As if to faceoff with Wireless Philadelphia, the planned city-wide WiFi network, Cingular Wireless, the country’s largest wireless provider, today announced it will invest more than $200 million this year in the Greater Philadelphia area - including turning on-air approximately 140 new cell sites. Nationwide, the company is spending more than $6 billion dollars on its ALLOVER network, the nation’s largest digital voice and data network.
“Better wireless coverage and performance is exactly what Cingular is delivering in more places than ever before in metropolitan Philadelphia, central and northeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware,” said Glen Robinson, Cingular’s Executive Director Network Services, Greater Philadelphia.
“We have also boosted network capacity by approximately 30% over the last six months so that our customers experience fewer dropped calls whether they’re using their Cingular service at home, at work or on vacation.” So far this year, Cingular has turned on more than 55 new cell sites in the Greater Philadelphia area.
Meanwhile, Verizon now has 500,000 subscribers for EV-DO compared to its 40 or so million voice subscribers. Sprint’s just released EV-DO pricing is $80 unlimited, but it also offers a $40 plan for 40 megabytes that is capped at $90 if users exceed their quota.
Philadelphia, also the corporate home of Comcast, is building a huge municipal Wifi network, and should decide on a company in the next few days.
Meanwhile, The Muniwireless Second Anniversary Report is out. You can download it here (PDF format).
The Report contains a list of municipalities around the world that have deployed or are about to deploy citywide wireless broadband networks. In addition to the list are tables that show how much they are spending on their networks, what applications they are using and the business models they are implementing to meet their goals.
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