Alltel/AT&T divested markets

[An Asteroid]

Thanks! So does the 3 months free promo now require a two-year commitment on the secondary lines? And can you still get a one-year contract with Alltel in these areas (i.e. no contract, 1 year, 2 year)?

[mataama]

I was in an alltel store in North Dakota earlier this week and there are no more 1 year contracts and they went back to 2 year contracts. I just got a letter in the mail yesterday about the transition and will be receiving ordering information in the next few weeks and the letter said that the completion up here would be later this year or early next year.

[iamtheraingoddess]

Wirelessly posted (Scott\'s Palm Treo 700p: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; Smartphone; 176x220))

Still no communication from AllT&T here in SE New Mexico. The suspense is killing me!

[sgbf]

I also live in ND, and received the letter as well. It didn't however answer the question I think many people are interested in.

On the transition portal website (and Q&A) that you see when logging into Alltel from a ATT divested area, there seems to be many hints at exchanging current phones (or upgrading) to an iPhone. It's mentioned SEVERAL times, so obviously ATT has a plan for this and other similar phones like the Galaxy S.

Now, I understand that changing over to an Iphone requires changing to an ATT contract + 2 year agreeement, but I'm curious what exactly the handset charge will be. Will it be different depending on one's current handset?

Looking at the (not trying to flame) prices of the comparable 3-line plan and necessary add-ons per line, I'm trying to figure out what the best course of action is. My family is currently all on dumb phones (all post-contract) with txt msging included in the plan. While the the other lines don't need much, I'm headed the smart phone route. I wonder if it makes sense to hold out for grabbing an iPhone/something else and some free/better dumb-phones for them (do they also get a discount off the new ATT contract price for trading their old phones in?) or just making the switch over to Sprint...Grabbing a Droid and some reasonable-priced smart/dumb phones for the fam on a EPR data/msg plan. Discounts on the handsets would go a ways towards off-setting price/feature differences between what I currently have, the alternative from Sprint, or decision to stay with A...T&T (that felt weird).

Any insight into pricing on handsets, especially with switching to an ATT contract is appreciated. If no one knows specifics, will that be explained in the next letter? I'm sure I'm not the only one in this boat.

[LTN-GNX]

I don't work for AT&T/Alltel, but knowing Apple and AT&T's history it's pretty easy to guess... if you want an iPhone you'll pay $199/$299 and sign a 2-year contract on an AT&T plan. Just guessing, ya know...

[wildimagination2003]

I got the letter from AT&T today. Doesn't really give much information other than what is widely available on here already. I live in SW Virginia. I really wish this would come soon, I want a new phone bad.

[Felecia E]

One, UMTS has no hard distance limit AFAIK. Two, CDMA2000 1xEVDO DOES have a hard distance limit, as it's both time divided and code divided. I have no clue what this limit is.

GSM could have easily had a larger distance limit than it does by simply adding another bit to the time offset value. They didn't do this as it was seen as a waste of bandwidth (minimal as it would have been) since the 35km limit is beyond anything anyone designing GSM expected a cell site to serve. Telstra in Australia did come up with a hack to make GSM work at 70km, though without data, by inserting a blank time slot and programming the cell tower to treat that as in the time slot. This was a poor hack that didn't work well (no data) and halved bandwidth.

There are very, very few areas where a cell tower would be expected to function beyond 35km. CDMA fanboys and the misinformed have perpetuated this as a major problem with GSM technology, but it's just not. A 35 km radius is 70km diameter. That means that in normal GSM cell sites can be spaced up to a theoretical 70km apart before the distance limit becomes an issue. Only in absolutely perfectly flat terrain does signal strength not fall off long before the distance limit comes into play. It has to be extremely rural perfectly flat terrain as well or else capacity will be an issue.

With these things under consideration, even in a GSM environment, there are only a tiny number of Alltel sites that would experience reduced coverage as a result of the GSM distance limit. Not only that, they're the sites that matter least - the most rural sites covering truly the middle of nowhere.

Now, this is all a non-issue since AT&T won't be using GSM, they'll be using UMTS. They've said that since day one and nothing has changed.

[susan n]

I live in SW Minnesota, from the divesture map, it looks like I will be going to AT&T but not sure since Verizon has already merged some Alltel customers, except for me. So I called Verizon sales and spoke with a guy that told me that he could not port my number over, he would need to give me a new one. I then asked if I would be a part of ther merger with Verizon, and he said no. So I am guessing I will soon be gobbled up by AT&T, right? I haven't received any information from Alltel/AT&T about the merger like others has here. Anyone know what's going on with SW Minnesota's market, I can't seem to find too much information on it.

[johnsmithdd30]

Welcome to the forums. I live in west central Minnesota.
In the SW corner of the state, here is how it works:
If you are a current Verizon or Unicel customer, you will become an AT&T customer and will get a new phone. If you are a current Alltel customer, you will become a Verizon customer and won't need a new phone.

[Emelia D]

Wow, that seems like it is going to cause a lot of chaos between customers. Especially the ones who just purchased a Droid by Motorola! So I am an Alltel Customer now, So I will be Verizon then right? I just wonder why he said he couldn't port my number and that I won't be a part of the merger.