136 new cell sites in GA

It did not help with their J.D. Power next to bottom rating.

 

Its rebound. Wait till 2007 comes out.

The UMTS deployment was held up nearly a year due to a vendor issue. Basically the original UMTS system that was suppose to be at market Holiday season 05 had issues so bad the vendor that supplied it was told to get their junk out. The Switch crashed nightly and that just can't happend.

They also had issues with one of the V mail platforms. Those issues are resolved. They were doing a LOT of deployment and that sometimes is disruptive of the network. The Vendor issue made it last twice as long as it should have. Basically they deployed UMTS twice back to back. Till its on air they can't see a lot of the problems they have. It takes a while to work through and dial in. You got to look at as a big monster that takes alot of attention to settle down. New equipment needs to burn in and its not uncommon to have a lot of equipment failures as a result. Then there is the learning curve of everybody that works the system.

That generated a LOT of Customer service calls and the old adage you only hear about the bad...not the good. This year they will be doing fill to expand UMTS. the major Disruptions in Atlanta with the Antenna change outs is done. The TDMA will start to be cut way back opening up the rest of the bandwidth and by 1st quarter Cingular/at&t will regain the 1st or 2nd place.

 

There is still the issue of horrible customer support.

 

Yes there is but understand that they were getting 2-3 times the traffic that they normally would because of the system issues with network upgrades. You also have a lot of fallout from the AT&T merger still happening. A lot of customers that were not happy about having to drop the AT&T gear and service they had. A lot that felt (and I hate to say it but "rightly so") screwed when the AT&T TDMA was canned. It was a business decision to cut out a HUGE amount of excess gear. The problem is most of those AT&T branded products had heavy IRDB and roam locks and priority programing in them. There was no way to correct that so there was no way to get their phones to perform correctly when the AT&T TDMA went away. So you are hearing about a lot of different unrelated issues all at once.

Its Growing pains.

I wish I had a Buck for every customer that told me that our competitors Customer service sucked....I'm be retired with a beach house by now. But the fact is we had just pissed off a lot more people over a lot more reasons in 05-06. That's leveled out.

In all honesty Cingular is about average on Customer service and that will be reflected on the 2007 surveys.


T-Mobile is about to have to figure out what they want to do and go though those same growing pains with 3G. Over the next couple years you will see them trend down for a while for the same reasons. The big problem is their timing.

 

It's interesting that in this press release, they don't mention the "Cingular has the fewest dropped calls" like in some other press release's. Guess that didn't count for GA.

 

If you are that anti Cingular and that pro JD Powers maybe you need to just purchase your service from another vendor. I have never had trouble with customer service. Good luck on your future decisions.

 

The fact that all the big wigs live in the Atlanta area......You can be damn sure that its one of the best working areas there is. One of my FE's was chasing a call complaint that turned out to be a problem with the phone. the user is the son of one of upper managements secretary.


You might also want to investigate just how JD powers worked too. Back before Cingular existed Bellsouth Mobility use to PAY for those studies and guess what...they were always found to be #1 when they were paying for the Survey. Surveys and studies can say anything you want if you word the questions correctly. :wink:

 

That's true, but J.D. Powers and Consumer Reports are respected. It's not Joe Redneck's survey.

 

BTW 50 new planned for 07 and about 150-180 expansions of existing. The expansions will probably be mostly UMTS

 

I played with Cingular 3G. It's 4 times slower than Europe. It also works on a different frequency.

 

Yeah keep telling yourself that. Consumer reports brass "If you don't roll that trooper I will".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports

 

Thank you. But, they were never found guilty. Other issues states on wikipedia were thrown out, settled, or fixed by CR.

 

When and where were you? There is so much that can be screwed up on UMTS right now....SIM not programed correctly will keep a 3G product on Edge, 3G not enable in the system for he account...Fringe of available system etc. The foot print is staying pretty tight to Atlanta right now. It ends just about at Kennesaw on I75, About 10 miles outside of Atlanta is in not 3G yet. 400 Corridor is a little better since that's where the big wig live up in Alpharetta.

Starting in March it should start expanding. Takes a lot of time to install. There is 1800+cites in GA and about 50% are in Atlanta Metro.

Give it time. Its the same stuff as Europe. Once everything is in place it will go.

 

Good post !!!!!!!!!!!

LOL
:uppoint: :uppoint:

 

Cingular shop at Mall of Georgia. I85 north, exit 115, end of Lawrenceville. Or, end of Lawrencevill is at 120. Can't remember. Regardless, Lawrenceville is 15 miles long.

One thing that is interesting is that T-Mobile have got the 2100 frequency that is used in Europe for 3G. I want to see what they are doing before I buy a 3G phone -- Nokia N95.

 

Yeah and how much was never caught?

Got to look at several sources not just a single source. JD, Consumers and CTDI, and other organizations and then find the middle ground....If they all say its bad well you got something...If its 50/50... what arou you going to do...it is average.


Now lets get down to Brass tacks on this because you seem to feel Cingular is just horrible. Best (T-M with 107) to Cingular (94) was 13 points spread points.

So you are swayed and this will be your only basis for a choice of a company?


Lets also further put this into perspective. 61 million customers to 25 million. So over double the potential to get a cingular customer.

Then 70% of questions the had nothing to do with customer service.


Ohhh...T-Mobile Roams A LOT off cingular. So a larger percentage of their calls away from large cities are actually made on Cingular's system not T-Mobiles.

Their roaming plan map
http://www.t-mobile.com/Cms/Files/P...BDD6976C/file/National Rate Plan Coverage.pdf

Their normal plans
http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/

Cingular's map (notice there is not a second map covering their roaming plan btw...)
http://www.cingular.com/coverageviewer/


So tell me again how unbiased and no way it could be at all be misleading if you take just this one study without the back ground checks again?

Like I said...take these things with a grain of salt. Do the leg work yourself and you can see how easy it is to take these things out of context. :loony:

And for the record T-Mobile does a really good job with their customer service....It's true...ask their customers.

The rest of the companies do need to improve customer service. But T-Mobile is not providing most of their own coverage...in fact a lot of their coverage is other companies networks.

To put that into perspective think really hard how their customers can be saying their system performance is actually better when a good percentage of the time it is the same system. Its "perception".

The customer service made them mad so they are also going to drag everything they can though the gutter about hte company they had the issue with. So even if you checked the with actual test equipment checking RSSI, and driving the system trying to catch drops and other problems...the customer is already going to have a negative response about the system performance even if it was exactly the same as the company that polishing their knob with above average customer interaction with a rep. It's human nature to do that...

Last link is the JD stuff. I want to make sure you don't think I'm pulling stuff out of thin air. I want you to see where it comes from so you have a chance to form an educated opinion.


http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/wireless-news/60709-t-mobile-leads-j-d-power.html

 

I gave you CR and JD. But, I've looked at other sources as well.
Consumerist has many articles _____ing about Cingular.
On contract selling sites, there are more cingular contracts sold than T-Mobile. Though, one would have to devide those by the carrier population to get a useful ratio.
I've read some forum threads.
Gennerally, People are happy with T-Mobile.

 

No UMTS that far up. It ends really good coverage about Pleasant hill. If you drove down closer to 285 you would have a really different perspective of what is like. Sitting in my office where I do have enough coverage to pick up UMTS (I'm on the edge of the coverage for it) I can be on a laptop and getting faster speeds then the LAN on the T1 in my office (now that T1 does have about 15 desktops and a few other pieces of gear).


The UMTS map
http://www.cingular.com/coverageviewer/?zip=30042&x=44&y=13

If the Blue UMTS coverage is not showing hit "view map" again after making sure the 3G box below the map is checked.

 

Yes, it was 3G. It was close to 1Mbps. Edge does not go that high. The 3G icon was on. Yes, there is a blue dot at Mall of Georgia. In Europe, it's about 4Mbps.

 

I can totally appreciate them being happy. If they don't spend a lot of time on the road and the areas they do travel have coverage where they need it then the carrier has met that customers needs. T-Mobile has worked HARD to get good coverage in North GA. It is one of their best covered areas with their own network.

Where they will fail to meet needs is a heavy roaming customer. Verizon or Cingular are going to provide better coverage and a better overall experience.


I just have a problem with a lot of these ratings and the way they come up with their figures. As I showed you can blow huge holes though them with facts that are not apparent when you read that without knowing back ground. JD Powers is bass ed a LOT on personal opinion. I want to see the FACTS that can take opinion out of the equation and present something substantial to back up the opinion. I want to see test done with calibrated test sets not a opinion of a person who's phone may have taken a swim in a toilet.

I ran a repair shop for years and I DAILY proved that about 95% of the call complaints customers had were problems with their equipment not the network. the remaining 5% were either known issues with dead spots or customer cant excepting that phones dont' work in their basement below grade or in a steel box like an elevator or a commercial building with metal or reinforced concrete walls and minimal windows.

 

They must have loaded the local tower on the east side of the mall. I didn't think the tower at 985 behind the farm house had UMTS but I'll be up there in a couple weeks and look Or I'll ask the FE who services the area if I talk to him before then. :wink:

 

How do you explain the Cingular whining vs not so much T-Mobile whining out there?

 

There is one small blue triable surrounded by red. Meaning, its purposes is for Cingular to sell stuff at the mall.

They got a shop on Buford Drive, across Circut City. They also have a stand in the mall near Sprint.

 

Growing pains.

We are making HUGE changes in the system and have been for the last 5 years. UMTS involves changing out ALL the antenna's on towers that will get UMTS. It takes a long time to massage problems out and get the Antennas fine tuned to the area.

We are also running FOUR technologies (and not by choice, FCC has us over the barrel on the Analog and TDMA is so tied in to the Analog that its easier to keep it on) right now T-Mobile is running 1. They fight each other to some extent. Analog and TDMA go away Jan 2008 once they get it pulled down the sound quality should improve. The importance is the 800mhz band is cut up to keep TDMA and Analog on. GSM and UMTS run much better with the full band.

T-Mobile will be starting their UMTS deployment in 08...they will see some of the same system complaints. Problem is we will have nearly 2 years of 3G sales before they make their first. A little late to the game.

For the most part they use exactly the same equipment as Cingular. Ericsson exchanges radios to keep turn around time down on repairs. Once they get repaired they go back into the pool. I get radios with T-Mobiles inventory stickers on them all the time. :lmao: It is the same gear. I don't know if they are using the same antennas or not.

 

Would you like the web page for VZ or Sprint ????

:deadhorse

 

Actually, they'll be starting this year. One advantage T-Mobile have is that they'll be using the European frequency: 2100 Mhz. So, 3G imports will work on T-Mobile.

I have bought a Samsung D900 which will be on Cingular or T-Mobile. It's not 3G because Cingular charge too much for DATA, and T-Mobile does not have 3G.

The FCC are a pain. I think that they do more harm than good to this country. We are 6 years behind Japan and 4-5 years behind Europe for cellular.

Carriers have their share of blame as well. Cellular service is way more expensive in US than EU. In EU, it costs 10 cents to call. In US it costs 20 cents to call because both the caller and the callee pay. Vodafone have 100 SMS/day included in your plan. You don't pay $4.99 for 200 per month. Everything is free to receive. Video calling costs 25 cents. 1Mbps that Cingular currently have is not enough for decent video calling.

Phones released in US are crippled. For example, the Japanese version of the BlackJack has WiFi.

I think USA is the only nation where both the caller and the callee pay.

 

No Argument on the FCC! When we were just deploying Digital in 05 Europe already had a couple years of GSM under their belt. TDMA and CDMA were developed to deal with the FCC requirement that Analog be carried till 08. The GSM was to complicated to make it work with Analog at the time. So they trimmed down GSM into tow variants of TDMA and CDMA that was simple enough that they could make a compact product with both digital and analog in the same product.

Now here is the problem with 2100 MHz. The higher the frequency the worse the penetration into buildings. So the result is MORE towers to shorten the broadcast distance.

Once Analog hits the trash can I hear we will move the Data down to 800 and the voice up to 1900. That will increase data speed dramatically and the human brain can work through the lose of data at 1900 better then a computer and won't notice the 1900 MHz drop in audio quality.

 

Do you have comments on Euro vs US pricing -- the calee pays?

Yeah, I know about 2100 Mhz. The only good thing about it is that one will be able to buy cool Asian and Euro phones. Google Nokia N73 or N95.

 

Spooky;
First of all you are incorrect about Cingulars UMTS vs what's in Europe. UMTS (3G) in the US has HSPDA but Europe is just now deploying it. Also the European frequencies are set up differrently than the US (Uplink & Downlink). Next T-Mobile has a mixture of 2100 & 1700Mhz here in the US for UMTS so they will not be compatible with a European mobile so No the N95 will not work for T-Mobile here to do UMTS. To get the super fast speeds the mobile needs to be able to do HSDPA or the speed for UMTS is only about 386kps. So is nowhere near as fast without the upgrade to HSDPA (US vendors use).