SPRINT = a "meltdown," a "miserable performance" and a "di..

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 24 Jan 2008 12:51:22 -0700 Tinman wrote:
>
>>> That's an interesting take on it that I'd agree with if this wasn't
>>> AT&T we were talking about!
>> We're not. It was Cingular at the time, particularly during the original
>> negotiations. Heck, it was still Cingular when the iPhone was announced.
>>
>> So all of these "this is how at&t works" type posts are pointless IMO.
>
> AT&T didn't acquire Cingular. It was simply a name change. Cingular was
> owned by SBC (who bought and then assumed the name of AT&T, who by that
> time was but a shadow of it's former self) and BellSouth. When "AT&T" (SBC)
> merged with BellSouth, Cingular was rechristened "AT&T" with no material
> change in operation. For all intents and purposes, "AT&T Mobility" (what
> the company refers to it's wireless division internally) is the old Cingular,
> unchanged but for it's name.
>
> When I referred to "how AT&T works" I was referring to "The Artist Formerly
> Known As Cingular."
> RCR Wireless News, a cellular industry trade paper, has, since the name
> change, been referring to the former Cingular as "AT&T Mobility" to avoid
> confusion with "AT&T" (the former SBC/BellSouth landline telco) and "AT&T
> Wireless" the old cell company spun off from the old AT&T and eventually
> acquired by Cingular. Besides being the company's internal name for that
> divison, it's easier to write and say than "the wireless division of AT&T."

I think Steven Colbert had the best explanation of the whole thing:

"http://www.videosift.com/video/Stephen-Colbert-gives-a-brief-history-of-ATT"

Tinman wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>> At 24 Jan 2008 12:51:22 -0700 Tinman wrote:
>>
>>>> That's an interesting take on it that I'd agree with if this wasn't
>>>> AT&T we were talking about!
>>> We're not. It was Cingular at the time, particularly during the
>>> original negotiations. Heck, it was still Cingular when the iPhone
>>> was announced.
>>>
>>> So all of these "this is how at&t works" type posts are pointless
>>> IMO.
>> AT&T didn't acquire Cingular.
>
> It's not that black and white.

Despite the similarity in names, AT&T Wireless was a totally different
company than AT&T. AT&T spun it off on July 9th 2001.

SBC, which owned half of Cingular, acquired AT&T (not AT&T Wireless) on
November 18th 2005, and then changed its own name to AT&T.

Then AT&T (previously SBC) acquired BellSouth on December 29th 2006
(which owned the other half of Cingular), and the kept the AT&T name,
and now AT&T owned all of Cingular.

Then AT&T (which owned all of Cingular) decided to rename Cingular to
AT&T (though they did not rename it as AT&T Wireless).

So the bottom line is that AT&T did not acquire Cingular.

At 24 Jan 2008 13:58:41 -0700 Tinman wrote:

> It's not that black and white. The merger that was finalized in late
> December 2006 was between AT&T and Bellsouth. Bellsouth owned half of AT&T.




Man, we REALLY need to define "AT&T" better!

BellSouth didn't own half of AT&T, they owned half (actually 40% to
SBC's 60%) of Cingular Wireless.

SBC bought what was left of AT&T (just the long distance and VoIP
"CallVantage" company- they'd already divested their wireless and hardware
divisions prior.) Essentially SBC bought the LD, VoIP, name, "blue sky,"
Death Star logo, etc.

> > It was simply a name change.
>
> See above (it was more than that--two parents coming together so to speak).



Yes- the two owners of Cingular became one- that really didn't affect
Cingular's operations any. When I say "it was simply a name change" I was
speaking from Cingular's perspective. Their ownership didn't really change-
instead of being owned by a separate SBC/AT&T and BellSouth, they're owned
by a merged SBC and BellSouth.
> The rebranding came about in mid-January, 2007, after the iPhone's
> announcement. In any event the company with whom Apple negotiated was not
> AT&T (or maybe they did if they started early enough, but it would have
been
> ATTWS).


No, it was negotiated with Cingular wireless, which again, despite the
marriage of it's owners is essentially the same company, with the same top
brass.

> Please note it was your comment of "I'd agree with if this wasn't AT&T we
> were talking about" that triggered my reply. To me that comment implies
the
> AT&T of yore, which doesn't apply at all in this situation, nor was
"that"
> AT&T even involved in iPhone negotiations.

True- I should've specified "AT&T's Wireless divison" which is Cingular.
The AT&T of yore is no more (sort of- the now combined SBC, BellSouth and
AT&T Long Distance probaby represents 40% of the old Ma Bell! If they can
merge with Verizon someday, we'll all wonder why we broke them up in the
first place!)

At 24 Jan 2008 16:05:51 -0800 SMS wrote:

> I think Steven Colbert had the best explanation of the whole thing:
>
> "http://www.videosift.com/video/Stephen-Colbert-gives-a-brief-history-of-
ATT"
>

That's a great clip- I downloaded it to my phone a couple of months ago as
a test of some YouTube capture/playback Windows Mobile software. I still
fire it up occasionally for a chuckle.

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 24 Jan 2008 16:05:51 -0800 SMS wrote:
>
>> I think Steven Colbert had the best explanation of the whole thing:
>>
>> "http://www.videosift.com/video/Stephen-Colbert-gives-a-brief-history-of-
> ATT"
>
> That's a great clip- I downloaded it to my phone a couple of months ago as
> a test of some YouTube capture/playback Windows Mobile software. I still
> fire it up occasionally for a chuckle.

It's been taken down from most places. That's the only place I could
find it anymore.

On Jan 23, 11:29 am, SMS <scharf.ste....DeleteThis@geemail.com> wrote:
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
> > So which numbers should we look at to be able to measure that massive
> > advantage and its payoff? The wireless operations of AT&T and Verizon
> > make about the same revenue from about the same number of customers, but
> > Verizon's operating income from that revenue is about 50% higher than AT&T.
> > And, despite the lower spending per customer, most big surveys which try
> > to measure it still give Verizon's network a coverage and performance
> > advantage. If there really is a massive advantage at something which
> > matters it should be measureable somehow.
>
> I think what some people don't take into account is the vast differences
> between the U.S. and Europe & Asia when it comes to cellular. The
> biggest reason why AT&T has such poor margins is because it has much
> higher infrastructure costs, and these costs are directly related to the
> technological disadvantages of GSM in terms of having to cover larger,
> more sparsely populated, geographic areas. AT&T has even stated the
> reasons for their low margins, and has said that margins will improve
> once they are able to make fewer capital investments. Other than one
> person out in the Pacific Ocean on a boat, no one in the U.S. has
> experienced "extended range GSM" because no U.S. GSM carriers have
> deployed it.
>
> > I agree the writing is on the wall for CDMA2000, assuming Verizon doesn't
> > change its mind about LTE, but Verizon has done impeccably well with it
> > to this point when measured by any numbers I can find. And without
> > any evidence of a technology disadvantage in Verizon's numbers, I can't
> > help but agree with Todd that Sprint's problems are unlikely to have
> > anything to do with this.
>
> The reasons for Sprint's problems are well known, and are unrelated to
> CDMA or GSM. Poor customer service, poor coverage (though better than
> AT&T's thanks to off-network roaming on Verizon), and a poor handset
> selection. The last one _would_ have been made simpler if they were a
> GSM operator, but Verizon has done well in handset selection, and is
> able to leverage all the Korean CDMA handsets as well as getting CDMA
> versions of other popular handsets. It wasn't that many years ago when
> everyone was complaining about Verizon's handset selection, and claiming
> that Sprint had better choices.
>
> Eventually CDMA 2000 _and_ GSM will be EOL, and voice calls will be
> carried over some version of CDMA or LTE technology.

There's still a good reason verizon and sprint phones don't work in
Europe or Japan or Korea...JG

jgrove24.RemoveThis@hotmail.com wrote:

> There's still a good reason verizon and sprint phones don't work in
> Europe or Japan or Korea...JG

Verizon phones work just fine in Korea.

They also worked in Taiwan when I was there in 2002.

"SMS" <scharf.steven.RemoveThis@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:479fb43e$0$84237$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> jgrove24.RemoveThis@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> There's still a good reason verizon and sprint phones don't work in
>> Europe or Japan or Korea...JG
>
> Verizon phones work just fine in Korea.

Jar-Jar Binks wrote:
> They also worked in Taiwan when I was there in 2002.
>
> "SMS" <scharf.steven RemoveThis @geemail.com> wrote in message
> news:479fb43e$0$84237$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
>> jgrove24 RemoveThis @hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> There's still a good reason verizon and sprint phones don't work in
>>> Europe or Japan or Korea...JG
>> Verizon phones work just fine in Korea.
>

CDMA is really spreading across Asia. I think it's because the
population density is so high that bandwidth utilization has become very
important, and CDMA is much more efficient than GSM.

Still, when traveling in Taiwan, I use prepaid GSM because it's much
cheaper than roaming on CDMA. If I had AT&T or T-Mobile GSM I would
still choose to use prepaid GSM in Taiwan.

The other poster, jgrove24, is particularly misinformed about Korea,
because it's actually GSM phones that don't work at all in Korea.

On Jan 29, 6:56 pm, SMS <scharf.ste... DeleteThis @geemail.com> wrote:
> Jar-Jar Binks wrote:
> > They also worked in Taiwan when I was there in 2002.
>
> > "SMS" <scharf.ste... DeleteThis @geemail.com> wrote in message
> >news:479fb43e$0$84237$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> >> jgrov... DeleteThis @hotmail.com wrote:
>
> >>> There's still a good reason verizon and sprint phones don't work in
> >>> Europe or Japan or Korea...JG
> >> Verizon phones work just fine in Korea.
>
> CDMA is really spreading across Asia. I think it's because the
> population density is so high that bandwidth utilization has become very
> important, and CDMA is much more efficient than GSM.
>
> Still, when traveling in Taiwan, I use prepaid GSM because it's much
> cheaper than roaming on CDMA. If I had AT&T or T-Mobile GSM I would
> still choose to use prepaid GSM in Taiwan.
>
> The other poster,jgrove24, is particularly misinformed about Korea,
> because it's actually GSM phones that don't work at all in Korea.

Japan and Europe are the standard, with lots of features only
available on viewgraphs here...JG

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Dennis Ferguson posted:
> On 2008-01-31, Jar-Jar Binks <jarjar.TakeThisOut@nospam.com> wrote:
>> Is Japan entirely CDMA?
> No. I think the original digital standard there was a TDMA variant
> called PDC. These days I think all the companies now support 3G UMTS,
> so you can also roam with a (European) 3G phone. No GSM though.

Close, but not quite correct. There is no GSM in Japan, but not "all
companies" support UMTS.

NTT DoCoMo, Softbank, and TU-KA all have PDC networks. PDC is 2G and
pretty much unique to Japan.

Willcom has a PHS network. IIRC, PHS is also used by a carrier in Taiwan.

There is a CDMA carrier in Japan (au), with both 2G and 3G CDMA. au
operates on different frequencies than North American CDMA phones.
Consequently, North American CDMA phones can NOT roam in Japan. Some CDMA
phones in other countries can roam in Japan.

NTT DoCoMo and Softbank have W-CDMA networks, however only Softbank's is
based upon the current UMTS specification. NTT DoCoMo is based upon an
earlier version. European 3G phones should roam on Softbank's network,
but there may be difficulties in roaming on NTT DoCoMo's FOMA network.

The bottom line is that most US phones do NOT roam in Japan. Only a phone
with UMTS in the 2100 band will roam in Japan. IIRC, T-Mobile and AT&T
each have one smartphone that has that.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Dennis Ferguson posted:
> Ah, sorry. If I would have thought about it I'd have known it (only
> two UMTS carriers show up on my phone, but there's more than two
> mobile carriers), but I'm kind of fixated on UMTS in Japan since that
> is the only phone I have which works there.

I bet the roaming charges are horrendous. It's a lot cheaper to rent a
USIM from Softbank at the airport (105 yen/day + call charges) if you have
an unlocked UMTS 2100 capable phone. Softbank and the other carriers will
also rent a phone if you want to do that.

> I think one of the China landline carriers (China Netcom?) also runs a
> substantial PHS network.

I wouldn't be surprised. PHS is popular in East Asia.

> I've not heard of a T-Mobile phone which has it. AT&T has one.

I forget which T-Mobile phone does UMTS 2100, but IIRC it's one of the
smartphones. T-Mobile does have a roaming agreement with Softbank.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.

On 2008-01-30, jgrove24 DeleteThis @hotmail.com <jgrove24 DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 29, 6:56 pm, SMS <scharf.ste... DeleteThis @geemail.com> wrote:
>> The other poster,jgrove24, is particularly misinformed about Korea,
>> because it's actually GSM phones that don't work at all in Korea.
>
> Japan and Europe are the standard, with lots of features only
> available on viewgraphs here...JG

Unfortunately, GSM phones don't work in Japan either. I think
Korean CDMA phones might roam in Japan, but I think that service
is DCS rather than PCS and US phones don't support the band.

Dennis Ferguson