Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area

I have 3G in Austin, Texas. Woo hoo.

At 13 Feb 2007 01:26:47 +0000 John Navas wrote:

> when the sampling isn't random, as in the case of CR, where is the
> population isn't representative, and the sample is self-selected, two
> serious flaws.

Non-random and non-representative are not the same thing, necessarily.
If I wanted to determine the average diameter of M&M candies, I could
open a bag, and average the diameters of all of the blue ones. While the
sample was non-random, and perhaps flawed statistically, the sample was
certainly representative and I'll guarantee you my "real world" answer
would be
correct within the margin of error!

Same with the CR study- as non-random as the sample might have been,
there seems to be no good reason to believe why it would not be
representative.

At Starbucks the house coffee sits only for 40 mins. Then It is dumped
out and re-brewed. If you notice on each pot they have electronic egg
times set to go off. Once it does, It's time for a fresh batch.


SMS wrote:
> Don Udel (ETC) wrote:
>> "John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message > On the
>> contrary -- Consumer Reports suffers from a self-selected sample
>>> of a non-representative universe. It also suffers from serious
>>> screwups, like the recent car seat debacle. And it just rated McDonalds
>>> coffee as better than Starbucks -- LOL!
>>
>> And once again CR is right.
>
> Coffee is pretty subjective though, more than even some other food items
> such as ice cream, where the poorer ice creams pump a lot of air in, and
> use artificial flavors and thickeners, and may use corn syrup rather
> than sugar.
>
> That said, according to one article I read, McDonalds started using 100%
> Arabica beans about a year ago. If that's the case, they may really be
> better than Starbucks for regular coffee, since McDonald's sells a lot
> of regular coffee and makes it fresh every few minutes, while at
> Starbucks it can often sit around for an hour while customers buy
> lattes, and frappacinos (sp?). There's nothing special about the beans
> that Starbucks uses versus the coffee that McDonald's uses.
>
> Where CR is most useful is in their surveys of various sorts, such as
> vehicle reliability, and wireless coverage. They aren't asking people
> what they like best, they're asking people for their own experiences, so
> any bias is eliminated. They also use extremely large sample sizes which
> gives their surveys a very small margin of error.
>
> Some people complain that Consumer Reports subscribers aren't
> representative of the population at large, but in reality this cancels
> out when they do their surveys. I don't think that anyone claims that
> with such a huge sample size that the results would be much different if
> they surveyed non-subscribers, though as I pointed out, there might be a
> small difference based on the socio-economic differences between CR
> subscribers and the general population. For many of the metro areas in
> the last survey, including the San Francisco Bay Area, the differences
> between the carriers were quite large. In some areas they were not very
> large.
>
> Oh, and In 'N Out has good iced tea!
>
> [Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
> posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
> and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
> Wireless Service.]

kevinkeithweaver@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> At Starbucks the house coffee sits only for 40 mins. Then It is dumped
> out and re-brewed. If you notice on each pot they have electronic egg
> times set to go off. Once it does, It's time for a fresh batch.

Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
antioxidant benefit.

Coffee has to be ground, brewed and drunk within 20 minutes, otherwise
it became a pro-oxidant.

"Maximum antioxidant activity was observed for the medium-roasted
coffee; the dark coffee had a lower antioxidant activity despite the
increase in color."

From Effect of roasting on the antioxidant activity of coffee brews.
del Castillo MD, Ames JM, Gordon MH. J Agric Food Chem. 2002 Jun
19;50(13):3698-703. School of Food Biosciences, The University of
Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, UK

One more reason to go to a coffee house that uses a medium roast, rather
than going to Starbucks.

Todd Allcock wrote:

> Same with the CR study- as non-random as the sample might have been,
> there seems to be no good reason to believe why it would not be
> representative.

You could probably find a group of people that was non-representative of
the population as a whole, i.e., heavy urban users such as real estate
agents, highly mobile users with a lot of non-urban use such as
truckers, highly mobile users with mainly urban use such as airline
pilots and flight attendants, etc. It might actually be a useful metric
to know which carriers these groups favor and why.

However nothing suggests that CR subscribers are not representative of
the population as a whole. They are generally higher income, and of
higher education level, which means that they travel more, but this
makes the CR survey even more valuable, for those that are interested in
the best coverage.

I think that we all understand that it's all a sour grapes issue by
Navas. On the plus side, the digression into coffee was very interesting.

John Navas wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:26:28 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
> wrote in <UA7Ah.875$tD2.713@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.ne t>:
>
>> John Navas wrote:
>>> On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:31:47 GMT, DTC <no_spam@move_along_folks.foob>
>>> wrote in <no2Ah.783$x74.655@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.ne t>:
>>>
>>>> John Navas wrote:
>>>>> This is, of course, another wishful claim with no real foundation.
>>>> Like Extended GSM, huh?
>>> Not at all -- Extended Range GSM is real.
>> I'll rephrase that...
>>
>> Any citations of its deployment by U.S. carriers?
>
> Nope. Just my own experience.
>
> Any citations to the contrary?

Sometimes you really amaze me with your logic.

John Navas wrote:
> Nope. Just my own experience.
>
> Any citations to the contrary?

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

DTC wrote:
> John Navas wrote:

>>> Any citations of its deployment by U.S. carriers?
>>
>> Nope. Just my own experience.
>>
>> Any citations to the contrary?
>
> Sometimes you really amaze me with your logic.

Yeah, "amaze" is a good word.

Reminds me of my responses when a restaurant owner asks me how I enjoyed
the meal, and the meal was terrible:

"It was unbelievable"
"I've never tasted food like this before"
"I'm going to tell all my friends about this place"
"It's just like my mother used to make"




[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
Wireless Service.]

SMS wrote:
> DTC wrote:
>> John Navas wrote:
>
>>>> Any citations of its deployment by U.S. carriers?
>>>
>>> Nope. Just my own experience.
>>>
>>> Any citations to the contrary?
>>
>> Sometimes you really amaze me with your logic.
>
> Yeah, "amaze" is a good word.
>
> Reminds me of my responses when a restaurant owner asks me how I enjoyed
> the meal, and the meal was terrible:
>
> "It was unbelievable"
> "I've never tasted food like this before"
> "I'm going to tell all my friends about this place"
> "It's just like my mother used to make"

"I can't tell you how good it really was."

--
Notan

At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:

> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
> antioxidant benefit.

To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)

Show me a study that says the effects of caffeine burn off in 20 minutes
and I'll stick a digital alarm on my coffeemaker right now! ;-)

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:
>
>> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
>> antioxidant benefit.
>
> To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
> the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)

The proven health benefits of coffee go way beyond the anti-oxidants.

It's beneficial in the prevention of Alzheimer's, Asthma, Apnea, Colon
and Rectal Cancer, Type 2 Diabetes, Gallstones, Impotence, Headache,
Kidney Stones, Obesity, Parkinson's, Radiation Poisoning, Skin Cancer,
and Suicide.

I just don't like to see some ill-informed health food nuts getting
their panties in a bunch over the fact that coffee has caffeine. An
article that was at PlanetRX.com (now defunct) stated: "Most people
don't think of coffee as a medicinal herb, but it is. The beans are
actually seeds of the coffee shrub, therefore an herbal product. And the
caffeine coffee contains is clearly a drug."

SMS wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>> At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:
>>
>>> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
>>> antioxidant benefit.
>>
>> To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
>> the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)
>
> The proven health benefits of coffee go way beyond the anti-oxidants.
>
> It's beneficial in the prevention of Alzheimer's, Asthma, Apnea, Colon
> and Rectal Cancer, Type 2 Diabetes, Gallstones, Impotence, Headache,
> Kidney Stones, Obesity, Parkinson's, Radiation Poisoning, Skin Cancer,
> and Suicide.
>
> I just don't like to see some ill-informed health food nuts getting
> their panties in a bunch over the fact that coffee has caffeine. An
> article that was at PlanetRX.com (now defunct) stated: "Most people
> don't think of coffee as a medicinal herb, but it is. The beans are
> actually seeds of the coffee shrub, therefore an herbal product. And the
> caffeine coffee contains is clearly a drug."

Coffee has saved my life, more than once.

Before my wife's morning cup, she's downright homicidal! <g>

--
Notan

Notan wrote:

> Coffee has saved my life, more than once.

My daughter was premature, so I dealt with all the Newborn ICU stuff for
two months. One of the drugs they use to prevent apnea, a common problem
in preemies, is caffeine. We also drank a lot of coffee during that
period. Fortunately there were many coffee houses near the hospital.

In article <45d13e3f$0$27159$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:

> james g. keegan jr. wrote:
> > In article <gp02t2tgdjbk6bh3a2llp06c2v92a7uv8l@4ax.com>,
> > John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> > [...]
> >> That's not how it works. Again, study up on sampling.
> >
> > i hope this doesn't wound you too deeply john, but i suspect that
> > most sane readers would accept consumer reports statistics over your
> > biased commentary.
>
> Yeah, but he's got the insane reader base locked up.

that appears to be the case.

At 13 Feb 2007 11:29:14 -0700 Notan wrote:

> Coffee has saved my life, more than once.


Mine too- drinking nearly a gallon on an overnight run from Denver to
Kansas City. Must've been the anti-oxidants! ;-)

Seriously, I'm not discounting the health benefits present in coffee or
red wine, for that matter. I'm just suggesting that they might not be
the primary reason many of us partake in their delights!

In alt.cellular.cingular Todd Allcock <elecconnec@americaonline.com> wrote:
> At 13 Feb 2007 11:29:14 -0700 Notan wrote:

> > Coffee has saved my life, more than once.


> Mine too- drinking nearly a gallon on an overnight run from Denver to
> Kansas City. Must've been the anti-oxidants! ;-)

Either that or the fact that you had to p*ss so badly it kept
you awake. That factor supplements the caffeine effect on long road
trips. Cheap service station coffee usually has more caffeine too since
it's usually mostly the crappy robusta coffee (with 2x the caffeine over
arabica, but not so nice on the tastebuds).

As far as the McD's coffee, I tried it once, only because they
were marketing how much better they had made it now and sent a free
coupon. The only thing that made me happy about it was that I hadn't
paid for such crap coffee, I dumped it out.

B. Wright wrote:

> Either that or the fact that you had to p*ss so badly it kept
> you awake. That factor supplements the caffeine effect on long road
> trips. Cheap service station coffee usually has more caffeine too since
> it's usually mostly the crappy robusta coffee (with 2x the caffeine over
> arabica, but not so nice on the tastebuds).
>
> As far as the McD's coffee, I tried it once, only because they
> were marketing how much better they had made it now and sent a free
> coupon. The only thing that made me happy about it was that I hadn't
> paid for such crap coffee, I dumped it out.

I recycled my coupon. I did read that they are now using arabica coffee
at McDonald's, but I guess there can be bad arabica too.

Larry wrote:
> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in news:45d081c8$0$27249
> $742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:
>
>> What's in it? I use vinegar, but it takes like eight runs of fresh water
>> through the machine afterward to get rid of the vinegar smell.
>>
>>
>
> Sulfamic Acid, H3NSO3. I buy "Kenmore Distiller Cleaner", cat number 42-
> 34543, from Sears in a 12 oz bottle of crystals. Works great on coffee
> pots as well as my water distiller. It simply eats elemental calcium
> depots off stainless steel or aluminum. DON'T GET ANY ON YOU or you'll be
> sorry!

Amazingly, I was able to actually locate this item at my local Sears.
Yes, it does work well. Thanks.

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:
>
>> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
>> antioxidant benefit.
>
> To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
> the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)

Without claiming to be "discriminating," I have to admit that I'm a
coffee snob, though I have some colleagues that are far more snobbish
(one has done tests on every available brand of ½ and ½ to see which
foams the best). I think that all the studies on the health benefits of
coffee have had an effect on increasing the consumption, as coffee
drinking is no longer viewed as some sort of a vice.

It would be nice if more "discriminating" people learned that you don't
have to burn the hell out of the beans, like Starbucks does, and that
the result is a better tasting cup that doesn't need to be frozenated,
sugared, flavored, or milked. In time, this may come to pass, and we all
can enjoy a healthy future with delicious coffee, free wireless
Internet, and ubiquitous cellular coverage on every carrier.

SMS wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>> At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:
>>
>>> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
>>> antioxidant benefit.
>>
>> To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
>> the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)
>
> Without claiming to be "discriminating," I have to admit that I'm a
> coffee snob, though I have some colleagues that are far more snobbish
> (one has done tests on every available brand of ½ and ½ to see which
> foams the best). I think that all the studies on the health benefits of
> coffee have had an effect on increasing the consumption, as coffee
> drinking is no longer viewed as some sort of a vice.
>
> It would be nice if more "discriminating" people learned that you don't
> have to burn the hell out of the beans, like Starbucks does, and that
> the result is a better tasting cup that doesn't need to be frozenated,
> sugared, flavored, or milked. In time, this may come to pass, and we all
> can enjoy a healthy future with delicious coffee, free wireless
> Internet, and ubiquitous cellular coverage on every carrier.

Don't forget "two chickens in every garage."

--
Notan

Notan wrote:
> SMS wrote:
>> Todd Allcock wrote:
>>> At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
>>>> antioxidant benefit.
>>>
>>> To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
>>> the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)
>>
>> Without claiming to be "discriminating," I have to admit that I'm a
>> coffee snob, though I have some colleagues that are far more snobbish
>> (one has done tests on every available brand of ½ and ½ to see which
>> foams the best). I think that all the studies on the health benefits
>> of coffee have had an effect on increasing the consumption, as coffee
>> drinking is no longer viewed as some sort of a vice.
>>
>> It would be nice if more "discriminating" people learned that you
>> don't have to burn the hell out of the beans, like Starbucks does, and
>> that the result is a better tasting cup that doesn't need to be
>> frozenated, sugared, flavored, or milked. In time, this may come to
>> pass, and we all can enjoy a healthy future with delicious coffee,
>> free wireless Internet, and ubiquitous cellular coverage on every
>> carrier.
>
> Don't forget "two chickens in every garage."

And "pot in every car."

SMS wrote:
> Without claiming to be "discriminating," I have to admit that I'm a
> coffee snob, though I have some colleagues that are far more snobbish
> (one has done tests on every available brand of ½ and ½ to see which
> foams the best). I think that all the studies on the health benefits of
> coffee have had an effect on increasing the consumption, as coffee
> drinking is no longer viewed as some sort of a vice.
>
> It would be nice if more "discriminating" people learned that you don't
> have to burn the hell out of the beans, like Starbucks does, and that
> the result is a better tasting cup that doesn't need to be frozenated,
> sugared, flavored, or milked. In time, this may come to pass, and we all
> can enjoy a healthy future with delicious coffee, free wireless
> Internet, and ubiquitous cellular coverage on every carrier.

I'm much less "snobbish" than you claim to be about coffee; I will
frequently drink coffee others pour out. That's why it amazes me so
that people actually go back for more Starbucks. Then again, I drink
it black; maybe it's the frappe dolce latte crappay that they like.

From here on, everyone please specify the way you drink your coffee,
so we can see if additives have any effect on tolerance of Starbucks.

--
"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day,
they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally.
I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine."
-- Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek's Steven Levy

clifto wrote:

> From here on, everyone please specify the way you drink your coffee,
> so we can see if additives have any effect on tolerance of Starbucks.

When I drink Starbucks (on the road in an unfamiliar place), I will
usually get a latte. When I've gotten their regular coffee, it takes
sugar and/or ½ & ½ to make it palatable. It's too bad that they can't
offer one medium roast house coffee for snobs, and one burnt roast for
"discriminating" people. I remember a place in Santa Cruz that had a row
of Melitta one-cup filter cones, and brewed each cup to order. It was a
production line, so the wait was minimal, maybe two minutes after you
paid, but it was worth it, IMVAIO.

Thank g-d I began drinking good coffee around 1985, prior to Starbuck's
arrival in this area. I might have never known what non-burnt arabica
coffee was like. With wireless, I was on Cellular One/AT&T TDMA/AMPS so
I knew what good cellular was, so when I switched to Cingular GSM I
immediately noticed the difference, and switched to Verizon CDMA/AMPS as
soon as possible. Had I never had Cellular One/AT&T, I might have
thought that Cingular was how cellular was supposed to be (dropped
calls, system busy, poor coverage).

SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in news:45d34fda$0$27188
$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> Amazingly, I was able to actually locate this item at my local Sears.
> Yes, it does work well. Thanks.
>
>

You're quite welcome...(c;

Remember, just because it's crystals doesn't mean it's for injection or to
smoke....hee hee.

Larry
--
VIRUS ALERT! VISTA has been released!
NOONE will be spared!

At 14 Feb 2007 12:15:46 -0800 SMS wrote:

> I was on Cellular One/AT&T TDMA/AMPS so I knew what
> good cellular was, so when I switched to Cingular GSM I immediately
> noticed the difference, and switched to Verizon CDMA/AMPS as soon
> as possible. Had I never had Cellular One/AT&T, I might have thought
> that Cingular was how cellular was supposed to be (dropped calls,
> system busy, poor coverage).

Your cellular history makes me curious about a couple of things, if
you'll indulge me a question or two.

I realize your main requirement is coverage, and I can understand that.
But as a long time cell user, on a pure sound-quality basis only, all
else being equal, what's your preference? I used TDMA long before I used
GSM, and was pleasantly surprised how much better GSM calls sounded, and
I never thought CDMA sounded very good based on very infrequent use of
friends' handsets. A good friend and former employee of mine has worked
for Sprint a few years now and constantly tries to get me to join the
"dark side"... ;-)

Secondly, I realize Cingular had coverage problems out west on 1900MHz
(the old PacTel network that T-Mo has inherited.) But post merger, now
that Cingular has the old AT&T Wireless network (that apparently you were
a former customer of) isn't it nearly as good as the old ATTWS used to be
(other than the lack of analog?) I don't recall having any problems on
ATTWS when I've roamed on it out west (Vegas, San Diego and LA, but not
SF where you are) but that was in the TDMA days. (I loved the irony back
then, that I, a Cingular customer from Kansas City, a TDMA region, had to
roam in California despite being permeated by native, yet incompatible,
Cingular service.

As a funny aside, due to Cingular's extreme laziness in updating their
IRDBs (the TDMA equivalent of a PRL), my wife and I, both Cingular
customers with tri-mode phones, simultaneously roamed on different
carriers on a trip to San Diego- she on Verizon (in analog), and I on
AT&T TDMA. I'd have preferred the other way around, given the choice-
she had a cute little red Nokia 8260 that could barely do ten hours
standby in analog, while I had a 5165 with a far sportier battery life.

On 2007-02-12, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> I was very glad to be able to use a CDMA phone in Korea, on the train
> ride to LG, though it was cheaper to rent a phone than to roam on
> Verizon, so that's what I did. There is no GSM service in Korea, though
> you can rent a CDMA phone that has a SIM card slot for your GSM SIM, so
> you can roam, but it's expensive, and it may only work with European
> carriers. They did this for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, and I presume that
> they kept the system in place.

All the Korean carriers now support UMTS in the European band, so there
is no difficulty bringing your own phone with a GSM SIM in it.

I'm not sure how long the CDMA2000 roaming in Korea will last, actually.
SK Telecom, the only Korean network with whom a US CDMA phone could roam,
announced sometime last year that they'll no longer be spending money
on the CDMA2000 network and expected to eventually be able to retire it.

Dennis Ferguson

Todd Allcock wrote:

> Secondly, I realize Cingular had coverage problems out west on 1900MHz
> (the old PacTel network that T-Mo has inherited.) But post merger, now
> that Cingular has the old AT&T Wireless network (that apparently you were
> a former customer of) isn't it nearly as good as the old ATTWS used to be
> (other than the lack of analog?).

Yes, it's much better now. But they are still working on filling in a
surprisingly large number of gaps, especially in new developments where
farmland, ranches, and orchards are being converted to housing.

I do a lot of hiking and XC skiing, and this is where the AMPS coverage
is extremely helpful, even not far from the urban area. If Verizon turns
off AMPS in 2008, I think that it will make Cingular and Verizon pretty
close in coverage in the Bay Area, since Cingular is working on catching
up in digital coverage.

> As a funny aside, due to Cingular's extreme laziness in updating their
> IRDBs (the TDMA equivalent of a PRL), my wife and I, both Cingular
> customers with tri-mode phones, simultaneously roamed on different
> carriers on a trip to San Diego- she on Verizon (in analog), and I on
> AT&T TDMA. I'd have preferred the other way around, given the choice-
> she had a cute little red Nokia 8260 that could barely do ten hours
> standby in analog, while I had a 5165 with a far sportier battery life.

Conversely, I was roaming on Cingular's analog network in Florida, in an
area where there was no digital coverage, CDMA or GSM, and likely never
will be. Ditto for Alaska, where I was on AT&T Wireless's AMPS network
(now Cellular One I believe) outside of the cities and towns.

In 2008, that Forida analog coverage will almost certainly be gone
unless the FCC changes their policy to only allow AMPS to be turned off
in areas where there is digital coverage. In Alaska, they'll keep AMPS
on for a long time, until they come up with a viable alternative, such
as what Australia is doing with W-CDMA in the outback.

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:51:15 -0700, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in <eqrqm0$q2b$1@aioe.org>:

>At 13 Feb 2007 01:26:47 +0000 John Navas wrote:
>
>> when the sampling isn't random, as in the case of CR, where is the
>> population isn't representative, and the sample is self-selected, two
>> serious flaws.
>
>Non-random and non-representative are not the same thing, necessarily.
>If I wanted to determine the average diameter of M&M candies, I could
>open a bag, and average the diameters of all of the blue ones. While the
>sample was non-random, and perhaps flawed statistically, the sample was
>certainly representative and I'll guarantee you my "real world" answer
>would be
>correct within the margin of error!
>
>Same with the CR study- as non-random as the sample might have been,
>there seems to be no good reason to believe why it would not be
>representative.

The good reason is that CR subscribers have considerably different
demographics than the universe of cellular, making any CR survey
unrepresentative. Then there's the problem of self-selction.

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

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:27:08 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45d13e1c$0$27159$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> A bias that would most likely be even distributed among all carriers- for
>> example, if self-selection is, say, 20% more likely to generate replies
>> from people unhappy with their service, then all carriers will be skewed
>> negatively by presumably the same amount.
>
>That's really the key point. It's not as if the CR subscribers are
>somehow biased towards one carrier or another. ...

Statistics doesn't work that way -- since the sample is non-random, it's
not a valid representation of the universe. The actual bias could be
estimated with real data, but that hasn't been done, and speculation
just doesn't cut it.

>> Given the lack of a completely "blind" random survey, the CR one holds up
>> pretty well. In the real world, the ideal sample population is difficult
>> to find, so you do the best you can with as unbiased a sampling as you can.
>
>It's funny to see people latch onto the lack of a double-blind random
>survey every time a survey presents results that they disagree with,
>while at the same time not being able to present and reasons why the
>survey is not credible.

Actually been there, done that.

>Yet in most cases it's not possible to conduct
>such a survey.

It's actually quite straightforward. The problem are that it's not easy
or cheap.

>The CR survey was very well designed, since any bias
>cancels out since it would be equal among all carriers. Combine that
>with the huge sample size, even larger than the J.D. Power surveys, and
>you have results that everyone agrees are the best you can hope for.

Simply untrue. CR surveys are easy and cheap at the expense of
statistical validity, much like its rating of coffees on only two (!)
samples of each vendor.

>> Put another way, other than Cingular's "secret" least-dropped-calls
>> study, has any consumer group or independent research firm (i.e. J.D.
>> Powers) ever rated Cingular with the best network?
>
>Not only that, but Cingular has steadfastly refused to release the
>specifics of that study, which is highly suspect. Sprint is still suing
>them, AFAIK, and Cingular countersued claiming that Sprint doesn't have
>"the most powerful network" whatever that means.

At least Cingular used data from a respected third party, unlike
Verizon, which bases its own claims entirely on far more suspect
internal data, making them much less credible.

>> My experience over the last few years tends to support the CR study-
>> whenever, in my travels, I find myself in an area where some people can't
>> get service and some can, the ones who can have more often than not been
>> Verizon users. (Because I always ask, out of curiosity.)
>
>Yeah, in my area (SF Bay Area) it's almost always the Verizon users that
>have coverage when no one else does. My daughter is constantly letting
>her friends and teammates use her phone when their Sprint, T-Mobile, and
>Cingular phones don't work.

In fact Cingular has better coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area in
general than any other carrier, Verizon included, your personal
anecdotal accounts notwithstanding.

>I do have to say that Cingular is improving
>quite a bit out here, and I notice a difference over the past year in
>terms of improved coverage.

Translation: It's getting harder and harder for you to make disparaging
claims about Cingular that will be taken seriously.

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

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:24:13 -0700, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in <eqrgpg$4lg$1@aioe.org>:

>At 13 Feb 2007 01:27:49 +0000 John Navas wrote:
>
>> 'Those who have evidence will present their evidence,
>> whereas those who do not have evidence will attack the man.'
>
>True enough, but sometimes those requiring evidence are forced to attack
>the man who refuses to provide evidence... ;-)

There is of course never a good excuse for ad hominem.

--
Best regards,
John Navas

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea - massive,
difficult to redirect, awe inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind
boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." --Gene Spafford