Lower freq will tend to penetrate into buildings better but sound quality will not be as great. As far as range goes all depends on RF output. Higher freq have better sound quality.

Actually Cingular is optimizing for their network for 850. Also the bands are 850/1900 NOT 850/900 The thing with 850 is it is good for a further distance and is better for in buildings. Cingular's network will be 850/1900 at the same time Meaning they will have 850 and also broadcast a 1900 overlay.

850mhz can't just become "less and less popular". If a company like Cingular has half of their spectrum holdings in the 850mhz band they aren't just going to drop it and let it go to waste. That's a multi-billion dollar waste of spectrum. AT&T was mostly all 850mhz and Cingular was mostly all 1900mhz. Of course, both companies had a little of the other bands sprinkled in, so about half of the network runs off of 850mhz, and the other half 1900mhz.

T-Mobile launching 850mhz in some markets is what will screw over many people. If you don't have a phone that supports 850mhz (which previously wasn't so important) you'll have no access to T-Mobile's own signal. Another downside to T-Mobile's phone lineup is that if it doesn't support 850...
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Tmobile is launching 850 roaming agreements, there is no and will be no tmobile native 850 coverage unless we buy a carrier with 850 coverage. It will not be screwing anyone over, there is no place that people who had tmobile coverage now will not. Some of our most common and affordable phones in recent years have 850 compatible(nokia 6010,3595) and we have several newer models that have been introduced well in advance of these new agreements. Right now we only advertise 850 roaming in one market, minneapolis. However if you were to look at our internal technical coverage map you would see we have 850 roaming in at least 15 other states, probably more. The agreements are primarily with Dobson, Western Wireless, and RCC(unicel). Contrary to p...
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My last comment was correct. If your phone doesn't support the 850mhz frequency, and you are in an area that has no T-Mobile coverage and depends on a roaming partner that uses 850mhz (which you stated are mostly 850mhz) then you simply will have no service. No service = screwed.

Thanks, come again.

Um yeah...in case you didn't read it the only major 1900 agreements we've lost were on the old att network amd that was directly related to the cingular merger. Yes if your phone doesnt support the 850 band you can't get 850 roaming (duh) but thats not what you initially said. You implied that because of these new roaming agreements people without 850 capable handsets won't be able to roam as much off network, simply not true.

Obviously you misread what I originally posted. Never did I imply anything about new raoming agreements. The ones that have been in place for quite awhile, you have said yourself, mostly support 850mhz. My point was that those roaming agreements (last year, last month, tomorrow, WHENEVER) wouldn't benefit you in the slightest if you didn't have a phone that supports them.

Try not to read so much into what I typed. You're thinking to hard and twisting the meaning of my post. Everything I wrote was 100% true, I assure you. Afterall, I know the meaning of my words best, not you.

Why can't we just leave it at:

Yes we have more coverage now, and more coverage is becoming available through 850 MHz roaming agreements.

If you don't have a phone that supports 850 MHz of course you won't be able to use the added coverage.

However, we still have 1900 MHz roaming agreements as well, and are expanding our own (native) coverage within that band.

So, if you don't have an 850 MHz enabled phone, it's not the end of the world. If it worked for you before, it's going to continue to work for you. 850 is not replacing 1900, just adding to it, and yes there are portions that overlap.

I have a phone that has 850 MHz on it (E335) but is NOWHERE around my area, so, why do I care?

Then again, a customer doesn't have ...
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The problem is you will be losing the Cingular agreements. Cingular is phasing out roaming agreements with everyone and t-mobile by years end.

Most of our roaming agreement are NOT with cingular, and after cingular pulled the rug out from under us with the ATnT buyout, from what I understand, many bridges were burned.

There are many, many local companys, carriers and affiliates we have agreements with. Some companys don't even provide cell phone service, they just own spectrum and lease it out to cellular carriers.

I don't know what because we have 850 Roaming agerements so many people assume it's with cingular, it's not.

Just to elaborate on that a little bit... On our internal interactive coverage map we can click on a roaming area and it will display what carrier we are roaming on. I have gotten on there just clicking around out of curiosity, and it was difficult to even find ANY areas where it said "Cingular". There were a couple of tiny little areas, but its mostly Dobson and RCC, it seems like.

Dobson, centennial, western wireless, tritonPCS, RCC, and a bunch of other small ones.

Here is a pretty good list of t-mobile roaming partners. (Just usa.. Tons internationally)

http://dannyboyil.home.comcast.net/tmob.PNG »

Do you think T-mobile will launch a 850mhz when in many areas they can roam off other carriers 850?