Hoping to understand why 67 percent of U.S. subscribers said they would be interested in changing their wireless service provider in a 1999 survey, the Yankee Group has compared wireless coverage in the United States to four countries with high wireless penetration and usage rates: Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Finland.
“We all hear complaints from subscribers and from foreign visitors about supposed shortcomings in wireless coverage,” said Mark Lowenstein, executive vice president for wireless programs at the Yankee Group. “Dropping the occasional voice call is OK, but who is responsible when you’re dropped in the middle of doing a stock trade on your mobile phone?”
Key factors found that explain U.S. coverage challenges include a low cell-site density due to a large land mass and great distances between big cities, (2.3 sites per 100 square miles, compared with Finland’s 3.8, Japan’s 9.4, the U.K.’s 20 and Germany’s 35 cell-sites per 100 square miles).
Another factor is the country’s low population density of 75 people per square mile. Finland, which has half the U.S. population density, has more than three times the number of cell sites per 10,000 people, indicating a more comprehensive wireless infrastructure.
Combining low urbanization, travel patterns and suburban sprawl, the Yankee Group calculated the average U.S. wireless user also requires a coverage area of 1,330 square miles, which is 14 times what a user in Japan would need, five times in Germany and three-and-a-half times in the United Kingdom and Finland.
The U.S. market also is fragmented, with 80,000 cell sites spread across 10 major carriers using different air interfaces and incompatible networks, resulting in a misallocation of resources. The Yankee Group thinks the structure of upcoming spectrum auctions might exacerbate the fragmentation problem.
“But there’s reason for hope,” said Eugene Signorini, an analyst with the Yankee Group’s Wireless/Mobile Services Planning Service, and principal author of the report. “Recent merger activity among wireless operators, the development of extensive affiliate partnerships, long-term roaming agreements, the emergence and growth of tower consolidators and technologies such as repeaters, smart antennas and multimode phones are all helping to alleviate coverage issues and move the industry in a positive direction.”
