Carolina West Wireless Finishes CDMA Conversion!

The Northwest North Carolina area now has CDMA coverage from former TDMA provider, Carolina West Wireless. According to their Website, http://www.carolinawest.com, they're selling only CDMA phones now - some without AMPS!

They have the Kyocera 7135, Kyocera Blade, Kyocera Phantom, Kyocera Slider, LG VX4400, and LG VX6000. They're priced very similar to Verizon Wireless (for the phones that VZW sells).

 

Erm...no...that's a Kyocera Phantom. The phone on the title bar used to be a Nokia 3360 I believe.

 

Alltel, according to the latest PRL I've found which is still 6 months out of date from the newest I'm aware of (if anyone's got a copy of Alltel PRL 1203, let me know), has neither 1522 (Carolina West Wireless) nor 1521/309 (US Cellular Wilkesboro). Alltel and Verizon, more likely than not, have been working with Carolina West to get the CDMA system up and running because, for some reason, neither carrier wants to roam on US Cellular in that area. A USCC rep has informed me that a reciprocal roaming agreement is in place for that region, so I'm not sure what Alltel's problem is.

Verizon Wireless, in the newest PRL (50152), roams on AMPS on Carolina West Wireless.

Not sure what you mean by an alliance. A VZW sales rep (who probably cannot be trusted) told me that VZW is in talks to buy out Carolina West Wireless. My guess is that's untrue and is about as likely to happen as VZW buying out Sprint PCS - it's just something that they really don't need. A roaming agreement with Carolina West and VZW has been in place since before the foundation of the America's Choice plan, though at the inception of AC, Carolina West was paid roaming. It went free roaming on October 11, 2002 with the release of PRL 50057 and has remained so ever since. I would expect that the PRL entry be changed to allow the phone to acquire CDMA in the next PRL release. USCC Wilkesboro has never showed up in any PRL that I can find. Some of Carolina West Wireless's service area is served by the Sprint PCS Charlotte system, but not much of it, and SPCS Charlotte has since been removed from the PRL.

 

But there's overlap that would have to be divested per FCC/FTC rules (one carrier cannot hold both Cellsides in an RSA, and there's overlap in the Boone area, which is an RSA). It would be divested to Alltel in all likelyhood....which would make Alltel happy.

 

I see where you're coming from, but I still think Alltel is a viable option. Look at the maps: http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/southeast.html

Most likely, VZW would want to keep their coverage in that area and disagg the old CWW coverage, which is B-Side Cellular. USCC has A-side in all of their other NC properties, so I would expect that they wouldn't want a random B-side RSA portion - not even a whole RSA - in the middle of an A-side. Alltel, on the other hand, is B-side throughout the state and also borders the area that would need to be disaggregated.

 

Verizon Users!

New PRL released (50160) adds permission to use digital coverage from Carolina West Wireless. (Read some summaries to decide if you want to update. I'll be updating all my phones because we need CWW digital.)