RSST-Mobile Plans for Growth, 3G in 2006
By Ed Oswald | Published December 16, 2005, 12:59 PM
T-Mobile USA has big plans for 2006, the company told BetaNews in an interview on Thursday. The carrier intends to complete the rollout of GSM 850, which has boosted its coverage area by nearly 40 percent, and finally establish its long-awaited 3G network. T-Mobile also believes it could top Verizon in Consumer Reports rankings of quality service.
The biggest benefit of GSM 850 would be increased coverage, mainly throughout the central part of the United States. However, the rollout would also include rural areas of the Northeast and West. Altogether, nearly 400,000 square miles of new coverage has been added during 2005, according to the carrier.
Several roaming agreements have been signed with various operators, most notably Dobson, Cingular, Western Wireless, Centennial, EDGE, and RCC, T-Mobile's senior vice president of Engineering Operations Neville Ray told BetaNews.
"We've secured this year effectively all of the 850 footprint that was out there," he said. "There may be some incremental increases next year, but they will not be significant."
The difference is already clear; large swaths of the Plains states now have coverage, and a T-Mobile subscriber could now drive roads like Interstate 80 from coast to coast with much fewer service disruptions than before.
Ray explained that the reason why 850 has become popular, especially in rural America, is due to its propagation characteristics. "An 850 signal does propagate further than a 1900 signal," he said, explaining that a carrier can build less towers yet still have the same network coverage.
In the U.S., 1900 MHz has been the most commonly used frequency for digital cellular service, similar to the 1800 MHz band in Europe. Although their European counterparts use 900 MHz for rural areas, stateside carriers have turned to the 850 Mhz band to maximize network coverage.
From here on out, all of T-Mobile's phones will be compatible with the new spectrum, and the carrier will soon begin to move current customers to these phones through its upgrade program. "We're moving our base as quickly as we can to 850 capability," Ray said.
The company also thinks this rollout will begin to battle the perception that the carrier has had troubles with expanding its coverage. "There will be large swaths of geography where they will now have service from T-Mobile," Ray said. "The benefits are significant for a large portion of our customers."
Eventually, T-Mobile's coverage map would be practically identical to Cingular's, erasing the advantage its rival and others like Sprint-Nextel and Verizon have over the nation's fourth largest carrier.
"The differences on the map would be where Cingular includes analog-only coverage on its marketing material," Ray said. "That's not an unfamiliar story for Verizon too. When you compare their footprint with our footprint, the biggest difference is analog. It's not digital service, GSM or CDMA."
Ray also spoke briefly to T-Mobile's 3G, or third generation, plans, and seemed to indicate that the carrier may be following a more accelerated plan towards next generation data services. Cingular announced the launch of its own high-speed HSDPA network earlier this month.
Ray revealed that 3G testing was already occurring in some markets, although he declined to provide specific locations, as the networks are not publicly available.
"We are very hopeful that by the end of 2006, and definitely in 2007, we'd be able to bring 3G services to the market. Some of this is auction dependent," Ray said, alluding to a large cellular spectrum auction to take place next summer. "We're hopefully looking at a 3G deployment in late 2006."
While Ray did not specifically say which 3G technology T-Mobile would adopt in the United States, the carrier may choose to go straight to UMTS, the technology its European sister companies are currently using.
The 850 expansion would not contribute to T-Mobile's rollout of 3G, Ray said, explaining that in the near term, the focus of 3G would be in the metro areas. "A lot of rural America is covered by the smaller players and not the big carriers," he explained. "So I think it will be some time before you see 3G services in many of those locations."
Ray added that he expects the company's image to benefit from the expansion and sees a bright future ahead for T-Mobile.
"I look at Consumer Reports placing us a solid second to Verizon, and I think our footprint expansion this year will even further solidify our position. And in some cases, we're rapidly closing in on first place."
I made the mistake of contacting t-mobile/tmobile customer service today about an issue on my phone service. I mentioned to the representative that I was receiving a "s***ty" signal from the tower. The woman, by the name of Brooke, operator ID # 0955532, told me that she would be "hanging up" on me because I was using "foul and abusive language" and she terminated the call.
I will agree that 50 years ago, the use of the term s*** or s***TY would have been considered foul language. However, this word is now a part of common language usage. It has been used in TV commercials, by the President of the USA, and other respected members of society. To hang up on me because of my use of the word "s***ty" to describe a tower signal shows me how far t-mobile/tmobile continues to lag behind the rest of the industry in treatment of customers.
Before t-mobile/tmobile attempts to expand its services and coverage, maybe it needs to go back and reexamine how it treats and deals with current customers.
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|The issue here is not really about the word. It is about common courtesy. I learned when I worked in retail that you get a lot farther getting someone to take your problem seriously when you are polite and friendly. No matter how ubiquitous s***y is in our vocabulary, and I use it a lot too, it is not really a polite word.
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|For all of you worried prepaid/ t-mobile to go people very soon you will beable to roam all over the US. the reason why you can not as of now is roaming partners do not allow it because they do not make any money off of it. not only that you will soon ebbale to roam internationally as well with your prepaid
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|where i'm from 3G has been out for a year and a bit, i think you guys have something to look forward to, its very reliable.
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|The article refers to extensive roaming contracts that have been signed. Since prepaid customers do not have access to these contracts, should we expect any additional coverage with the rollout on 850mhz or is that mostly on these contracted towers?
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|Roaming, non-roaming, doesn't make a difference. Either do contracted towers. The issue is the technology that T-Mobile is upgrading. That's al you should be concerned with. A pre-paid customer and a regular customer have no difference in service except for billing. That's it. They can't offer you features since you pre-pay that they can offer to regular customers, because you could incure additional charges, and they can't guarantee payment. But you are still a T-Mobile customer.
And you must have missed that paragraph that reads:
"From here on out, all of T-Mobile's phones will be compatible with the new spectrum, and the carrier will soon begin to move current customers to these phones through its upgrade program."
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|I'm on T-Mobile to go (have been since April, moved over from Virgin for the 365 day expire...) and have never been able to roam off the native T-Mobile towers. The website has always said that coverage is only available on towers they own... I can't confirm that they have not changed right now because the coverage locator is offline.
And most landline phones you would buy now are compatible with caller id, but that function does not work unless enabled by your specific plan with the phone company.
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|I don't know why people think CDMA is so great. TDMA and GSM have been vastly superior in terms of coverage for years. TDMA and GSM also greatly reduce the amount of dropped calls compared to CDMA. In fact, the only bad thing about TDMA is its poor speed for internet and other data services.
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|Can't wait for 3G...
We are slower than Asia.... what the hell??!!
Why are we always behind than some Asian countries?
My friend who is in Taiwan told me,
8Mbps DSL cost only $14 per month
12Mbps DSL cost only $16 per month
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|Not only that but the US mobile phone market and DSL is way behind Europe too. It's not looking good.
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|your friend needs to get his facts straight....
the internet and your friend gives way to much
mis-information!!!!!!
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|There is a very simple reason we are slower than Asia for 3g. Coverage. How big is asia? How big is the USA? You also have to consider Hawaii and Alaska in that computation. When they do a roll-out of an upgrade, there is a HUGE expense. Its much easier to do a smaller country, and also test those markets first. We american's are very demanding, and a rollout of this magnitude, would be 20 times more than that of Asia, so its not a few dollars, its billions to implement, not to mention, when they roll it out, if its working in NY, and its not functioning in CA, CA residents will be super PO'ed, because they will feel left out, and they will hop to another carrier that has it in a heart beat.
Technology in this country also has built in security, and technology that Asia simply does not have. You may be able to get cheap DSL in Asia, but that's exactly what it is CHEAP!! Its not reliable at all, very spotty, poor coverage, and it could go up and down, and they have a much smaller customer base.
Also, the FCC imposes limits and licensing to make sure that the technology is available to the masses, Asia could care less if you actually get 8 meg downloads or not. So it could be false advertising, even if your friend gets it. It doesn't mean it will be operational tomorrow.
And if you still want to complain about technology overseas, move to Asia, if that's all you are interested in. The cost of living is much, much lower there, so its all relative.. $14 may be cheap to us, but that's because salarys are higher here, there you make $4000 a year you are doing good.. put that into perspective.
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|Yeah, but they don't have the same level of techology. We aren't behind Europe, it takes a lot more money and planning to implement it, so its slow to get here, because it has to be available everywhere in the USA, not just 1 state at at time.
How big is UK? Maybe the size of texas? That would be easy to implement.. if that's all they had to do, but they don't.
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|Somebody has rather limited view of the world...
"How big is asia? How big is the USA?"
Asia:
Population: 4.001 billion (2002)
Area: 49,703,948 km2
U.S.A.:
Population: 297,700,000 (2005 est)
Area: 9,631,418 km²
"You may be able to get cheap DSL in Asia, but that's exactly what it is CHEAP!!"
Not so. Its more down to FCC not forcing local-loop opening for free competition and not forcing local Bells to allow people to have DSL lines without land lines (which is a commonplace legal requirement in virtually all countries with high DSL (and typically over 90% mobile phone) penetration rate). So, even tho Verizon would own the lines, they'd have to license the lines to any 3rd party company for minimal fee (same they charge for their own DSL company for) and not to force customers to get and pay for land line as well.
"$14 may be cheap to us, but that's because salarys are higher here, there you make $4000 a year you are doing good."
South Korea (country with world's highest penetration rate for broadband connections):
GDP / capita (PPP): $22,620
Some links to educate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia
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|Actually 3G was not rolled out all over the UK at once. As with previous networks, it was made available in high-population areas such as major cities, before it was available elsewhere.
For the record, you might like to know that on most of our UK mobile network coverage falls apart in rural areas. For example, mobile coverage in parts of Scotland always has been very poor. Even around some of villages in south England I have lived in have very bad coverage.
When G3 launched here the cool features of it were very expensive, so expensive that nobody was using it. The service was very unreliable and its viability as a business was called into question. Things have settled down in the past year but I won't be buying a G3 phone any time soon.
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|Dear Rijp,
>Yeah, but they don't have the same level of techology. We aren't behind Europe,
> it takes a lot more money and planning to implement it, so its slow to get here,
> because it has to be available everywhere in the USA, not just 1 state at a time.
First of all, I am in the industry and think I have the facts straight here. The biggest mobile technology is GSM, with over 1.5 billion customers globally.
http://www.gsmworld.com/...df/gsma_stats_q3_05.pdf
In Europe we close down the last analogue networks in 2006, and what’s left is GSM and the 3G evolution UMTS, based on the same core network. The US is among the only major country, which still has a significant share of the mobile fleet on analogue.
Significant parts of Asia and Europe passed 90% penetration, whereas the US is a laggard here. 50 million GSM subscribers our of a population of almost 300 million.
> How big is UK? Maybe the size of texas? That would be easy to implement.
> if that's all they had to do, but they don't.
Have you been working in this area so you have ANY idea of what you’re talking about? Covering one vast country and several small ones is virtually the same as the heavy part if the radio side and this is divided into regions anyway. Geographic coverage in the US is substandard, which is why T-mobile moves to deploy 850 – they need the radio reach. Building with 1900 is expensive as the reach is so poor (and UMTS and other 3G services are of course even more expensive given it’s typical 2.1GHz spectrum allocation).
So, please review the BASIC facts again prior to making bold statements!
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|Cingular doesn't show analog coverage on its maps anymore. They only did that when they offered GAIT and TDMA phones, and they have stopped carrying both.
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|I am not sure about others but I have been using tmobile since back in the day of voicestream. I join on with voicesteam after being tired of Sprints bad coverage in the seattle area along with verizons high prices with little no minutes and only during non peak hours. tmobile has been great service prodivider, Very easy to upgrade phones, services and customer support is always great to deal with.
I can't wait till they come out with 3G, I will definently stick around for it. I have been thinking about moving to cingular due tmobiles phone selection and at the time no plans on going 3g, but with all this talk I will be sticking around a bit longer.
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|I wonder what they are going to call this company now. G-Mobile!!!!!!
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|I'm a t-mobile pre-paid customer, i hope t-mobile allow pre-paids to access all internet content on phone someday. Like cingular did.
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|Internet is a pay as a you go service. If you go over your data rate, how are they going to ensure you pay up? That's why you don't have certain services. You want regular service, get a credit card or a check card, and become a regular customer. You can't complain about being a pre-paid customer, unless your credit is horrible, even then you just have to pay a deposit, you should be able to become a regular customer.
So why are you a pre-paid customer? What's keeping you from being a regular? hmmmmm? Pre-paid is for drug dealers and people that are paranoid about contracts.. we can't help that you ONLY want pre-paid.. You want to be treated like a regular, BE a regular, its that easy.
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|I normally hate to slam people but your typical pre-paid user falls into one or more categories: (1) has poor credit due to poor personal choices; (2) can't be responsible and constantly goes over minutes; (3) is an amateur drug dealer or gangbanger; and (4) is a paranoid (probably from past drug abuse).
You're already getting ripped off of pre-paid minutes. I am sure T-Mobile will find ways to make money off of your kind -- rest assured.
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|"I normally hate to slam people"
Then why do you do it with such obvious glee? If you knew anything, you'd know that your careless generalizations are insulting to a lot of people. Some people simply can't afford the high prices charged for many cell phone services--despite the relative low cost, there are still many people on very tight budgets. Lots of people don't have good credit not because they've blown all their money on dope, but because they're young. And some people simply prefer not to be tied down to a contract, or don't want to pay excessive amounts for a service that they only intend to use at certain times. So I suggest that you try to enlighten yourself, because your opinion is not all that you think it is.
Back on topic, I couldn't be happier about T-Mobile expanding their coverage. I've wanted their service in the past, but couldn't get it out here where I need it. 850 MHz is a huge deal if they want to remain competitive.
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|Hey, I work at Cingular (own T-Mobile service though) and it's true that prepaid has less coverage than postpaid. With postpaid (contracted) service you can roam on other people's networks. With prepaid you can only use the provider's network.
I can't wait for T-Mobile to go 3G... The service and plans are great, the phone selection and technology is just a bit lacking. I'll stick with them now though.
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