Cingular Doesn’t Need to Play in AWS Auction But Is Keeping Open Mind
LAS VEGAS -- Cingular is still scrutinizing markets where it may bid in the June advanced wireless services (AWS) auction -- but with its 58 MHz of spectrum on average in top markets across the U.S. has little need for fill-in spectrum, the top carrier officials said last week. It also disclosed that more than a year after completing its merger with AT&T Wireless, its integration of the 2 networks in cities where they overlapped is only about 1/2 done.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
“Cingular is very well positioned in terms of our spectrum depth across the county, as well as in the top 50, top 100 markets,” CTO Kris Rinne told us. “When I say we're well positioned, we're probably the best positioned of all the carriers.”
“We're fine with our spectrum position,” Ed Reynolds, pres. of network operations, said in an interview. “We've got 58 MHz average in the top markets, that’s deeper than anybody else. We don’t have to go in that auction. We don’t have to buy spectrum. But then again to me spectrum is a useful object, It’s like money. You can’t have too much of it. I'd rather buy those 90 MHz. You can never have too much spectrum.”
But Reynolds said spectrum purchases would reduce other outlays. “I have plenty for our needs as far as I can forecast it. But if I have more it allows me to substitute spectrum for some other physical investments in radios, cell splits [and] so forth to give me more capacity and better service levels. Most of the customer service problems are caused by interference. If I have more spectrum I can dilute that interference.”
T-Mobile’s need to invest heavily in AWS spectrum should guarantee many phones will be made that will work in the new spectrum, Reynolds said.
The carrier will look at 700 MHz in an auction that must begin before Jan. 28, 2008 but that spectrum carries with it complications, he said. He acknowledged it’s good spectrum, thanks to its propagation characteristics. “However, there’s less certainty there about devices being made that would accommodate that,” he said. “And we've been having quad band phones for quite awhile… Now we're going to have to have an additional [line of phones] for this… I'd love to have that spectrum but I have to be practical about whether there are going to be a lot of devices there.”
“700 MHz is attractive spectrum from a propagation standpoint, all other things being equal, but they never are equal,” Rinne said. Much remains unknown about 700 MHz, she said: “What the clearing is going to be, limitations in terms of power levels, if some of it is dedicated to unlicensed or govt., what that would mean in terms of overlap. We'd love to see some clear, definite direction in terms of how it can be used, what the rules are for migrating some of the incumbents.”
Cingular has completed integration with AT&T Wireless in markets where the 2 didn’t overlap premerger, but integration is only about 1/2 complete in overlap markets, Reynolds said. “We'll complete it this year,” he said. In integrated markets, customers are finding a 30-40% reduction in dropped calls, Reynolds said. Overlap markets offer considerable difficulties compared to markets where either carrier stood alone, he said.
“In a market like Atlanta, an overlap market, you have a set of cellsites, another set of cellsites, they're intertwined with each other,” Reynolds said. “One set [goes] back to one set of switches. The other goes to another set. In Atlanta the orange network was Ericsson GSM; the blue network was Nokia. The orange was Ericsson at 850 [MHz]; the blue network was at Nokia at 1900.”
The process is long and hard, Reynolds said: “I have to go to all the Nokia sites that I'm going to keep. In some cases put an 850 [MHz] antenna up there. Ericsson was the surviving vendor in that market. In some other cases Nokia took it. I've got to put Ericsson equipment next to the Nokia gear, do dual banding in some cases, wire that back to the switches I'm going to cut to. Every night for weeks and weeks we do cluster testing where we take a group of 10 or 12 cellsites and turn the new system on, drive it, test it, until about 5 or 6 in the morning, and we do that for quite a period of time. Then we begin to throw the switch cluster. It’s just an awful lot of physical work and a tremendous amount of testing.” -- Howard Buskirk
CTIA Notebook…
The Sprint Music Store has passed 2 million over-the-air downloads, the company said, seemingly gleeful at more than doubling Verizon’s recently trumpeted million over-the-air downloads (CD April 6 p8). Sprint hit one million downloads in Feb. “Since we stopped offering free promotional incentives on January 14, the usage of the Sprint Music Store has actually increased, so our customers are clearly seeing the value in the convenience and ease of use of the Sprint Music Store,” said Sprint Dir.-Entertainment & Personalization Nancy Beaton. The store offers 400,000 songs from EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Universal, and lets customers browse and preview songs, download a 2nd copy to a computer, and transfer unprotected files to the phone via USB cable.