The thing that is interesting is that ALL the carriers are finally starting to fill in the Gulf Coast with towers and coverage. AT&T 3G service, for example is due in Mobile, AL by October. I’m not sure what’s driving this sudden growth. Probably the explosion of popularity of smart phones. There are still vast areas of the west and upper midwest with no coverage at all, though.

The big benefit of CDMA is really building penetration – much better generally than GSM, but AT&Ts 850 frequency gets pretty good penetration. Just hope you don’t have to leave the US – then you’re likely as not to need a totally different phone since CDMA support is non-existent in Europe and many other places.

I was on vacation in the Boundry Waters near Canada on a fishing boat and was suprised to see that I had 3 bars and EVDO coverage. I never saw a tower, but I had a rock solid voice and data connection.

Every time I try Sprint or AT&T I love the phone, but I have to make too many sacrifices in coverage where I travel.

The one area most should be looking at is the pre-pay (pay as you go) areas. This in the UK is big business especially in the teen/student market. All the operators in the UK have pre-pay plans & phones that are head & shoulders above the US carriers; the phones, 3G, internet, MMS, IM, are all a available to pre-pay customers (mind you at a higher price to those on contract) but the teen/student market is where it’s at.

So the US carriers need to look at their markets as a whole. The pre-pay market has actually driven the mobile comms over here giving the operators far more flexibility to expand their business to accommodate all, & boosted the contract end by having pre-pan subscribers move up to full time contracts thus enabling future growth.

They also did not waste money on a merger with Nextel just as everyone grew tired of push to talk, of course.

I think that this is a management problem, not a handset problem.

Even before I was with T-Mobile, I used their services over AT&T because I enjoyed the experiences I had with the folks there (and which made me wanted to be a part of their team too).Sprint not only has to look at the phones but they would have to look at everything including customer services as well if they are to improve.

In Connecticut Sprint has an excellent footprint and the service (except for Nextel) has been excellent.

My guess is a LOT of the pain and loss of subscribers has come from the Nextel side of things. The whole merger was BADLY botched and probably will come unraveled soon (I see people already calling for Sprint to sell off iDen).

What would have ever possessed Sprint to think that walkie talkie would be a service people would continue to demand in light of the widespread free mobile to mobile services. Sure construction crews are big on this – but truth be told they could just as easily use cellular m2m for a big portion of their convos.

Nevertheless the weirdest rumor I read is that Google may acquire Sprint. I see zero upside to Google now taking on the thankless job of running a cell company. If I were Google I’d let someone else manage that for me and no way would I ruin the “Google” brand by pasting it on a cell phone company.

I think that their smaller coverage map is actually more of a problem. Verizon has a better coverage map and ATT has a better coverage map.

Additionally, being a CDMA carrier also means that you make it more difficult to attract international business travelers who also need European coverage (unless they buy one of those feature-limited dual radio phones). Admittedly, I’m not a fan of CDMA due to it’s proprietary nature (as opposed to the standards-based GSM), but the device/service-locked nature of CDMA handsets also leads to a lack of appeal due to the fact that it’s not nearly as easy to change to a new device if the mood strikes you.

Sprint has kind of become the “Buick” of the industry – it appeals to older, conservative folk – nothing trendy here!