Changes at US Cellular

What are the chances that US Cellular is on a buying spree? Qwest needs to sell their CDMA wireless network within the next month, or their money people will put them into bankruptcy. If US Cellular is switching to CDMA, Qwest would fit. Someone is buying Qwest Wireless.

-Bill

 

It wouldn't help them here in their California areas. In my area, Ukiah, their coverage cuts off before Santa Rosa, and the valley, leaving out SF, Sacramento, all the valley, LA, and SD(USCC basically covers many of the least populated areas in the Northern area of the state) . I wish they'd sell out up here to Verizon, it'd increase Verizon's coverage without having to put up more towers. With their CDMA decision, their California areas would be a great takeover.

 

lets wait and find out what will happen

Jack

 

I'm hoping Verizon has some plans to buy US Cellular. Maybe they're just waiting for USCell to convert completely to CDMA so that they won't have to do it themselves.

If you look at Verizon's America's Choice coverage map and compare it to US Cellular's, they fit like a puzzle in some places. USC has Maine and New Hampshire unlike VZ. Then there's the Northern California, Oregon coverage area. W. Virginia too.

From what I can tell, USCC has converted their Northwestern market to CDMA. It also looks like they've converted the Eastern-MidSouth market to CDMA, leaving Florida/GA, North-Central, and Southwest (TX/OK) still on TDMA.

My incentive in this is for Smoky Mountain coverage. Verizon's purchase of Dobson's networks in East Tennessee will cover a good portion of the upper Smokies, but US Cellular seems to be the only other CDMA network in the southern part of East Tennessee.

Of course, a better roaming agreement would be okay with me. Obviously, USCC's Span America lets them roam on somebody's network--why isn't Verizon getting in on this and getting something for themselves?

My uninformed, suspicious guess from looking at the PRL is that USCC and Verizon roam on each other's networks in areas where they don't have the only CDMA network in the market. But in places like N. CA, I bet USCC has a monopoly on CDMA coverage--why let your competitor in your territory on a general roaming agreement when you can charge for the usage and be much more lucrative.

 

ALLTEL has a CDMA network in place from Morristown, TN to Kingsport, TN and on up going into Southwest Virginia.

 

Yeah, but its Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge coverage I want. From Knoxville, I lose coverage at Sevierville. Its horrible to be standing within 500 feet of 2 cell towers, having full bars and be in an unlicensed market.

I did just find out though that Verizon's purchase of Dobson/AT&T's Rural Area #4 includes all of Sevierville. They will be converting the TDMA system to CDMA. The purchase was finalized Feb 2002. Hopefully it won't take too long... as of May I still have to roam in Gatlinburg.

 

I live in Ukiah, in Northern California, and US Cellular here is TDMA, Verizon is the only other CDMA carrier until you get to Humboldt County
(Eureka, Rio Dell), where Sprint and Cal-North both run CDMA networks. They are in the process of converting to CDMA here this year though. They hate each other in Lake and Mendocino Counties! If you have a local prefix(707-367, 707-972)with Verizon, US Cell will block your call(except for 911)and requires either a credit card or collect call. They do not, however, do this to Verizon prefixes in the surrounding counties, or any other prefix in the nation. And if you have AC, Verizon will charge you 65 cents a minute to roam on their system(ie.have a non Mendocino or Lake County number), due to US Cellular not being a preferred network here. And even then you have to force your phone to scan A to get that because they are not on the PRL for this area. My dad is cancelling his US Cellular phone, and we will be rid of them, they have to be the stingiest, hardest to get a long with outfit I have ever dealt with. My parents both have Verizon now, and I have Edge(AT&T affiliate)wireless, both of which are great to deal with.

 

That's true Spleck, Verizon does need some coverage in that area cause they cover most of the rest of Tennessee but it looks like it is going to happen soon. My grandmother's ALLTEL phone roams on US Cellular in the Knoxville/Sevierville/Pigeon Forge area and it seems to work fine down there on there network apparently US Cellular has that area covered well. By the way I just rememberd Sprint PCS now has coverage in that area too now

 

According to an inside source, VZW should have the TN-4 area (Gatlinburg, Morristown, etc.) switched over to CDMA by July 1.

Sprint PCS also has coverage in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Morristown/etc. area; current Verizon PRLs for tri-mode phones (50017 and higher for most plans, and the new 40000 series for newer local plans) prefer SPCS over both the ex-Dobson system and "US Hell" (I call them that because of problems I had with their Dalton, GA system several years ago, and their causing there to be no B-side cell coverage in Polk County, TN)... The only downside is that text messaging and Mobile Web (and for some customers, including myself, caller ID) don't work on SPCS.

TNDan21 -- What ALLTEL CDMA in Morristown??? ALLTEL's digital dies on I-81 just south of Greeneville -- and of course, VZW's PRLs prefer ALLTEL analog over SPCS digital.

As for VZW buying USCC -- there is quite a bit of overlap between 800 MHz systems (Knoxville, Asheville, Ukiah, etc.) that would call for systems being sold. (My guess is that if it were to happen, ALLTEL would get Knox and Ashe and possibly Cal-North would get Ukiah.) Overlap between cell and PCS coverage such as in Milwaukee and Florida would probably be less of an issue.

-SC

 

I have been thinking that we might sell to someone, probably Verizon if we do would be my guess. Here in VA,WV and some of NC, we were already were CDMA but just switched to Lucent Cells and Lucent 5ESS switch. Thats the same thing Verizon uses almost every where. We have good coverage in central and southwest VA and Eastern WV I speak from experence. I really don't know about alot of the other area's we own......

You are right about the Verizon A/C plan we do fit pretty well in to all the holes.

But, we just rolled out some new rate plans that are really, really good. Probably the best in the area..... (for now).... They haven't advertised them yet but the sells people said that they are selling great.....

Our biggest competitor locally would be SunCom (Triton). I have to give it to them they did a great job building a network from the ground up....They did basicly what AT&T does and build down main roads and around main city's.They do use us for there analog roaming agreement ... Most of the people I know have Us Cell or SunCom phones around here....

 

I can't see this area being sold to Cal North. It is too close to the bay area and Sonoma County, and Cal North has coverage in neither place. They are a unknown company to most of the state, including this area. A lot of the people here visit or work in those areas almost every day, Cal North would be a very bad company for us. Verizon is actually doing quite well here too, they just opened up the new store here and are finally putting up new sites(I saw one the other day, 'bout time!) Cal North BOOOO

 

Yes, Stanley ALLTEL is in Morristown, TN I don't know if they are digital or not in that area but they are in that area.

 

I just checked ALLTEL's website and for the Morristown, TN zip code (37813) they do appear to sell Digital phone's so either that means ALLTEL is already Digital there or they are getting ready to launch there Digital network there very soon. My guess is they already are since ALLTEL is mostly Digital now.

 

Correct -- ALLTEL is in Morristown (part of the Tri-Cities system), but they aren't digital there yet.

BTW, ALLTEL started selling CDMA phones in New Orleans *months* before the old Radiofone (last "major" analog-only carrier) system was upgraded to CDMA. (During the very brief time SBC owned it, SBC actually sold IS-136 phones under the assumption they would own it "forever" and upgrade it to IS-136 -- ALLTEL had to swap out quite a few phones as a result...)

-SC

 

ALLTEL does that, they start selling there Digital phones about 2-3 months before they launch there Digital service. They will still work just in analog mode only, and when the Digital system comes up then they start working in Digital. If they are already selling Digital phones via there website to Morristown, TN then expect ALLTEL to be Digital there soon.

 

Sorry for the mistake by the way. I bow to the Wireless Master of the South, Stanley Cline