Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Focus on the Big Picture: Where the Phone Works

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 12:55:57 -0400

washingtonpost.com

Focus on the Big Picture: Where the Phone Works

By Rob Pegoraro

Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page F01

Getting a cell phone should be simple.

But competitive markets that run on rapidly evolving technologies rarely are.
Picking a wireless-phone service demands a lot of
homework, between the fine-print-laden price plans, the varied coverage areas and
all the add-ons packaged with voice
service, such as text messaging and Web access.

It's easy to focus on the one thing you can instinctively grasp: the phone itself.
But that's a mistake. A cell phone's job is to let
you talk to people, not take pictures or play MP3s. And that happens only where
the phone gets a clear signal.

The most important thing to gawk at in a wireless carrier's brochure or on its Web
site is not the catalogue of phones. Nor is it
even the price plans. Instead, inspect the coverage maps -- both of them.

First, eyeball the map of the Washington area to see the carrier's digital reach.
None of the six firms doing business here
(AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Nextel, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile USA and Verizon
Wireless) cover all of it. Cingular leaves
out the Eastern Shore, Verizon hits a wall west of the Blue Ridge, AT&T omits a
generous chunk of Charles County, and so
on. (Don't forget to ask neighbors and co-workers which services they like.)

Then look at the carrier's nationwide map. You'll see immense gaps that may
overlap the roads you take and the places they
lead you to, whether it's a college, a beach house or Grandma's house.

The second issue to ponder is a wireless carrier's digital dialect. Four
technologies are in use: CDMA ("Code Division Multiple
Access," offered by Sprint and Verizon), GSM ("Global System for Mobile
communication," offered by AT&T, T-Mobile and
soon Cingular), iDEN (Nextel's "Integrated Digital Enhanced Network"), and TDMA
("Time Division Multiple Access," sold
by AT&T and Cingular).

I've written before that, since these standards all provide about the same voice
quality, the differences among them don't matter.
That's no longer true.

First, TDMA is dying. AT&T and Cingular are switching to GSM -- the latter's GSM
service arrives here next month. Both
carriers will sell TDMA phones for some time to come, but neither will support
this less-efficient system forever; AT&T's GSM
coverage already exceeds its TDMA reach in the Washington area.

GSM offers two core virtues: a removable subscriber-identity card, which stores
your phone book and other data for easy
transfer between phones, and the ability to roam overseas in the many other
countries that rely on the GSM standard. (This
may be more trouble than just renting a phone overseas: You'll pay $1 a minute or
so in roaming, whether you call home or to
your hotel, and that hotel will pay international rates to reach you even when
you're a block away.)

But aside from a few hybrid models in the AT&T and Cingular catalogues, you can't
buy a GSM phone and still roam on
analog cellular signals in the United States -- a potentially serious shortfall,
given the patchy nature of GSM coverage in rural
areas of this country. There's no technological barrier to providing this option;
phone manufacturers just don't seem interested in
it.

Nextel's iDEN phones are also digital-only. Their key feature is the push-to-talk
Direct Connect service that lets Nextel
subscribers use their phones like walkie-talkies -- and which other carriers are
now vying to duplicate. But until competing
push-to-talk services can interoperate, I highly doubt this will replace regular
voice calls for most consumers.

CDMA is the only technology still speaking analog as a second language. Analog
cellular is best avoided if possible: It drains
cell-phone batteries at a frightening rate, offers little privacy and can run up
steep roaming charges. But it beats not being able
to use the phone at all, which can happen far afield and in town (for instance, in
the subway, where only Verizon phones get a
digital signal).

Both GSM and CDMA also offer much-improved wireless data connections, but they
remain too slow and expensive to
interest most home users. We're still a long way from the dream of instant Web
access on cell phones.

Finally, there's price. For most moderately talkative users, it's irrelevant --
every carrier offers at least one nationwide calling
plan for about $30 a month that includes hundreds of weekday minutes and thousands
of night and weekend minutes. So you
can safely pick a carrier and then decide what price plan works.

The exception is customers who will use a phone only in the rarest of
circumstances. They can cut their monthly costs to below
$10, cheaper than the $20 entry-level plans the carriers offer, by opting for
prepaid wireless. Prepaid service -- marketed both
by the major services and such resellers as TracFone and Virgin Mobile -- requires
you to buy usage in specific allotments,
usually starting at $10, with minutes that expire in 30 to 90 days.

Whatever plan you do choose, the most important thing is that you not stop
shopping. You can't easily switch carriers, but it's
painless to switch price plans.

It's also painless to ask for deals beyond the offerings on the books: Carriers
have been known to alter contract terms,
throwing in bonus minutes or discounted phone upgrades, all because it's cheaper
to keep an existing customer than to recruit a
new one. Few other markets allow consumers that kind of leverage -- you might as
well take advantage of it here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8352-2003Sep27.html
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