Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 18:03:09 -0400 (EDT) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Poor Cell Phone Coverage in the US (was Re: Use of Star/Pound) References: Organization: Interpage Network Services / www.interpage.net / (617) 696-8000 Status: O In article write: >[...] >Except that in the US cell phone coverage is very poor. I still >haven't figured out why, and I'm hoping someone here knows the answer. >I was just in Canada, and I drove for three hours from Toronto to >Thousand Islands, and I have five bars of signal on my (digital) phone >for the whole trip. The second I crossed the border into the US, I >lost the signal. I've travelled in Israel, Norway (100 miles north of >the artic circle!), Geneva, and London, and seen five bars of signal >almost everywhere. But here in the US, I can't drive from Boston to >NY without losing signal. This is obviously not a technology problem. >What politicial or economic forces are making it impossible to create >a good digital phone network in the US? (I would add that even when I >>have< signal, as often as not I can't receive calls when roaming on >AT&T.) I'd actually omit the "digital" :) And the AT&T Digital One Rate "failed" Call-delivery problem is well-known; see below. Although I agree you have an exceedingly valid point (and I'm glad someone else has observed this), the areas you are comparing may not best serve to exemplify the assertion that coverage outside the US is much more seamless and integrated than it is here. I'm not sure exactly where you were, but the topography in Ontario just north of the US border (and Quebec for that matter) is mainly level, while shortly after you cross into the US (eg, a bit south of the Thousand Islands, and very much so from Quebec to Vermont) you start getting some hills and mountains, etc. Not that this should make a difference, but is likely that covering the relatively flat expanse just north of the border between Toronto and Quebec is a bit easier than covering the somewhat hillier terrain of northern New York and Vermont. That being said, there are a number of reasons I can think of why coverage is comparatively poor in the US as compared to elsewhere: 1. The US system was initially designed around 3-watt mobile phones mounted in cars or used as transmobile phones. As a result, early network architecture and investment into plant and equipment was based around this model, and even after 11 years, many systems still reflect this mode of thinking (for example, Cell One/VT 00313 has an excellent system covering a variety of challenging areas, but their system is still optimized for 3-watt phpnes and has terrible handoff problems with handheld .6 watt phones. They do NOT offer digital service despite their promotions offering a "digital" airtime plan -- the digital means nothing, it is just a sales ploy) 2. The US system was apportioned into many small systems, so that geographically interrelated areas can and frequently are served by different (and sometimes competing) carriers. For example, the NY Metro "A" market is served by ATTWS (00025) and Bell Atlantic in CT (00119). But Bell Atlantic is also the "B" carrier who competes directly with ATTWS in the NY 00025/00022 market. As a result, they don't always cooperate on things. For example, handoffs between the two systems are generally poor, and you can't travel far between the two systems without being dropped. This is not a technical problem, but a business decision on the parts of ATTWS/BAMS. In order for a mobile to hand off from one carrier's switch to another, there needs to be a T-1 or some other communications link between the two switches. ATTWS has many switches in NY, yet BAMS only connects to a few of them. Thus, a call initiated in CT which roams into NY will initially be handed off into one of the ATTWS NY switches, but shortly after ingressing further into ATTWS's territory, it will drop since BAMS does not connect to more "distant" ATTWS switches. They are both aware of this, and have *opted* not to do anything about it, yet there is no *technical* reason why calls can't hand off all the way. Indeed, if you initiated a call in the NY market right before crossing into CT, and you hand off to CT successfully, you can proceed far into CT since only one switch covers you for quite a while in BAMS's CT A market. 3. Digital also has its problems...If I am using my CDMA phone on the BAMS Boston 00028 system, and drive doen I-84 to CT to (hopefully) hand off to the SNET/B 00088 system, the digital signal should drop to analog so it can hand off (in analog) to SNET's system (SNET doesn't use CDMA). But this never happens, and instead, the call degrades to the point that it drops. If both SNET and BAMS used CDMA this may not be a problem, but since SNET uses TDMA and BAMS CDMA, the handoff issue is trickier, and neither carrier has really spent the time to try to get it to work. (If you put your phone in analog mode BEFORE you make/receive a call, and then commence a call beofre you hand off it *will* work, but the protocol to hand off from CDMA to analog doesn't seem to either exist or work between the two carriers. At thevery least, BAMS should drop the call to analog before it hits SNET, but CDMA has this annoying (although sometimes useful for other reasons of system differentiation) habbit of always going for the CDMA signal, even if it is too weak to carry on a conversation, despite a siginificantly stronger analog signal being present. But if a CDMA signal can be "downgraded" to an analog within a given system (which it can and regularly does when you leave the CDMA area), the same can be done right before you hand off to another non-CDMA system; SNET and BAMS just haven't done this yet. 4. There are many areas of the country where there are only 2 wireless carriers (ie, the A and B carriers) and no PCS or other competition like Nextel or Sprint. As a result, the A and B carriers are very happy to sit on their relatively high airtime rates and roamer fees and basically do little to build out their systems other than what is required by the FCC to keep their licenses (although this duopolisitc lethargy is getting harder to come by because even these carriers see the writing on the wall and realize they won't have a duopoly forever). In some markets, there is only one carrier with any real coverage, such as along US-7 in CT where ATTWS, which owns a small piece of northwestern CT, has superior coverage over SNET, so if you want cellular coverage along that corridor, you need to go with AT&T -- there is no other wireless carrier with service in that area. Where the duoploy (or the even worse monopoly situation) still exists, there frequently is no incentive to put towers where revenue is anything less than optimal, and many carriers, either strapped for cash or just dumb and not forward-looking don't spend the time to worry about gaps in their network. 5. Tower siting is also a big issue here -- in some states, like NY, every little town (as it currently stands) can make rules governing tower siting and placement. Just to get a new tower up takes over a year if you are lucky, and if there is some objection or someone from the local town board doesn't want a tower on top of a hill because it ruins his sunrise view 2 days out of the year when the sun is directly aligned with the tower, well, he can stall the process for months. (Recently BAMS got final approval to put a tower up along the NY-22 in Dover, NY, after about 3 years of fighting with the town board...This is only ONE tower covering maybe 6 miles of NY-22...NY is a big state...imagine what they have to go through to get their entire territory covered...). NY State is making some progress by trying to reconcile the interests of landowners with *legitimate* (non-Not-In-My-Back-Yard) siting concerns with new legislation designed to streamline and codify the process, but there are still plenty of states like CT with thier zoning bodies such as the CT Siting Board which make it VERY difficult to put up new towers. I've even noticed in areas of LA there are towers much shorter than you see elsewhere and shorter than one would expect would be needed for optimal performance, perhaps as a eslut of local ordinances restricting tower hieght. Obviously there are some legitimate siting concerns, but having this hodge-podge of rules and ordinances from one city to another all over the country makes it very difficult to plan ahead for coverage if you don't know how many towers you will need from a given company if some town board will come back and say "Oh, the new one you are putting up, well, it must look like a pine tree and be no more than 150 feet tall" (take a look at the Garden State Parkway just north of the I-287 JCT by about 5 miles...there's a weird looking "tree" there on the northbound side) 6. Roamer gouging: In many casses, carriers see other carrier's customers as mobile expense accounts, which can be charged as needed to supplement subscriber revenue. In Canada, Bell operates most of the B network in eastern Canada, and Cantel/ATT the A network. They have an incentive to make sure they their switches talk to each other, that handoffs work well as you drive from system to system in their networks, and have central means to coordinate and remedy problem reports (or so they say :) ) which is not common in the US with its fragmented market. Roaming is not oriented as much towards revenue generation as it is to keeping customers on YOUR network. In thus US it is a little bit different :). Carriers see roaming outside of their networks as money making opportunities, and are much less concerned with seamless handoffs, feature interoperability, call delivery, etc., as they are optimizing roaming prices, or in cases like Southwestern Bell's Cell One Boston 00007 system, charging YOUR OWN CUSTOMERS $4 per month each time they roam! Other carriers provide roaming services to the extent that it (apparently) suits their purposes, forgetting that the customer's functionality and utility which he derives from the phone is (or should be) they key issue. For example, ATTWS/NY Digital One Rate customers generally can't receive calls when in the Boston or ComCast/NJ markets and outside of the Digital One Rate area (ie, while roaming on networks other than AT&T but "near" areas where AT&T has its own towers). Callers just get a busy signal or go to voicemail (I've tried this and verified this with two 917 ATTWS/NY digital one rate numbers, and the results are the same -- callers either get a busy singal or go right to voicemail, even though the phone is on and roaming very well in analog mode and outgoing calls work fine. This may be important for AT&T customers (and perhaps to ATTWS, although they save money with this system so perhaps they secretly approve of this "problem"), but to Comcast and Cell One/Boston it's not a major issue and it takes quite a while to gather up the right people at ATTWS and their counterparts at ComCast and CO/Boston and try to get the matter resolved. 7. US Customers are more interested in price, or rather competition in some of the major markets has focused the primary consumer issue on price rather than quality of service, despite the carriers' ads promoting their own networks as superior. Take Sprint PCS for example: Absolutely horrible coverage and very poor service in the areas which they do cover. I've been dropped so many times in LA, NY, Boston and DC on my Sprint CDMA phone that I'm just used to it. In the same areas, I am rarely, if ever dropped on my analog phone, and sometimes dropped on my CDMA phone. (IMO, CDMA digital is pathetic for most applications, and BAMS and GTE and/or Qualcomm have still not figured out a way to stop drops in perfect coverage areas...the phone will just drop even though you are right near a tower...not to mention all the other problems associated with CDMA when coverage chracteristics aren't as good.) Yet people flock to Sprint...Why? For probably the same reason I did: A package of services for one low price, same price anywhere in their markets in the US, first incoming minute free, no long distance/toll delivery charge, etc. In other words, I don't feel as if I am being nickle-and-dimed by Sprint like I do with so many other carriers, such as Bell Atlantic for "toll delivery" charges within their own system. So I use my Sprint phone to get calls, and the important ones I transfer to my other accounts where needed. It appears then that customers in the US, either by conditioning or out of mere frugality, are more interesrted and thus sensitive to pricing than service quality. Otherwise, how could one explain why Sprint, which really doesn't work outside of major metro areas (unless you roam and pay $.69 per minute) and in these areas coverage is so poor and sound quality laughable, can obtain so many customers so quickly. (And Sprint in many markets, including NY, Boston, and most BAMS markets, is NOT the least expensive carrier; it is just marketed as such an appeals to people tired of the nickle-and-diming behavior of some of the cellular carrier...NO ONE after using a Sprint phone keeps the service becuase the voice quality is better! ;) ) In general, the US system is comprised of many small satrapies of frequently bickering, petty, carriers who due to either their own shortsightednes, regulatory, or financial concerns are unwilling or unable to make improvements to their own networks or to reach out to other carriers and form regional "alliances". This in turn results in the comparatively poor quality of coverage in some markets and poor integration between systems. In the long run, when carriers like AT&T, BAMS/GTE, Sprint and Nextel cover significantly larger footprints in the US, these other "non-alligned" carriers may begin to finally take note and stop trying to gouge for revenue and otherwise ignore each other's customers and work together to form wide-area, ubiquitous and seamless networks to compete effectively with the larger carriers. While I am not suggesting they communally form a large entity in which they each become immersed and loose their local identity, there will be little reason for me to maintain an account with Cell One/VT (00313, Atlantic Cellular) for use in Vermont, if and when Bell Atlantic builds out its system them and provides seamless coverage (handoffs, etc) to the Boston, CT, and Albany markets. The same will be true for people residing in those areas: Why use Cell One VT, which will limit your use of its phone (ie, fixed number of romaing minutes) outside of its market when you can just as well use Bell Atlantic, and, by virtue of it's ultimately controlling a large chunk of the east coast market (to a greater extent than it currently does), will be able to offer its customers home / unlimited use of its entire network and much more seamless coverage as compared to its competitors. And this is not to say that Cell One/VT is not a good carrier -- quite the opposite is true. Cell One/VT covers some very challenging areas, and generally does so quite well. Yet if a Cell One/VT customer roams to New Hampshire's seacoast, considerably higher per minute charges will apply, regardless of any roaming plan (which offers a limited number of included minutes). Should Bell Atlantic build out its VT system, and acquire the relatively small and obscure US Cellular 01484 system covering southern VT and NH, it will have a network comparable to Cell One/VT AND be able to leverage all of its properties in Albany (00078), Boston (00028), CT/Western Mass (00119), and Manchester (00428), as well as the rest of its network (possibly augmented by the GTE properties) to offer (hopefully) seamless coverage and same rate servic, which Cell One/VT, under the currently limited intercarrier regime, could only offer by "eating" the charges of the roaming carriers it works with in the same areas and subjecting it to large amounts of cost exposure in terms of its paying for Cell One/VT customers to roam on other networks, a cost BAMS will not have to incur (since it will own all of the system involved). But back to the main question, there are many reasons why coverage and interconnectivity suffer in the US as compared to other countries, and I've tried to outline my thoughts on the issue above. In terms of what can be done, I think it is more than just a series of technical fixes between carriers or in a given carrier's home market. Neddless to say these are needed and will be taken care of, if not because the FCC requires that a given percentage of a licenses coverage area be covered within 5 years, then because customers demand it. But more globally, seeing that customers primary interest in a carrier appears to be based more on price than anything else, farsighted local carriers, if they intend to be in business 10 years from now, will start *now* to work on building regional relationships where they do not gouge each others roamers and where they work together to build seamless networks *before* Sprint, Nextel, AT&T, and the plethora of other regional and nationwide lisencees come into their territory and steal away the best, highest spending, least customer support intensive customers. Because as soon as I can get the same coverage with AT&T Digital PCS or Sprint of Bell Atlantic in a given market (Vermont for example), I have the benefit on unlmited airtime off peak (Bell Atlantic), or free incoming minutes with no toll delivery charge (Sprint) or..well, I don't know what's with AT&T..they don't like giving unlimited things :(, and don't suffer the restircitions that I do with a Cell One/VT account in terms of roaming or paying a premium (either up front or when the bill comes in an itemized manner) to roam, I'll drop my Cell One/VT account so I have one less account to worry about and one fewer phone to carry on trips. Many carriers will say these aren't important issues to their customers, and that they wish to concentrate on building their own system and not worrying about interconnect since most of their customers stay in one area. I question this assertion -- mobile phones are exactly that -- mobile, and people tend to drive and visit other friends or conduct business, etc. over increasingly larger areas. In many cases they may not use their phone outside their local area for months, but when they do, and get socked by high charges or get dropped on an important business call as they hand off from one system to another, they will complain, and if an alternative is available, opt for that instead. Moreover, fostering a greater degree of integration between carriers and offering reciprocal airtime rates is probably one of the lowest cost ways for carriers to keep their customers; it doesn't require an entirely new technical solution or massive investments into new equipment. The cost of T-1's between switches, or retuning towers to optimize inter-system handoffs, or reworking billing arrangements to offer roamers from visiting carriers the same rates as home (even unlimited off peak or special toll plans) is considerably less than building even one new tower or opening a few customer service centers, and has system-wide implications. Yet it is rare to see smaller MSA or most RSAs care too much about this on anything else the the most traveled routes or areas where there is high intersystem traffic (and even in many cases where there is these issues are ignored, such as between BAMS and 360/Altell along I-80 and I-78 in PA, or the "A" carriers along I-80, etc.) (Note this lack of integration and reasonable roaming is also, IMO, hurting the CDPD Digital Wireless IP services which carriers like BAMS, ATTWS, Vanguard, GTE, etc., offer...the minute you roam off of their networks and onto another carrier you can rack up packet charges very quickly. This is a service which if all the carriers offered at some unlimited flat rate natiownide could serve to bring in new customers to a service which supplements (and generally does not detract from) cellular revenue, yet the carriers penny-wise pound-foolish attitude and application of the cellular model to this service has handicapped it from the outset.) One would hope that the carriers serving such areas begin to see the light and remedy some of the issues that the initial poster promulgated with his questions before the natiownide lisencees come to their respective areas and either run the locals out of business or relegate them (by drying up new subscriber growth and feeding off of churn) to second rate carriers focusing on limited local regions for specialized (and likely low margin) applications. Regards, (This post and updated SID list are also available at www.wirelessnotes.org) Doug