T-Mobile to offer cellular service in San Juan County
— from OPALCO and Rock Island —
Rock Island will deliver on its promise to bring wireless services to both home and business users in San Juan County via LTE Fixed Wireless by working with T-Mobile USA, Inc.
“This is a win-win collaboration. We gain the ability to provide fixed LTE to our customers and T-Mobile customers now get expanded 4G LTE service in San Juan County. For the first time, we will now have true, contiguous cellular coverage in this rural island community,” says Gerry Lawlor, EVP of Rock Island.
T-Mobile brings their extensive design and engineering experience to the effort, as well as core and radio networks, equipment, maintenance and support while OPALCO/Rock Island provides the installation services, power and fiber infrastructure. Both parties are bringing wireless spectrum to collectively expand wireless capability to islanders. There is no financial exchange in this agreement.
“Bellevue-based T-Mobile is rapidly expanding its wireless network, more than doubling its LTE coverage in the past year. As a part of its coverage expansion, T-Mobile launched Extended Range LTE, using the same type of 700 MHz spectrum that OPALCO purchased in 2014.
T-Mobile’s experience and proven track record substantially reduce the risk for Rock Island’s start-up operations, and provide the ability to get to market with superior fixed LTE wireless services,” says Foster Hildreth, General Manager of both OPALCO and Rock Island. “Rock Island will dramatically improve communications for first responders resulting in better public safety county-wide. This will be equally beneficial for people dialing into 911.
The LTE network build out has already begun and service will be robust by the end of the year. “Customers who have expressed interest in receiving fixed LTE wireless service will be contacted as their area comes online,” says Lawlor. “Please be patient with us as we deploy throughout the community. Rock Island’s fixed LTE service is designed to serve the further reaches of the community. Those where fiber deployment costs are excessive will be given priority.”
LTE wireless products are not a fiber replacement. Fiber connections will always be Rock Island’s first market priority as fiber to the home provides the greatest capacity and scale for long-term use. LTE Fixed wireless is best suited to serve customers in isolated areas and where fiber installation is not feasible.
“Only a co-op could broker this kind of agreement,” said Hildreth. “We have the spectrum and infrastructure, T-Mobile has the equipment and expertise. When we merge interests, the co-op membership is the big winner as truly excellent services transform our quality of life in San Juan County.”
Rock Island stores in Eastsound and Friday will serve as local retail outlets for T-Mobile wireless sales beginning this spring.
About Rock Island Communications
Rock Island Communications provides modern, scalable and reliable broadband services to the homes and businesses in San Juan County. They are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Orcas Power & Light Cooperative. For more information, go to www.rockisland.com and follow us on Facebook.
About OPALCO
For the latest information about OPALCO, go to: www.opalco.com; sign up for our email newsletter (https://www.opalco.com/about/email-signup/); and follow us on Facebook (Orcas Power & Light Cooperative) and Twitter (@orcaspower). OPALCO is our member-owned cooperative, powering more than 11,000 members on 20 islands in San Juan County since 1937.
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Um great. OPALCO digs in so deep it needs help, then in order to save themselves, they align with a cellular provider that almost nobody uses in the islands- forcing us all to shift providers. And it’s T-Mobile, the carrier with the worst reputation in the business for cutting corners- sort of like the Century Link of cell phones. Gracious me, when will the madness end?
Today I was listening to public radio and there was talk about T-Mobile being the upcoming cellular provider that
is coming across as being the most up front and honest !
I know that my last experience with AT&T was not very good
and I am part of the new generation without a land line so
no more Century Link Connection. So we need to make sure
that Opalco keeps us informed about their decisions.
Earl, your comments don’t match current industry reports and or sentiment. T-Mobile is the fastest growing provider in the nation at the moment due to their customer friendliness and technical advancements.
Consumer Reports ranks T-Mobile as No. 1 carrier
https://money.cnn.com/2015/12/03/technology/t-mobile-verizon-consumer-reports/
T-Mobile has the happiest wireless subscribers
https://bgr.com/2016/02/04/t-mobile-jd-power-customer-satisfaction/
https://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/2016-us-wireless-customer-care-fs-nc-performance-studies-vol-1
T-Mobile’s (NYSE:TMUS) LTE network expanded geographically by nearly 250 percent in 2015, company executives boasted, and now covers 304 million POPs. CTO Neville Ray credited most of that expansion to T-Mobile’s used of 700 MHz A block spectrum, which it has deployed to a population of 185 million POPs.
“A big part of [the overall LTE growth] was the low-band spectrum that we secured in ’14, and we really got through clearance and deployment in a very meaningful way in ’15,” Ray said at an investor conference. “Originally we had 190 million licensed POPs of 700 coverage; by the end of ’15 we rolled out additional 185 million. Nobody has ever rolled out that much LTE with new spectrum with broadcasters to clear, zoning and jurisdictional battles to go through.”
Roughly half of T-Mobile’s LTE customers use a handset that supports low-band spectrum, and 60 percent of the carrier’s customer base access its LTE network.
“Forty percent of voice calls are on LTE,” Ray continued. “Ask my competition where they are. I know one of them is at zero, and the other two are pretty close to zero. So their adoption of really moving into an IP era of communications — voice, RCS, video, VoLTE, all those pieces — we are the most advanced on that, hands-down.”
That enables T-Mobile to refarm its spectrum and move away from legacy 2G and 3G services more quickly than its competitors can, Ray said. And T-Mobile plans to be aggressive in the upcoming incentive auction of 600 MHz spectrum, deploying services over those airwaves in 2017 and 2018 despite competitors’ claims that leveraging that spectrum will take longer. Indeed, a top AT&T executive said this week that the carrier might not deploy its own 600 MHz spectrum — if it wins it in the auction — until 2021.
T-Mobile’s network expansion coupled with its uncarrier marketing campaign have paid dividends in a very big way during the past two years. The operator reported this week that it added more than 2 million subscribers during the fourth quarter, extending a streak of 11 consecutive quarters with at least 1 million net adds. The news also marks the third consecutive quarter of more than 2 million net adds for T-Mobile.
Executives also didn’t shy away from the recent controversy over T-Mobile’s Binge On program. The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently said that T-Mobile is slowing the transmission speeds of all video regardless of whether the content provider is part of T-Mobile’s Binge On program. T-Mobile initially denied it was throttling such transmissions, claiming it was only “degrading” the content, and T-Mobile representatives continue to decline to respond to the EFF’s allegations directly.
But T-Mobile executives at the investor conference touted the network payload benefits of the program as well as the ability for consumers to turn the service on and off. And according the company, its customers like Binge On.
“Customers love it,” said COO Mike Sievert. “We’re dumbfounded that there are people out there that are critiquing it on a vague net neutrality basis; it’s crazy to us. This is something that’s a huge step forward for customers.”
I now have the LTE service and it works great. I also have kept Verizon and my local Verizon extender unit and both are working well. I discontinued the DSL service from Century Link but kept my hard line phone service (most of you will not need to). I told the Century Link service representative that I would like to keep my basic phone service plus caller ID and the message center. I stressed that although I would like to keep them I could get along without them. What is the best rate for that service? They transferred me to a supervisor who gave me a total rate of about $17.95 per month.
Now I have great 7 to 10 MB Internet service plus hardline service for much less that I paid for the miserable 3 MB or less inconsistent DSL service.
If you can get the LTE service, do it! A service technician can set it up for you for $100 or you can pick up the unit from Rock Island and very easily do it yourself or $50. It is modem and wireless router in one. The speed for both seems to be the same.
I don’t care about the politics, I now have great service for Internet and cell phone. That’s the bottom line.