AT&T Inks Femtocell Deal, Sets Trial for Later This Year

Not sure if there are published results, but I work in Denver, one of the test markets, and was one of the few to actually do well selling them.

I had heard first hand from the many customers that I sold them to about the reasons that it's not really the best for everyone. (There are a few customers that will actually benefit from it, and is worth paying the extra for.)

If you have bad coverage in a certain area, and are willing to pay extra to increase that coverage, then femtocells are actually a good thing.

There were a lot of people getting it to use the unlimited plan since it was only $15 more, but you had to be within range of the device. Now that everyone has an unlimited call plan, that's not more expensive than most of t...
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With a much larger network than Sprint, AT&T probably didn't need this as bad as them. But now that the money crunch is being felt by everyone in this country it makes sense for them to use femtocells to flesh out additional coverage for customers who live in hard to cover areas. First it is less costly than making the capital expenditure toward cell sites and base stations as the femtocells connect to a customers broadband network to handle the backhaul. Second, if they decide to charge a monthly fee (which I hope they don't) for the use of the femtocell it creates an additional revenue stream to offset other costs involved in building and maintaining the network. Living in a geograpically challenged (read lots of hills, hollows, and va...
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Now a days the big three have pretty similar sized networks, so saying "much larger" is incorrect. IF it is larger, it's not "MUCH" but the site below (as well as a lot more) asks the question of who has the largest network.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/null/3554 »

AT&T covers 270 million people in the US,
Verizon covers 291 million,
Sprint covers 295 million.

The editor sums it up:

Christopher Null:The Working Guy said:

Bottom line: All three networks are suitably large for more than 99 percent of U.S. users. Unless you frequent parts of Montana near the Canadian border, you shouldn't experience dead zones more than once in a blue moon. My recommendation: Find a phone you love and a plan you can afford and gi

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You didn't read it very well or your a Verizon Fanboy... but it says



[Verizon offers standard voice coverage to 291 million potential people if you include its roaming partners who provide service where Verizon does not. If you discount the roaming partners and just include towers owned and operated by Verizon, coverage is 255 million people.]

so verizon only covers 255 million while AT&T Covers 270 million... FYI

read further...

Sprint's standard voice service reaches more than 295 million people (including U.S.-owned islands like Guam)

Just to make sure that I'm looking at it correctly, 295 million people minus 270 equals - 25 Million people (or 8.33 percent of the nation give or take) more that sprint can cover...

Technically speaking, Sprint suprisingly has the largest amount of coverage.

I'm no fanboy, but since they write my checks I do have a little bias, but I always back it up with hard facts...

... but you cant sell to people when they live in a place that verizon has ROAMING AGREEMENTS...

if i had Verizon service and i drove thru that area yes i would have signal... but you wont find a verizon store anywhere near those areas because you cannot set up service there!

therefore Verizon cannot provide service to those people.

durkadurkha said:
... but you cant sell to people when they live in a place that verizon has ROAMING AGREEMENTS...

if i had Verizon service and i drove thru that area yes i would have signal... but you wont find a verizon store anywhere near those areas because you cannot set up service there!

therefore Verizon cannot provide service to those people.

I think you're missing the point. I was talking about the post here:

JasonT1273 said:
With a much larger network than Sprint, AT&T probably didn't need this as bad as them.

...

Living in a geograpically challenged (read lots of hills, hollows, and valleys) area of the country, I can see this being a great product for thos

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monkeyracer said...

Just to make sure that I'm looking at it correctly, 295 million people minus 270 equals - 25 Million people (or 8.33 percent of the nation give or take) more that sprint CAN cover...


CAN being the operative word here. They can own all the licenses they want but if there aren't towers providing the coverage then what good is the POP figure? Fact is, according to the reports available on ACTUAL TOWERS, AT&T owns and/or has use of more than the other carriers, 43000+ and growing. I don't dispute your facts but they don't support the argument of a bigger network, just one of more POTENTIAL customers if they were to build it out which they have failed to in many areas going back to when they inked their big deal wit...
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Quantity can and never will outweigh quality.
The number of towers means nothing especially since both networks have completely different tower footprints.

CDMA is on a higher frequency than GSM.

Lern ya sum stuf abowt freakwensees:

Low frequencies travel further and penetrate through obstacles better, but they have a limited capacity for total number of callers.

High frequencies dissipate earlier but can hold higher quality signals and more calls at once.

With either frequency, the effective area (footprint) decreases as capacity increases.

A carrier that holds licenses in a lower frequency will build more towers close together because each tower can only hold so many callers, more towers = more calls.

A carrier with...
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GSM is typically on the SAME frequency as CDMA 🙄 just not at the same location.
I.E. T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and VZW all use PCS
AT&T and VZW also use cellular band.

Sprint and AT&T both have sites that they own and lease.

Sprint has more roaming coverage due to companies in the midwest (which use cellular band as well).

Out of 300 million people are you saying that Sprint has native Sprint coverage in ALL of those areas ?

There's a handful of states, including Alaska, Montana, the Dakota's which do not have any Sprint coverage. Are you telling me that there are less than 5 million people combined in these states, as well as all the rural parts of many states ?

I think you may want to check what is Sprint and what is...
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JasonT1273 said:
CAN being the operative word here. They can own all the licenses they want but if there aren't towers providing the coverage then what good is the POP figure?

monkeyracer said:
Sprint has towers that they own, that within the range of those towers can cover 295 of 300 million people.

Should have read:

monkeyracer said:
Sprint has towers that they own or lease or have roaming agreements with, that within the range of those towers can cover 295 of 300 million people.

en102 said:
GSM is typically on the SAME frequency as CDMA 🙄 just not at the same location.
I.E. T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprin

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All 295 million huh? For a call, maybe. But for the other services subscribers pay for that won't work on roaming partner towers, NOT.

You felt the need to contest an assertion I made, off-topic or not, precipitating the rest of this thread.

And as for all 295 million POPs actually ever having Sprint phones and Sprint making this major rebound you speak of, not withstanding your stated excellence in sales and retention, it would indeed be a feat of historical proportions given their current situation. Perhaps you are hanging your hat on WiMAX? It does indeed present some outstanding possibilities.

But in the mean time bring your Sprint phone to the tri-state area here and see how much of all your company-provided services work...
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There's more than just WiMax that will bring sprint back up to pre-merger stock price (or at least close.) That will definitely help, but not completely.

Where I live in Denver (way out on the west side in the foothills of the rocky mountains about 25 miles from downtown) I can get EVERY service Sprint offers, natively. My evdo speeds average 1.5 mb/s, I get smooth streaming TV, excellent call quality, ne'er a dropped call (last one I had was on my old phone a year and a half ago) and so on.

If the name on my check changes, it will be on my own terms, and it won't be a retail company that is for sure. As for Sprint, it's not in a good sell position. Stock prices are low, but so is investor confidence, and we are still paying for the m...
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Thing is AT&T has towers in both 850 and 1900 ranges. They do primarily use 850, tis true. But to say in general that CDMA uses a high frequency is patently false. The CDMA carriers in my area (Verizon and Alltel) both use 850 to deliver services because 1900 can't overcome the hilly terrain. And this still doesn't explain why Sprint has chosen to only place ONE tower that deploys 1900 MHz (previous mentioned to only cover short ranges) to try to cover, for example, one large (as in many square miles) area around where I live and leave the rest of their coverage up to roaming partners on which their subscribers can't use their full range of services. Fact is their actual coverage that they themselves purport have looks like an interstate...
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That artcile is a bit old ... 2006
Also, not to promote any (as none show wether 'their' network includes roamers or not, but a recent view to AT&T shows 293 million http://www.wireless.att.com/about/