December 16, 2002
(Computerworld)
While outfits such as Traq-wireless Inc. and LetsTalk.com believe they have developed systems to help hold down cellular phone costs, executives at both companies acknowledge that they can't help solve one of the most frustrating problems of the mobile age: determining where in the country or even within a particular city a cell phone will work.
That's a task that's left to each of the approximately 137 million cell phone subscribers in the U.S. It's a rather thankless one, too, with few resources even in this age of Google to help pinpoint the coverage of any of the major cellular carriers.
The easiest way to determine whether your carrier covers the area you're in is to turn it on and see if you get a signal. But what if you're taking a multistate, cross-country business trip and want to know if your phone will work in six or seven different urban, suburban or rural locations?
Most of the major carriers provide reasonably good coverage of the top 50 cities and their nearby suburbs because the carriers built their cell towers to serve the largest possible customer base.
But forget about coverage in much of rural America. Cell carriers put up towers to serve people, not cows.
To cater to travelers, the major carriers have also tried to blanket the interstate highway system -- but don't expect coverage if you wander far off the interstate. Sprint PCS Group provides excellent coverage of I-95 from Washington to Richmond, Va., but don't expect to access the company's network from the U.S. Marine base in Quantico, Va. The highway is close enough to Quantico for observers to hear the traffic from the base, but Quantico is too far from the Sprint PCS tower to make a call.
You can avoid getting stuck without coverage in problem areas such as Quantico by checking out the coverage maps the cell carriers maintain on their Web sites. However, these maps are so broadly drawn and cover such wide geographic areas that using them to home in on a small town -- let alone a neighborhood in an urban area -- offers as much precision as trying to locate the same town on the kind of globe found in an elementary school classroom.
Finding carrier coverage maps can require a lot of point-and-clicks on a Web site. To access the coverage map on the Web site of Redmond, Wash.-based AT&T Wireless Services Inc., you first have to click the "Shop" button, which then pops up a Web page that asks for the ZIP code. Type in 90001, a Los Angeles ZIP code, and the site then takes you to a Web page taht asks you to choose a plan. Select "local" (because you want to see what kind of coverage you can get on a Los Angeles visit combined with a trip to Palm Springs), and you're presented with a map of California, Nevada and Arizona.
Little red squiggles on the map indicate the AT&T Wireless digital calling area, where you can use features such as voice mail, and you can determine that digital coverage is probably available in the areas immediately around Palm Springs, but not much farther.
Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless makes the coverage search a little easier by putting a ZIP code button on the main page. Input the Los Angeles ZIP code, and you go to Cingular's shopping page, which features "maps" as one of the links. Click on a local Los Angeles calling plan (Superhome), and you're taken to a page that allows you to choose a California/Nevada map. Since this map has only a small slice of Nevada and Arizona, it's slightly easier -- though just as imprecise -- to eyeball how your phone will work in Palm Springs than the AT&T Wireless map.
Sprint PCS also features a ZIP code button on its Web site. Type in the Los Angeles ZIP code, and you're immediately shunted to a page with a map of Southern California, a national service map and a series of rate plans. Click on the Southern California map, and you pop up an even larger map, which makes it easy to see that this carrier offers service not only in Palm Springs, but also all along Interstate 10 from Riverside to the Arizona border. Sprint PCS has the best of a bad lot of coverage maps from the four major national carriers.
Bedminster, N.J.-based Verizon Wireless also has a ZIP code button, but the maps (two Web pages away) offer little to the traveler -- just a big blue blob covering California, Nevada and Arizona and a disclaimer that the map doesn't represent coverage but merely a general service area.
The best way to determine whether a cell carrier has service in an area you plan to visit is to try to locate the cell towers. Even if you do find a tower, they all have "dead zones" that they don't cover because of buildings or hills that may block signals.
The Dead Cell Zones Web site helps you pinpoint gaps in coverage in cities nationwide, based on contributions from frustrated callers. Check it out before your next trip, and if you experience a dropped call, you can help build the database with your input.