The history of wireless service competition in the US is one of a Robin Williams-like bi-polar freak.  Duopoly until the mid 90s followed by hyper-competition where you can get a service plan at the mall with your kid’s meal. 

What a difference 15 years makes…

One’s natural reaction to the statistics about coverage, technology, penetration, etc is likely positive.  Hyper-competition among wireless service provider has arguable driven prices down and forced carriers to step their game up and spend to stay near the front of the pack.

This hyper-competition has surely played a role in the advancement of new technologies (3G/4G) and prices that allow the US consumer to enjoy wireless service so much that more than 25% of US households no longer have a landline phone.

But not all is bright and shiny on the wireless frontier. 

Ask anyone with an at&t iphone how they like their device, and they’ll swear they can’t live without it.  Ask them about the call quality, and they’ll likely LOL sarcastically and tell you they drop more calls than Charlie Sheen drops 7 gram rocks in his pipe.  Consumer Reports’ survey of 58,000 US cellular subscribers rates at&t as the worst carrier in the US.

First off, let’s make sure we make it clear, that at&t is not the only bad service provider out there.  You could also ask any customer of any of the other guys about their experience, and odds are you’ll hear a fair share of complaints there as well.

So why is at&t so bad? 

You guessed it.  Hyper-competition (in a round-about way). 

In 1995, the companies that are now at&t were in the middle of overlaying their first digital technology upgrade to their 1G analog cellular networks (TDMA).  Some might call that first overlay 2G, but it was really a 1G analog network with some new digital tennis shoes.  A few years later, that overlay got yet another overlay with the worldwide leader in 2G digital technologies of the mid 90s, GSM.  This coincided with the FCC’s auctioning of PCS spectrum that tore down the duopoly wall.  Now there were upwards of 8 potential carriers in any given geographical market that could build and operate networks.  It was the gold rush for wireless service providers, the race to grab the most customers as quickly as possible.  With that came huge capital spending to improve coverage, the rapid reduction in prices for service, and the general rule that the customer is king.

The wireless infrastructure vendor business was booming.  Technology companies like Lucent, Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Motorola were experiencing rocketing stock prices and record-setting revenues.  New cell sites and technology overlays were going up as fast as houses and hotels on a Monopoly board.

So what does all of this have to do with why at&t is the worst carrier in the US?

Well, they and the rest of the industry took their eye off the engineering fundamentals of their networks,  at&t more than anyone else. 

To exacerbate the problem, they also spun off, merged, bought, and consolidated from CellularOne, to AT&T, to Cingular, and back to to at&t with a bunch of other stops and company names in between that are too confusing to mention.

Our company, ATECS LLC, has been along for the ride throughout all of this.  We’ve been like a remora attached to a great white shark.  Always along for the ride, doing our busy work to try and keep the shark healthy, but powerless to influence its life impacting decisions.

So what they are left with now is a network frame of a 1988 Ford Taurus that has had a Corvette drive train upgrade, a Mercedes suspension system upgrade, and a soon to be Ferrari power plant upgrade.  On their own, pretty sweet improvements.  But the resulting ride, err network, is an eclectic mash-up of ideas poorly implemented that needs to be stripped back down to the frame and rebuilt.  If the Ferrari motor is going to drive the car, err network, like it’s supposed to, there’s no other option.

That’s where the T-Mobile purchase comes in.  While T-Mobile on its own is not exactly the star of the class either, it is a 1995 Mercedes that has had Mercedes factory upgrades over the years.  They still have plenty of coverage holes, and definitely have also taken their eye off network quality just like everyone else.  But if we were to part out the T-Mobile and at&t networks and put them back together, there are plenty of pieces to result and pretty high performing network.

All at&t has to do is be patient and forward thinking enough to recognize the opportunity to pick and choose the best parts of the two companies combined networks and they can seriously compete with Verizon every year as the nation’s best nationwide carrier.  Slap the T-Mobile network on the back tow hitch like Sprint did with Nextel, and Verizon will be looking at them in their rear view mirror for good.

From a technological perspective, the wireless world has left the first of these two motives for these NIMBY sentiments in the past.  Cell sites are no longer located on large masses of interlocking steel members.  They are located on existing structures such as buildings, water tanks, light poles, or an other facility with slightly more verticality than the average surrounding trees and buildings in the area.  If not co-located on existing structures, they are built as new slim looking monopoles or other “stealth” looking structures such as trees, windmills, or flagpoles.

At one time, health safety relative to radio frequency exposure might have seemed like rational justification for cell site paranoia.  It’s understandable that one wouldn’t want a health hazard in their back yard.  However, the maturity of regulatory policies in the US along with wireless operators’ maturity in complying with those same health safety policies have all but eliminated the possibility of unsafe cell sites being operated.  Over its last 10 years in business,   ATECS wireless services group has witnessed this change. 

10 years ago, very few of ATECS’ clients, which included all of the top 5 cellular service providers in the United States, had a policy of regularly analyzing their sites either before or after construction to insure compliance with the FCC’s policies and guidelines for radio frequency emissions and exposure levels.  However, over the last 5 years, all of ATECS’ service operator clients have adopted policies and procedures for analyzing sites to insure compliance with the FCC regulations for emission levels.  ATECS has directly performed analysis of hundreds of cell sites for its clients.  Approximately 95% of the sites analyzed were in full compliance with the FCC’s regulations.  Approximately 4% of sites were non-compliant for reasons other than actual emission levels.  Most were due to lack of required signage or security preventing non-occupational personnel from accessing their antennas.   Only about 1% of sites analyzed had excessive emission levels that needed to be mitigated, and in all cases mitigation was performed.

So one might ask, “can I really trust that that the FCC’s policies are truly setting emissions at a safe level?”  It’s understandable in this day and age of special interest influence on government policy to be suspect of these policies’ validity.  But upon closely looking into the process that was used in authoring FCC OET Bulletin 65, you find that the foundation for the emission levels defined were other health policies developed outside the influence of the FCC.  Namely, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI),  and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP).  In addition, there were 38 individuals from outside the FCC that reviewed and commented on the draft policy prior to its finalization.  Notice how many professors, medical doctors, and other non-influenced professions are represented:

Joseph A. Amato, Maxwell RF Radiation Safety, Ltd.

Edward Aslan, Lockheed Martin Microwave (Narda)

Ameritech Mobile Communications, Inc.

Dr. Tadeusz M. Babij, Florida International University

Dr. Quirano Balzano, Motorola

David Baron, P.E., Holaday Industries, Inc.

Howard I. Bassen, U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Clarence M. Beverage, Communications Technologies, Inc.

Dr. Donald J. Bowen, AT&T Laboratories

Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association

Dr. C.K. Chou, City of Hope National Medical Center

Jules Cohen, P.E., Consulting Engineer

Dr. David L. Conover, National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health

Cohen, Dippell and Everist, P.C.

Robert D. Culver, Lohnes and Culver

Fred J. Dietrich, Ph.D., Globalstar

Electromagnetic Energy Association

Professor Om P. Gandhi, University of Utah

Robert Gonsett, Communications General Corp.

Hammett & Edison, Inc.

Norbert Hankin, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

James B. Hatfield, Hatfield & Dawson

Robert Johnson

Dr. John A. Leonowich

Dr. W. Gregory Lotz, National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health

Frederick O. Maia, National Volunteer Examiners (Amateur Radio Service)

Ed Mantiply, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Robert Moore

Dr. Daniel Murray, Okanagan University College

Dr. John M. Osepchuk, Full Spectrum Consulting

Professor Wayne Overbeck, California State University, Fullerton

Personal Communications Industry Association

Ronald C. Petersen, Lucent Technologies

David B. Popkin

Kazimierz Siwiak, P.E.

Richard A. Tell, Richard Tell Associates, Inc.

Rory Van Tuyl, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

Louis A. Williams, Jr., Louis A. Williams, Jr. and Associates

But let’s assume for argument sake that everything presented up to this point is flawed and that you don’t trust the companies building cell sites or the FCC’s policies that regulate them.  Just stop and think about the technical world we all live in today and the regular sources of emissions you live in and around all the time.  You probably have cordless phones in your home.  More than 2 out of 3 Americans use a cellular phone.  Your laptop and/or tablet use WiFi and Bluetooth.  Do you have a wireless router for your cable modem or DSL service?  What about a DVR or internet TV that uses WiFi to connect to your favorite movie streaming service.  Most of us not only use microwave ovens, but don’t hesitate to stand directly in front of them while they’re operating.  What about the emissions from your computer monitor, television, or even hair dryer?  Now consider that a typical cell site 100 yards away from your house only emits RF emissions at less than 1% of the levels of emissions you expose yourself to from EACH of the above mentioned sources.  If the levels set by the FCC are truly unsafe, then we should all be much more concerned with the numerous other sources of emissions we live in and around than any levels that a nearby cell site produce at your home or child’s school.  It’s like being worried about dying from mosquito born malaria when you’re a construction worker perched 50 stories in the air welding beams with an arc welder without a welding mask. 

If you’re still not convinced by any of this, then please don’t call your cellular carrier’s customer care department to complain about your lack of service in your home or office.  Or don’t expect your teenager’s phone to work at their school.  Because without cell sites existing in proximity to any of these places, service levels necessary for you to upload your picture to your Facebook page using your new iPhone 4 will also not exist.  And oh yeah, you should probably get rid of your cordless phones, iPads, cell phones and microwave ovens.  Or maybe you just like dressing up with tinfoil on your head to attend a zoning hearing in protest of the new cross that one of the cellular carriers is going to build at your church.  You know, the same cross that will house  a cell site that will bring thousands of dollars per year of lease revenue to the church.