Verizon and AT&T are swapping customers in Upstate New York, Vermont, and the south. Current Unicel customers in Vermont and Upstate New York will move automatically to AT&T which will establish a presence in the region for the first time. When Verizon wound up owning Unicel last year, its GSM subscribers stood out from the CDMA subscribers of the rest of the Verizon network (which, apparently, is why they never merged them). Because AT&T is GSM, it's happy to have the Unicel customers; the other half of the swap apparently is the reverse transaction, with Verizon picking up some CDMA customers that Rural Cellular (Unicel's parent) had lying about.
Those of us with iPhones who live in the North Country have had to be very careful not to use them excessively. Although AT&T doesn't charge roaming fees, like many other companies it will close your account if you use too many roaming minutes ("too many" apparently is more than 50%, but it's not specified anywhere that I can find). My iPhone gets a perfectly good signal in Plattsburgh, but it's the Unicel signal, and so I haven't used it much. That's why I have two cell phones--one for use when I'm away from home (the iPhone), and one for here.
There's been a little coverage of this deal, but mostly just reports that it would happen "mid-year." I walked into the Unicel store in Plattsburgh a few weeks ago and asked the point-blank what was happening. They said that on June 2, they would become an AT&T store, so that seemed confirmation enough.
Because it really irks me to be paying two bills and forced to use the clunky Treo 650 from Sprint (that, in all fairness, I once thought was state-of-the-art), I've been trying to find out more. (I also am really annoyed that Sprint charges me for each text message, and in order to get a better deal, I have to sign a new contract, which makes no sense because I'm dropping the service momentarily.) And I have found more information--no thanks to the local media. (I guess that's why the good lord invented blogs and bloggers...)
If you check the AT&T coverage map (it seems to be updated at the end of each month), you'll see that AT&T is now showing coverage at the Plattsburgh airport, up in Chazy, and down in Peru. Apparently, these were areas of poor reception in the Unicel network, so it made sense for AT&T to beef them up.
I wondered if the airport signal was close enough for me to pick it up, so I made a test call a few weeks ago. The next day, I called AT&T and asked them if they saw a roaming call the previous day, and they didn't. The woman I spoke to said she showed three towers near my home that were AT&T.
Back to the map--no change. Although it seemed old--the map date was 3/31--Plattsburgh was clearly not covered by AT&T. Today, the 4/30 map appeared, and it clearly shows AT&T service in Plattsburgh. So between the test call and confirmation from AT&T and the map, it seems that indeed we have non-roaming service.
The only thing we don't have yet is number portability. My guess is that when the Unicel store becomes an AT&T store on June 2, I'll be able to move my existing phone # from Sprint to AT&T, and all will be well.
And for anyone else with an iPhone in the new AT&T coverage region, my suggestion is that you do the same thing I did. Make a test call, wait a day for the records to update, and then confirm with AT&T that it was not a roaming call. If not, you can cancel your other cell phone, but you'll have to wait (probably until June 2) if you want to port that number over to your iPhone.
Wouldn't it be nice to have local media coverage of technology? Or do we bloggers have to do it?
P.S. This appears to be a Plattsburgh story. The Burlington area on the 4/30 map does not show AT&T coverage, so maybe they're implementing it gradually. If someone from Vermont has more info, feel free to comment on this post.
