Alaska DigiTel CDMA coverage - Anchorage/Mat-Su/Fairbanks

[TProphet]

Some of you may have seen my earlier topic "Verizon and Sprint coverage in Fairbanks." I'm getting to the end of my Alaska trip, so I figured I'd post about the CDMA coverage I've encountered so far in Alaska.

<u>General Observations</u>

The Alaska DigiTel market is strictly a voice network. No wireless data features are available at all throughout their coverage territory. Additionally, not all calling features work. For example, caller ID blocking is not available--even using *67. *86 doesn't get you to your voicemail--instead, the phone rings endlessly. And sometimes, calling your own number to reach voicemail rings back to you on call waiting (although they seem to have fixed that, in Anchorage at least, after I complained). The network is obviously a little rough around the edges, so be prepared for some weirdness.

<u>Fairbanks</u>

While Sprint PCS apparently holds the license, Alaska DigiTel provides 1900MHz CDMA coverage in Fairbanks. Coverage is generally very poor here. It doesn't work inside buildings at all, and you're lucky if it even works in a car along major streets. Alaska DigiTel, when I called to complain, admitted that they have optimized their towers in this area to cover a broad geographic area, rather than provide good coverage. Service covers the city of Fairbanks itself, and there is highway coverage to North Pole. It drops out a couple of times along the way, and there isn't any coverage in the city of North Pole itself, surprisingly. Especially surprising was the complete lack of coverage at the two North Pole oil refineries, which are the North Pole area's major employers. In my opinion, Fairbanks coverage is worse than the Sprint PCS coverage in second-tier cities 5 years ago.

This market is incorrectly identified as a Sprint PCS home market in Sprint's 10017 PRL, and is correctly identified as an AC "extended network" market in the Verizon 50085 PRL.

<u>Anchorage/Mat-Su Valley/Alyeska</u>

Coverage quality is night and day in Anchorage and environs compared to Fairbanks, although still far behind what I've come to expect from Verizon and Sprint PCS in the Lower 48. I think it's like Sprint PCS coverage in second-tier cities 2-3 years ago. In the greater Anchorage area, coverage begins in the rapidly growing Mat-Su Valley near Houston and continues south to Girdwood, with only a few gaps. The coverage map is fairly accurate (note that coverage maps for Fairbanks and the Kenai Peinsula markets are unavailable).

In-building coverage now works in places such as the Northway Mall and Costco. Alaska DigiTel has also substantially improved their service in areas where coverage gaps were extremely noticeable last year, such as along Dimond Boulevard near Costco. The one thing I noticed that's really annoying is the absurd number of dead zones along the highways. There are 2 dead zones between Wasilla (a suburb to the north) and Anchorage along Hwy 1, and there is about 10 miles without coverage along Hwy 1 from Anchorage to the Alyeska ski resort (although Alyeska and the city of Girdwood both have excellent coverage). One major Alaska DigiTel coverage gap remains the area around the Portage Glacier. This is covered very well by both ACS Wireless and AT&T Wireless (which still operates as AT&T Wireless even though the Anchorage market has been sold to Dobson Cellular), there are ample tower sites available, and there's a lot of usage in this area (it's the #1 tourist attraction in Alaska, not to mention the Whittier Tunnel is here).

<u>Places I Really Wanted Coverage (but didn't have any)</u>

In case anyone from Alaska DigiTel is reading this, here are some places that coverage was noticeably unavailable:

- Pipeline viewpoint and Gold Dredge #8 near Fairbanks; in both cases, no coverage was available. One tower a bit farther north on the Steese Highway would pick up this whole valley, which attracts lots of tourists.
- Denali National Park - c'mon, guys, you could cover the town with one tower, which would at least take care of folks in hotels getting hit with either outrageous roaming charges or outrageous hotel telephone charges (pick your poison).
- Portage Glacier area--there's already a tower at the Alaska Railroad station that is used by both ATTWS and ACS. Please add coverage here, it's the #1 tourist destination in Alaska.
- Whittier - Only ACS offers coverage here, and they don't have a roaming agreement with Sprint, meaning that if you have Sprint you're flat out of luck. Now that the tunnel is in place, this is becoming an increasingly popular entry point for Prince William Sound excursions.
- Prudhoe Bay/North Slope - OK, I understand if this area isn't a priority. However, there are lots of commuters from Anchorage who work here, and I think coverage here would get steady use. I met two Alaska DigiTel users who grumbled about the lack of coverage. The area is also not all that challenging to cover, geographically; it's pancake-flat tundra. Arctic Slope Cellular does it with 2 towers.

[larry]

This is interesting thanks. Oddly Sprint has never admitted any affiliation with Alaska DigiTel nor do they show any coverage available in Alaska on their latest coverage maps. I'm thinking this deal is still in transistion and until the coverage is improved a bit more they won't make this announcement.

[TProphet]

I forgot to mention that Sprint PCS PRL 10017 now correctly identifies Anchorage as a Digital Roam area. Last year, when I visited, central Anchorage was identified as home coverage, but the Mat-Su Valley and Alyeska areas were identified as roaming. I think that there probably isn't actually any deal between SPCS and Alaska DigiTel, it's just an error in their PRL. A very long-standing error wrt this particular carrier, indeed.

[larry]

One thing I noticed was that Alaska DigiTel allows free roaming on Sprint's network so that led me to believe that there might be some kind of deal between the two.

[TProphet]

There may very well be a deal between the two, but that doesn't seem to affect how Sprint bills their customers, unfortunately. Maybe with Verizon adding Alaska DigiTel/Sparks Wireless coverage to the America's Choice plan, Sprint will respond by incorporating Alaska coverage as well. However, that would be entirely unprecedented; even in their affiliate markets, the network is pretty consistent.