About a week ago I noticed that all of a sudden there was CDPD on the A-side
coverage in Poughkeepsie, NY.

The A-system is Poughkeepsie, which is now owned by AT&T, used to be US
Cellular who during their "stewardship" (abandonment?) of the 00503 market
barely paid any attention to CDPD wireless data, not to mention less
esoteric things such as coverage and integration with nationwide networks.
(Indeed, even after last year's AT&T takeover, if you call an AT&TWS/Cell
One Poughkeepsie customer and he/she does not answer, the call still
supervises, and you are *billed* for the call! They have known about this
for 4 years and have done nothing to fix it -- more long distance revenue
for AT&T I guess, eh? :) And from the way things are going for them LD-wise,
they need it! )

Anyhow, so I notice that there is CDPD coverage (and very good coverage in
many areas, -60Db or so) in Poughkeepsie, along the Taconic State Parkway,
up at Vassar, along NY-9D, etc., ie, areas where there was no CDPD coverage
before. In general, the area seems to have been turned on for CDPD in the
past few weeks and potentially more areas in that market will come online
soon. This marks the beginning of the (by me at least) long awaited arrival
of CDPD in the Mid-Hudson Valley despite the fact that BAMS has had these
markets (except the Catskills/01516 system) for years and never bothered to
add CDPD transmitters to their towers. The AT&T system in Poughkeepsie
should fit in nicely with their CDPD systems for NY Metro (00025 analog) and
their tiny and underdeveloped cellular and CDPD system in Litchfield County,
CT (01101), which are adjacent to the Poughkeepsie market to the south and
east, respectively.

The CDPD channels used there differ from AT&T's NY Metro system, which are
generally 670-686, and some low 700's sometimes pop up (but I get confused
at the 700's since BAMS uses a lot of them). The CDPD channels used in
Poughkeepsie stay strictly between 40 and 72, and most of the towers are
either 40 or 42.

However, every time we try to register on one of our AT&T IP's, were get a
"registration denied", ie, AT&T is not letting us use the Poughkeepsie
network.

So seeing as how they had similar problems after they added Vanguard (Maine
and Eastern PA, see my posts at http://www.wirelessnotes.org), I figured I'd
call them last week and see if they could open a trouble ticket.

So I call their Advanced Data Support Group (it's like 5 people it seems,
you always talk to the same people!) and spoke to Jordan, who appears to
work on weekends, at least in part.

After going through the usual stuff (is you computer set to "A 
preferred"? I
said "It's actually A only" so he says "Well, set it to preferred..." HUH?
Where does AT&T have a B-side system? This begins to indicate the intellect
of the help...:( ), he comes back and says "AT&T has no coverage in
Poughkeepsie -- it's not our market" So I tell him "Ummm...so the SPNI I get
is 3232, isn't that yours? And the A side in Poughkeepsie is owned by AT&T,
so since CDPD runs off the analog network, WHO WOULD IT BE?"...fortunately,
before he could answer, AT&T/Cell One's coverage cut out, and my phone was
cut off [You see, there IS a reason AT&T's coverage is so pathetic there!
:) ] so I gave up and said to myself "Whatever, when they turn it on they
turn it on and that's that...I lived without it for a few years I'll manage
a bit longer". Sad but true that AT&T's general attitude towards things like
this has worn me down so that I just give up with them when I get the CDPD
equivalent of the cellular customer service rep's favorite question "Is your
phone powered on?" :)

Later on that day, since I had some time while driving, I called the AT&TWS
ATAC, and this guy Tom answers and sounds like I just woke him up, so I
start asking him about the issue, but not to be disturbed from his sleep he
interrupts and says "You need to get a trouble ticket to address this issue"
(which perhaps is the proper procedure which is understandable) and then we
get cut off yet again (on US-9 near NY-52) so I give up for the day.

So later on during the week, one of our other AT&TWS IPs starts having
problems around I-84, in an area which previously worked fine. As it turns
out, the AT&T CDPD signal from NY Metro is weaker than the new Poughkeepsie
system, so the laptop doesn't pick up the NY Metro channel 686 signal any
more and instead latches on to the Poughkeepsie channel 40 signal but of
course can't register.

So now the issue is more serious -- we can not use service where we only
recently have been able to and expect to be able to use it and where,
according to AT&T's own Web-site CDPD ZIP code locator, we should be able to
(Anyone want to get out of their CDPD contract with AT&TWS? Here's a good
way to do it! :) )

So I have a generally incompetent person from our office call AT&T to get a
trouble ticket and get the ball rolling (I figure let our incompetents deal
with theirs, eh? :) ). So after our incompetent and clueless person (who
after being told what CDPD is 4 times can't remember that it is a *wireless*
technology calls AT&T long distance at (800) 222-0400! ) can't get anywhere,
I call them up and tell them that this is a much larger problem now. So AT&T
(rightfully) tells me I need to go to the market to test it, even if it is
on a weekend which is when I am generally there.

Anyhow, so this weekend, I try it out, and indeed, areas which were able to
get CDPD coverage from AT&T's NY Metro Market a month ago are now being
saturated with signal from the Poughkeepsie system, so much so that the
Seirra Wireless cards and software only try to register on the Poughkeepsie
system and not the NY Metro channels. Since we can't register on the
Poughkeepsie system, we basically can't use AT&T's CDPD in areas where we
used to be able to just fine -- and, this is a result of their OWN
engineering failures, not some other carrier's barging in on their system.

So we call them again and speak to "Leslie", who after listening to the
problem asks about the RSSI (signal strength) and channels for a trouble
ticket. When she is told the RSSI is sometimes -60Db, she says "Oh, then
that can't be our system, it's never that strong" (Well, at least you are
honest about the shortcomings of your service! But I've gotten much better
than that with AT&T, around -50Db is some areas, and on BAMS in Atlantic
City right on US-30 near a tower before the causeway got a -47Db signal just
a few days ago, so I'm not sure what she is talking about...perhaps more of
the usual "Customer Service knows more than you do" attitude you get so much
of from them...)

Anyhow, she proceeds to take a trouble ticket and says we will get called
back, but so far no calls, and no answers.

Basically, they are doing their usual runaround when it comes to an issue
they can not immediately diagnose. All I want from them is some response
like "Yes, we are putting in new service in Poughkeepsie, we know there is
some interference, and it will allow you to register in three weeks so after
then it shouldn't be a problem". Something like that would be fine -- we can
wait three weeks, or if it will be longer, then let us roam on the BAMS
coverage there for free without roaming charges.

We're willing to be flexible and understand that it takes a while at times
to set up a new system (although I have no idea why they won't let AT&T
customers register on the Poughkeepsie system), but they are at this point
just giving us a runaround and wasting our time with endless calls and
trouble tickets which seem to get no where.

AT&T, as well as a number of other carriers, is spending a lot of money to
offer wireless data services, but if this is the sort of thing which
(modestly) somewhat technically oriented people need to go through just to
get an answer as to why their service isn't working I can imagine why
somewhat less technically adept users would just give up on wireless data
altogether...

Coupled with the multitude of coverage problems, aforementioned service
issues, and limited service value (see how AT&T has had to eat roaming
charges for cellphone browsers and offer the service for free to a vast
majority of their customers?), I regularly wonder why the carriers expect
customers to flock to a suite of services which they time and time again
demonstrate an utter inability to master and support.

I'll post as soon as AT&TWS resolves this -- IF they do ;(

-Doug

dsr1@interpage.net
www.wirelessnotes.org