central time zone), Nextel and SPCS phones show Central time but Verizon phones show Eastern time. I bet Verizon customers in Marion County (and other areas in the Central time zone served by the Knoxville switch) with night minutes are rather confused as to when they start...
- Cingular has improved Chattanooga coverage significantly(!!!), but still has several gaping problems (such as rapid dropoff of signal which would probably result in dropped calls when going through the Bachman Tubes tunnels between East Lake and East Ridge. Verizon, Cricket(!), VS, and others are on two short towers about 1500 feet from the east end of the tunnels, but Cingular is relying on rather shielded towers one to two miles from the east end of the tunnels.) In particular, Cingular signal strength actually beat out Verizon quite a bit in a couple of places (but RSSI isn't as important to CDMA as to TDMA-based technologies.)
- It looks like Verizon finally did something to address the issue of calls dropping to analog or dropping completely when going between the newly acquired/converted Dalton/GA-1 system (SID 1129) and the Atlanta system (SID 41). Tonight I was able to hold onto a digital call from Calhoun to Cartersville; about two weeks ago calls either went to analog to hand off, or got dropped entirely and weren't handed off to the other system at all.

-SC

Thanks for the info . I noticed that AT&T did pretty well . 'Too bad that their service in Atlanta is terrible .

[TKR]

SC - as a user, how does one check the system IDs with a normal cell phone? Or does that require special equipment?

Tom
scp-4000

[roamer1]

You can access SIDs on StarTACs via a menu option. Other phones need to be put in "test mode", which isn't that hard (except with Sprint PCS, where you usually have to have the "unlock"/SPC code to turn on test mode. Since Verizon phones can be "forced" to pick up SPCS and often roam on them too, if you have a Verizon phone there's no need to have a separate SPCS phone to check SPCS SIDs/coverage.

-SC

[bobolito]

Thanks for the info Roamer. Looks like your vehicle was full of equipment.

[TKR]

I'm not a VZ user. How does one typically "force" one of their phones to use SPCS? Dependent on make/model?

Never mind - if you are talking *228xx - I have tried that on my Sprint phone. Here in Atlanta, my Sanyo 4000 will not hold the MetroPCS signal (*22804) for 1 second after I hit end.

roamer1, is their a certain reason you don't go with cingular? I noticed in your post that you mde it clear that you don't plan to ever go with Cingular.

[roamer1]

Too many roaming problems in east Tennessee.

-SC

[Airb330]

^^ He's right. ON our band trip to Dollywood (boring....! LOL) noone's Cingular phone would work anywhere in that region. There were bout 20 ppl with Cingular, VZW people were fine with Sprint's coverage which was good.

What about Suncom/ATT in that area?

[parthery]

SunCom AT&T has continuous coverage along I-75 and I-40 through Knoxville..and down US 441 into Gatlinburg. You shouldn't have any problems.

[TNDan21]

That's odd, SunCom (TeleCorp PCS) has TDMA coverage in that area and it's actually quite good from what I hear. I know Cingular and Triton have roaming agreemeants but I'm not sure about TeleCorp.

Cingular has pretty good GSM coverage in East TN so if you are on a Cingular GSM phone you should be fine. On the TDMA side you should be good also since the Knoxville area has TeleCorp and the Tri-Cities area has Triton. Both are known to have very good coverage in those areas.

Unless TeleCorp doesn't have roaming agreemeants with Cingular which may be the case. In that case you would most likely be in analog roaming.

Stanley?

[roamer1]

Knoxville and Sevier County (Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg):

- Cingular IS-136: US Cellular first, Verizon second (for customers from Cingular A-side markets *ONLY*!)
- AT&T IS-136: AT&T/"SunCom" first, Verizon second (US Cellular may be second, not 100% sure)
- Cingular, VS/T-Mobile, and AT&T GSM: Cingular GSM (only)
- Verizon: Verizon first, Sprint PCS second (with PRLs below 50047 only), US Cellular third (with PRLs below 50047) or second (with PRLs 50047 and higher)
- ALLTEL: Verizon first, Sprint PCS second, US Cellular third
- US Cellular: US Cellular first, Verizon second (I don't think US Cellular roams with SPCS)
- Sprint PCS: Sprint PCS first, US Cellular second, Verizon third
- Nextel: Nextel (only)

Morristown/Tri-Cities:

- Cingular IS-136: ALLTEL first, Verizon second (for customers from Cingular A-side markets *ONLY*!)
- AT&T IS-136: AT&T/"SunCom" first, Verizon second
- Cingular, VS/T-Mobile, and AT&T GSM: Cingular GSM (only, except for AT&T customers with GAIT phones, who can also use AT&T/"SunCom" coverage)
- Verizon: Verizon first, ALLTEL second, Sprint PCS third (with PRLs below 50047 only)
- ALLTEL: ALLTEL first, Verizon second, Sprint PCS third
- US Cellular: ?
- Sprint PCS: Sprint PCS first, Verizon second, ALLTEL third
- Nextel: Nextel (only)

Chattanooga:

- Cingular IS-136: Cingular first, Verizon second (for customers from Cingular A-side markets *ONLY*!)
- AT&T IS-136: AT&T/"SunCom" first, Verizon second, Cingular third (Cingular and Verizon may have traded places, not sure)
- Cingular and VS/T-Mobile GSM: VS/T-Mobile GSM (only)
- AT&T GSM: no service, except for AT&T users with GAIT phones who can also use AT&T/"SunCom" and Cingular IS-136
- Verizon: Verizon first, Sprint PCS second (with PRLs below 50047 only), Cingular third (B-side markets and PRL < 50047 only) or second (B-side markets and PRL => 50047 only)
- ALLTEL: Verizon first, Sprint PCS second, Cingular third
- US Cellular: Verizon first, Cingular second
- Sprint PCS: Sprint PCS first, Verizon second, Cingular third
- Nextel: Nextel (only)

Mountain City:

- Cingular IS-136, US Cellular: ALLTEL first, Commnet second
- Verizon: ALLTEL first, SPCS second (PRL < 50047 only), Commnet third (PRL => 50047) or second (PRL < 50047)
- ALLTEL: ALLTEL first, SPCS second, Commnet third
- AT&T IS-136: Commnet first, ALLTEL second
- Cingular, VS/T-Mobile, and AT&T GSM: no service
- Sprint PCS: SPCS first, back and forth between Commnet and ALLTEL second
- Nextel: no service

Polk and Meigs Counties:

iDEN, GSM, and Cingular IS-136 (from B-side markets): no service (Cingular B-side does not roam with Verizon even though there is no alternative!)
Verizon, ALLTEL, SPCS, US Cellular, Cingular (from A-side markets *ONLY*!), AT&T/SunCom: Verizon (only coverage available)

-SC

[Airb330]

Good info Roamer1, all those people that had Cingular(TDMA, philly market) never roamed correctly I guess. They barely got a signal in Pigeon Forge, and the network wouldn't let them make calls. This goes for like 15-20 people. All the Verizon people had no problems on Sprint. Verizon's own network should be up there, when we were there in May I think Verizon was converting some company to CDMA. I was the only Verizon person whose phone wouldnt work right on Sprint, they wouldnt let me call LD, but Verizon fixed that for me.