850 Mhz - Here's why!!!

[Guest McHale]

http://canikickit.org/archives/cat_mobile.shtml

"Why GSM850"? Here's why!

When some people see that Sony Ericsson has just announced a T610 and T616 they may do a double take. Most GSM carriers in the United States are using the 1900 band and this has been the standard for GSM roll-outs here.

The problem is that when you have a band that high, you have to have stronger presence. You need more towers, more base stations, more equipment to handle your network because GSM1900 doesn't have nearly the same penetration that lower bands have.

The lower band GSM stuff is good. The FCC is apparently no longer issuing licenses for radio in the 850 range, but in the case of Cingular and AT&T, carriers that had TDMA on that band, this means they can start to reuse those licenses with new equipment, support more users, and not need to get even more permits for GSM1900 which doesn't go as far. (Also key is realizing that this will only work where AT&T was the A carrier for 800 Mhz - not all markets will get GSM850!)

GSM850 will be particularly good in large cities, where building penetration will be improved. If your GSM carrier in the US has licenses for 850-band, you'll be happy when you get a handset that can use it and your carrier has towers up. It will mean better signal, less tower-seeking, and more phone calls.

In the case of AT&T at least, they must finish getting GSM 1900 rolled out before they start migrating those channels to GSM instead of TDMA. There are too many people still happily using TDMA to allow AT&T to start canibalizing their 800 band network just yet - we can only hope AT&T gets them converted soon.

The answer to this problem, of course, is coverage.

A very interesting thread at Howard Forums on the AT&T GSM 850 rollout:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php...threadid=105264

Could be April, at least in California. Move it, AT&T!