T-Mobile Plans for Growth, 3G in 2006

[jones]

T-Mobile Plans for Growth, 3G in 2006
By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
December 16, 2005, 12:59 PM
T-Mobile USA has big plans for 2006, the company told BetaNews in an interview on Thursday. The carrier intends to complete the rollout of GSM 850, which has boosted its coverage area by nearly 40 percent, and finally establish its long-awaited 3G network. T-Mobile also believes it could top Verizon in Consumer Reports rankings of quality service.

The biggest benefit of GSM 850 would be increased coverage, mainly throughout the central part of the United States. However, the rollout would also include rural areas of the Northeast and West. Altogether, nearly 400,000 square miles of new coverage has been added during 2005, according to the carrier.


Several roaming agreements have been signed with various operators, most notably Dobson, Cingular, Western Wireless, Centennial, EDGE, and RCC, T-Mobile's senior vice president of Engineering Operations Neville Ray told BetaNews.

"We've secured this year effectively all of the 850 footprint that was out there," he said. "There may be some incremental increases next year, but they will not be significant."

The difference is already clear; large swaths of the Plains states now have coverage, and a T-Mobile subscriber could now drive roads like Interstate 80 from coast to coast with much fewer service disruptions than before.

Ray explained that the reason why 850 has become popular, especially in rural America, is due to its propagation characteristics. "An 850 signal does propagate further than a 1900 signal," he said, explaining that a carrier can build less towers yet still have the same network coverage.

In the U.S., 1900 MHz has been the most commonly used frequency for digital cellular service, similar to the 1800 MHz band in Europe. Although their European counterparts use 900 MHz for rural areas, stateside carriers have turned to the 850 Mhz band to maximize network coverage.

From here on out, all of T-Mobile's phones will be compatible with the new spectrum, and the carrier will soon begin to move current customers to these phones through its upgrade program. "We're moving our base as quickly as we can to 850 capability," Ray said.

The company also thinks this rollout will begin to battle the perception that the carrier has had troubles with expanding its coverage. "There will be large swaths of geography where they will now have service from T-Mobile," Ray said. "The benefits are significant for a large portion of our customers."

Eventually, T-Mobile's coverage map would be practically identical to Cingular's, erasing the advantage its rival and others like Sprint-Nextel and Verizon have over the nation's fourth largest carrier.

"The differences on the map would be where Cingular includes analog-only coverage on its marketing material," Ray said. "That's not an unfamiliar story for Verizon too. When you compare their footprint with our footprint, the biggest difference is analog. It's not digital service, GSM or CDMA."

Ray also spoke briefly to T-Mobile's 3G, or third generation, plans, and seemed to indicate that the carrier may be following a more accelerated plan towards next generation data services. Cingular announced the launch of its own high-speed HSDPA network earlier this month.

Ray revealed that 3G testing was already occurring in some markets, although he declined to provide specific locations, as the networks are not publicly available.

"We are very hopeful that by the end of 2006, and definitely in 2007, we'd be able to bring 3G services to the market. Some of this is auction dependent," Ray said, alluding to a large cellular spectrum auction to take place next summer. "We're hopefully looking at a 3G deployment in late 2006."

While Ray did not specifically say which 3G technology T-Mobile would adopt in the United States, the carrier may choose to go straight to UMTS, the technology its European sister companies are currently using.

The 850 expansion would not contribute to T-Mobile's rollout of 3G, Ray said, explaining that in the near term, the focus of 3G would be in the metro areas. "A lot of rural America is covered by the smaller players and not the big carriers," he explained. "So I think it will be some time before you see 3G services in many of those locations."

Ray added that he expects the company's image to benefit from the expansion and sees a bright future ahead for T-Mobile.

"I look at Consumer Reports placing us a solid second to Verizon, and I think our footprint expansion this year will even further solidify our position. And in some cases, we're rapidly closing in on first place."

http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/in...on=expand,9881

[Jay2TheRescue]

Nice to know that they are planning to be a big player in rural markets. I probably won't switch from Cingular though as doing that I would give up all my free M2M minutes. I use several hundred M2M minutes every month. If it wasn't for free M2M I'd have to spend $20 more per month on my cell phone bill.

-Jay

[Obi-Wan]

Awesome........ Service should only get better for us. I just got back recently from Snowbird, UT (Skiing). And I was totally shocked at how great theservice was up in the mountais out there.

[bobolito]

Nice to know that they are planning to be a big player in rural markets. I probably won't switch from Cingular though as doing that I would give up all my free M2M minutes. I use several hundred M2M minutes every month. If it wasn't for free M2M I'd have to spend $20 more per month on my cell phone bill.

-Jay

Same here, so I'll second that. However, another thing is if only roaming on Cingular was not strictly rural I would consider T-Mobile. But here in urban areas I'm sure T-Mo won't roam on Cingular, which means that the areas of NJ I frequent will still be weak to no service even though their coverage maps will be identical to Cingular's.

[jones]

If only roaming on Cingular was not strictly rural I would consider T-Mobile. But here in urban areas I'm sure T-Mo won't roam on Cingular, which means that the areas of NJ I frequent will still be weak to no service even though their coverage maps will be identical to Cingular's.

Sometimes you will Not believe what T-Mobile does in the
Urban Areas. They have placed Cell Sites Close to Teaneck and
Bergenfield High Schools.
So any student deep Inside these High School Buildings
have Full Bars while other Carriers VZW, Cingular, Sprint
struggles w/ 1 Bar and No Signal inside the School Buildings.

[bobolito]

Well, they should do that in the other 99% of NJ, don't you think?

[Fire14]

Well, they should do that in the other 99% of NJ, don't you think?

I notice in my area they have been adding alot of new towers, but I do agree with you bobolito, if they did an 850 roaming agreement in this area and Cingular customers could roam on T-Mobiles network again, both carriers would have great coverage everywhere, then T-Mobile would look like a really good alternative to me with there cheaper plans.

[Andy]

Awesome........ Service should only get better for us. I just got back recently from Snowbird, UT (Skiing). And I was totally shocked at how great theservice was up in the mountais out there.

T-Mobile works just fine in Snowbird. It's a little sketchy on the way up Little Cottonwood though and Big Cottonwood cuts out right after entering the canyon.

[bobolito]

I notice in my area they have been adding alot of new towers, but I do agree with you bobolito, if they did an 850 roaming agreement in this area and Cingular customers could roam on T-Mobiles network again, both carriers would have great coverage everywhere, then T-Mobile would look like a really good alternative to me with there cheaper plans.

Yep, T-Mobile has been adding lots of new sites in my area too, but most of the times those are areas that were already covered by them by other nearby towers. They are simply improving existing coverage. There are some of the traditional holes where they are still very weak, such as my dead-end street block and the immediate area where my office is located. However, I can tell you that they have fixed two spots where I constantly used to drop calls back in the network sharing days:

- Exit 56 ramp off Rt 80 towards West Paterson. Once I exited Rt. 80 calls dropped. A new site was put on a nearby rooftop which has fixed this.

- Nellis Rd. in Wayne coming down the hill towards Valley Rd. it was a guaranteed dropped call. That's gone thanks to a new tower that was installed recently allowing Sprint, Nextel and Verizon jump on the same pine-tree monopole. The monopole is on Nellis Rd. near Valley Rd.

[Jay2TheRescue]

I notice in my area they have been adding alot of new towers, but I do agree with you bobolito, if they did an 850 roaming agreement in this area and Cingular customers could roam on T-Mobiles network again, both carriers would have great coverage everywhere, then T-Mobile would look like a really good alternative to me with there cheaper plans.

You may have just answered the question as to why they don't do just that. If each caiirer allowed the other's customers to roam then Cingular would have to lower prices, or loose customers. Cingular currently has the upper hand with better, albeit not perfect coverage. If coverage was equal then all Cingular would have is a large M2M base.

-Jay

[Matt]

But here in urban areas I'm sure T-Mo won't roam on Cingular, ...

I've heard a rumor or two......but NOTHING confirmed.....

[Fire14]

You may have just answered the question as to why they don't do just that. If each caiirer allowed the other's customers to roam then Cingular would have to lower prices, or loose customers. Cingular currently has the upper hand with better, albeit not perfect coverage. If coverage was equal then all Cingular would have is a large M2M base.

-Jay

I do agree with you on this, especially in the NY/NJ market, Cingular wouldn't want to give the competition an equal edge & loose customers or lower there prices.

[Andy]

I do agree with you on this, especially in the NY/NJ market, Cingular wouldn't want to give the competition an equal edge & loose customers or lower there prices.

T-Mobile does a great job in most metro areas- it's the outskirts of town or some rural areas where T-Mobile doesn't roam on Cingular that gives them the edge, sometime. T-Mobile is getting their act together, and they will steal customers away from Cingular with their almost equal coverage and much more customer oriented way of business.

[Obi-Wan]

If T-Mobile improves their coverage area comparable to Cingulars i'm switching asap. T-Mobile have some of the cheapest mobile plans around like the 1500 minute plan for 49.99 with unlimited N&W and if they throw in unlimited NW good bye cingular - lol.

[Fire14]

T-Mobile is getting their act together, and they will steal customers away from Cingular with their almost equal coverage and much more customer oriented way of business.

I agree they are doing an excellent job of getting holes filled & within the next year or 2 depending on how the towns allow towers to go up they will be very impressive. If they do add more frequencies to the auctions like another article said, they could be even more impressive.

I have another year & 4 months to go on Cingular's contract & who knows what I will do after that point, if T-Mobile keeps up this network pace I could easily jump ship.

[bobolito]

Cingular, are you listening? Your customer base is with you only because of coverage, nothing else! If the weaker carriers can match that coverage your churn is going to skyrocket unless you bring prices down. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Andy]

Cingular's coverage is suffering in many places it seems like at the moment. I can't wait to see their Q4 results, since my guess is that churn already rose significantly. Their prices high and the integration is causing the network to act up in some places(there's no network integration in my area but the network is still acting up) so my guess is that a lot of people already jumped ship.