Douglas Scott Reuben <DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu> (05/13/91)
In a recent set of postings, Steve Forette and John Higdon had
mentioned the differences in service between Bay Area systems. (Sorry,
comments not working tonight, but it was quite recent.)
One thing which was not mentioned (specifically) was the differences
between the roaming agreements which both GTE and Cell One/SF have
with their neighbors.
For example, GTE/SF will allow you to roam to Sacramento, Modesto, San
Luis Obispo, and most other California and Nevada cities (I guess
that's Reno and Las Vegas), and not incur a daily roam charge.
Moreover, the rates while roaming are quite favorable. So, for
example, as I am a customer of GTE/SF, can roam into Sac and pay 15
cents per minute airtime (off peak), and *NO* daily roam charge. I
believe this is true for most (if not all) other California cities,
yet I've heard conflicting stories about LA and Las Vegas, NV. When
*I* tried using LA's "B" system, I was not billed for any daily
charge, yet I believe it was posted here some time ago that LA's "B"
system charges for FMR (Follow Me Roaming) activations. GTE/SF and the
LA system both say this is not the case, and my own experience
indicates this as well, but perhaps there are exceptions to this in
other cities that I have not roamed to yet. In general, though,
roaming is relatively inexpensive on the "B" systems in CA and NV.
(Some systems, like Sac and Modesto, charge for incomplete calls,
which is a pain, but then do some of the CA "A" systems.)
As to the "A" systems, ie, Cell One/SF in particular, when I inquired
as to any roam charges, I was told that if I roamed out of the SF
service area, into Sac for example, I would incur a daily roam charge
and pay higher rates for airtime than I would pay under GTE/SF. A
friend of mine who uses Cell One/SF notes that she pays a daily charge
when she drives down to Monterey, which can get quite high. (Over this
past summer it was $2 per day, I believe they were talking about
raising it to $3). This is a considerable expense as she tends to
drive to Santa Cruz (just north of Moneterey) via CA-1. Since Monterey
is at the south end of a bay, and Santa Cruz is about 20 miles north
of that (direct line), signals from the Monterey system "bleed" over
to the hills just north of Santa Cruz, and thus someone driving down
CA-1 over those hills will frequenlty pick up the Monterey system,
even if the "roam" light hasn't come on yet. I've seen this happen,
and unless one blocks out the Monterey System ID code (SID), one may
unexpectedly be using that system and thus paying the higher rates and
the daily charge.
Again, this may have changed since September when I asked Cell One
about its roaming agreements with other local carriers, but if not,
and you intend to roam in California a good deal, I would suggest
getting an account with the "B" system. For heavy roamers, this will
probably save you some money.
Another (perhaps less significant) problem with roaming on the "A"
systems is that they tend to "bundle" their service areas for the
benefit of THEIR customers, yet bill them as separate entities when
roamers use the system.
To use an example which I have mentioned before in earlier posts,
let's take the Cell One/SF system. Cell One/SF *says* that its system
covers all the way from Santa Rosa (north of San Francisco) to Santa
Cruz (south and a bit West of San Francisco). And indeed, if you are
one of their customers, you will pay the same rates throughout their
system, not worry about roam charges, etc. BUT, if you roam in their
system, they consider EACH area to be a separate system, ie, the
"Santa Rosa System", the "San Francisco System", and the "Santa Cruz
System" (which Metro Mobile calls "Saint Crux" for some
reason..probably their God-awful billing company).
Anyhow, what this means to roamers is that if they drive from Santa
Rosa to Santa Cruz, and make calls (or receive them) along the way,
they will be billed $2 for EACH system, ie, Santa Rosa, San Francisco,
and Santa Cruz, which is sort of cheap, and something Cell One/SF
doesn't tell you about when you ask them what their rates and service
area is. (The SID codes are weird for this sort of thing: Cell One/SF
is 00031, yet the SID number which was quoted to me by Metro Mobile
was 30031, which they said was for the "separate Saint Crux" system.
Metro does this too: Their SID code is 00119, which is the same in CT
and RI, but the New Bedford, MA system is 30119. If I program my phone
for "00119" as home, or "00031" as home, and then roam into one of the
300xx areas, the "ROAM" light doesn't come on. Anyone know how this
works and/or why it is done??)
This is not to say that all the "A" systems are like this. The
Sac/Stockton/ Reno, NV system will charge you only one daily charge,
even if you drive up I-5 to I-80 and head to Tahoe and then Reno, ie,
using all the systems. But there are lots of companies like Cell
One/SF that use "tricky" means to get their daily charges (and charges
and charges..! :) ), something which I have found to be MUCH less the
case of the "B" systems.
The "A" systems are also much more prone to billing errors for
roamers. For example, when I made calling card calls from Cell One/SF
to Texas, which should result in NO landline charges being billed to
me by the cell co.s (ie, I get billed airtime, and AT&T sends me the
bill for the call from SF to Texas), I was instead billed for BOTH
airtime and toll charges!
It of course took me five hours on the phone just to explain to my
favorite mobile comapny (Metro Mobile/CT, who bills me for "A" calls)
just where San Francisco was, after which about a week to get it
through that calling card calls shouldn't be billed landline charges.
After they grasped this highly complex concept, Metro Highbill took
care of the problem, but it just indicates the total lack of any
coordination or effective means of overseeing billing that many of the
"A" systems suffer from in terms of roaming.
Also note that as a roamer in Cell One/SF's system, any call outside
the Bay Area (ie, outside of 415, northern 408, or southern 707) will
be forced onto AT&T's calling card system, and you will need to use
your card to complete any calls. This is more expensive for two
reasons:
(1) - You will have to pay the 80 cent surcharge for using your
calling card, and
(2) - Even if no one answers, or it is busy, etc., you will still
pay for accessing the calling card system in terms of
airtime and daily roamer charges. (This is true with most
systems, ie, paying for card calls regardless of whether or
not the card call completed ... yet most other systems allow
you to dial direct, thus avoiding these costs.)
There have also been two cases where my mobile number (or rather,
prefix) was not programmed into the switch. The most recent case was
over the 4th of July, in the Cell One/Sac-Stockton-Reno system, which,
although promptly corrected the next business day, caused me a good
deal of problems on the 4th.
All of these put together indicate to me that roaming on the "A"
systems has a LONG way to go. And this is not limited to California:
Cell One/Wilmington, DE also forces roamers to use their cards for ALL
calls; Cell One/South Jersey will bill roamers for ANY call they make,
regardless of it is answered or not or if you accidentally hit SEND
and then hang up even before the first ring; the Vanguard/Cell One
System in Eastern PA will bill you separate roaming charges for each
of their "systems" (ie, Allentown, Reading, Wilkes-Beare (sp?)), etc.
Compare this to roaming on the "B" systems: I roam a lot on the "B"
systems along the East Coast. I use Bell Atlantic DC and Phil,
NYNEX/NY and Boston, and SNET. I have turned on Follow Me Roaming,
called myself after it forwarded my calls (three days later! :) ), got
the busy signal, and left it on for about thirty minutes as a test.
When I got the bill the next month, nothing! That's right -- to my
suprise, the BAMS/Philadelphia did not bill me for the call. I then
tried this in other "B" systems, same thing. I have also talked to
other "B" customers at Apple Comp. in Glastonbury, CT, and they never
noted any calls on their bills which did not complete. It seems then
that the "B"s generally tend to wait for answer superivsion before
billing you for the call. Th B's have other problems as well, mainly
FMR and small calling areas (ie, few DMXs or links between systems
like the A's have), yet that's a whole other post in itself.
So if you intend to stay within the "home" service area, then both
systems, specifically in San Francisco and perhaps generally elsewhere
as well, are quite similar in terms of coverage in the more urban
areas, although there could be considerable differences in more
out-of-the-way areas. (Eastern CT with SNET, for example, has very
good coverage, with Metro, nothing at all. No doubt this wll change
soon, though...)
But, if you do intend to roam a lot, however, I personally favor the
"B"s, as despite the annoyingly frequent FMR problems, the B's have a
much more professional attitude towards roaming. I realize that there
are many "A" systems with reasonable roam policies. Cell One/Washington
DC or even *dear* Highbill do treat roamers well (it's their customers
that they treat like dirt! ;) ). If you do travel a lot and intend to
use different "A" systems, I think you'll find no end of problems,
"suprises", and hidden charges which you would never be charged for
under the "B"s.
Lecture's over ... anyone still awake? :)
If there are any corrections, additions, or comments, please let me
know. As you may have surmised, I am somewhat interested in roaming
issues and implementation, so anything you have to offer would
undoubtedly be helpful.
Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu // dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet
P.S. Not to make this any longer, but I was reading comp.dcom.telecom on
my Unix system, and someone asked for some Audiovox programming
instructions. I posted them a while back, but presently Telnet is down
so I can't connect to the Unix. Send me E-mail and I'll send you the
file. (Or I can wait until that article makes it to Wesleyan, but
that generally takes a few days longer.)
As to why they aren't on the Archives...err...I guess I never
bothered to upload them via FTP (if that is what one is supposed to do).
If anyone wants, I'll send them along for the Archives as well.
droid@uunet.uu.net> (05/16/91)
It's interesting to learn about the local cell services and confirm I made the right choice: GTE Mobilnet. Why GTE?? (I know their landline services are junk) They have better service all around. The Cellular One sales force did nothing to sell me on their network. They spent their time knocking GTE's switch, even the sales woman at Big M was knocking the GTE switch, saying it was inferior. She didn't know GTE has a Motorola switch. I use FMR regularly and the only time I had a problem was when Cell One decided to add my ESN to the hot sheet. No one could explain how it got there. The few times I've had a service complaint I got a call from a real technoid who could speak tech talk and would later get back to me and explain what was hosed in the system. The big technical difference is the cell sites. GTE has many low level sites whereas Cell One has fewer high level sites. I thought the idea was to keep the sites low and have lots of them. The other thing I learned a few days ago is how GTE bills for interlata calls. They have least cost routing amongst several IXCs. I found out when I called to try and select a "dial 1 IXC". Cell One apparently will let you select an IXC. Sounds like cool folks to me dude! Marty the Droid Industrial Magician droid@well