Consumer Reports Ratings are Out----Verizon top carrier in 14 outof 20 cities, T-Mobile top carrier in 3 cities

In article <8k8hn253so7hnc2ijkrajg6726slt2nn2d@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:23:39 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> <jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
> <jgkeegan-F75845.18233907122006@individual.net>:

> >> Differences were actually relatively small and not terribly meaningful
> >
> >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.
>
> Wrong on both counts.

i see you supported that allegation with the same evidence you
support so many others.

you must feel, well, foolish.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:27:01 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
<jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
<jgkeegan-FAC08D.18270107122006@individual.net>:

>In article <8k8hn253so7hnc2ijkrajg6726slt2nn2d@4ax.com>,
> John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:23:39 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
>> <jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
>> <jgkeegan-F75845.18233907122006@individual.net>:
>
>> >> Differences were actually relatively small and not terribly meaningful
>> >
>> >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.
>>
>> Wrong on both counts.
>
>i see you supported that allegation with the same evidence you
>support so many others.

I've posted ample evidence, as I'm sure you know.

>you must feel, well, foolish.

I actually feel, well, puzzled that you would want to make yourself seem
so silly and childish.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:24:34 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
<jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
<jgkeegan-3B0144.18243407122006@individual.net>:

>In article <ph7hn2l0caa3np35ufc69v7onihl01q5i0@4ax.com>,
> John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>> wrote in <4577589f$0$82555$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
>> >With such a huge statistical sample,
>> >there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
>> >0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
>> >220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
>> >equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
>> >would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
>>
>> On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
>> counts.
>
>john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
>continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.

Truth hurts that much?

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

"Tinman" <ask@for.it> wrote in message news:4tqgmsF15e32fU1@mid.individual.net...
> I work on billing and CRM software development, and can empathize with what
> you go through.
>
> It's a tough decision, when dealing with such a myriad of issues. On one
> hand, it's nice to provide structured fields that a CSR must fill in. Take
> that a step further and they merely choose from pick-lists. And then as soon
> as you lock it down that much there is undoubtedly a significant percentage
> of calls that don't fit the structure.
>
> So sometimes--and I am not fond of this--you are back with simple,
> unstructured, notes entry. This requires strong policy-and-procedure on the
> work-flow side to ensure it's being used adequately. Making it simply a
> required entry, without effective policy to go along with it (including
> monitoring) results in what you see: a lot of worthless comments in notes.
> What a waste of valuable information that could have--should have--been
> captured properly during the calls.

As a former tech support rep, I can sympathize with the CSRs.
The pressure to keep call completion time as low as possible is
enormous. Until that policy is changed, you'll continue to see
virtually meaningless cryptic entries in the call logs.

--
John Richards

In article <159hn29hkcjooqgbubg1r7lmdkou34henb@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:24:34 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> <jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
> <jgkeegan-3B0144.18243407122006@individual.net>:
>
> >In article <ph7hn2l0caa3np35ufc69v7onihl01q5i0@4ax.com>,
> > John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> >> wrote in <4577589f$0$82555$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
> >
> >> >With such a huge statistical sample,
> >> >there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
> >> >0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
> >> >220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
> >> >equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
> >> >would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
> >>
> >> On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
> >> counts.
> >
> >john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
> >continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
>
> Truth hurts that much?

i don't know. you didn't post any

In article <t19hn21e66kcr2ii6otgs0g50g2mf4qgis@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:27:01 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> <jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
> <jgkeegan-FAC08D.18270107122006@individual.net>:
>
> >In article <8k8hn253so7hnc2ijkrajg6726slt2nn2d@4ax.com>,
> > John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:23:39 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> >> <jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
> >> <jgkeegan-F75845.18233907122006@individual.net>:
> >
> >> >> Differences were actually relatively small and not terribly meaningful
> >> >
> >> >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.
> >>
> >> Wrong on both counts.
> >
> >i see you supported that allegation with the same evidence you
> >support so many others.
>
> I've posted ample evidence, as I'm sure you know.

if by "ample," you mean none whatsoever when you are called on to do
so, i do know that. i commented primarily because i knew you could
not.

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.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:05:26 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4578ac47$0$82579$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>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.

The differences were actually small in all areas.

>> 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.

Kindly take your Verizon trolling someplace more appropriate.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:39:48 GMT, John Navas
<spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:05:26 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>wrote in <4578ac47$0$82579$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
>>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.
>
>The differences were actually small in all areas.
>
>>> 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.
>
>Kindly take your Verizon trolling someplace more appropriate.


well, so much for surveys. for the real life test go with cingular.
verizon has great coverage.........where they have coverage, but that
is not that many places. i have verizon and i rv, so i get around.
verizon is worthless. cingular has twice the coverage that verizon
has and that is being conservative. i get nothing at all at about 80%
of the places that we go camping at, yet my friends with cingular have
never lost the signal. talk all the tech crap that you want, that is
a real life comparison. verizon sux. their customer support is
terrible. i will drop them as soon as i can and will go to cingular.

james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
> continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.

In order to continue shilling for Cingular, it's a requirement that he
be ignorant of statistics, or at least pretend to be.

In article <4578ac47$0$82579$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:

> james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> > 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.

that's what my friend, a cingular user realized, when they needed to
borrow my (verizon) phone repeatedly to make calls.


> 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.

and cu nailed them for that blatant misrepresentation.

In article <8vchn2ptb2shc5ski09cfr6n4ueh44qitu@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:05:26 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <4578ac47$0$82579$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
> >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.
>
> The differences were actually small in all areas.

john, the cu report i have says otherwise.

can you cite the source you are referring to.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:05:42 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4578d688$0$82609$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>james g. keegan jr. wrote:
>
>> john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
>> continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
>
>In order to continue shilling for Cingular, it's a requirement that he
>be ignorant of statistics, or at least pretend to be.

'Those who have evidence will present their evidence,
whereas those who do not have evidence will attack the man.'

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> that's what my friend, a cingular user realized, when they needed to
> borrow my (verizon) phone repeatedly to make calls.

Yes, that often happens to me and other members of my family. It's most
common when were in places like state and county parks, not far from our
house, up in the Santa Cruz mountains, and at ski areas around Lake
Tahoe. However in the urban core, Cingular does okay now.

>> 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.
>
> and cu nailed them for that blatant misrepresentation.

It was very nice to see CU nail them like that. Even though other
reports took them to task for the lack of data from Telephia, as well as
the Sprint lawsuit over the claim, a report like that from CU carries
a lot more weight.

In article <bbohn2p7emi78apme6v2f0d9pbiln4a1b7@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:05:42 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <4578d688$0$82609$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
> >james g. keegan jr. wrote:
> >
> >> john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
> >> continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
> >
> >In order to continue shilling for Cingular, it's a requirement that he
> >be ignorant of statistics, or at least pretend to be.
>
> 'Those who have evidence will present their evidence,
> whereas those who do not have evidence will attack the man.'

glad to see you admit attacking the man and had no evidence to
support your attacks.

but, shouldn't you have apologized?

james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> john, the cu report i have says otherwise.
>
> can you cite the source you are referring to.

I have the Consumer Reports January 2007 issue in front of me.

Out of 20 cities:

Cingular was much worse than Verizon in Los Angeles, Miami,
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, San Diego, Tampa, and Washington D.C. (7
cities).

8 or more

Cingular was significantly worse than Verizon in Boston, Cleveland,
Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco (6 cities).

6-7

Cingular was moderately worse than Verizon in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas,
New York, Seattle (5 cities)

4-5

Cingular was slightly worse than Verizon in Denver and Saint Louis (2
cities).

Obviously John is reading a different publication, or he is
fictionalizing again.

John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:159hn29hkcjooqgbubg1r7lmdkou34henb@4ax.com:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:24:34 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> <jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
> <jgkeegan-3B0144.18243407122006@individual.net>:
>

>>
>>john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
>>continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
>
> Truth hurts that much?
>


You wouln't know the truth if it came up to you with a name tag on.

John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:bbohn2p7emi78apme6v2f0d9pbiln4a1b7@4ax.com:

..
>
> 'Those who have evidence will present their evidence,
> whereas those who do not have evidence will attack the man.'
>

Wait, Johnny- you forgot the rest of the quote:
"...and John Novice will continue to drink the kool-aid."

John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:h8vdn21s4l2gm99gl0htvhel1nvghbosno@4ax.com:

...
>
> In fact that's still an issue -- lumping together different
> populations (ENS GSM, non-ENS GSM, single-band GSM, and D-AMPS
> ["TDMA"]) makes the overall results no more meaningful than the
> average of one breast per person. Likewise with Sprint Nextel --
> lumping iDEN and CDMA together is just as invalid.
>


Bullshit, but keep grasping at those straws. And please don't bore us with
your google links to things you have no experience with.

John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:5vudn2pphdosn35rq1ap6aubb0mo1dcstg@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:38:14 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <45761f08$0$82584$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
>>The January 2007 Consumer Reports has their annual survey of cellular
>>phone service out. They surveyed about 43,000 cellular subscribers and
>>rate the carriers in 20 metropolitan areas on metrics of coverage,
>>network congestion, dropped calls, and static.
>>
>>As in previous years, Verizon is the top carrier in most metro areas,
>>but T-Mobile and Alltel also did well in many areas.
>>
>>The most amusing part of the story is the sidebar about Cingular's
claim
>>of "fewest dropped calls." Consumer Reports states: "our own surveys
>>have found Cingular to be only about average when it comes to dropped
>>calls and one of the poorer performers in terms of overall
satisfaction."
>>
>>This annual survey is statistically the most accurate survey of
wireless
>>carriers,
>
> Actually not a good statistical sample, due to its self-selected
nature
> from a non-representative universe.

Bullshit.

>
>>though J.D. Power's survey of about 24,000 users has a
>>similarly small margin of errer.
>
> Actually a fairly large margin of error, comparable in size to
> differences between carriers.


See previous comment.

>
>>JD Power reached essentially the same
>>conclusions as Consumer Reports, with Verizon and T-Mobile leading in
>>all regions.
>
> The conclusion actually reached was:
>
> As a group, the carriers still leave much to be desired, Consumer
> Reports editorialized.
>
> They scored only 66 on a scale of 100 for overall satisfaction. ...
>
> In other words, differences were relatively small and not terribly
> meaningful.
>


You forgot one other conclusion that was much clearer than those-
Cingular absolutely sucks at overall customer service.

Scott wrote:
> John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
> news:h8vdn21s4l2gm99gl0htvhel1nvghbosno@4ax.com:
>
> ..
>> In fact that's still an issue -- lumping together different
>> populations (ENS GSM, non-ENS GSM, single-band GSM, and D-AMPS
>> ["TDMA"]) makes the overall results no more meaningful than the
>> average of one breast per person. Likewise with Sprint Nextel --
>> lumping iDEN and CDMA together is just as invalid.
>>
>
>
> Bullshit, but keep grasping at those straws. And please don't bore us with
> your google links to things you have no experience with.

This one is really grasping too, since by Cingular's own admission,
there are very very few users still on TDMA, and the ones that remain
use very few minutes. Two years ago, the TDMA/AMPS users were dragging
the Cingular score up not down.

iDEN users probably do drag down Sprint's score slightly, but not all
that much since most iDEN users don't use their Nextel phones as their
primary phone. There are a lot of iDEN users with work-provided PTT
handsets, but these users know that the iDEN network is not something
that they can depend on for non-business use.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:09:53 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4578e594$0$82582$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>james g. keegan jr. wrote:
>
>> john, the cu report i have says otherwise.
>>
>> can you cite the source you are referring to.
>
>I have the Consumer Reports January 2007 issue in front of me.
>
>Out of 20 cities:
>
>Cingular was much worse than Verizon in Los Angeles, Miami,
>Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, San Diego, Tampa, and Washington D.C. (7
>cities).
>
>8 or more
>
>Cingular was significantly worse than Verizon in Boston, Cleveland,
>Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco (6 cities).
>
>6-7
>
>Cingular was moderately worse than Verizon in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas,
>New York, Seattle (5 cities)
>
>4-5
>
>Cingular was slightly worse than Verizon in Denver and Saint Louis (2
>cities).
>
>Obviously John is reading a different publication, or he is
>fictionalizing again.

Actually just reporting facts, instead of gross exaggerations.
Again:

As a group, the carriers still leave much to be desired, Consumer
Reports editorialized.

They scored only 66 on a scale of 100 for overall satisfaction. ...

Kindly take your inappropriate trolling to a more appropriate forum.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:55:37 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4578e23c$0$82609$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>james g. keegan jr. wrote:
>
>> that's what my friend, a cingular user realized, when they needed to
>> borrow my (verizon) phone repeatedly to make calls.
>
>Yes, that often happens to me and other members of my family. It's most
>common when were in places like state and county parks, not far from our
>house, up in the Santa Cruz mountains, and at ski areas around Lake
>Tahoe.

If true, your phones need to be updated.

>However in the urban core, Cingular does okay now.

Actually the best of all carriers.

>>> 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.
>>
>> and cu nailed them for that blatant misrepresentation.
>
>It was very nice to see CU nail them like that.

Hardly.

>Even though other
>reports took them to task for the lack of data from Telephia, as well as
> the Sprint lawsuit over the claim, a report like that from CU carries
>a lot more weight.

The Sprint lawsuit went nowhere.

And then we have Verizon's best network claims based solely on its own
secret internal testing, which of course lacks any credibility
whatsoever. So why not criticize Verizon?

Kindly take your Verizon trolling someplace more appropriate.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:48:31 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4578eea2$0$82548$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Scott wrote:
>> John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
>> news:h8vdn21s4l2gm99gl0htvhel1nvghbosno@4ax.com:
>>
>> ..
>>> In fact that's still an issue -- lumping together different
>>> populations (ENS GSM, non-ENS GSM, single-band GSM, and D-AMPS
>>> ["TDMA"]) makes the overall results no more meaningful than the
>>> average of one breast per person. Likewise with Sprint Nextel --
>>> lumping iDEN and CDMA together is just as invalid.
>>
>> Bullshit, but keep grasping at those straws. And please don't bore us with
>> your google links to things you have no experience with.
>
>This one is really grasping too, since by Cingular's own admission,
>there are very very few users still on TDMA, and the ones that remain
>use very few minutes. Two years ago, the TDMA/AMPS users were dragging
>the Cingular score up not down.
>
>iDEN users probably do drag down Sprint's score slightly, but not all
>that much since most iDEN users don't use their Nextel phones as their
>primary phone. There are a lot of iDEN users with work-provided PTT
>handsets, but these users know that the iDEN network is not something
>that they can depend on for non-business use.

Lumping together different populations (ENS GSM, non-ENS GSM,
single-band GSM, and D-AMPS ["TDMA"]) makes the overall results no more
meaningful than the average of one breast per person. Likewise iDEN and
CDMA2000.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:3urhn25a8nqf8486a6mkulq4pgp1pvov4h@4ax.com:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:55:37 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <4578e23c$0$82609$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
>>james g. keegan jr. wrote:
>>
>>> that's what my friend, a cingular user realized, when they needed to
>>> borrow my (verizon) phone repeatedly to make calls.
>>
>>Yes, that often happens to me and other members of my family. It's
>>most common when were in places like state and county parks, not far
>>from our house, up in the Santa Cruz mountains, and at ski areas
>>around Lake Tahoe.
>
> If true, your phones need to be updated.

Wow- you haven't used that line in a couple of months. It used to be
your stock answer.


>
>>However in the urban core, Cingular does okay now.
>
> Actually the best of all carriers.

Source?

>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> and cu nailed them for that blatant misrepresentation.
>>
>>It was very nice to see CU nail them like that.
>
> Hardly.

Drink some more kool-aid, Johnny.

>
>>Even though other
>>reports took them to task for the lack of data from Telephia, as well
>>as
>> the Sprint lawsuit over the claim, a report like that from CU
>> carries
>>a lot more weight.
>
> The Sprint lawsuit went nowhere.
>
> And then we have Verizon's best network claims based solely on its own
> secret internal testing, which of course lacks any credibility
> whatsoever. So why not criticize Verizon?


How many times a day do you have to post this whining before it
qualifies as spam?

>
> Kindly take your Verizon trolling someplace more appropriate.

Kindly remove your head from the corporate Cingular ass.
>

Jay Leno must have a Cingular Phone because of a comment he made in his
monologue several months ago:

Cingular has the fewest dropped calls... If you can't make a call, then you
can't drop the call.

hehehehehehehehehe!

Scott wrote:

>> If true, your phones need to be updated.
>
> Wow- you haven't used that line in a couple of months. It used to be
> your stock answer.

In any case, it's not my phones, they work fine, it's everyone else's
phones that apparently need to be updated to be able to work with
non-existent Cingular towers in the areas in question.

>>> However in the urban core, Cingular does okay now.
>> Actually the best of all carriers.
>
> Source?

Heavy sigh...of course there is no source. You should know that by now.

>>>>> 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.
>>>> and cu nailed them for that blatant misrepresentation.
>>> It was very nice to see CU nail them like that.
>> Hardly.
>
> Drink some more kool-aid, Johnny.

Enough with the Jonestown references. But the bottom line is that the CR
article was devastating to Cingular, not only because of the survey
results where they did so poorly, but because of the sidebar on "fewest
dropped calls."

>> And then we have Verizon's best network claims based solely on its own
>> secret internal testing, which of course lacks any credibility
>> whatsoever. So why not criticize Verizon?
>
> How many times a day do you have to post this whining before it
> qualifies as spam?

If not for the Consumer Reports survey, the JD Power survey, the
Consumer Checkbook survey, and other reports, that corroborate Verizon's
claims, then Verizon would deserve to be criticized. It's hard to
criticize a carrier that's consistently top-rated in every survey,
surveys with a huge sample size, that are conducted by expert
statisticians, simply because they tout their own testing that comes to
the same conclusion. I think that's why Navas is so visibly upset. It's
one thing when someone on Usenet makes statements on network quality,
it's another thing when three reputable organizations all come to the
same conclusion. If I were a Cingular shill like Navas, I'd be upset too!

>> Kindly take your Verizon trolling someplace more appropriate.
>
> Kindly remove your head from the corporate Cingular ass.

It's so far up there that I'm afraid it's stuck.

In article <3urhn25a8nqf8486a6mkulq4pgp1pvov4h@4ax.com>, John Navas wrote:

> And then we have Verizon's best network claims based solely on its own
> secret internal testing, which of course lacks any credibility
> whatsoever. So why not criticize Verizon?

Both companies suck, at least as far as advertising is concerned. John's
statement is true. Cingular's claim is based on an "independent report",
except that the report is from a company they paid to do the research!
Hardly independent. So they're no better.

--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Victorville, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 23:12:45 GMT, John Navas
<spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

>
>>In reality the CR sample
>>was extremely large, and even when you break it down by city, as they
>>did, the sample was still large.
>
>But still suffering from the above defect.


Try hard to cover up hpw bad Cingular came out (and Spint even worse).

The Yankee Group and JD Power surveys gice the same results, and same
results year aftyer year.

SMS wrote:

> iDEN users probably do drag down Sprint's score slightly, but not all
> that much since most iDEN users don't use their Nextel phones as their
> primary phone. There are a lot of iDEN users with work-provided PTT
> handsets, but these users know that the iDEN network is not something
> that they can depend on for non-business use.

I saw in the CR article that they did not include iDEN customers in the
ratings, the Sprint results are solely for CDMA (and whatever AMPS
roaming Sprint customers engage in).