Chinook Wireless has completed its integration of the former Dobson Cellular assets, I guess, and the results are maddening. I live in Oklahoma RSA-5, one of the areas AT&T had to divest in order to do the buyout of Dobson. AT&T customers here were thrilled with the prospects of having better coverage and service after the merger, but NO, we have less service and coverage than we did before. It seems that Chinook customers, now known as Cellular One, can roam on AT&T's system, but we AT&T customers cannot roam on Cellular One. My iPhone shows 5 bars once in a while and then goes into Searching mode 70% of the time. Evidently there is no roaming agreement between AT&T and their old properties here. This is ridiculous.
OK-5 is still being run by Dobson/AT&T as a divested market. If you are an AT&T customer, you need to call your customer service about this.
The old Dobson system here is now being operated with the Cellular One name by Chinook Wireless, Great Falls, Montana who bought the Cellular One name along with the divested assets of Dobson Cellular in Oklahoma RSA-5. AT&T had never built any towers in this area, even though they are licensed to serve it. We AT&T customers could roam on Dobson just fine. The only GSM provider to ever build anything was Dobson, as this was Dobson's home office and territory, yet when AT&T bought Dobson, the FCC ordered AT&T to divest this area since there would be only one GSM provider. There always was just one GSM provider who had built anything: Dobson! There is also only one CDMA provider with towers in this RSA, Pioneer Cellular, and they have roaming agreements so that Verizon, Sprint, etc can roam on their system. I went to the Cellular One store here yesterday, and the lady told me that Cellular One phones can roam on AT&T but AT&T phones can not roam on Cellular One. She said you can put a Cellular One SIM card in an AT&T phone and it will work on their system, but you can't put an AT&T SIM into a Cellular One phone, it won't work. There is something very strange going on here. I will call AT&T Customer Service and see if they know anything.
I did my own research, and it turns out that AT&T does NOT roam with Cellular One in Oklahoma. The fact that my phone does work on rare occasions with their system is simply a glitch somewhere. What fun.
An AT&T technician told me that Oklahoma RSA-5 is now considered a "No Service" area, and their coverage map has been changed to reflect this. It use to be labeled "Partner" but since the Dobson purchase and divestiture of this market area, AT&T cannot roam on Dobson's old system, now operated by Cellular One. Cellular One has built 10 towers in the past year, which now offers complete coverage, albeit EDGE and not 3G. Evidently AT&T will have to build their own cellsites if they want to re-cover this area.
That's weird that they would say that about your area because almost every single area in Michigan (even where I live) where Dobson operated, they were the only GSM carrier in operation. Even in my area, Thumb Cellular was the only CDMA carrier. However, no Michigan areas were required to be divested.
Just wanted to chime to say your situation sucks. I do enjoy your informative posts though. I'll probably never be in OK, but I still like to hear about coverage and acquisitions. I'm curious though how there are AT&T customers there without native coverage? Do they have ANY presence at all? Were they RELYING on roaming for coverage?
Just wanted to chime to say your situation sucks. I do enjoy your informative posts though. I'll probably never be in OK, but I still like to hear about coverage and acquisitions. I'm curious though how there are AT&T customers there without native coverage? Do they have ANY presence at all? Were they RELYING on roaming for coverage?
From my reading the FCC and SEC documents relating to the AT&T buyout of Dobson, AT&T and Dobson were the two GSM companies licensed to service the Oklahoma RSA-5 market area, which consists of two and part of one other counties. Dobson was the only company to actually build towers to cover the area, and AT&T had roaming agreements with Dobson to service it. So theoretically there were two operators, even though only one built equipment to service the area, and they weren't actually covering the entire area. According to the SEC, if AT&T were allowed to keep the Dobson assets in this RSA after the buyout, there would be only one operator, i.e. a monopoly, and you can't have that. Therefore, as a condition of allowing the aquisition of Dobson, AT&T had to divest this and a couple of other market areas in other parts of the country due to the same reasons. Dobson's assets & equipment in this market area was bought by Chinook Wireless based in Great Falls, Montana. They also bought the rights to the Cellular One name from AT&T and they have built several new towers and now offer complete coverage, operating it as Cellular One. But AT&T cannot roam on their equipment now, and I can't find out the reason. AT&T's position is that they now do not offer any coverage here at all, even though they still hold a license for it. They might offer service in the future , but they will have to build new towers in order to do it I guess.
Although its bad for the subscribers, in a way, the FCC has promoted competition because AT&T must now either negotiate a roaming contract or provide native service. I wouldn't imagine they can go too long without any service due to build-out requirements (how did they go this long with out anything?). Although, I suspect they have a few strategically placed towers, which would also explain why you occasionally see service.
AT&T used to have service here, back when analog cellphones were in use. Coverage disappeared when that old analog service was turned off because all the towers are 30 miles away along an Interstate highway. This area has always shown up on AT&T's coverage maps as "Partner". Now it shows up as "No Service". It's a rural area, just small towns around 1000 each. There is a CDMA provider, the only one with towers, Pioneer Cellular, with full EVDO/3G coverage, that allows roaming with Sprint, Verizon, US Cellular, and Alltel. T-Mobile has licenses for this market area but no towers at all.
Did they convert the analog to GSM, or did they actually decommission sites? I would assume the range of the GSM sites is smaller, resulting in that abysmal map on the coverage viewer. Hopefully, AT&T will get a roaming contract set up with Chinook so you'll have coverage. If you drive into better coverage areas often , you might be able to get a femtocell later this year for coverage in your home. AT&T must think highly of their network in the rest of the CMA, otherwise they might have considered divesting their own network and keeping Dobson's.
AT&T has never put up anything in northwestern Oklahoma other than the towers they used on the analog system. Not one new tower or cellsite on someone else's tower. They've always relied on roaming for coverage not along an interstate or other major highway. Analog reached out 20-30 miles easily, so it was usable pretty much everywhere.
