Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cingular/AT&T Wireless combo won't resolve coverage problems (DUH!)

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:03:36 -0500

Cingular/AT&T Wireless combo won't resolve coverage problems (DUH!)

By BOB BREWIN
FEBRUARY 18, 2004

Although Cingular Wireless LLC says its acquisition of AT&T Wireless
will speed up the deployment of high-speed data services and improve
coverage, analysts and users said the merged company won't be able to
provide such service everywhere in the U.S. -- requiring enterprises to
use more than one carrier.

Early business customers of AT&T Wireless's highest-speed data service,
which the company rolled out nationwide last year, report problems
accessing the service in both large and small metropolitan areas.
Cingular uses the same technology for its high-speed service, which it
has so far deployed only in the Indianapolis market.

Stan Sigman, president and CEO of Cingular Wireless, said the combined
cellular provider, which would be the largest in the country, will "help
accelerate the availability" of such advanced data services (see story).

While the merged company is expected to eventually provide customers
with better service, economies of scale were the primary reason for the
acquisition, according to Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group in
Ashland Mass. He also said the acquisition of AT&T Wireless will likely
help the bottom lines of all cellular carriers by reducing competition
that had spurred a variety of discount rate plans.

"No other country in the world had six wireless carriers," Mathias said.

Both AT&T Wireless in Redmond, Wash., and Cingular, a joint venture of
SBC Communications Inc. in San Antonio and BellSouth Corp. in Atlanta,
operate high-speed data networks based on an extension of the Global
System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard known as EDGE (enhanced
data rates for GSM evolution). EDGE offers an average throughput of
100Kbit-to-120Kbit/sec.

Even so, David Butts, CIO at Schindler Elevator Corp., said he has
discovered that it takes three cellular carriers to provide the kind of
coverage he needs to support data services for the company's 2,500
service technicians nationwide.
Schindler, the world's second-largest elevator company, uses a
lower-speed data service of 20Kbit-to-40Kbit/sec. from AT&T Wireless and
T-Mobile USA, also in Redmond. That service is based on the General
Packet Radio Service standard. The company also uses a
50Kbit-to-70Kbit/sec. data service from Verizon Wireless in Bedminster,
N.J., that's based on Code Division Multiple Access 1Xrtt
(single-carrier radio transmission technology).

Butts said the only way Schindler's technicians can figure out which
carrier works best in their territory is to walk their routes to
determine levels of service. So far, 500 technicians have been equipped
with smart phones from either Samsung Corp. or Siemens Information and
Communication Mobile Group, Butts said. The rest of the technicians will
be provided smart phones by the end of the year.

Even after Cingular completes its acquisition of AT&T Wireless,
enterprises will have to use more than one carrier to support mobile
workers, said Peter Firstburn, an analyst at Meta Group Inc. "The
acquisition will not solve all the coverage problems," he said.

Once the merger is completed, enterprises "might only need two
carriers," Firstburn said. He also predicted that the acquisition of
AT&T Wireless could initially slow the installation of EDGE service
across the country as the combined company deals with other issues.

Though AT&T Wireless boasts that its high-speed EDGE service is
available in 6,500 cities and towns and along 30,000 miles of interstate
highways, Chris Darrell, vice president of information systems and
services at Genex Services Inc. in Wayne, Pa., said he has found EDGE
availability "not as high as we had anticipated."

Genex, which provides case management services for insurers, plans to
deploy roughly 1,000 EDGE notebook computer data cards to its field
sales force and case management nurses during the next year, Darrell
said.
The Web-based Genex Case Management System doesn't operate well over
56Kbit/sec. dial-up connections, which is one reason Darrell decided to
go with EDGE. But based on trials with about 75 users, "even in
metropolitan areas where we thought we would get a pretty good [EDGE]
signal, we have found no or poor signals."

AT&T Wireless has been "very responsive" to complaints, Darrell said,
setting up a special team to try and resolve his coverage problems.

The lesson to be learned from companies still working to get high-speed
data working is that enterprises that want blanket coverage will need to
follow the path taken by Schindler Elevator: Plan on using multiple
carriers, according to Mathias, the Farpoint analyst.

http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2004/0,4814,90268,00.html

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:05:38 -0500

Hmmm...  Wait a minute here!  Isn't this concept exactly opposite
official policy at the FCC?  Policy that calls for promoting "vibrant"
competition to benefit consumers??

Well then Messrs. Regulators, what will it be:
Spineless wishy-washy policy flip-flopping? (Business as usual.)
Or policy that changes aimlessly with the shifting political winds??
Or, staying the stated policy course??? (No!)

Alan Dixon
The Washington Iconoclast
<[email-masked]>

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:03:36 -0500 Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
writes:
Cingular/AT&T Wireless combo won't resolve coverage problems (DUH!)
By BOB BREWIN  FEBRUARY 18, 2004	<snip>

...Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group in Ashland Mass. He...said
the acquisition of AT&T Wireless will likely help the bottom lines of all
cellular carriers by reducing competition that had spurred a variety of
discount rate plans.

	<snip>

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