Cingular and ATT conbined will control 800mhz in FL?

ALLTEL is awful in Myrtle Beach. Pretty much any carrier in that area is better then they are. The best carrier in Myrtle Beach in my opinion is Cingular Wireless who operates a PCS Network in that area.

 

I am not sure why you keep insisting that the FCC has some rules that determine what should be used in the 800Mhz blocks. They don't. They don't care. It could be the same technology in both blocks or it could be different. This is up to the carriers to decide what technology they will use because the FCC DOES NOT CARE what type of network carriers run.

There are no markets where a single carrier owns both 800Mhz licenses. This is because the FCC had prohibited licensing of both 800Mhz blocks to a single company until recently. However, this is 2004, times have changed and those rules are obsolete. They don't serve the purpose they did in the past. Therefore, today the FCC has no problem if a single carrier gets both 800Mhz blocks because the whole wireless industry has changed. If Cingular gets both 800Mhz blocks in any market, it would be the first time in history a single company is awarded both Cellular blocks. Therefore, if the FCC believes that this will not hurt competition, it's probably because they know something that we don't. Therefore, we must let the FCC do its job.

 

totally agree with Bobo there are many places where both is CDMA or both is GSM. In my hometown both Cellular providers are CDMA and they have no intrest in GSM. There is no PCS provider there so there is no GSM. so a GSM phone will not work in my hometown.

So what does the future hold?? When analog systems get shut down in 2008 I am sure many of us will have a CDMA/WCDMA phone so you can roam in areas where there is CDMA WCDMA or GSM. That should slove alot of trouble.

 

I have a headache :wink:

 

T-Mobile (A GSM CARRIER) provides Service in Logan, Utah. Your Home town. But is 1900 MHz

That's why some Carriers are Strong in Some Areas and weak in others.

 

Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that Cingular does (for whatever reason,) divest itself of one of the 800 Mhz channels in eastern Florida.

Which carrier would be interested in buying it?

Not T-Mobile, Nextel, Metro PCS or Sprint, as they never operate in that band.
U.S. Cellular seems to be getting out of eastern Florida, as they just sold their Daytona licenses to Metro PCS.

When you eliminate AT&T Wireless, that just leaves Verizon and Alltel.

Would Verizon or Alltel be interested?

 

Since Verizon has a network there already, would have to go to Alltel.

From some of the other things that were mentioned in this thread, I dont have a problem with both cellular blocks being the same technology, here in Cleveland they are both CDMA, but to have both owned by the same company, I think there is a problem with that.

And they will probably do a swap with Alltel, instead of just selling those markets, im sure that if you were to look at all of Alltels markets, in sure there would be some that would be of interest to Cingular to do a swap, similar to what Alltel did with Verizon.

 

Actually, both Alltel and VZW have 1900 Mhz networks in much of eastern Florida.

 

Isn't Alltel 800MHz in Fl? Or do they have both? I know they are 800 in Gainesville.

 

Alltel is at 1900 in Jacksonville, and much of the eastern side of the state.

 

home is not Logan, UT only live here right now
home is Chariton, IA 50049

You are right that Logan has PCS providers as well as wireless providers offering GSM. T-mobile and AT&T offer GSM on the PCS band. As far as I know Union Cellular does not have there GSM 30 MHz C block up yet in Cache county.

 

It seems that the merger went through with the new Cingular keeping both 'A' and 'B' blocks of 800 Mhz in eastern Florida. In Jacksonville, the new company has a slot at 1900 Mhz as well.

 

What's the Ranking of Logan, Utah in the top 100 Markets?

 

Who cares?? What does it matter?


Anyways, Agent, does Union have an AMPS Network up in Cache County then or what?

P.S. sorry I'm a little late

 

Can Cingular legally shut down either the A or B-side AMPS network now that they officially own both in the overlap areas?

 

That is a good question! I wonder if Cingular is behind the scenes trying to sell that spectrum.

Interestingly, here, in Jacksonville, both AT&T WS and Cingular continue to advertise independently. A friend of mine complains that he now has to dial the ten-digit number on local calls from his AT&T WS phone. Also, the local TV news tells viewers to call in tips by dialing:

"Cingular Wireless cell phone: Dial *FCN
AT&T Wireless cell phone: Dial #FCN."

 

In Logan it is probably in the 270's for top MSA's
Cellular A is now Cingular
Cellular B is Verizon
Logan became an MSA July 2003 so it is not even close to the top. Union does not have a Cellular network in Cache county. They do have a PCS license C Block 30 MHz for Logan and Preston, ID. As far as I know they don't have a GSM network here in Logan. They do cover Rich county Utah where Bare Lake is. That is AMPS and probably now GSM ready.
hope this helps

 

If they shut down A or B Cellular block they would be in buildout voilation of the license and the FCC could give the license to another provider. So unless Cingular wants to sell spectrum or Cellular block without customers in the comming months that could happen, but I have my doubts that it will ever happen, unless Cingular goes too far into debt.

 

What about shutting off AMPS on one of the blocks and using it for GSM or TDMA exclusively?

 

I believe there should be no problem in doing that now that they own both networks. They've had only 4Mhz of spectrum dedicated for AMPS, so there is no merger rule saying that they now have to have 8Mhz dedicated to AMPS. That's 4Mhz in the A block and 4Mhz in the B block. So they can shut down one of these 4Mhz blocks and reuse it for GSM. This is exactly the same as reducing the amount of spectrum available to AMPS which is something they did a long time ago in favor of TDMA. The FCC only requires each 800Mhz carrier to maintain their AMPS network alive, but they don't require a certain amount of spectrum dedicated to it. So now that both blocks are one company, I don't think they require that they keep a chunk of each 800Mhz block set aside for AMPS. They can do this with one block.