San Francisco Bay Area Local Coverage

The issue of coverage seems to ignite peoples passions. The worst thing that happens is that someone on a carrier with good coverage gets enticed by low rates to switch to a carrier that happens to have poor coverage. Coverage is not the only issue to consider when choosing a carrier, but IMVAIO (in my valued and informed opinion) it is the most important issue for the individual subscriber. I don't really care if the voice quality of a call degrades because of network congestion when the alternative is a dropped call or not being able to make a call at all. Some people may intentionally chose a provider with poorer coverage because the carrier has lower rates, offers worldwide roaming, or has a better selection of phones. But a lot of people don't realize how much of a difference there is in coverage between the different carriers, and go strictly by rates and./or equipment, which is a big mistake. Bottom line is that there are HUGE differences in coverage among the Bay Area cellular carriers, and independent studies have confirmed this fact.

The rationalizations against the wisdom at looking at the big picture when it comes to coverage are truly amazing because they apply to so few subscribers.  I.e. one Cingular aficionado wrote: "I have several colleagues who don't even take their phones with them when they leave their home area. They view the phone as an anchor."  I certainly agree that if you never leave your home area and the lowest cost provider has good coverage, that indeed selecting that carrier makes sense. But most people do travel at least occasionally. Business people want good coverage in the cities they travel to, leisure travelers often go to (or through) rural areas where they very much want the reassurance of a working mobile phone. Some urban areas do not have any GSM coverage at all.

Watch out for the "100% Coverage" Sales Tactic

A favorite response of wireless salespeople, when a potential customer asks about coverage differences, is "no carrier provides 100% coverage." This response is an attempt to equalize coverage among the various carriers into two groups, 100% and <100%. After all, if neither Verizon nor Cingular provide 100% coverage then why not choose the carrier with the lower prices and cooler handsets. As the data below demonstrates, there are huge differences in coverage between the carriers. 89-90% is much better than 68%. In terms of total area covered, a CDMA/AMPS phone or a TDMA/AMPS phone covers orders of magnitude more area than a GSM-only phone.

There are no 'official' data on coverage. However there have been many surveys and tests done, including a comprehensive survey of more than 600 subscribers performed by the highly respected, non-profit, Bay Area Consumer's Checkbook. Based on these surveys, studies, and tests, the rankings for coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area are as follows:

T-Mobile started up service on July 18, 2002. They are using the Cingular network and thus will have the same coverage ratings as Cingular

Dead Zones
One useful web site to check prior to selecting a carrier is http://deadcellzones.com/. Just be aware that this site is based on voluntary subscriber input; just because your area of concern does not appear on their list does not mean that there actually is coverage (and conversely, a location on the list may have had coverage added). For example, the web site shows big differences between Cingular and T-Mobile, when in fact the number of dead zones each has should be exactly the same. Of course the reports of dead zones are skewed by the number of subscribers each carrier has as well. You'd expect AT&T and Verizon to have far more dead zone reports than Cingular, Sprint, or T-Mobile by virtue of the fact that AT&T and Verizon have many more subscribers. Is this anecdotal evidence useful? Taken in context with other reports of coverage I believe that it does have some validity.

Dead Zone Reports as of July 14, 2003

Carrier San Francisco Area San Jose Area
AT&T 85 62
Cingular 72 90
Nextel 9 4
Sprint 53 34
T-Mobile 19 6
Verizon 49 16

 

Why Do AT&T and Verizon Consistently get the Top Ratings for Coverage?
The reason for Verizon's and AT&T's superiority is very simple; they were here first (at least the companies they evolved from were here first), they have the 800 Mhz spectrum, and they put up gobs of sites before communities started regulating towers as strictly. Verizon started as GTE Mobilenet, AT&T used to be Cellular One (owned by Airtouch). While digital sites need to be more closely spaced (due to the lower transmitting power of digital phones) at least you can be assured of at least an analog signal in most areas.

In most areas, AT&T and Verizon's coverage are not measurably different. However lately I have been getting more reports of AT&T dead spots. Two areas that I have found with poor AT&T coverage are parts of Moraga and in Santa Clara along Mission College Blvd between Great America Parkway and Montague Expressway. Santa Cruz just got AT&T coverage as the result of a swap between Dobson and AT&T (Dobson got AT&T's Alaska territory).

Please don't go just by the rankings. Check coverage at your home and workplace with each system by asking friends and colleagues. Also check the maps on the carrier's web sites, though these are usually not very detailed.

Cingular
The California PUC Investigation of Cingular states: "Customers found they did not have coverage where they lived, worked or commuted, or that their calls were routinely dropped. Many stated that limitations in system coverage or capacity were not disclosed to them. Many were angry at Cingular's unwillingness to provide a refund or cancellation without charging the ETF (early termination fee) and, in some instances, the full sale price of the phones and other fees as well, even when the customer was willing to return the phone. Customers felt trapped into inadequate service with Cingular." 

What was Cingular's response? "Cingular insists it attracted more complaints in California last year because it doubled its customer base there in 2001 and mistakenly printed the PUC's telephone number too prominently on bills."  So what they are saying is that many subscribers that were unhappy enough to complain to the PUC would not have done so if Cingular had made the telephone number of the PUC less obvious.


Nextel, a Special Case

Nextel is primarily suited to businesses that have no need for coverage outside urban areas, and that need the two-way radio feature (Push to Talk). Nextel uses a proprietary technology called iDEN, which is not compatible with any other carrier's network. 

Even though Nextel is rated last (tied with Cingular) for coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nextel has never tried to market itself to customers for whom ubiquitous coverage is a necessity. Nextel has carved out a very profitable niche in servicing business customers but makes only token attempts to lure individual subscribers.

I originally did not include Nextel in this web site because I felt that it was unfair to compare them against conventional cellular carriers. However I have received several e-mails, some of them not very nice, asking why I did not include Nextel, so I added them.

Several countries in South America have iDEN networks, as do two countries in Asia (Israel and the Philippines)


MetroPCS

MetroPCS began selling its $35, pre-billed, unlimited CDMA cellular PCS service in the San Francisco Bay Area on October 1st, 2002. Unlimited calls within the covered area cost $35 per month. Long distance calls are billed at 5 cents per minute, and you must buy them in "buckets" of 200 at a time. No roaming is possible outside the coverage area (though it may be possible to make credit card calls at a very high per minute rate). The monthly fee must be paid in advance.

Three phones are available, an Ericsson T206, a Kyocera 2235, and a Kyocera 1155. 

The quality of coverage is unknown. The coverage map shows a lot of gaps; no coverage in Los Gatos, Pacifica, Moraga, Castro Valley, Woodside, Mill Valley, Napa, Petaluma, or Santa Cruz.

I guess that this may be a good deal for a teenager's phone, there is no way to rack up huge monthly charges, but I question the value of this service for the vast majority of cellular subscribers. If you have good coverage at your house then this may be a good landline replacement, but unfortunately none of the phones they offer will work in a Voxlink or CellSocket.


Surveys and Tests on Local Coverage
Bay Area Consumers Checkbook, see "http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/kpix/20020917/lo_kpix/4478." To read the whole article you have to subscribe or pay $10 (or read it at a library).

Epinions, see "http://www.epinions.com/elec-Comm-Mobileservice-All-San_Francisco_San_Jose_Oakland" where you can compare user polls on coverage.

Mountain Wireless, see http://www.mountainwireless.com/cellcal.htm for general reviews of all the California carriers, and http://www.mountainwireless.com/ratings=20.htm for ratings of the carriers.

On Magazine did an informal survey. Nationally their ratings were, in order, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Voicestream, and Cingular. However in the Bay Area they recommended AT&T or Sprint due to one dropped call on Verizon. Click for Survey.

There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 3rd, 2002 about Cingular, and how the state Public Utilities Commission is investigating them due to thousands of complaints about lack of coverage, see: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/07/03/MN166137.DTL . Similar article in USA Today, Click for Article

A Gartner survey of satisfaction ratings had Verizon at 87%, AT&T at 80%, Sprint at 79%, Nextel and Cingular at 63%. The same survey did dissatisfaction ratings, Cingular and Nextel were at 38%, Sprint was at 21%, AT&T were at 20%, and Verizon was at 13%.

Now that T-Mobile is sharing Cingular's facilities, things will get worse before they get better. In an article in the July 18, 2002 San Jose Mercury News, Mike Landberg writes: "What's more, T-Mobile will be using the already weak network run by Cingular. If T-Mobile signs up lots of customers and Cingular fails to live up to promises to fix its many problems, both T-Mobile and Cingular customers could become singularly unhappy." As noted above, this is not completely accurate. T-Mobile customers will have the same coverage issues, but the capacity issues that Cingular users have been complaining about should not be a problem.


Coverage on BART
At the present time there is no cellular coverage on the underground sections of the BART system (except for a few stations). BART has been discussing the possibility of allowing carriers to install antennas in the tunnels (for a fee), as a way to increase revenue. There was a tentative deal but it fell through as the economy began to deteriorate in 2001.

Some BART stations have been wired for service, notably Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell and Civic Center stations now have AT&T wireless coverage.

BART is open to the carriers providing coverage inside the tunnels, but so far no carrier has wanted to ante up. In a way I think this is a good thing!

There is an article on this subject at: http://www.sanbrunobart.com/Bart2sfo/News/020914-1.shtml


Comments
AT&T has excellent TDMA coverage. AT&T also has fair GSM coverage in the Bay Area. AT&T finally offers GAIT service with one handset. AT&T's GSM service is initially at 1900 Mhz only, which means that the quality of service will be worse than their TDMA service. Eventually they will deploy 800 Mhz GSM which will solve the in-building coverage issue.

AT&T GSM, Cingular, and T-Mobile do not have analog roaming  (other than one GAIT phone on AT&T), and cannot roam onto any other systems other than some GSM systems. This is a major hassle if you travel outside the metropolitan area, i.e. there is no coverage in areas like Angel's Camp or Bear Valley, or on Highway 50 up to Lake Tahoe (though Cingular has said that they will be adding coverage on Highway 50 soon). With the other three providers you still are able to use the old analog cellular system that is present in many smaller towns, as well as the many small CDMA and TDMA systems. Cingular coverage is spotty throughout the area. Coverage will improve as both AT&T and Cingular convert their existing TDMA networks to GSM, but for now the coverage is poor. AT&T GSM has more roaming onto other GSM systems because of the ability to roam onto AT&T affiliates such as Edge Wireless.

Sprint coverage is much better than Cingular, but still spotty, i.e. parts of Cupertino and Fremont have no coverage.

Verizon has the best coverage. Verizon operates at 800 Mhz in this area which is a big advantage over Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile.


Bottom Line on Local Coverage
AT&T and Verizon have the best local, on-network coverage. If you can live with the coverage of Cingular's network then opt for T-Mobile's better rates, but if you must have GSM, AT&T GSM is the best choice in terms of coverage. Remember that with AT&T TDMA there are no data services. AT&T GSM is the best choice if you want GSM service.


Return to San Francisco Bay Area Cellular Carrier Comparison