Network infrastructure will about be worthless to most potential buyers.
The tower it's self will be the only useable thing at the cell sites.
The equipment will have to be totally replaced on the change over to CDMA.

Not much to talk about in that type of area.
Something that will be up for sale anyways.

Which each and every one will have to have a new handset for cdma.
Either the company buys each one a new handset for free, no contract,
or the company forces them to sign a new contract for a new phone.
If they do the latter, I don't think any of the customers will hang around
for long.
They will keep their old phone and go to T mobile or Cingular

Most of the other assets will be worthless to a CDMA carrier.
They will be starting from square one, if they got one of the RSAs.
There is not enough customers to justify keeping TDMA/GSM for a while,
and there will be no customers left to talk about after they change to CDMA.

The technology divide wasn't nearly as large as it is today.
Today, the systems are almost totally incompatible.
If there was other 800Mhz TDMA/GSM carriers around,
then there would be basses for a divesture, but there is not.

And another thing, ATT uses 1900Mhz GSM and 800Mhz TDMA/AMPS.
The only customers that could even be argued to be customers of the 800Mhz
block that will be divested is the older TDMA/AMPS customers.
All the GSM users will go with the PCS block that will go to cingular.
There will be no customers worth talking about that can be connected to
the licenses.

And on the towers that have both PCS and cell antennas.......
Will they go to cingular because they go with the PCS band?
Or will they go with the divesture, because they are part of the cell band?

It is not as easy as it was with the air touch stuff.

In the end, the only thing the company would really be buying is the
spectrum.
And they already have spectrum which they are not using, so they are buying
nothing.
All other assets are of nominal worth, or rendered worthless.

The rules have changed since that time period.

--
John S.
e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net

To be blunt.
(This is not aimed at you, but more of a general rant.)
I am getting sick and tired of people talking about 3G.
I hope cingular sticks to what one of the officials said.
That they will change to 3G only if they see a market for it.
It may be 10 years before they do, or they may skip it and
go directly to 4G or something else.
As of this time, EDGE is their end game.
ALL the new WCDMA stuff on ATT"s system will
probably go to storage bin for a while, if not for eternity.
3G is the most stupid, blown out of proportion thing I have ever seen!

That is one place where I think the laws are being used for something
they were not intended for.
If the provider has no way of serving them after the divesture,
then the users should go with the band, but if the users
can be supported after the divesture, then they should not force the
company to sell the users with the band.
The law states that a company can not own both blocks.
If the company wants to sell the towers and customers with
the one cell block that it is selling, that is it's own business.
It is not the FCC's job to micromanage things.
The FCC and DOJ doing that is pure communism.

The job of the FCC is to make sure that there is adequate competition.
Not dictate how many companies should be serving an area.
If there is adequate competition, then the FCC should not stick it's nose in

The band was won by them on a fair auction.
If they abuse it, then there is a right to take away their use of that band.
The band is public property above all.
But the FCC and DOJ has no right to make them sell their customers,
their property, or their equipment with that band.
That is what a government of a communist nation does.
I feel very strongly about that.
The agreement between the customer and the provider is the
responsibility of the two parties involved.

The government is overstepping it's bounds in those cases,
And I will not support it in any way shape or form.
That is what I believe, nothing more, nothing less.

This will be my last post on this subject.
I have nothing more to add.
Any other arguments will just be a rerun of the stuff
already posted, and a total waste of time.
Good day.

After looking at those areas, I only see one service area that
is kinda hanging out in the dry.
That is the service area around Lufkin Texas.
The only other provider that has any measure of
coverage in that area is T mobile.

All the other providers (verizon, sprint.... +others) have licenses, but
they have never took the time to put any coverage down.
ATT has moderate coverage in the top part,
cingular shows the area as having relatively solid coverage.

In and of it's self, the ATT coverage in that RSA doesn't really
qualify as adequate coverage by it's self.
If someone bought it, they wouldn't be buying much.
And the buyer would have to change it over to CDMA,
unless T mobile bought it, which is not going to happen.

In my opinion.
The other carriers would get better coverage by putting the money
into the bands they already own in that RSA, not buying more to take care
of.
They would basically be buying a band with no equipment
that is really useable on their network.
That would be in addition to the band they already own
that has no operating equipment.
And they would get no new customers from the acquisition.

Yes, a few towers, but with the 30 mill+ that it will take to get the RSA,
you could build enough towers to totally cover the area with a PCS system.
So selling that RSA would not be in the best interest of the users.
tell the other providers to take any potential bid money and
apply it to the bands they already own in that area.
The users would be far better off.

There is a reason CDMA providers normal don't buy out TDMA providers.
(or vice versa)
It is a waste of money.
If they already own spectrum there, then it is a total waste of money.

And you do not want to confuse the area-based construction requirement
of Cellular w/ the population-based benchmarks of PCS!

To briefly summarize, Cellular's area-based stipulation is
geographically a "use it or lose it" proposition.  The Phase 1
five-year buildout period gives the Cellular licensee exclusive domain
over the entire CMA.  At the end of the initial five-year grant, the
licensed service area is fixed as either - whichever is lesser - the
entire CMA or the Cellular Geographic Service Area (CGSA) as the
composite of all Service Area Boundaries (SABs) as 32 dBu AMPS
contours of all sites inside the CMA.  In other words, if the licensee
does not deploy AMPS throughout the CMA w/in five years, it loses
exclusive right to the unserved areas.  In Phase 2, all entrants to
the market may submit applications to claim & deploy at least AMPS to
any unserved areas - of which Commnet Wireless has made a cottage
industry in the American west.

"http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/05dec20031700/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr
_2003/octqtr/47cfr22.947.htm"
"http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/05dec20031700/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr
_2003/octqtr/47cfr22.911.htm"

In contrast, the PCS construction requirements are entirely predicated
on provision of adequate service to a mandated percentage of the
licensed population as defined by the tracts of the 1990 or 2000
census.  The PCS A, PCS B, & PCS C 30 MHz licensees must serve 1/3
licensed POPs w/in five years and 2/3 POPs w/in 10 years.  Licensees
of PCS D, PCS E, & PCS F 10 MHz or FCC-disaggregated PCS C 10 MHz or
15 MHz blocks must serve 1/4 POPs or "make a showing of substantial
service" w/in five years after which no further buildout is federally
mandated.

"http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/05dec20031700/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr
_2003/octqtr/47cfr24.203.htm"

As PCS licensees are only compelled - by arguably flawed regulation -
to construct wireless coverage in areas of permanent population let
alone transient population such as highways, while Cellular licensees
- either original or unserved applicants - are bound to serve entire
geographic areas regardless of population density, the case is only
furthered for primacy of Cellular in the underlying public service
aspect of wireless.

Andrew
--
Andrew Shepherd
cinema@ku.edu
cinema@sprintpcs.com
http://www.ku.edu/home/cinema/

You're right, I don't :-)

TX-18/19/20 do not have much in terms of significant population
centers, unless you want to count Del Rio and Eagle Pass.  It's pretty
sparsely populated land with whatever little population there is
spread over many many square miles.

In any case, while PCS coverage is being evaluated by population
covered, cellular coverage is not.  Unserved and underserved cellular
license areas are always subject to the unserved and underserved
cellular license area clause which allows another provider to come in
and claim the license for that area and offer service, just like
Commnet Wireless is doing in many markets all over the western United
States.

No, that is far from true.  Theoretically, spectrum is spectrum
regardless of frequency, but that's ignoring the historical,
technical, regulatory, and factual differences between cellular and
PCS.

If in fact, PCS buildout was anywhere near the levels of cellular
buildout I could go with your argument, but the fact of the matter is
that cellular coverage in most markets is wall-to-wall whereas PCS
coverage is more like a spiderweb.  Major metro centers and connecting
major highway corridors have coverage and huge areas inbetween do not.
We all know the variuos reasons and justifications for the different
buildout patterns, but ignoring these facts is irresponsible when it
comes to such an important issue, the resolution of which could
conceivably result in a single company providng service to several
large rural areas.

As a matter of fact, in the vast majority of TX-18/19/20 it is.  There
is absolutly no usable PCS service aside from the Interstate and a
very few other selected highway corridors.

But as a matter of fact that is not the case in TX-18/19/20.  There is
only AT&T (still operating under the USCC brand) and Cingular and
that's it.

Not possible.  The PCS carriers operate under the 1/3, 2/3 population
coverage rule, as Andrew has explained in detail.  So even though PCS
carriers are fulfilling their legal service obligations, large rural
areas are without PCS service and probably will remain without PCS
service for decades.  Since the licensing rules have been defined as
to not require market-wide coverage, the PCS providers are in fact
complying with their mandate and there's no grounds to terminate any
licenses.  Cellular is the communications lifeblood of these markets
and giving both bands to one company would set a dangerous precedent
that could be difficult to reverse and recover from.

As explained earlier, the difference is beyond huge.  In simple terms,
many rural areas have cellular coverage, but no PCS service of any
kind.  Stating that there is no major difference between cellular and
PCS licenses is like saying there's no major difference between day
and night.

That is true for "heavily populated areas", but keep in mind that this
entire discussion focuses around 11 RSAs, some of which are extremely
sparsely populated and have no PCS service of any kind in the vast
majority of the market.

No, the CGSA criteria are very well defined, based on the 32 dBu
contours and have nothing to do with the handset whatsoever.

While I agree with your points, as N9WOS pointed out, Cingular is by
far the most "AMPS-friendly" of the national carriers.  If someone had
to be allowed to control both A&B blocks, you could certainly do worse
than Cingular!  ;-)

Besides, while divesting spectrum is easy, divesting customers isn't-
realistically those customers have little value to either company as
an asset since they're all free agents when their contracts expire.

The government realistically can't "give" Cingular customers to a
competitor anymore than they could announce that starting tomorrow 1/2
of McDonald's customers now "belong" to Arby's.

Any spectrum divestiture should be handled like radio and TV station
divestiture is handled (or, rather, WAS handled before those spectrum
caps went away!)- give the company a reasonable period, say 12-24
months to sell off the extra spectrum assets (with/without towers,
equipment, customers, or whatever- the "sin" we're addressing is
spectrum- anything else is between the buyer and the seller).  If
someone wants it bad enough they can buy it, or swap for it (i.e.
Verizon might want 800MHz spectrum in a market they only have 1900MHz
in and could swap their PCS spectrum for the extra Cingular cellular
band.)  If nobody buys the spectrum from Cingular by the deadline, it
goes back for reauctioning.

Also, divestiture isn't the only solution- the feds could instead
force Cingular to commit to alternative, more creative, methods of
fostering competition- forcing them to allow resellers, requiring
"good faith" negotiations of wholesale airtime rates to those
resellers as well as to competitors seeking roaming partners in those
CSAs, etc.

But a reasonable deadline spectrum-only divestiture or a
PCS-for-cellular band swap would certainly work, satisfying both those
who fear monopolist domination of 800MHz spectrum, and those who'd
prefer a (primarily) free-market solution to the problem.