Union Wireless continues expansion

Thanks, Jones. Statewide coverage is quite a challenge, but they are getting closer. It is distressing that they aren't making any improvements outside of Wyoming. They might was well sell the CO & UT parts of the network. Methinks AT&T might be a little more receptive to a reasonable offer this time.

 

I agree, I just can't believe they turned down the offer to buy the company for $1.00. Lack of forward thinking on someones part & if they did decide to buy them out, it would cost a whole lot more then that.

 

A purchase of Union by AT&T could actually make a ton of sense, at least geographically. To the north of Wyoming: Montana, home of AT&T affiliate Chinook Wireless. To the west of Wyoming: Idaho, home of an AT&T network in the west part of the state and AT&T affiliate Edge Wireless in the east part of the state (AT&T is contractually bound to buy Edge in the fairly near future). To the south: Utah and Colorado, which both have broad AT&T coverage.

There would be a little overlap within Wyoming with the Edge and Chinook networks (at least with the network Chinook has proposed), but not very much. This would probably save AT&T a lot of roaming money in Cheyenne and across the I-80 corridor.

The article says that Union is spending $12 to $15 million each year on new cellsites. If Union has 43,000 wireless customers in Wyoming and they each spend $60 a month, total annual revenues would be about $2.6 million. They can't really be spending four times annual revenues every year on cellsites.

I'm trying to decide if I'm impressed that they have 43,000 customers or not. Wyoming has 510,000 people. Of those, 85,000 live in Laramie County (Cheyenne). Union's going to struggle there ... they can choose between Union, Alltel, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, so Union's going to be a tough sell, especially where they haven't historically been strong in the east part of the state. So Union essentially has about 10 percent of the remaining 425,000 people in Wyoming. That's probably not bad, since they have to fight with Verizon for virtually every customer and with Alltel for a lot of them (Alltel is in east Wyoming, including Casper and Laramie -- another 75,000 people -- and in much of central Wyoming). What a weird state ...

 

Actually, UT & CO have no AT&T/Cingular licenses in the WY border markets. The purchase of just those two parts of Union's system by AT&T/CIngular would make a lot of sense. However, just because AT&T turned down an offer in 1951 doesn't mean one is forthcoming today. While Verizon has been expanding broadly through the purchase of whole networks, AT&T/Cingular is not pursuing that strategy (they probably don't have the cash).

You sure do bring up a point about Union's expansion costs on a per-customer basis. I'm wondering if Union's expansion is also being financed through GSM and analog roaming fees. How much can that raise?

Hey, the more coverage, the better!

 

I'm sure that Cingular pays close to nothing to Edge Wireless for roaming, but I wonder how cozy Cingular and Union Wireless are? I also wonder how many Cingular customers travel to Union territory and if they roam a lot? Could be a lot of money Cingular is paying for roaming, but may not be.

 

At least some carrier is doing something with Wyoming. I had to drive test Verizons CDMA when they first put in CDMA 1X and it was aweful and the analog was not much better. Im sure there better now but it used to be aweful and by aweful I mean that on a major highway I had to wait almost 20 mins to use the phone.

 

Verizon's CDMA coverage in Wyoming when I last drove on I-80 two years ago was still awful. Huge holes in coverage, not sure if this has improved or not.

 

Driving border to border in WY on I-80, Verizon and Union have approximately the same 'holes'. One is next to the wind farm west of Laramie, and the other is near the UT state line. Where there is coverage it's good, but these 2 coverage holes are significant.

There are no utilities in these areas, and parts are located in National Forests, further complicating applications. One stretch has no power, no gas stations, no houses, no rest rooms, nothin' for over 100 miles. These 2 carriers would love to provide service there, but they have very few options. An external mobile cellular antenna helps a lot.

 

Glad to hear it's not just a Verizon thing in those areas. I guess what just always amazed me is that the coverage locator showed great coverage in that area, but there was nothing forever! I just got myself a Wilson External Antenna- I am testing it out right now on my trip to rural Southern Utah!