SunCom to add 20 new cell sites in the Asheville area

SunCom upgrading area cell service
By Dale Neal
STAFF WRITER
published: February 24, 2005 6:00 am

ASHEVILLE - Without his 19 or so cell phones, Robert Farmer says his business "is dead in the water."

Farmer has about 19 employees at Asheville Courier, making deliveries across Western North Carolina.

Farmer switched over to digital phones recently with his provider SunCom Wireless. Now he's looking forward to better service and perhaps cheaper bills as SunCom has announced new cell sites around Asheville and a new pricing campaign.

SunCom has set aside $110 million in its 2005 capital budget to add 20 new cell sites in the Asheville area. Six sites were scheduled to go live in February with a seventh site to be added in March. More than 90 relay stations will round out SunCom's coverage area in the mountains.

"No one will have better coverage than us in the Asheville area," said Michael E. Kalogris, chairman and CEO of SunCom Wireless, which is headquartered in Charleston, S.C.

Kalogris said SunCom maintains nearly 100 percent access to its network, with less than 1 percent of its calls dropped.

Calls get dropped when the cell phone's signal doesn't get handed off to the next tower.

"When it hits a mountain, the signal stops," Kalogris said. "If you're on the road, sometimes you can't get that handoff."

When it adds its seventh site in the Hendersonville area in March, SunCom will have continuous coverage for travelers on Interstate 26 between Asheville and Greenville, S.C., he said.

But the wireless CEO admits network differences between major providers aren't that distinctive. "We're all using the same technology and the same engineers," he said.

SunCom is betting that its new "Truth in Wireless" pricing plan will make it stand out in the wireless pack.

SunCom is doing away with fine print that can add extra charges to a typical cell phone bill. SunCom plans to offer a flat-fee plan of a 1,000 minutes per month for $39 or unlimited calls for $69 a month, which includes all taxes and charges. Contracts will be from month to month. The company also has launched a $30 million ad campaign.

As a smaller, regional provider, SunCom doesn't have the overhead costs that national carriers have to maintain expensive networks in California or New York, Kalogris said. SunCom focuses on the Southeast.

Farmer believes his business will benefit from a set charge from SunCom.

"Hopefully, it will lower our bill. We've always had problems when we get hit with extra charges. We may be budgeted at $600 or $700 a month, but the bill comes in at about $1,000."


SunCom Wireless plans to improve its Asheville network coverage with seven new sites to go live in February and March.
# West of downtown Asheville near U.S. 19-23 and Interstate 240.
# Twelve miles southwest of Hendersonville off U.S. 64.
# The junction of U.S. 64 and Hwy. 28 just north of Pisgah Forest.
# Horse Shoe/Mountain Home off Interstate 26.
# Hwy. 280, eight miles west of Hendersonville.
# The intersection of U.S. 64 and Chimney Rock Road.
# Ten miles southeast of Hendersonville on 1-26.

SunCom upgrading area cell service

 

ALLTEL doesn't sell service in the Asheville area. Verizon has a stronge network in that area though from what I've heard. I haven't used Verizon in that area but I have used Cingular and SunCom. Cingular is very good in the Asheville area but I was not impressed with SunCom's coverage. SunCom was quite bad in the Asheville area when I had them so they proabely needed those 20 new towers in that area to get the network up to par with everybody else.

 

No, Cingular only bought the Virginia network (minus a small part of SW Virginia) from SunCom. SunCom still has service in the Carolinas and Tri-Cities. Cingular already has it's own network up in the Carolina's and the Tri-Cities so they didn't need to buy the rest of the SunCom Network.

 

Tri-Cities:
Johnson City, TN
Kingsport, TN
Bristol, TN/VA

I think T-Mobile is very likely to buy SunCom in the future but I can't say when it will happen. SunCom has a cellular license in the Myrtle Beach area but GSM is not used on it. SunCom only operates GSM on PCS.

 

ALLTEL does not sell service in Asheville. While ALLTEL does have a PCS license to operate in that area and some coverage built out the network was never launched. ALLTEL does not have any stores in the Asheville area and they do not sell service there either.

 

Correction: A1Wireless (a wireless reseller) is showing that ALLTEL plans are available for Asheville, NC. This is news to me, since when did ALLTEL start selling service in Asheville? According to ALLTEL's website they don't have any stores in that area. So I'm assuming that ALLTEL may have just recently started to sell their service in Asheville.

 

Update: After doing some more research I have found out that you can sign up for ALLTEL wireless service online if you live in Asheville. However I can't seem to find any ALLTEL stores in the area or any resellers that carry ALLTEL. So from what I can tell you can only sign up for ALLTEL from online resellers if you live in Asheville. I'd say you also could proabely sign up for ALLTEL via their sales number since their website pulls up a coverage map using a Asheville zip code.

Roamer1 I have to say this is kind of confusing. What the heck is going on with ALLTEL in Asheville?

 

I sent a email to ALLTEL's customer service about Asheville. Below is the response that I received.

Response (Kari F) - 03/18/2005 10:56 AM
Mr. xxxxxxx,

In order to obtain service in the Asheville area, you do have to order the service through Customer Service.

At this time, we are not aware of any plans to open a retail location in the Asheville area. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any further questions, please let us know.

Thank you

Wireless Center Support
Ownership ID 38137