L.A. Cellular Beats Rivals in Wireless Derby

In the first study to assess the quality of L.A.’s wireless networks, L.A. Cellular’s network performed better than those owned by AirTouch Communications, Sprint PCS and Pacific Bell Mobile Services. The survey did not include Nextel Communications, which built its service out of radio dispatch systems and sells mainly to business customers.

L.A. Cellular’s network ranked highest in each of three areas, including call connection, call retention and call quality, that were studied by Milpitas, Calif.-based Emerald Bay Systems. The study compared six networks, including both L.A. Cellular and AirTouch’s analog and digital networks. A network is a collection of cellular tower antennas that capture and forward the signals that make up a cell phone conversation.

L.A. Cellular said the findings confirm internal studies.

“What we find encouraging about these findings is that here’s an independent third party that reaffirms where we’ve been all along,” said Hank Bonde, L.A. Cellular’s president and general manager.

To conduct the study, Emerald Bay purchased phones and calling plans from each of the carriers. For a month in the early summer, the company made about 5,000 two-minute calls on each network from points in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. Testers, who drove about 9,000 miles in all, made calls from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays.

One of the striking things about the study were the findings for “good call performance,” which measures whether a call connects on the first attempt, holds through the conversation and has clear voice quality in both directions.

None of the carriers scored higher than 83% on this measure, with L.A. Cellular’s analog service providing “good call performance” about 82.2% of the time; L.A. Cellular’s digital service, 80.5%; AirTouch’s digital service, 78.2%; its analog service, 75.3%; PacBell, 74.2%; and Sprint, 59%.

These findings demonstrate that wireless phones still have a way to go before they can imitate their land-line cousins in terms of quality and network access.

Also note that the study is merely a snapshot of what carriers’ networks were like on the day they were tested. Industry watchers say L.A.’s size, the number of subscribers here and the area’s topography affect wireless networks in different ways on different days.

“Carriers are putting in more networks and cell sites all the time,” said Deepak Sant, president of Emerald Bay Systems. “So these things are pretty dynamic--it’s not like a land-line network.” Because of this, Sant plans to conduct another network study in the five-county region in six months.

AirTouch came in a close second to L.A. Cellular in the overall results category, with the carriers’ scores separated in some cases by a single percentage point. PacBell Mobile placed third in the overall results and Sprint PCS fourth. The study found that these digital carriers’ networks failed more often to connect calls, while analog carriers’ networks had more calls scored as failures because of static or other clarity problems.

The study’s findings are not a surprise. As incumbents in the Los Angeles region, L.A. Cellular and AirTouch have had more than a decade to build out and fine-tune their networks. They have also been able to piggyback their digital networks onto existing analog towers.

On the other hand, digital providers, which rely on a portion of the radio spectrum they purchased from the FCC several years ago, have had significantly less time to pump up their infrastructure. PacBell Mobile entered the California market last summer, while Sprint debuted in Southern California last Thanksgiving.

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Thus far, PacBell and Sprint have concentrated building efforts in Southern California’s most populated areas. Consequently, Sprint does not have service in Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. PacBell’s network covers about 85% of Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties but doesn’t extend to the state’s border, where testers placed some calls.

Emerald Bay’s overall score for Sprint was unfair, said Rod Egdorf, Los Angeles-area vice president for Sprint PCS Southern California/Nevada, because the report averaged the findings from each of the five counties, and Sprint doesn’t cover three of the counties studied.

Sprint plans to have service available in Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties sometime this fall, and PacBell also is building out its networks in these counties.

Growing pains for digital carriers’ networks don’t seem to be harming their image with consumers. Indeed, about 75% of new cell phone subscribers in the first quarter of this year signed up for digital service, said Mark Lowenstein, vice president of Yankee Group, a Boston-based market research firm.

AirTouch also took a dissenting view of some of the study’s findings, saying that because it has “significantly more customers” than L.A. Cellular, its network is more crowded--leading to lower access scores in the study.

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Battle of the Networks

L.A. Cellular rated No. 1 in the first study of wireless networks in the five-county Los Angeles region. How each of the six networks tested by Milpitas, Calif.-based Emerald Bay Systems ranked in the areas of network access, call retention and call performance:

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Call connection Call retention Good call Network rate* rate* performance** AirTouch analog 94.1% 92.4% 75.3% AirTouch Powerband 89.3 87.2 78.2 L.A. Cellular analog 94.8 93.3 82.2 L.A. Cellular SmartDigital 95.5 92.6 80.5 Pacific Bell 84.6 82.5 74.2 Sprint PCS 69.4 66.8 59.0

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Note: Results include findings from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

*Call connection measures whether the call connects on the first try. A retained call is one that connects on the first try and holds through the conversation.

** A good call is defined as one that connects on the first try, holds through the conversation and has good voice quality in both directions.