AT&T Expands Deeper into Mexico

AT&T has agreed to buy another Mexican wireless carrier, Nextel of Mexico.  This will be combined with their now-completed purchase of Iusacell of Mexico to create a wireless carrier with excellent coverage across the entire country.  It means that AT&T (and Cricket) will have a substantial advantage over other US wireless carriers when offering roaming in Mexico.  It also means Mexico wireless users will soon have top notch wireless broadband available as AT&T improves both networks to 4G LTE.

As frequent Mexico travelers, we'll offer continuous updates on the AT&T acquisitions and what it means to US wireless users.  We expect big changes in what we recommend on our Mexico Cellular pages. We also expect some other US carrier will try to remain competitive, otherwise, we'll just recommend switching to AT&T and head for the beach.

As this unfolds, we have added AT&T as a "local" carrier at Mexico Cellular and you can also check our Mexico Coverage Maps including zoomable, Mexico Interactive Maps.  Then head for the beach.

Putting on a Low-Cost Disguise

Last year, AT&T and T-Mobile entered a new mode of competition by acquiring some old networks.  Both companies picked up some spectrum, some customers, but more importantly, a way to compete in the low-cost arena without diluting their main brand.

Picking up a Cricket Wireless phone gives you a slick way to get "AT&T Light".  It's AT&T with a, "We'll do what it takes to compete" way to doing business.  The same is true with MetroPCS which gives T-Mobile a chance to push the low end without cheapening the T-Mobile name.  Both services have much to offer including a large selection of phones and competitive plans.  They both even have a Mexico roaming package.

As I drove across eastern New Mexico at Christmas, I noticed that my Straight Talk phone never switched away from "AT&T" instead of the old "Roaming" label it displayed last time (which happened to be GSM supplied by Verizon).  In this case, AT&T has taken over their recently-purchased Plateau Wireless network, eliminating my last objection to going with a single-network product like Cricket.  Of course I won't want to travel across Nebraska until AT&T makes a presence there.

As we dissect each of carrier's offers, the only difference we can find is that Cricket's Mexico add-on gives you 100 minutes for $10 versus MetroPCS's 200 minutes for the same fee.  Both are a great deal since going to Mexico either required a pricey roaming plan or the need to pick up a GoPhone phone or SIM.  Look for reasonable Mexico Data roaming charges in the near future when AT&T acquires their own network in Mexico, which should also give Cricket a leg up.  Chirp-chirp.

Takeover in Alaska

Alaska Communications has agreed to sell their wireless assets and customers to GCI (General Communications Inc.) .   Alaska seems so far away from us but it is an interesting study in what happens when the big wireless players come to town.  Alaska Communications and GCI watched AT&T arrive several years ago with their purchase of the old Cellular One network and weren't too worried about it.  But when they saw Verizon headed north to Alaska, and they were coming with a new broadband network, the locals decided to build up their defenses.

Alaska Communications and GCI teamed up to utilize their large coverage footprint to make it a superior broadband network.  Within a very short time, the local owners had the makings of a great network leaving Verizon to assemble their network from the ground up with new infrastructure and roaming agreements.

Alaska Communications is turning over their wireless operations to GCI to focus on their land line operations, which, believe it or not, are growing.  Since GCI now covers almost every populated spot in the state, they are Alaska's top dog and Verizon will be hard-pressed to catch up.  As supporters of maximum coverage and minimum costs, we're cheering on GCI.

If citizen's of the 49th state show some loyalty, this GCI acquisition will be a great benefit to Alaskans.  Sadly, this also means it will now be easier to package up the whole network and sell it to one of the Top 4, most likely AT&T, which has not been as aggressive in improving its Alaska network.  For now, we'll enjoy our new northern exposure broadband connections. They arrived as a result of competition.

AT&T to Buy Mexico's Iusacell

We thought AT&T was going to pick up a few pieces of the TelCel network that will be cast off to comply with future Mexico regulations..but no.  AT&T has decided to jump into the Mexico market with both feet and buy the existing Iusacell network.  This should create quite a shakeup in the Mexico wireless landscape and maybe even more so for Americas who use wireless when traveling south of the border.

AT&T currently has a favorable roaming agreement with TelCel, which we feel is the best network in Mexico.  That may change relatively soon.  Since Iusacell is the least developed of the top 3 Mexico cellular networks we expect AT&T to make a significant investment in bringing the technology up to fairly high standards, probably right up to 4G LTE.  This should mean better coverage and better deals for AT&T, and possibly Cricket, customers to roam in Mexico, and a potentially worse situation for Verizon and Sprint roamers.  Isuacel maintains what little CDMA coverage that is left in Mexico and I can see no good reason for AT&T to further upgrade the CDMA capabilties...maybe even turn it off.  That won't happen soon and there could be a another shoe to drop before all this shakes out.

We'll be watching the unfolding Mexico situation at MexicoCellular.com.

Roaming Across Europe

Our recent vacation was, as usual, an investigation as to how our wireless phones work in foreign countries, and how to do it, cheaply.  We threw a dart at the globe and picked Italy and it turned out to get there required travel through a number of other European countries.  This requires a different mode of operation than using wireless in a single country.

I re-activated my T-Mobile Prepaid phone, primarily to make calls through their built-in Wi-Fi Calling app.  This is a nice feature that you can make and receive calls through your US T-Mobile number at your normal US Prepaid per-minute rate.  My regular phone, a Motorola, comes unlocked, but since it's not a T-Mobile branded phone, it doesn't have the Wi-Fi Calling app and you can't get it at Google Play.  All our incoming calls were Call Forwarded to the T-Mobile phone.

Once we landed in Italy, I bought a SIM ($26USD) from a Wind store near the train station (We know Wind, they offers service in Canada).  My phone needed to be re-configured manually (the APN) which they were happy to do at the store.  Their SIM worked well and we used it for local calls and broadband.   Right in town there was some 4G service, but more more reliably, 3G.  Once we left town, service was only at EDGE levels, which was totally usable for email and location-based apps, like maps.  It was faster than the Wi-Fi available on our Italo train.

After crossing into France, the Wind SIM worked for 24 hours with reminders to upgrade our service.  After that, we still had coverage through the T-Mobile Calling app and Wi-Fi.  The single-country  SIM would have worked if we hadn't left Italy, but since we covered 4 countries, we should have purchased a Universal Roaming SIM.  We saw these in airport magazine shops and Online.  We used what we learned to completely re-design our International Roaming Pages.

Li-Fi Goes Past Wi-Fi

Many of us sit and wonder, "What's next?" We don't try be a tech news source but this is so cool, and, we're guessing, a game-changer.  Li-Fi uses any  LED light in a room into a communications device, much like Wi-Fi, at line-of-sight frequencies.  I expect this to be installed in every wireless device within in a few years.  We're not good at predictions, and we're not investing in this thing...but what a great idea.

The Smart Phone Rules

In this case, "Rules" is a verb. Much of wireless is concentrated on the Smart phone user and satisfying their needs...needs that were formerly just desires.  Last summer we reviewed how many of our visitors read our pages on small screens and decided we need to catch up.  As a result, our time has been spent re-designing all of our web sites, one by one, to make them more user-friendly to the small screen.  This means simpler pages and more compact information.  A total makeover may come later, but for now, look for easier to hit links for fingers both fat and thin.

With re-design comes updated information.  Many of the carriers that we formerly reported as independent, like MetroPCS and Cricket, are now part of the Prepaid soup which has moved to the Mountain Prepaid pages.   Also, 2014 has marked a record number of lost carriers, some that were purchased by larger carriers and some that just disappeared. This has forced us to review all of the carriers listed at Mountain Wireless more often to make sure others haven't thrown in the towel.  In most cases, a local phone company or co-op has just gone out of the wireless business and ultimately very few customers are affected.

Among our most active inquiries, MetroPCS and Straight Talk have been our most highly-searched topics indicating to us that a large number of people are looking at these two carriers for more economical wireless services.  Surprisingly, Cricket is not among those hot topics and is now a cheap way to join AT&T.  As AT&T GoPhone becomes more mainstream we're surprised more users don't forgo a few roaming agreements for the cheaper Cricket plans.  We think it's a trend that just hasn't started yet.

Bargains: Get 'em While They Last

We haven't been too excited about some of the latest price deals but maybe we should.  Some prices have dropped significantly partly due to the failed merger of Sprint and T-Mobile.  There's at least one plan that drops prices to as low as $10 for a 10-member family share plan.  Some of this may be too good to last.  The Prepaid companies will slowly offer increased data levels in their plans but the carriers themselves will jockey for position until we make it to the next step in the wireless landscape.  That could involve one carrier just giving up.  Looking at Canada, we can see the downside of a 3-carrier market, and US regulators may be trying to avoid just that kind of scenario.

What to do? Take advantage of a plan or a phone offer now while it can make measurable savings for your usage.  If the prices get better, you'll be able to switch again.  If something bad happens, you'll enjoy the deals, even if they expire later on.

Unfortunately, some of these deals are self-destructive and while the low prices may survive, one of the carriers may not.  We're hoping that we'll enjoy a few price deals and the carriers will get back to  profitability and we'll preserve the 4-carrier marketplace that Canadians can only dream about.