james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> i can see why cingular would try to spin it that way given that they
> looked so bad in the study which showed quite significant differences.

As far as I have seen, Cingular hasn't responded publicly to the
Consumer Reports article yet. They are typically very careful in
responses like this, because Consumer Reports has so much influence, and
is so well respected for their surveys (if not their reviews of
products). They typically won't dispute the results, they'll just say
that they are working on improving their network, that they are spending
hundreds of millions of dollars on these improvements, and that future
results will be better.

In some of the metro areas they surveyed, the differences were rather
small, only a couple of points, while in others there were large
differences, including LA, Miami, the Twin Cities, Phoenix, San Diego,
San Francisco, Tampa, and D.C.. Actually Miami blew me away, as Cingular
now owns both the A & B side 800 MHz spectrum, while Verizon is at 1900
MHz. To have such a large difference means that Verizon really went all
out in placing towers in that area.

> a lot of people are going to smirk when they see one of those
> cingular billboards asserting fewest dropped calls, particularly if
> they are driving with someone whose cingular phone has no signal
> whatsoever.... something that happens quite often in the new york
> metropolitan area and connecticut.

Why will they smirk? They need to take Cingular's claim literally. They
aren't going to drop a call when they can't make a call in the first
place. No doubt Cingular wants people to think that "fewest dropped
calls" means the same as "best coverage," but they never claimed to have
the best coverage. Of course they don't have the fewest dropped calls
either.