At 21 Feb 2008 12:00:36 +0000 John Navas wrote:

> >Occam's razor would suggest a passing cruise ship as a more likely source
>
> You obviously don't know the area. There are no "passing cruise ships"
> with open microcells.

No, I don't know the area. And IIRC, you didn't offer up the GPS
coordinates when asked (but admittedly that thread was a long time ago-
perhaps you did and I've forgotten.)


> >of his signal than an as of yet unannounced, and troublesome technology
> >(the idea of reducing tower capacity by half just so passing yachtsmen 40
> >miles offshore can make calls is a stretch of logic.)
>
> Actually makes a good deal of sense. Offshore coverage by AT&T Wireless
> along the California coast is quite good.

But GSM can already cover up to 20 miles or so offshore without resorting
to any capacity-reducing tricks, so why does it "make sense" to use ER-GSM?
Are you suggesting that there's actually enough voice and data traffic in
the strip of ocean between 20 and 40 miles from shore to justify cutting
the capacity of all towers up and down the California coast in half, and
locking out GPRS use on those towers?

> On a recent delivery to
> Mexico I had coverage most of the way even when well offshore.

More than 20 miles?

> >Even more interesting, everything I've read about Extended Range GSM in
the
> >VERY few places where deployed indicates that GPRS/EDGE data is generally
> >disabled on ER towers, due to the fact that ER doubles the number of
> >timeslots needed, making any claim of using "Extended GSM" with a data-
> > only card even more dubious!
>
> You obviously don't know the card either.

What's to know? It's a GSM/GPRS/EDGE data-card. What's the big secret?
Were you using CSD? Again, IIRC the original thread, you were data-logging
and transmitting GPS data over cellular when this miracle happened, not
making a voice call with a headset. Unless you've really planned for all
disaster contingencies, most of us don't bother defining CSD fallback DUN
connections in our laptops!