AT&T & T-Mobile sign GSM roaming agreement

[ChadS]

Yes, you read the title correctly. Something that you thought would never happen did and will take effect beginning June.

http://www.attws.com/press/releases/...t_mobile.jhtml

[mpallo]

Very shocking...do you think they are going to charge for roaming?

[ChadS]

AT&T: maybe
T-Mobile: probably not

[mpallo]

I think you might be right. T-Mobile will most likely just make it part of their existing nationwide footprint. I hope they don't break down the roaming.

[bobolito]

Is this an indication of how desperate AT&T is to expand GSM coverage? or is this another example of following Cingular's footsteps? It looks like the building blocks of the real GSM network are beginning to flower just like it did with TDMA years ago.

[NYCDru]

You know, it fixesz ATT's lack of GSM coverage problem (temporaryly). T mobile gets to sure up there areas of overcapacity maybe? It will be intresting to see.

[bobolito]

I think this is only for areas T-Mobile does not cover that AT&T does and to share highway coverage. One tower will serve all three GSM providers in that case. Less headaches for NIMBY's [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[northform]

Well, it means that your phone will look for its home network first and if it cannot find the home network, the phone will connect to the roaming network. It has nothing to do with where you are geographically since the phone cannot tell that. It won't use a roaming network when a home network is available, but it will roam on to the other carrier when it can't find its own signal.

The rural coverage might be a sharing deal like the ATT Cing thing where the two companies pool their spectrum and just buy one tower, but maybe not.

I think it is curious that this agreement only covers GSM1900 since a good portion of ATT's network will be GSM800.

[bobolito]

It won't use a roaming network when a home network is available, but it will roam on to the other carrier when it can't find its own signal.

I would be careful before affirming that Northform. Although the phone doesn't "know" where it is physically located, the towers do and they are the ones that control whether or not you can roam in a particular area. For instance, in Philly, T-Mobile, Cingular and AT&T offer their own GSM coverage, yet they can program those towers so that within that area phone's from the wrong carrier are rejected and they can only use the towers of the carrier they belong to. So that means that in some areas, if the phone cannot find its own carrier, it may go out or service because it won't be allowed to roam on other carriers. In other areas, the network can be setup differently.

The reason for AT&T and T-Mobile sharing only their 1900Mhz network is very obvious: T-Mobile is a pure 1900Mhz carrier and wishes to remain that way so they won't need the 800Mhz portion of AT&T.

[DaveyJ]

I have to agree w/Bobolito. GSM is going to be built out the same way TDMA was. Everyone else sharing network coverage. But, the agreement between AT&T will definitely be a good thing for both companies. T-Mobile, I will bet $$$ on, will not charge for using the extended network. Who knows about AT&T, but I would highly doubt they would either. The thing that rocks is these companies are getting one thing right by sharing GPRS as well! Something Verizon & Sprint need to get their ___ in gear on. I am always in a 1x area, but half the time it's Sprint (roaming extended for Verizon) and I can't use any form of a data connection which blows. After I read this I will be switching to T-Mobile this summer (probably June). The enhanced coverage in WI for T-Mobile will sell me. Hopefully they will run GSM up 90/94 from Madison to the Twin Cities in MN though, that's one major highway they're missing a big chunk on. I am frankly very glad to see this agreement. Hopefully a T-Mobile / Cingular agreement will happen sometime in the near future as well. These companies can only put out better GSM coverage by sharing what they all already have. Whether it be sharing actual coverage, or just sharing space on towers cheaper it will benefit all GSM users... Now if Danger would just release the color HipTop (aka SideKick) I would grab one of those unlimited data plans T-Mobile has... [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]