Verizon Wireless CDMA System vs. Unicel GSM System in Northeast N.Y.

What are you talking about that VzW has got no EvDO coverage in Upstate NY. EvDO coverage is in albany, spreads west to schenectady, north to hudson falls, and spreads south down 87 to the surrounding areas. Syracuse has got it and it spreads east to utica. For now its only 1xRTT between Utica and Schenectady, but thats improving. As for the Adirondack Park, VzW needs to finish up coverage on the northway 1st before they blanket the area in EvDO. Its coming, just be patient.

If your hungry for EvDO sprint has got it in albany spreading west to amsterdam and in syracuse spreading east to herkimer. Like i said before just wait, itll b here before you know it.

 

Looks like this wont matter anymore, Verizon has announced that they plan to purchase RCC (Unicel). They will be migrating customers to their CDMA technology and leaving the GSM network up for roaming partners.

 

This is not really going to change anything because Unicel's ENY/NVT system is in direct competition with Verizon. This rural area really has no other competition - Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile are nonexistent in 90%+ of the coverage area.

Verizon will have to divest this system in ENY and NVT. They can keep SVT and most of the rest of Unicel's network. The question is who it goes to. I would guess USC, because Verizon would not want to hand it to Cingular, unless Cingular has something compelling to trade for it. T-Mo and Sprint don't seem to have any desire for a rural network.

 

Yes I am interested in seeing what will happen. Of course I want Sprint to increase coverage in New York and Vermont but I'm not sure if they will.

T-Mobile or AT&T should try to get the GSM network so they don't have to roam in Burlington. Maybe they could start building a nice GSM network in Vermont. I would like to see another carrier in Vermont. Unicel and Verizon were competing for the top spot, Nextel was trailing by a significant margin, Sprint is not widely used, and US Cellular is not either. I think US Cellular is slightly more popular in southern VT but they don't have a large network in the Vermont.

With the buyout, Verizon is going to have at least twice as many customers as all the other carriers in Vermont combined. Wow. When they get CDMA on some of the Unicel towers they will also have the best coverage by far so a lot of people will look at Verizon when their Nextel/Sprint/US Cellular contract expires. At least it looks like Verizon cares about providing coverage in rural areas which is more than Sprint can say.

 

i honestly dont think this is the case. with what just happened with Dobson i think verizon just wanted to block at&t from getting RCC as well. I am actually employed by RCC and we still dont know if there will be layoffs or not. about 90% of the folks i have talked to wish at&t had purchased us instead of verizon.

 

In Eastern NY, Verizon is going to have to divest the Unicel network. So the question will be what whoever buys it will do.

 

In that portion of eastern NY (esp that portion of the 'dacks) there are only two providers, Verizon and Unicel. If Verizon owned both those systems they would have a monopoly. They will have to sell it off so there is still competition.

 

This is the case for northern VT and eastern NY only. Verizon does not have a 850 license for southern VT/western NH, so they would keep that.

Part of the purchase will be that Verizon put the portion of the network to be divested into a special holding company (or something like that). They will not be able to do anything with it at all (except sell it).

Verizon and AT&T do not play nicely (Cingular would not even sell Litchfield Co CT to Verizon - it instead went to Alltel). I would not be surprised to see Verizon sell to U.S. Cellular, which does not own those areas, but would love to get that coverage - the question is whether its worth it to them to overlay CDMA - I would say yes. Would T-Mobile suddenly come alive and be interested in a rural network? - here is their chance!

 

No he is correct. They will be expanding with cdma on the existing gsm sites. But because it would be considered a monopoly for your area then they would be required to divest one of the dual 850 licenses there in order to get the purchase approved by the gov't.

Those are only two areas of unicel's network, the rest they keep. I personally would love to see Alltel pick those up some how, not likely but it'd be nice, especially for the customers there.

 

I'd like to see that too. But they do have USCC there. I had them before I moved to the south and loved them. I am pretty sure USCC will get this hunk.