Wishful
Retired Orphan
EO's First Lady
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Posts: 865
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Post by Wishful on Oct 20, 2005 22:00:35 GMT -5
But Cingular and T-Mobile now work off of the same towers.
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Post by tempus on Oct 20, 2005 22:06:56 GMT -5
But Cingular and T-Mobile now work off of the same towers. Thats because, if i remember right and hopefully codeine can confirm my awful memory, t-mobile doesnt own any cel towers of its own really, it generally leases space on a tower, or towers totally. Could be wrong, im tired and its been a while since i recall reading about that. -t |
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Wishful
Retired Orphan
EO's First Lady
plg%%Druid%%
Posts: 865
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Post by Wishful on Oct 24, 2005 2:55:33 GMT -5
From what t-mobile or cingular forget which one.. told me about what happened in Southern cali is that Cingular paid for more towers to be built and in return they would share each others towers. Something to that effect. I just don't know if it is down here only or everywhere for them.
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Post by aidar on Oct 28, 2005 3:24:51 GMT -5
well you all should be grateful, I am in Germany and thier philosophy on cell phones is: 1-you will pay alot of money for them, 2- we will give you shitty service 3- you will pay alot of money for them.
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_Code
Retired Orphan
Pas De Cadeaux.
Posts: 2,804
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Post by _Code on Oct 28, 2005 10:38:23 GMT -5
Damn, cant believe I missed these updates; guess there was alot of posting elsewhere yesterday >.>
Anyway;
T-Mobile, Cingular (Within the last 3 years), AT&T (before Cingular bought them) are all exclusively GSM carriers (GSM - Global System for Mobile Communication, also referred to as Global Satelite Matrix). Globally, GSM covers the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz bands. Ever see a phone marked "Tri Band"? Thats what that means. US GSM carriers use 900 and 1800 MHz bands for there cellular, Europe uses 1900 as a standard, with some variations.
TMobile and most Cingular phones are Tri Band, specifically for world travel, as its basically the standard at the moment. GSM has decent data transmission speeds, and voice quality is so so. Usually tin'y and robitic is the top complaints for it.
Nextel however, is iDen, back in the day 800MHz exclusively. You may remember Verizon / Nextel / Sprint bidding on the 900MHz zone for Emergency services? Well, Nextel was in line to get it, the i730 and above phones (Falcon series) were built with this expectation, and towers were modified for it. Unfortunately, this case lost, leading to alof the the problems Nextel now has. Add onto this alot of the equipment came from one supplier, and most of it was faulty. Now you have Nextel phones that seek out the 900MHz frequency first, then fall back on the 800. Slow reception, bad service, problem + problem + problem etc etc etc.
Sprint and Verizon however use CDMA. CDMA is an extremely OLD technology, basely, that has been updated basically independantly. CDMA as it stands today has relatively the best Data transmissions available (outside of Japan/DoCoMo's 3G), their Cell quality isn't as great, but very viable.
Sprint, now with Nextel is under talks and operations to have a dual operational cell phone, that can use the existing iDen Network (After its repair) for cell calls, and Direct Connect (nextel's Walkie Talkie) and use CDMA for their Data Transmissions.
As far as Sprints coverage, they used to be laughable, at least on the east cost (Sprint was started in california, and actually, Sprint is an acronym for Souther Pacific Railway Integrated NeTwork. Hence, That area's coverage is much better). But earlier this year, Sprint was allowed access to Verizon's network (claimed the "Largest Network In America) without a roaming agreement. Add onto that, Nextel's existing iDen towers will soon be integrated with CDMA Unidirectional amplifiers, Sprint will soon, in essence have the largest tower coverage of any carrier, world wide. Unfortunately, because of the use of terminology, you wont see comercials claiming that, because they dont own the towers, so they can't say "We have the largest Network!".
Sadly, being in the industry for the short time I have, i've seen Nextel go from one of the strongest carriers available to one of the weakest. And Sprint, a carrier that I've personally endlessly teased will be the ones to save them.
Cingular and T-Mobile work under the same tower type. And Aidari, interestingly, T Mobile, Formerly Voice Stream in the United States, is owned by Deutsche Telekom, based out of Bonn, Germany. Which is now credited as the first and still only cellular carrier to offer service on both sides of the pond. Nextel internation? They use GSM Towers, mostly owned by DT. Cingular Internation? Same deal.
Hope that wasn't too much info at once.
_Code
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