Yeah... everyone knows this already, what with them only offering roamer coverage in various markets and whatnot... but go to their site http://www.commnetwireless.com and take a look at their contact info link. Corp office is in Illinois... the roamer office is in Bothell, WA.. and their regulatory contact is in Plano, TX.... they have switches in Yuma, AZ and Dade Co, FL... sheesh... does anyone know what on earth is up with these guys? And I wish they'd cough up their license in Johnson Co, TN to VZW.
I wish they'd come in and provide desperately needed coverage on Hwy.20 here in Nor Cal between Clearlake Oaks and Williams, no other carrier seems willing or interested (which makes NO sense as it's the main and only road between Lake, Mendocino and Northern Sonoma Counties and the Sacramento Valley and is HEAVILY used, and there is an unused former AT&T microwave site now owned by American Tower sitting smack dab on a prime ridge top that would cover a lot of this dead spot)in doing it, I'd pay for being able to use my phone on a dark and rainy or snowy night on that isolated, remote stretch of road! I mean, there are a few call boxes in Lake County on that stretch, but good luck finding one in a bad rain or snow storm on a dark night! Not to mention once you hit the Colusa County line the call boxes end.
What's up is that despite the wacky setup, with a supply and re-sale business as well, they make money. Black ink drives this business, make no mistake about it.
What do you mean still? They're all over California, and are linked to the CHP. Most of them around here are linked wirelessly due to the remote areas many are in. Lake County has had them for while, we just got them in Mendocino County a few years ago, they are VERY important in this area, because some spots have no cellular service at all, even with a 3 watt phone, and it's a low income area so a large number of people don't even have a cell phone.
It would make sense for them to get some licenses and build out that area up there... The area can't realistically support THAT many carriers selling service up there, but since Commnet doesn't sell to end users, they sell roaming coverage to carriers, then everyone would benefit. Instead of the carriers having to pour money into a network that won't even be used THAT much, they can just pay Commnet for what actually gets used. Commnet handles all the maintenance and everything, all the carrier does is handle the interchange between their own systems and Commnet's and the billing and such of their subscribers (if there was any to be done). But as we all know, just because it makes sense doesn't mean it will happen.
Yes, Commnet is quirky...but in a really good kind of way. (I like to poke fun at them for their cross-country backhauls and so on, but they really do provide a service in the places they provide service -- I know for a fact that in some of their coverage areas -- not Mountain City, though -- there would be NO service from ANYONE if it weren't for them. A few of the places they provide service, most notably the Florida Keys, do make rather little sense for them to be in from my POV.) VZW doesn't really need Johnson County; that's what ALLTEL is for. -SC
Yup...this is basically exactly how they work. I'm really surprised that Commnet hasn't tried to get the B-side license for Polk County, TN...the bane of Cingular customers and roamer1s everywhere. -SC
Perhaps so, Stanley, but Polk Co would STILL be the bane of Cingular customers everywhere even if they did pick up the B-side license. Cingular GSM customers would not be able to roam on Commnet's analog system (or god forbid they roll out CDMA). Perhaps GAIT customers would roam there, but outside that, it would only benefit CDMA/TDMA customers of the various carriers. Yes, better than nothing, that's for sure. Financially, it doesn't make sense for any of the major carriers to build out there, as there's no way they'd ever get enough revenue from it to recoup the money they spent. Commnet, on the other hand, would rake in the revenue from all the roaming carriers. I've been down there myself, which brings up the question, where would a carrier PUT towers and not meet with tremendous opposition. Don't forget there's a national forest right around that very same area. (can't remember the name of it for the life of me)
What makes you think there'd only be analog? Commnet is running GSM in some areas now...and (from what I understand) is going to turn up GSM in ALL its service areas -- even those where roaming comes mostly from VZW customers. Cherokee National Forest... There are some towers owned by the National Park Service inside the forest lands, and American Tower and others have various towers along US 411 (AT&T and VZW and I think SPCS are on them) and US 64 (VZW's on it) outside the forest lands. -SC
Now that I think about it... MOST of the forest is actually off Hwy 68, at least what you can actually drive through. I don't particularly remember if there in fact is coverage up through that stretch of road since it's been a good while since I've been through there... I know Hwy 411 wasn't really all that bad in the northern half of Polk Co. As far as Commnet going GSM, that's not surprising given that all their traffic is roamer traffic and they'd obviously like as much of that as possible. I wonder if/when they'll ever do anything about Johnson Co, TN. It's been analog forever and both VZW and USCC prefer SPCS in that area over Commnet (for obvious reasons). Last I remember, SPCS wasn't exactly great on the west side of the mountain but once on the east side, it seemed ok. Mind you, most of us would never have any reason to be there in the first place unless you were going to Boone, NC from the Tri-Cities area. Anyway, back to Polk Co... what would it require for Commnet to actually acquire the license for that area? Wouldn't it have to be auctioned off by the FCC? If so, why haven't they bothered to auction it off in the years since the Atlanta olympics?
Actually, in Mountain City VZW roams on ALLTEL and doesn't roam on SPCS, and ALLTEL (and SPCS) have better coverage than Commnet does. Practically anyone who is NOT CDMA roams on Commnet; Cingular neg'd ALLTEL in their IRDBs and AT&T prefers Commnet over ALLTEL since they usually prefer A-side 850 systems. As for Commnet getting systems: Back when cellular licenses were first awarded, carriers had five years to build out coverage in their licensed areas. Any areas in a license area that a carrier did not build out in that five-year span automatically became "unserved area" that any carrier (the original licensee or anyone else) could simply apply to serve, without going through the auction process. (Some unserved areas were auctioned but I can't recall why.) This is how Commnet has gotten into most of their service areas -- the major exceptions are the Florida Keys and an area in southeastern Minnesota which an act of Congress took away from AT&T, which had "temporary" authorization to serve those areas, to fix "irregularities" in license auctions a decade ago, and happened to give to companies either part of or with somewhat close ties to Commnet. (A part of Pennsylvania was taken away from AT&T as well, but it went to a startup company called Endless Mountains Wireless, who has no ties to Commnet and -- in sharp contrast to Commnet -- is selling service to local customers in its service area.) In the case of Polk County, the carrier who didn't build out is USCC -- to this day USCC coverage maps shows USCC as being licensed in Polk County, which is technically incorrect, at least outside USCC's "usable signal" service area contour (which from the last maps I saw only covers a small part of the Highway 411 area north of Benton that is within reach of USCC's Etowah cell site, and doesn't get anywhere near the Copper Basin area.) There's more than one reason I call USCC "US Hell"... -SC
Somehow, some WAY, I always manage to forget that Alltel exists. And, I swear that SID 74 is absolutely enormous. I can also vouch for Alltel being neg'd in Cingular's IRDB's, as at one time, I was on a GAIT plan on a 6340i, ended up in Jonesville, VA and saw my phone hit SID 1749. At the time, I had no clue who it was, but I found out later (from you) that it was VZW. Alltel also covers that area under SID 74 but my phone wanted no part of it. This was well over a year ago, mind you. I couldn't actually make a call out, but it saw the towers and came up as having signal. It was analog, too... maybe 3 bars out of 6. Now that I think about it, I may very well have roamed on Alltel in Mtn City, I just can't remember... I know US Hell & Alltel get along, since for the longest time, USCC still roamed on Alltel SID 74 in Morristown even after VZW went digital (but roamed Verizon most of the rest of the way up into the tri-cities.
so I take it Comment has no customers they just charge roaming to everybody who uses their network?? :dunno: :rant:
Commnet maintains networks and other carriers pay them for their own users' usage on Commnet's networks. Commnet does not sell any service to end users at all. It's a little bit like Covad providing telephone lines for other companies to offer DSL service on, though not entirely.
That analogy works OK...if you go back to before when Covad started selling service directly anyway. The only other wireless carriers who have anything remotely similar to Commnet's business model are NextWave, who (despite all their problems with the FCC, bankruptcy court, etc.) wants to be a wholesale carrier for companies offering their own mobile data services, and carriers that do sell local service but have built roamer-only GSM overlays like Western Wireless, Alaska DigiTel, First Cellular in downstate IL, etc. -SC
