Question about EVDO from new tower near Danbury, NC

Just how rural are you going to be ?????? On second thought they pretty much have to pump sunshine into Stokes county !!!!! Good luck with anything up there !!!!:twocents:

 

I think your best bet would probably be to test whether or not the tower (and/or EVDO) is active by bringing your ALLTEL phone to the area and checking your signal strength and seeing whether you are on 1x or EVDO. Personally I would chose 1x over satellite any day, lol.

 

Alltel usually installs EVDO on all cell sites when they upgrade an area so if there is EVDO in the area, it will be on the tower you mentioned. Unfortunately for you, from Alltel's map it looks to be a 1X only area. I was looking north of Winston-Salem which I think is correct.

I have used 1X service for Internet at times and it isn't bad--particularly in an area that is not heavily populated with cell phone users. It is faster than most dial-up although the latency is higher. For web surfing and email it is fine. Like Andy, I would take it over satellite.

 

Here is a link to the alltel data map to which music4praise was referring: Alltel MobileLink Coverage

The blue is EVDO and purple is 1x, so according to the latest map, that area isn't yet EV-DO but alltel seems to be working its way there, and many smaller areas than Winston-Salem are now covered in North Carolina. But the good news is I know I remember hearing from other posters in the past that the Winston-Salem area, as well as the Martinsville, VA area were targeted for EV-DO in the future. But exactly when that will be and if that will extend over to Danbury, or if it was placed on the new tower, I do not know.

As others have mentioned, I would take it over satellite as well as dial-up imo. One thing about dial-up in rural areas is that often the phone lines are ancient and are a bottleneck for speeds. It's not uncommon for some of my family in NC and Western Virginia to get normal dial up speeds around 25 kbps with any dial-up provider where DSL and Cable aren't options. So I guess there are a lot of factors to consider, but hopefully for the near future the 1x or another option, as limited as they are in rural areas, will give you enough speed.

 

They are very slow about updating maps. EVDO is likely to show up long before the map says it has. A lot of places I travel in Michigan have EVDO where the map says 1X. At least this beats having maps that show more coverage than there really is.

Concerning the new cell site, the 1X equipment and EVDO equipment run on different channels and are set up differently. It might make a lot of sense to get the cell site up for voice traffic and come back later for high speed data.

One other idea that dawned on me after my first post is that you might be able to put up an outdoor yagi antenna with an amplifier and point it at a site that has EVDO. That would depend on a site being within around 25 miles and you being able to get an antenna at sufficient elevation on your property. Given the terrain it probably won't work but the idea that is technically feasible.

 

I know Alltel is upgrading thier network very quickley . Check with your Alltel Customer support about EVDO current availability and upcoming plans . They do sell am amplifier antenna package to thier customers for $199.

 

I hate to be the deliverer of bad news on this one but from what I've read on other boards, Alltel is using Sprint PCS's EV-DO in the triad as part of their roaming agreement. I'm not sure if this means they aren't planning to roll it out or not, but with most of rural eastern NC having it, you'd think they would have put it in the triad area by now if they planned to. Have you looked at Verizon? I'm not familiar with their EV-DO buildout but it's possible they have it there.

 

According to the Verizon data services map, the Triad area does have Access Broadband (EVDO), but it stops well short of Stokes County. There are also many holes of no data coverage just north of Danbury that are filled in by 'Extended Service' when you switch it over to the America's Choice map. My conclusion would be that with Verizon, if he got anything it would be 1x and the signal would have a better chance of being weaker because of the Verizon holes where they rely on extended service.

But the holes in alltel's EVDO map are curious. They have many rural places covered, but in Virginia, NE Tennessee, and Northern NC they yet don't have the Triad, Martinsville, VA, the Tri-Cities, TN, the interstate connecting Richmond to Williamsburg. Relying on Sprint's EVDO agreement would limit only alltel users with data cards and Treos to their EVDO and leave everybody with other smartphones/tethering plans out in the cold. You would have to think, and I hope at least these larger areas are on the horizon for EVDO addition. Maybe for now they think around this area, the budget should be spent on tower additions, or in these areas alltel doesn't have enough data customers to justify their own EVDO because of lack of market saturation, or maybe they're worried about spectrum concerns because of too much market saturation and are waiting for analog to be shut off in Feb 2008 before firing it up, but it would be very curious for them to just not have it, have no plans for it, and write a big check to Sprint/iPCS for their data card/Treo customers to use EVDO and not stay competitive by having EVDO for everybody else when other providers in these areas are making the move to add it.

 

Based on last year's EVDO schedule, Alltel expanded/launched areas mainly in 3rd and 4th quarter. Also, when an area is being upgraded, the EV service is normally available 2-3 weeks before official launch. I know there are several areas around the country that are slated to get EVDO by either end of this year or first quarter next year. So, as was mentioned before, I would have an EVDO capable phone and see if it picks up EV on the display.

 

Call *611 or 1800-Alltel1 if you don't have Alltel now and push options 1, 0, then 2 and ask about whether there is coverage in that area. If they don't know ask if you can go to tech support or try option 4 yourself. They'll know more.

 

The maps are so outdated, the only way to know is to have someone with an EVDO capable phone check the coverage there. Another suggestion is to go the the ALLTEL threads on HowardForums and ask Towertester about the site. He's an engineer with ALLTEL in NC and can probably tell you quickly if the tower will be EVDO at launch.

 

The tower is online but only for CDMA 800 MHz, no EV-DO at this time.