Mobilz Becomes Cross Wireless

The Cross Telephone Company in eastern Oklahoma may have gotten a little too creative with their wireless service when they rolled out "Mobilz".  When you're a tiny rural phone operation, your wireless arm needs to support, not distract from, the main wireline/DSL/TV operation. So Cross wisely renamed their service to "Cross Wireless".  The cellular operation is small enough that when we call the helpful people there they have no idea that we are not seeking information about their wireless home Internet service.

Not to further confuse things, Cross also owns Sprocket Wireless which serves the area "a little farther out" from the Cross Wireless coverage area.  While Sprocket is a slightly more familiar name in that area east of Tulsa, it would be smart to further consolidate to just one name for their cellular operations.  The main reason to do so in larger markets is to get more bang for your marketing money, but in the smallest markets, there just might not be any.

In New Mexico, Leaco Rural Telephone Cooperative changed their cellular service to "NMobile", due to confusion over the "Leaco" name being limited to Lea County.  In central Texas, Mid-Tex Wireless finally assigned their acquired Five Star Wireless name to their wireless Internet service instead of having cellular stores with different names.  However. they also offer prepaid service under the Right Wireless name, so they still found a way to diffuse their marketing efforts.  At least in Oklahoma, consolidation makes sense without losing any more wireless carriers.

T-Mobile's Thousands of Cell Sites

The T-Mobile motorcycle spokesgal has traded her blurring speed in the city for a blurring view of T-Mobile's cell sites.  Indeed, T-Mobile does have a large number of cell sites, part of which was necessitated by their shorter range PCS signals.  However, they have gone one step further and placed a few strategic cell sites in areas ignored by other carriers.  Even the king of covering undercovered areas, Commnet Wireless, has a way to go to match some of T-Mobile's surprise cell sites. 

In my home state of Colorado there are wide stretches of National Forest lands that forbid cell sites either by federal decree or a lack of infrastructure.  However, there always seems to be some kind of RF facility on a mountain peak that begs the question, "Why not here?"  T-Mobile has climbed those mountains where other carriers fear to tread, and has made us huge fans.  There was a time when it took Verizon's extensive network AND its roaming partners to give us the confidence of universal coverage.  Now they seem to be only adding sites where it makes economic sense.  T-Mobile's surprise sites actually has us stopping and scratching our heads.  Not a single home or factory is within coverage of these sites...they are are here only to serve the traveling public.  What a concept!

Rating the Small Carriers

As we try to be the champion of the smaller wireless carriers, we have decided to venture onto what may be rather thin ice.  For years we have Rated the top 10 wireless carriers (which has now dwindled to 8) with a numbering system that reflects how well these carriers best fulfill what we believe are our wireless needs.  In past cases our ratings have irritated a few fan boys, but overall, we find people agree with our observations.

Now, as part of our regular review of every wireless carrier in the nation, we have assigned an "MW Rating", a numeric value we will apply as we make our periodic update on each of these carriers.  Using a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, we decided there has to be carriers that rate a "1", and ones that rate a "10".  The absolute number reflects that "X" carrier is better than "Y" carrier...in our informed opinion.   Over the years we have received complaints about our Reviews, so we expect the number we assign to some of these carriers will once again raise the rankles of those associated with these victims.

Often our view is skewed by incomplete or dated data and that view changes when we are supplied with the right information.  To assign a single number that takes so many different attributes into consideration is a close approximation at best.  We can make a better guess about carriers we are familiar with, and we realize giving a "6" rating to AT&T will be unpopular.  We are still getting stories about AT&T's poor urban coverage, as they continue to suffer through a lack of capacity in major cities.  Even JD Power agrees that Sprint (MW Rating: 7) rates higher than AT&T (MW Rating: 6).  Now we'll also try to compare the best, like Cincinnati Bell (MW Rating: 10) to the rest...like Wisconsin's Element Mobile (MW Rating: 3).  Agreed?

Wall Street Holds the Phone

Earlier this week, Sprint reported that their business is alive and well and can handle the challenges ahead, not the least of which is the turn down of the Nextel network and the turn up of a new LTE broadband network.  There was a time when it looked like there would be only 2 major carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless.  The chances are much better today that it won't happen.  The question now is whether it will be 4 or 3 carriers who survive.

T-Mobile has a few warm fuzzies from the failed AT&T takeover in the form of cash and more roaming agreements, but they lost what Wall Street calls "momentum."  T-Mobile has a handful of hoops to jump through including getting Apple to add T-Mobile's 4G band at 1700 MHz to the iPhone.  Their future lies on bottom line growth and that may be hard to improve.  Yes, this means T-Mobile may still face a new merger or takeover.

Some marriages involve awfully long courtships.  Cricket and MetroPCS have been dating for a long time but just can't commit.  T-Mobile's list of desirable partners is even shorter, and the best looking man on that list is Sprint.  At one time it might have been China Mobile or America Movil, the parent of TracFone, or maybe some good looker from Europe.  But each suitor now looks a bit less desirable mostly due to their lack of pocket change.  For now, that's a good thing for most of us.  The FCC calls T-Mobile a "disrupter" and credits them with creating greater competition in the wireless market.  They should be able to continue that role until Wall Street tells them they must marry up or suffer 'old maid' status.  So far, I still like the old maid, and the motorcycle she rode in on.

Prepaid Double Trouble

We have been following the Prepaid market closely over the last year as a great way make a significant cut in your wireless expenses.  Several of the latest prepaid offerings have been very useful since each of the 4 major cellular networks offer virtually nationwide service without the need for roaming.  A few prepaid services do allow roaming off their home network which gives you even greater coverage.  The catch is that when a carrier charges extra for roaming, the calling procedure may change.

Old hands at the prepaid game have learned the secret, but a few newcomers have sent us an email saying, "Why doesn't my prepaid phone work in Kentucky (or pick your location)?"  But it does!  You just need to enter the called phone number a second time.  A pain? Yes, but it's the carrier's way to make sure you know there will be extra charges.  The best workaround is to enter a second roaming version of your most frequently called numbers, with a "Pause" programmed in the string, into your address book.  Otherwise, if you don't know the number called by heart, you need to look at the screen and enter the number you just called again or, heaven help you, write that number down on the back of your hand (who carries a pen?).

If you have service but just can't enter the extra digits, try Text Messaging which normally works with just one entry.  It's that or switch to one of the prepaid services that doesn't require the 'double dial' such as TracFone, NET10 or T-Mobile.  Of course you could have one of those services that doesn't allow off-network roaming and you can merrily travel along in blissful ignorance.

iPhone: Past its iPeak?

We were excited recently about the prospect of a prepaid iPhone and we prepared for what we thought was a new rush of interest in the 5-year-old phone icon.  We even put together a special web page for all the ways to Go Prepaid with iPhone.  Virgin Mobile, who boasts of very reasonable iPhone plans starting at $35 a month, even opened their first Virgin Mobile-branded retail stores to herald the coming of the iPhone to the prepaid carrier.  The reaction was not what they expected.  Cricket Wireless offered their own iPhone with less than door-busting response.

Does this mean the iPhone is past its prime or is it just not of interest to the prepaid crowd?  Prepaid is no longer the providence of the credit-challenged.  Many prepaid buyers are now either value shoppers or users looking for a wireless alternative without a 2-year obligation.  AT&T now offers the iPhone for as little as a penny, so we'll assume that it isn't the price.  In technology, 5 years is a lifetime.  Apple may need to come up with something new or we might see somebody else pass the Tipping Point and create the new iNormal.

Preparing for the Unthinkable

We have neighbors just a few miles away from where I sit who have lost their homes to forest fires. In one city alone over 32,000 people have had to evacuate.  How did they know when to leave?  They were called, mostly by Reverse 911.  Considering that an average of 25% of the population have no home phone, what about those who have no wired phone at home?  AFAIK, they only way those occupants knew officially to pack up and leave was if they registered their wireless phone to that home address with the local 911 authority.  Have you done that?

I also watched as a cell tower on one of those mountain ridges was consumed in flames and wondered what happens to those people who have not yet evacuated?  What would you do if the cell site you needed was gone?  Just a few years ago, the local telco would set up banks of phones and give residents free voice mail to stay in touch.  Telcos can't do that for wireless-only users...we're on our own.

Think it through.  What would you do?  Would you include your cell phone among those possessions you'd grab when you run?  Think of the unthinkable: floods, wildfires, earthquakes, or even an nuclear or chemical accident.  Did you 'cut the cord?'  Maybe you'd rather not.  Consider how you'll be affected when the only warning comes from a Reverse 911.  I thought our family was covered with our basic landline until I realized we 'ported' our number from another area and we received an evacation notice from that faraway area.  Are we missing things that are happening in our own neighborhood?

You might not need to "do" something to be prepared, but you should at least consider, 'what would happen if...'  The unthinkable just happened here...are you next?

International Roaming Habits

I have been roaming outside the US several times in the last few weeks and have found one essential habit that keeps me in wireless contact: re-booting my phone.  No single habit seems to affect the cellular roaming experience, and it appears to apply only to my GSM phones.  I'm told that when the phone loses signal, it continues down the registry of usable signals and, finding none, returns to rest on the home carrier's channels.  Until I discovered this I thought that the local wireless network always had some kind of problem, but instead it was the phone.  In foreign systems, there are plenty of opportunities to lose the signal, even if it's just between the balcony and the bedroom at your hotel.

Of all the precautions we list on our Foreign Roaming web pages, this was one we hadn't thought of until we stayed in rooms with consistently bad service in the room, but good coverage elsewhere.  Many hotels have the same problem with wi-fi which rarely penetrates the walls equally.  I give credit to the resorts who offer a wired Internet connection, but some of those, believe it or not, have slower service than the wireless.

On your next trip to Mexico, or elsewhere, blame your phone first, then re-boot.  Foreign networks are just as reliable as we hoped, but we need to teach our phones some manners.