Batboard

Hi:

Maybe a bit unrelated to the forum, but I was a " original " GTE
Cell Phone Customer prior to the AT&T takeover.

Anyhow, with GTE , Cell Phone Coverage was great, and
when AT&T took over, things went down hill, but we thought
giving them a year to " Detail ‘ the new system would be the
thing to do, and they even gave some users a 200.00 rebate during
the change over process.

Well, its now 2003, and coverage is still horrible, and nothing
close to what it use to be.

I am in Southern California, and I would like to know if anyone
has a Link or information to AT&T's Cell Site Locations and perhaps
a " Plan " if they are going to build more sites, or try and just use
affiliates and politics to cover fringe areas.

Any information helpful as AT&T's reps are becoming very close
to the Monkeys @ /\/\.

MS

Try using this: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe ... /index.hts

It's the old FCC search but it works (the new one is apparently down).

I did a Lat/Long/Service search, used point radius, entered my lat & long & used CF for the service to search for. I found several different companies and when you click the license, you can see the site locations.

Crude but it may be the only way to go.

i tahught that GTE was oneof the companys of the verizon Meger (Land Line anyway)

verizon bought out GTE several years back as most know. there was an interesting swap of cell providers down in florida at the time, GTE had GTE mobilnet cellular service, there was also PRIMECO wich used the 1900 band, and ALLTEL wich was another carrier in nirth florida.

well GTE/VERIZON together couldnot have a market together for whatever reason, so northflorida's alltel bought GTE Mobilnet (now alltel) VERIZON bought out PRIMECO, (now VERIZON) (no more little pink alien trademark for primeco)

thats why on ebay, old GTE digital phones work with ALLTEL and old primeco phones work with VERIZON.

i have always ran into a roadblock when asking any cell provider if they have towers in particular locations, i get an official "were not allowed to give out tower locations" that has been told to me by ATT,VERIZON,NEXTEL,SPRINT. but i havenot gone to do my own research in the FCC database or other similar locations.

Primeco network was Really good. and it was not Verizon it was part of Bell atlantic mobile . and they merged with Bell atlantcic primeco and one other i cant rember as well as gte.

also alltell and verizon have roamiing agreements

KitN1MCC wrote: . . . it was not Verizon it was part of Bell atlantic mobile .

Verizon is the "new" name for what became the merged NYNEX and Bell Atlantic/Bell Atlantic Mobile. All the same company.

Cell phones are the pits. I wish I didn't need one.

A search through the FCC database will probably not yield the information that your looking for. Not all cell sites are licensed as you would be expecting them to be. Most service providers have a system license and as such are covered for all cell sites in the system.

You may run across a site where the tower is above the magic 200 foot level and as such will have a tower registration number. The majority of the sites are below the 200 foot level and those you won't find in any tower database.

Cingular made a move during part of their past to register all of their cell site towers. Even the 65 foot monopoles received a tower registration number. Not sure if they are still doing that or not. It created a pile of papers to keep tract of. You run out of space for the file cabinets after some point.

Jim

HI;

I have received a tip which has not been mentioned
so far in that " The County " in which these Cell Sites
are located required what ? A building permit !

Have done a little research, and yes, AT& T has a number
of them. The only real problem is { Are they in service ? } and
So far, I have not been able to give the Computer Reps enough
bananas to get the information needed.

But. its a start .......

I really hate considering moving ( and dumping my Cell Phone )
equipment AGAIN, and perhaps just move to Nextel

Monty

Hello.

If all you want to know is the location of the towers, get someone in emergency management to help you.
In California, an entire list of every cell/PCS tower is kept for the pseudo ANI or PANI.
This is a non-dialable number that tells 911 what cell site and sector you are calling from, this is part of flex ANI, that also tells what station class.
Examples of statin class are, 00, normal 'phone. 29, prison 'phone. 62, cellular 'phone. 70, COCOT.
I would list the towers, however this is a huge file, all of California.
Your local office will have more bite (byte?) sized editions, this also lists the carrier, provider, band, height, type (Analog, CDMA, TDMA, etc), point of contact, roamer clearinghouse, etc.

I hope this gets you in the right area.
Sorry for the long post, most people could care less about ANI, but if you understand this it will help you to get the right person.

Thank You.

Monty wrote:
I really hate considering moving ( and dumping my Cell Phone )
equipment AGAIN, and perhaps just move to Nextel

Monty

dumping AT&T ( GTE ) will not help to get better coverage over nextel l . at least your AT&T phone will work everywhere ( almost ! ) nextel has so many dead spots around town , i cant believe any one uses it in so. cal.

i have a nextel , cingular , and AT&T phone .('s) i hate them all . nextel the most .. cingular has the best coverage in town .. but as soon as you get into the east co. gone .. verison (?) and AT&T have the best coverage around the county ..

but thats just my .02

Hello.

The new GAIT 'phone is really neat, AT$T and Cingular use this with great sucess in California.
I have used a Sprint telephone, Motorola StarTac, with great success, it never left Sprint's network in California.
I have reprogrammed my Sprint 'phone so that if needs to roam, it uses my Cingular account, this is done with a split ESN, not something normally done.
The Gsm Ansi Interop' Team, GAIT idea is neat, several systems in one phone, multi-protocol, but no CDMA yet.
Shop around, you can buy TDMA extended systems in Canada, 3 watt max in digital works great, and you retain the handset feature.
Dual band extended is only TDMA, and you can only use a EE2 handset.

If you are seriously considering nextel, speak to a dealer. Most of them have demo phones that the'll lend to you for the weekend to try out.

I've honestly been suprised at how good their coverage is out here, and we are the LAST area on anyones upgrade list for features.

Every cell company you find will have dead spots. Your best chance at avoiding them is talking to the different company's and using demo phones.

Most of them have them, maybe even buy a prepaid phone for a few days - Boost mobile should be avalible and they are (for all intensive purposes) the prepaid version of nextel.

-Alex

when nynex and verizon merged for a while it was called bell atlantic nynex mobile (no mobile for landwire) they had to use that for a few years then they dropped nynex became just bell atalatic.
then they merged with gte and one other land line company to form verizon and they merged with primceco and another to for verizom

Keep in mind, when you are somewhere without NexTel coverage, you are SOL. There is no "fall-back" to AMPS when you need to get thru to 911. If there is no NexTel service where you are, 911 calls are not going to happen [sorry!]

In Northern California GTE was taken over by Verizon so I'd make sure the provider is in fact AT&T WS. Verizon uses CDMA in CA and AT&T uses FDMA/GSM so distinguishing which phone you have isn't too hard. Usually CDMA phones have a Qualcomm sticker on them.

I can't recall how SD is set up but people like Verizon up here (basically the older GTE network) is set up with a MW backhaul. So looking up the MW sites in the FCC database would give you most, if not all, sites in the area.

-Wayne

Verizon seems to work best for me. ATT & Cingular suck!

Ken

Where I am, Nextel has the best coverage, over Verizon. Hard to believe, but cell towers are hard to come by in central NJ.

Well in the Great White North (Canada l Mean)

AT &T has maps of all their cell sites and footprints
of their coverage.

They do 3month tests to see what
the footprints are like.
Better in the winter than the
summer etc.They have a great (VERY LARGE)
mapping program on the main frame server that
can give coverage info in full color.This is for any
number of sites in (The Great White North).