Cingular to Set Up 25 Cell Phone Sites in Fresno County, Calif.

Aug. 5–Cingular Wireless plans to add 25 cell phone sites in Fresno County by the end of the year as part of a $1 billion investment in the state, the company announced this week.

“We need more cell sites in order to fill our commitments to more bars in more places,” said Fred Devereux, company general manager and vice president for Northern California.

The “bars” are the graphical displays on Cingular phones that depict reception strength: the more bars, the better the service.

Cell sites contain the antennas that make up a cell phone company’s network. Each time you make a call, radio signals are sent to the nearest antenna and then routed to wires that carry a call to its destination.

Each cell site can handle a limited number of calls. So with the rising popularity of cell phones, companies must build more cell sites to keep networks strong.

“The only way to get more capacity is to build cell sites that are closer together,” said Andrew Seybold, a national cell-phone industry analyst in Santa Barbara.

Cingular’s investment in Fresno is part of a $6.2 billion project nationwide to enhance the company’s “Allover” network, a digital voice and data network serving its 51.6 million customers across the nation.

About one-sixth of the money will be spent in California, paying for 730 new cell sites. Cingular’s recent $41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless led to the massive investment in the state, Seybold said.

As part of the merger, Cingular ended an agreement with T-Mobile, under which the two companies shared a wireless network in California and Nevada. Cingular now is working to move customers to the former AT&T Wireless network, which Seybold said is not as robust as the Cingular/T-Mobile network.

“They have now come in with huge investments because they don’t want their customers to suffer,” Seybold said.

Cingular spokesman Mike Broom said the company is making the investment to “provide our customers with even greater quality and service.”

Cingular plans to migrate customers during the next four years from the T-Mobile network to the AT&T network — now known as the Cingular network, Broom said.

Some customers may have to change phones to be compatible with the new network. But for the most part, he said, the transition should be seamless.

Cingular officials declined to say exactly how many Cingular cell sites are in Fresno, citing competitive factors.

“We have hundreds of sites in that area, and this is a significant addition to that,” Devereux said of the expansion.

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