As per my earlier post, AT&TWS seems to be initiating CDPD service in 
their newly acquired market(s) north of the NYC Metro Market, in 
Poughkeepsie and Kingston (roughly SIDs 00503 and 01513, maybe 01515 as well)

Although the system is still branded as Cell One to local customers, AT&T 
acquired it about 7 or so months ago from US Cellular and/or some of the 
other minority ownerts (their web site -- not that anyone can easily find 
it -- has some weird branding, like "Robertson Cellular" or some no-name 
like that). 

In any event, under AT&T's ownership, the CDPD service, when completed, 
will create a large CDPD network surrounding NYC from the 
Alletown/Bethlehem/Scranton ex-Vanguard system in PA, to the 
Orange/Ducthess (Poughkeepsie) system in the Hudson Valley, to the 
Litchfield County CDPD system in CT (needs a lot of work, but there is 
some coverage). 

(Nothing to the south of NYC; AT&T customers need to roam on Bell 
Atlantic there and they block parts of it to minimize roaming; they may 
want to acquire the ComCast markets already and get a decent cellular and 
CDPD footprint south of NYC all the way to Maryland...)

Anyhow ... as they continue to build out what will presumably at some 
point be the Poughkeepsie/Kingston CDPD market, the new signals from this 
market interfere with the extant signals along the NYC Metro system 
border (roughly along I-84/NY-52). Areas which USED to pick up the AT&T 
NYC Metro CDPD signal are now instead picking up the stronger 
Poughkeepsie system.

This would be all fine and good BUT AT&T is not letting their OWN 
customers use this system (we get "Registration Denied" or the "No 
Response from Network" which seems to be how AT&T nicely rejects you from 
markets where they don't want you to roam (like BAMS in northern NJ, even 
in areas like Newton, NJ where AT&T doesn't have ANY coverage [they don't 
own Sussex County] but BAMS has strong coverage so you're basically stuck 
since they don't want you roaming in North Jersey even they AT&T doesn't 
cover and CAN'T currently cover as much as Bell Atlantic.)).

So in effect, areas where the coverage worked great is now completely 
dysfunctional, and we can not use our AT&T IPs from areas where we used 
to be able to use them just fine. Indeed, areas which AT&T documents on 
their Web site as having coverage are now covered by the Poughkeepsie 
system, and thus unusable. 

As AT&T seems to be adding more and more CDPD enabled towers in the 
Poughkeepsie market, it is concomitantly effectively blocking access to 
their NYC Metro CDPD network, thus preventing customers from utilizing 
their wireless IP service (including Pockenet customers driving along 
I-84) in areas where it was previously available. 

Just in the past week, I noticed that areas of the Taconic Parkway and 
Carmel, NY, which used to have exceedingly good coverage from the AT&T 
NYC Metro Market (generally channels 670 to 696) are now getting the 
Poughkeepsie system (generally channels 40 to 74), and have now as well 
become unusable.

In past attempts to inquire from AT&T Advanced Network Services (800) 
552-3373 as to what is going on, we are given the runaround, with answers 
ranging from "There is no coverage there" to "We don't own that market" 
(both of which are incorrect and presented to us in such a flippant 
manner it is obvious the rep has no idea what areas we are even talking 
about). AT&T has so far failed to provide any answer as to when they will 
resolve this issue, and no explanation of what they can/will do to ensure 
that areas which *according to their published materials* should have 
working coverage will continue to do so until/if they allow access to the 
Poughkeepsie system.

If anyone else has noticed this as well, and suffered difficulties 
logging in from areas where the Poughkeepsie signal blocks out the NYC 
Metro signal, please write to me at dsr1@interpage.net so I can get some 
more samplings of where problems exist in our attempt to determine the 
scope of this problem and thus be able to make demands upon AT&T for 
credits for service difficulties in areas where they indicate and their 
past performance provided *working* CDPD service. 

(This post and updated SID list are also available at www.wirelessnotes.org)

Thanks!

-Doug