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

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, though J.D. Power's survey of about 24,000 users has a
similarly small margin of errer. JD Power reached essentially the same
conclusions as Consumer Reports, with Verizon and T-Mobile leading in
all regions.

The metro areas where Verizon had a significant lead over Cingular (8 or
more points) were Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Diego, San
Francisco, Tampa, and Washington D.C..

Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
Network and adding more than 1,600 new cell sites to expand
coverage and increase capacity across the country.
Sprint leads the industry in mobile broadband coverage and
rollout of EVDO and EVDO Rev A. By the fourth quarter of 2007,
Sprints entire mobile broadband network will be upgraded to
EV-DO Revision A. Once the network is upgraded, Sprint will
also expect to begin offering in early 2008 high performance
walkie-talkie services over the EV-DO Revision A network.
Don't forget 4G, Sprint's planned buildout of the 4G WiMAX
network will be the standard for future mobility products and services.


The hallmark of Sprint Nextel is innovation.
Sprint's ranked #1 in the telecommunications industry in the
area of innovation in the FORTUNEs 2006 Most Admired Companies list.
Sprint Nextels impressive portfolio of assets includes a
high-speed data network, Sprint Power Vision, which empowers
customers to do what they want, when they want it, where
they want it. Sprint was the first carrier to offer live TV and
today we offer more than more than 50 video channels that
feature live and on-demand programming.


Popular price plans are available to Sprint customers to help
prevent them from paying high overage charges
and paying for minutes they do not use. Nights start at 7 p.m., This
gives customers two more hours of free calling. Sprint also offers
plans with Free Incoming Calls - in which calls from any of the
networks are free. Another item other co's don't offer.
We Have Saved The Best for Last = Upgrade Fees Eliminated:
Sprint recently eliminated device upgrade fees for existing customers
when they purchase a new device either through telesales or
online at www.sprint.com


---All Fact!!!

On 5 Dec 2006 17:46:17 -0800, "Andrew267@gmail.com"
<Andrew267@gmail.com> wrote:

>Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
>Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
>Network and adding more than 1,600 new cell sites to expand

<yawn>

Verizon will still beat them hands down in voice call coverage and
service. The only thing they have right now is better EV-DO coverage.

I'm surprised they just don't shut down the iDen (Nextel) side of the
network and move those customers to the CDMA side. They have so many
technical problems with the SMR band.

Dave

On 5 Dec 2006 17:46:17 -0800, "Andrew267@gmail.com" <Andrew267@gmail.com>
wrote:
: Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
: Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
: Network and adding more than 1,600 new cell sites to expand
: coverage and increase capacity across the country.
: Sprint leads the industry in mobile broadband coverage ...
:
: [remainder of fawning paean omitted]

Yeah, you said all that in another thread not more than 15 minutes earlier. I
hope you're one of Sprint's paid PR flacks; it would be silly to go to the
effort of kissing their ass for free.

Sprint might want to think about investing some $$ in customer service.
<Andrew267@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165369577.610051.224730@73g2000cwn.googlegro ups.com...
Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
Network and adding more than 1,600 new cell sites to expand
coverage and increase capacity across the country.
Sprint leads the industry in mobile broadband coverage and
rollout of EVDO and EVDO Rev A. By the fourth quarter of 2007,
Sprints entire mobile broadband network will be upgraded to
EV-DO Revision A. Once the network is upgraded, Sprint will
also expect to begin offering in early 2008 high performance
walkie-talkie services over the EV-DO Revision A network.
Don't forget 4G, Sprint's planned buildout of the 4G WiMAX
network will be the standard for future mobility products and services.


The hallmark of Sprint Nextel is innovation.
Sprint's ranked #1 in the telecommunications industry in the
area of innovation in the FORTUNEs 2006 Most Admired Companies list.
Sprint Nextels impressive portfolio of assets includes a
high-speed data network, Sprint Power Vision, which empowers
customers to do what they want, when they want it, where
they want it. Sprint was the first carrier to offer live TV and
today we offer more than more than 50 video channels that
feature live and on-demand programming.


Popular price plans are available to Sprint customers to help
prevent them from paying high overage charges
and paying for minutes they do not use. Nights start at 7 p.m., This
gives customers two more hours of free calling. Sprint also offers
plans with Free Incoming Calls - in which calls from any of the
networks are free. Another item other co's don't offer.
We Have Saved The Best for Last = Upgrade Fees Eliminated:
Sprint recently eliminated device upgrade fees for existing customers
when they purchase a new device either through telesales or
online at www.sprint.com


---All Fact!!!

Robert Coe wrote:
> On 5 Dec 2006 17:46:17 -0800, "Andrew267@gmail.com" <Andrew267@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> : Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
> : Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
> : Network and adding more than 1,600 new cell sites to expand
> : coverage and increase capacity across the country.
> : Sprint leads the industry in mobile broadband coverage ...
> :

When I was considering changing from Verizon to another carrier (and
decided not to) Sprint wasnt even one I considered in fact nobody I
know has sprint so they can invest all they want and maybe DOWN THE
ROAD somebody will consider SWITCHING to them )

Robert Coe wrote:
> On 5 Dec 2006 17:46:17 -0800, "Andrew267@gmail.com" <Andrew267@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> : Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
> : Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
> : Network and adding more than 1,600 new cell sites to expand
> : coverage and increase capacity across the country.
> : Sprint leads the industry in mobile broadband coverage ...
> :
> : [remainder of fawning paean omitted]
>
> Yeah, you said all that in another thread not more than 15 minutes earlier. I
> hope you're one of Sprint's paid PR flacks; it would be silly to go to the
> effort of kissing their ass for free.

It's rather amusing to see the yearly scrambling of PR people, paid and
unpaid, for the carriers that do poorly. Last year Cingular was claiming
that the reason that they did so poorly was the conversion from
TDMA/AMPS to GSM, and the AT&T acquisition. Then they went on to say how
much money they are spending on improving their network. I'm sure that
Cingular will have a statement in the next week or so, Consumer Reports
is too highly respected for them to ignore the survey, especially with
that savage sidebar about Cingular's "Fewest Dropped Calls" claim. The
rationalizations should prove to be amusing. It's a bad week for the
Sprint and Cingular shills!

wantthis wrote:

> When I was considering changing from Verizon to another carrier (and
> decided not to) Sprint wasnt even one I considered in fact nobody I
> know has sprint so they can invest all they want and maybe DOWN THE
> ROAD somebody will consider SWITCHING to them )

I know several people with Sprint from Verizon because Sprint had PDA
phones earlier than Verizon. They went to Sprint knowing full well of
the coverage limitations with Sprint in this area. This was about two
years ago, and Sprint was really the only choice for my area if you
wanted a PDA phone. Cingular was still struggling with the GSM
conversion back then, and coverage was very poor. Now everything has
changed, as Cingular has fully absorbed AT&T Wireless and all the 800
MHz GSM cells belong to Cingular while T-Mobile ended up with the less
desirable 1900 MHz. Also, Verizon now has a full line of PDA phones, as
well as a better selection of non-PDA phones than Sprint.

Sprint had a window where they had better handsets than Verizon, and
better coverage than Cingular (in the western region). This advantage is
gone, and you see the results in Sprint's high churn and low net additions.

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.

>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.

>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.

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

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 08:19:42 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4576ed9a$0$82543$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Robert Coe wrote:
>> On 5 Dec 2006 17:46:17 -0800, "Andrew267@gmail.com" <Andrew267@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> : Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
>> : Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
>> : Network and adding more than 1,600 new cell sites to expand
>> : coverage and increase capacity across the country.
>> : Sprint leads the industry in mobile broadband coverage ...
>> :
>> : [remainder of fawning paean omitted]
>>
>> Yeah, you said all that in another thread not more than 15 minutes earlier. I
>> hope you're one of Sprint's paid PR flacks; it would be silly to go to the
>> effort of kissing their ass for free.
>
>It's rather amusing to see the yearly scrambling of PR people, paid and
>unpaid, for the carriers that do poorly. Last year Cingular was claiming
>that the reason that they did so poorly was the conversion from
>TDMA/AMPS to GSM, and the AT&T acquisition. ...

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.

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

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>
> Sprint had a window where they had better handsets than Verizon, and
> better coverage than Cingular (in the western region). This advantage is
> gone, and you see the results in Sprint's high churn and low net additions.

Coverage in some odd regions of the Twin Cities inspired me to query Sprint
PCS about a new phone [that might get better reception and EVDO]. What
happenned is a customer service nightmare .... and now I am a happy Verizon
customer. *Personally* I wish I had made the move a long time ago.

I second the articles summary that Verizon is the best in the Twin Cities area
[generally speaking]. Statewide, if you include analog roaming, then Sprint
PCS is up the their on coverage. Things are alright with Sprint PCS as long
as you don't let a CSR look at your account ... then all bets are off and it
is a rigged crap shoot.

I know a few people that use Cingular in the Twin Cities area and most
complain about dropped calls or not receiving calls [just voicemail].
T-Mobile has a few holes, like all carriers, but seems to have more satisifed
customers based on the few people that I know that use it. Several of them
are pretty rural people [living out west or north of Delano].

In short, I would rate, based upon my or aquaintance experience as :

1. Verizon
2. T-Mobile
3. Sprint PCS
4. Cingular

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

<Andrew267@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165369577.610051.224730@73g2000cwn.googlegro ups.com...
> Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
> Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
<snip>

Sprint is a wireless company?????????????

In alt.cellular.verizon Jim Higgins <gordian238@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> <Andrew267@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1165369577.610051.224730@73g2000cwn.googlegro ups.com...
>> Sprint dedicated $7 billion to network enhancements in 2006.
>> Sprint is investing more than $2 billion into the Nextel National
> <snip>
>
> Sprint is a wireless company?????????????
>

Indeed, SprintPCS is now Sprint. They are no longer separate entities.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

> In short, I would rate, based upon my or aquaintance experience as :
>
> 1. Verizon
> 2. T-Mobile
> 3. Sprint PCS
> 4. Cingular

I have a lot of friends and relatives in the Twin Cities area, and they
all use Verizon, after trying other carriers.. One friend lives west of
the metro area out near Hamburg, and the only thing that worked when I
visited them last year on their farm was AMPS. Cingular is hopeless in
the Twin-Cities, as the CR survey showed.

I think that it's rather amusing where CR states "our subscribers may
not be representative of the U.S. population as a whole." While true, it
also makes the CR survey even more valuable, since they're surveying
people with higher education levels, and higher incomes, that understand
the differences and why they exist. 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.

oklaman wrote:
> Sprint might want to think about investing some $$ in customer service.
---

Yes, the difference in Sprint vs. Verizon behind closed doors is
Verizon is still supported by the Union.

http://www.cwa-union.org/

>
> Sprint is a wireless company?????????????

---

No Sprint is a Communications Company.

you might want to double check that web site concerning union support...
<HireAndrewmoon.com@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165455318.645676.11650@73g2000cwn.googlegrou ps.com...
oklaman wrote:
> Sprint might want to think about investing some $$ in customer service.
---

Yes, the difference in Sprint vs. Verizon behind closed doors is
Verizon is still supported by the Union.

http://www.cwa-union.org/

On 2006-12-06 20:35:18 -0500, HireAndrewmoon.com@gmail.com said:

> http://www.cwa-union.org/

I detest unions.

So what have we learned from all this chit chat? Basically that every
company has its better parts, and has areas in the country where they
are very strong. From a personal standpoint, as a customer service
representative, I find the thing that needs to be worked on the hardest
by Sprint to be the amount of notes that are left in accounts. You
have no idea, until you are the rep dealing with a customer, how
frustrating it is to have absolutely NO idea what the rep before you
did, because the note reads something like this.. "cust called in
about their account" nothing about what on the account they called in
about, what they did inregards to information to the customer, etc...
There are strides being made however, In the department I work in, we
are required to state why the cust called, what the issue they were
having was, what we did to resolve it, and what if any information was
given. over the long run, this will help improve cust service from
both sides of the phone, as we 'as reps' can actually communicate
clearly with the customer with some intelegence, as to what has taken
place.. sorry for the rant, but i had to get that out of my system.

As a customer of both T-Mobile and Sprint, in the area I live in,[Kasas
City] Both are very good as far as coverage is concerned. If you are
wanting best prices for plans, go with T-mobile, or find a Sprint
employee and ask them for their emal address so you can use it to sign
up for the SERO plans available. If you are wanting data products, and
speed, sprint is the bomb.




SMS wrote:
> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
> > In short, I would rate, based upon my or aquaintance experience as :
> >
> > 1. Verizon
> > 2. T-Mobile
> > 3. Sprint PCS
> > 4. Cingular
>
> I have a lot of friends and relatives in the Twin Cities area, and they
> all use Verizon, after trying other carriers.. One friend lives west of
> the metro area out near Hamburg, and the only thing that worked when I
> visited them last year on their farm was AMPS. Cingular is hopeless in
> the Twin-Cities, as the CR survey showed.
>
> I think that it's rather amusing where CR states "our subscribers may
> not be representative of the U.S. population as a whole." While true, it
> also makes the CR survey even more valuable, since they're surveying
> people with higher education levels, and higher incomes, that understand
> the differences and why they exist. 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.

"dafydd" <dafydd.ieuans@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165492455.800531.239620@j72g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
> So what have we learned from all this chit chat? Basically that every
> company has its better parts, and has areas in the country where they
> are very strong. From a personal standpoint, as a customer service
> representative, I find the thing that needs to be worked on the hardest
> by Sprint to be the amount of notes that are left in accounts. You
> have no idea, until you are the rep dealing with a customer, how
> frustrating it is to have absolutely NO idea what the rep before you
> did, because the note reads something like this.. "cust called in
> about their account" nothing about what on the account they called in
> about, what they did inregards to information to the customer, etc...\

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.

All that said, I go *out of my way* to instruct Sprint CSRs (well, any
company's CSRs) to note my account. I usually ask that it's been properly
annotated at least twice. Even with this, 75% of the time (when I need to
call back) I find the call was not properly noted. That is just plain
unacceptable, IMO.


--
Mike

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> 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.
>

I am sure John Navas can argue with them ... in fact, I am sure he already
has.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> 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.
>>
>
> I am sure John Navas can argue with them ... in fact, I am sure he already
> has.

Many people don't understand, or do understand but lie about, the
margins of error in surveys like this. They'll claim that 43,000 surveys
out of 200,000,000 qualified respondents is not valid, because "gee,
what if those 43,000 respondents happen to be all biased one way or
another. It doesn't work that way of course. You can get a very low
margin of error with a relatively small sample. 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.

dafydd wrote:
> So what have we learned from all this chit chat? Basically that every
> company has its better parts, and has areas in the country where they
> are very strong.

Actually we have not learned that at all. Two companies stood out all
over the country, and two were very weak all over the country.

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4577589f$0$82555$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>I think that it's rather amusing where CR states "our subscribers may
>not be representative of the U.S. population as a whole."

What actually "rather amusing" is how you try to explain away the
admitted bias in CD surveys.

>While true, it
>also makes the CR survey even more valuable, since they're surveying
>people with higher education levels, and higher incomes, that understand
>the differences and why they exist.

There's no evidence of that.

>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.

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

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:23:06 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <457831d4$0$82525$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>dafydd wrote:
>> So what have we learned from all this chit chat? Basically that every
>> company has its better parts, and has areas in the country where they
>> are very strong.
>
>Actually we have not learned that at all. Two companies stood out all
>over the country, and two were very weak all over the country.

Differences were actually relatively small and not terribly meaningful:

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. ...

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

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:21:34 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45783179$0$82525$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>> In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>> I am sure John Navas can argue with them ... in fact, I am sure he already
>> has.
>
>Many people don't understand, or do understand but lie about, the
>margins of error in surveys like this.

Either you don't, or you're being deliberately misleading.

>They'll claim that 43,000 surveys
>out of 200,000,000 qualified respondents is not valid, because "gee,
>what if those 43,000 respondents happen to be all biased one way or
>another.

The problem is self-selected sample from a non-representative universe,
a problem that size cannot overcome.

>It doesn't work that way of course. You can get a very low
>margin of error with a relatively small sample.

Actually not.

>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.

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

In article <dm7hn29r2uqefr1ec932qigds47i6enq56@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:23:06 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <457831d4$0$82525$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
> >dafydd wrote:
> >> So what have we learned from all this chit chat? Basically that every
> >> company has its better parts, and has areas in the country where they
> >> are very strong.
> >
> >Actually we have not learned that at all. Two companies stood out all
> >over the country, and two were very weak all over the country.
>
> 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.

i suspect some low-end types will actually believe that spin.

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.

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

>In article <dm7hn29r2uqefr1ec932qigds47i6enq56@4ax.com>,
> John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:23:06 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>> wrote in <457831d4$0$82525$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>>
>> >dafydd wrote:
>> >> So what have we learned from all this chit chat? Basically that every
>> >> company has its better parts, and has areas in the country where they
>> >> are very strong.
>> >
>> >Actually we have not learned that at all. Two companies stood out all
>> >over the country, and two were very weak all over the country.
>>
>> 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.

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

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.

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.