> And now for a few bucks more, they can try out Sprint's BoostMobile
> unlimited plan. If they don't like it, no big deal--no contract to
> worry about.
It would be $50 for the non-3G Boost phone, plus whatever it cost for
another phone to use where there is no iDEN network (which is a lot of
places). It would be more cost effective to just get a smartphone on a
regular GSM or CDMA 3G carrier than to carry two phones around.
> Sprint recently came in second in a recent survey of dropped calls,
behind
> Verizon by a small margin.
You have to learn to look at the big picture. It's usually not an issue
of dropped calls (moving from an area with coverage to one with no
coverage or no capacity), it's the ability to place or receive a call at
all. Verizon has fewer dropped calls in France than AT&T, and Nextel has
fewer dropped calls in Yosemite than T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T,
but that doesn't mean much in terms of how well the carriers actually
perform in those areas.
In suburban and rural areas, where it isn't possible for carriers to
place towers wherever they want (due to both political and economic
concerns), PCS is at a huge disadvantage to cellular. Sprint needs to
educate its subscribers on how to work around coverage issues in
marginal coverage areas. What's happening is that the Sprint phone
doesn't roam when it gets a weak Sprint signal, even though there isn't
sufficient signal to place or receive a call. How many Sprint
subscribers know that they could improve their coverage (in many cases)
by forcing their handset to roam?
At some point, Verizon and AT&T may decide that there's very little
upside to them in having roaming agreements with Sprint and T-Mobile
respectively. The 800 MHz carriers are enabling the 1900 MHz carriers to
have a viable business model by covering the significant gaps in the
1900 MHz networks.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:24:09 -0800
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Dutch wrote:
>
> > And yes, at least some Sprint phones, such as my V3m, are capable of
> > forced roaming, and it does help at times in marginal Sprint
> > coverage areas. You can't select who you roam on though, so it may
> > or may not go to Verizon in a given area. I can't recall the last
> > time in my travels that I couldn't get a signal from someone on my
> > Sprint phone, other than when I was in remote areas where there was
> > no digital or analog coverage from any carrier other than satellite.
>
> So maybe the city should send out a notice to all residents on how to
> force roaming on Sprint! I'm sure that very few residents know how to
> do this. Hell, maybe Sprint stores should be explaining this to
> potential customers, or to current customers complaining about
> coverage. I had a colleague at work who was getting ready to buy a
> phone for her son that was going off to college. Since she knew I
> lived in the same city she asked me what carrier I had. Then she told
> me that she had had Sprint for seven years and had never had coverage
> at her house. The map showed her on the edge between a "fair" Sprint
> area, and a "roaming" area. If I had known back then about forcing
> roaming, maybe I could have helped Sprint save one customer and gain
> another customer! Similarly in her area, T-Mobile is zero or one bar.
One area that I've found lacking on both Sprint and Verizon, is the
need to manually update PRLs. And Sprint's setup is by far the worst in
that respect, requiring a call to T/S to get it done, rather punching a
few numbers as is done on Verizon. I've lost track of how many friends
and relatives phones I've "fixed" coverage problems on by simply
updating their PRL.
> Here's an example of the coverage differences in one "problem area"
> in the city: "http://i39.tinypic.com/29o62y0.jpg".
The AT&T and Verizon maps appear to be much smaller subsets of the
Sprint and T-Mobile maps. It's hard to compare coverage that way. :-)
> While Sprint's current problems are often attributed to customer
> service, one of the major reasons that customers even have the need
> to contact customer service is because of coverage problems. It's all
> inter-related. Provide a better product and your customers won't need
> to ever come back to you, requiring you to spend a lot of money
> trying to fix problems.
I haven't seen a breakdown of Sprint's C/S calls, so I don't have any
idea of the frequency of coverage issue calls, but yes, if it's that
big of a problem, then I agree.
> One area that I've found lacking on both Sprint and Verizon, is the
> need to manually update PRLs. And Sprint's setup is by far the worst in
> that respect, requiring a call to T/S to get it done, rather punching a
> few numbers as is done on Verizon. I've lost track of how many friends
> and relatives phones I've "fixed" coverage problems on by simply
> updating their PRL.
However on Verizon, it's sometimes the case that the newer PRL
_decreases_ coverage because Verizon has a tendency to remove roaming.
> The AT&T and Verizon maps appear to be much smaller subsets of the
> Sprint and T-Mobile maps. It's hard to compare coverage that way. :-)
Yes, I should have zoomed in or out from the default area that comes
back when you put in a specific address.
At 28 Jan 2009 09:49:10 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> > To be fair, most touchscreen GPS units don't have CNP either.
>
> Nobody is talking about "touchscreen GPS units".
I was originally responding to Oxford's ludicrous assertion that the
iPhone
would drive Garmin's, TomTom's, et al's, dedicated PNDs out the market,
and asking why, after 18 months, there still isn't a decent iPhone nav
tool.
> We're talking a web-enabled PDA.
Ahh, there's the disconnect- I don't consider the iPhone to be a PDA!
;-)
By my definition (anyone else is free to use their own definition, of
course!) a modern PDA is a handheld mobile computer, and needs to be able
to operate autonomously from its "master" PC for extended periods. As
you say, it's 2009, and the idea of PDA as a PC peripheral are long
behind us. They're mini-laptops now, and we don't have to "sync" our
laptops daily to keep them updated. The iPhone fails by (my) definition
sinc it requires a PC to shuttle files, (particularly media) on/off the
device.
> You're worried that the web-enabled PDA doesn't ALSO
> have navigation, which is ludicrous when compared to that same PDA
> *not* having--and never having had--cut and paste.
>
> It's 2009.
>
> Fix the gash in the Titanic before rearranging the deck chairs.
Regardless of its lack of CNP, the iPhone has everything it needs to be a
pretty sporty PND- large touchscreen that looks relatively good even in
bright sunlight, GBs of internal storage, an internal GPS, and a cellular
data connection for up-to-the-minute traffic and POI info. TomTom even
claimed to have their nav software ready to roll on the iPhone six months
ago yet there's still nothing. The only plausible explanation is Apple
has some reason not to want that feature on the iPhone, which is
something that wouldn't be a problem on any other platform that doesn't
use an iNanny store as the sole "official" software distribution method.
Again, if you look at the iPhone as an entertainment device; suped-up
music phone, like the Nokia MP3 phones, or SE "Walkman" phones, rather
than as a PDA- the inclusion of "consumer" features like sat nav might
have a higher priority than CNP.
"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:y2_fl.14790$YU2.5663@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com...
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> True, and when one did, others had to follow. Giving away service for
>> $50 on a major network won't help if, say, T-Mo price matches a week
>> later.
>
> T-Mobile doesn't have a 3G network anywhere near as extensive as Sprint's.
Since such lowball plans would exempt tethering anyway, it's IMO,
immaterial. 2.5 EDGE is "good enough" for on-phone data use
(email/WAP/mobile browsing.) For the bulk of feature phones, data is data.
> The real question is how AT&T and Verizon would respond.
They wouldn't at first, since it would be the ultimate desperation play.
Only if/when it actually cut into their business would they respond, and
probably at a higher price point, say $70, touting the advantage of their
stronger/bigger/shinier networks. Verizon has never really competed on
price anyway.
>> Unles they're competing with Cricket and Metro instead of AT&T and
>> Verizon.
>> This sounds like a desperate (but brilliant!) attempt to reverse net
>> subscriber losses without devaluing the core CDMA business.
>
> Desperate yes, not so sure about the brilliant part. Reversing subscriber
> losses will require offering something that a lot of people will be
> willing to switch for, and iDEN service isn't it.
Again, I'm talking about the Cricket/Metro PCS market segment who aren't
travelers, and already put up with lousy coverage. It's home phone
replacement/local service. At least Nextel iDen offers a decent amount of
"vacation" coverage- servicing many metro areas- more than Cricket/Metro.
> When Sprint used to offer those $35 SERO plans to essentially everybody,
> that was something worth switching for if you didn't have a low cost
> grandfathered plan on another carrier. Now they've discontinued the good
> SERO plans, apparently deciding that the effect on ARPU wasn't worth the
> extra subscribers.
Correct- because it devalued their primary CDMA service. So would extending
this $50 Boost "Buffet plan" to CDMA. In today's cellular market, unlimited
"everything" from a national carrier is worth more than $50.
If Sprint gets THAT desperate, I can think of a much better Hail Mary- three
words that they could add to existing non-everything plans, lower churn, and
increase new adds without devaluing their price points: "free unlimited
texting." With the lower ARPU carriers use texting (either via add-on plans
or per-use charges) as a way to increase ARPU without raising rates, much
like restaurants keep raising beverage prices to "hide" price increases.
(You can still advertise a $9.99 entree and charge $2.79 for a soft drink or
coffee instead of the $1.50 you charged last year- the effect is essentially
the same as raising the entree a buck.)
No one wants to raise their bottom end plan from $39.99 to $44.99 or
whatever, so they charge enough for texting to scare you into buying a $5
texting plan to CYA, or collect a few bucks on overpriced a-la-cart texts
from those who don't buy a plan- the next effect is the same- we all spend a
few extra bucks per month for something that costs carriers essentially
nothing, just like the $2.79 beverage.
The bulk of T-Mo's "data ARPU," for example, actually comes from texting,
not their mobile internet plans- they, as well as AT&T and Verizon would
likely be very loathe to match a free texting plan, and Sprint wouldn't have
to drastically lower prices, just be willing to lose a few bucks of ARPU,
and have the potential of snagging the teens (and their families!) and other
"high texting" customers.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:11:12 -0800
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Dutch wrote:
>
> > One area that I've found lacking on both Sprint and Verizon, is the
> > need to manually update PRLs. And Sprint's setup is by far the
> > worst in that respect, requiring a call to T/S to get it done,
> > rather punching a few numbers as is done on Verizon. I've lost
> > track of how many friends and relatives phones I've "fixed"
> > coverage problems on by simply updating their PRL.
>
> However on Verizon, it's sometimes the case that the newer PRL
> _decreases_ coverage because Verizon has a tendency to remove roaming.
When they remove roaming for a particular carrier/area, I wouldn't
think the other carrier would still accept connections after some
arbitrary transition period. Having access to the towers that have
been added though, certainly seems to make keeping the PRL up to
date worthwhile, particularly if you travel a lot.
> >> 18 months and still no real GPS app.
> >
> >No cut and paste, and you're worried about GPS?
> >
> >Let's fix that gash in the side of the Titanic before making the deck
> >chairs "just so".
>
> Todd could care less, just reaching to complain about SUMDING.
Actually, Todd cares deeply, since, unlike you, I'm stuck with an iPhone
in my household. My wife likes it enough that she'd probably actually
use it for navigation (although, since it's a 2G, she'd need Skyhook WiFi
positioning support.)
I'd _really_ like MS to port a version of Windows Live Search to the
iPhone, since the latest incarnation is superior to Google Maps for
mobile in almost every way, (except GMM has walking directions, where WLS
does not) but I suspect, besides the "no duplication of core apps" rule,
Apple wouldn't want anything in the app store with "Windows" in the
title... ;-) Maybe MS can rename it "Virtual Earth Mobile" or
something...
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in news:5VZfl.14787$YU2.13047
@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com:
> Larry wrote:
>
>> Symbol $ rules, at any city hall, over all the other letters of the
>> alphabet, even over common sense.
>
> It will all change when the issue moves from the appointed planning
> commission to the elected city council. Towers in residential areas and
> parks is a very hot button issue in this area, with cultural
> sensitivities about RF energy and concerns about property values playing
> a big role. The last thing any council person wants to do is to alienate
> voters.
>
> What was rather amusing in the meeting is that clearly the planning
> commissioners in favor of these towers had recruited people to speak in
> favor of their plan. They asked each person who was up there speaking
> which carrier they had. All the complaining people had AT&T.
>
> I checked the coverage maps for some of the problem areas of the city,
> and indeed there were large swaths with no AT&T, Sprint, or T-Mobile
> coverage, even in non-hilly areas. Of course I already knew this from
> experience. My daughter often had inter mural sports at schools and
> parks in some of these areas, and was constantly loaning her
> PagePlus/Verizon phone to her team mates that had phones on the other
> carriers but had no coverage. For a while, about 1/3 of the minutes she
> used were from lending out her phone.
>
Someone needs to take one of those sellphone jammers to the meeting...(c;]
They'll be more ready to allow construction if their phones at dead....
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in news:_4_fl.14792$YU2.13947
@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com:
> Larry wrote:
>
>> Symbol $ rules, at any city hall, over all the other letters of the
>> alphabet, even over common sense.
>
> One person speaking in favor of the changes to the ordinance was a
> spokesperson for the largest condominium complex in the city (and the
> only one with a height of more than two stories). He said that his HOA
> wanted to lease space to the carriers to reduce the need for higher HOA
> dues.
>
Years ago a friend of mine in the pocket paging business couldn't get tower
space he could afford near the downtown area where property is pretty dear.
He approached one of the high rise local hospitals about rooftop space. At
first there was quite a stir and it looked bad, so he offered the hospital
250 pagers with unlimited service in exchange for space in the elevator
house atop the tallest structure.
Two weeks later they were calling wondering when their pagers would be
delivered.
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> amazed us all with the following in
news:i7%fl.11341$W06.10620@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com:
> The Bob wrote:
>
> > Sprint recently came in second in a recent survey of dropped calls,
> behind
> > Verizon by a small margin.
>
> You have to learn to look at the big picture. It's usually not an issue
> of dropped calls (moving from an area with coverage to one with no
> coverage or no capacity), it's the ability to place or receive a call at
> all. Verizon has fewer dropped calls in France than AT&T, and Nextel has
> fewer dropped calls in Yosemite than T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T,
> but that doesn't mean much in terms of how well the carriers actually
> perform in those areas.
Now you're officially grasping at imaginary straws and showing an amazing
lack of knowledge about the business. Dropped calls are a viable and
industry-accepted measure of network quality. Your insistance that network
quality be based struictly on coverage is assinine. Verizon has great
coverage in NYC but frequently experiences capacity problems- does that
mean that by sinply covering the city they can claim to be the best?
>
> In suburban and rural areas, where it isn't possible for carriers to
> place towers wherever they want (due to both political and economic
> concerns), PCS is at a huge disadvantage to cellular. Sprint needs to
> educate its subscribers on how to work around coverage issues in
> marginal coverage areas. What's happening is that the Sprint phone
> doesn't roam when it gets a weak Sprint signal, even though there isn't
> sufficient signal to place or receive a call. How many Sprint
> subscribers know that they could improve their coverage (in many cases)
> by forcing their handset to roam?
A Verizon phone operates exactly the same, as does an AT&T phone. What's
your point?
>
> At some point, Verizon and AT&T may decide that there's very little
> upside to them in having roaming agreements with Sprint and T-Mobile
> respectively. The 800 MHz carriers are enabling the 1900 MHz carriers to
> have a viable business model by covering the significant gaps in the
> 1900 MHz networks.
>
The upside for Verizon is that their native network is a fraciton of their
coverage map.
> Now you're officially grasping at imaginary straws and showing an
amazing lack of knowledge about the business. Dropped calls are a
viable and industry-accepted measure of network quality. Your
insistance that network quality be based struictly on coverage is
assinine. Verizon has great coverage in NYC but frequently experiences
capacity problems- does that mean that by sinply covering the city they
can claim to be the best?
You need to do some research about how the wireless companies work,
rather than make these ridiculous statements. Dropped calls are _one_
measure of network quality, but they don't take into account other
factors such as whether a call can be placed at all.
If you look at the metrics of the various independent surveys, both
dropped calls _and_ the ability to make/receive a call at all are
evaluated. For example, the Bay Area survey done by a local non-profit
consumer group, looked at four quality of service related areas: local
connections, out-of-area connections, dropped calls, and sound quality.
For the Bay Area
----------------
Local connections (being able to initiate or receive a call), the
rankings were (best to worst): Verizon (91%), AT&T (81%), Sprint (77%),
T-Mobile (72%), Nextel (62%), MetroPCS (46%).
Out of area connections, the rankings were (best to worst): Verizon
(93%), AT&T (87%), T-Mobile (84%), Sprint (80%), Nextel (65%), MetroPCS
(25%).
Dropped calls, the rankings were (best to worst): Verizon (90%),
T-Mobile 84%), AT&T (79%), Sprint (73%), Nextel (67%), MetroPCS (58%).
Sound quality, the rankings were (best to worst): Sprint (92%), Verizon
(91%), T-Mobile (90%), Nextel (87%, AT&T (85%) & MetroPCS (85%) (tie).
They also looked at the results for the six other metro areas where they
publish, and the results were about the same.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at these numbers, as well as
very similar numbers from the Consumer Report survey, as well as the
results of surveys from JD Power and the Yankee group, to figure out why
some carriers have much higher churn rates than others.
> A Verizon phone operates exactly the same, as does an AT&T phone.
What's your point?
It's very different because Sprint coverage is a tiny subset of Verizon
coverage, but there are very, very few, if any, areas where Sprint has
coverage but Verizon doesn't. The worst it gets is areas such as south
Florida where AT&T ended up with both the A&B side cellular because AT&T
had one side, and Cingular had the other. There both Verizon and Sprint
suffer on the PCS side, though the flat terrain and sufficient tower
locations make the problem much less serious than it is in hilly areas
with fewer locations for towers.
> The upside for Verizon is that their native network is a fraciton of
their coverage map.
You don't understand the structure of the cellular/PCS business in the
U.S.. Roaming agreements with carriers that duplicate your own coverage
are very different than roaming agreements with rural carriers that
cover areas where you don't have your own coverage. Verizon has, over
time, modified their PRLs to disallow roaming onto other CDMA carriers
in areas where Verizon has native coverage. So if you're in a Verizon
dead spot you're S.O.L., you won't roam onto Sprint even if Sprint has
coverage in that dead spot. If Sprint is allowing roaming, even in areas
where Sprint has native coverage, then Sprint should be doing much
better in terms of both coverage and dropped calls. The problem appears
to be that to take full advantage of Verizon (or other 800 MHz carrier)
roaming the Sprint subscriber would have to set up his handset to force
roaming, and of course very, very few subscribers know that this would
help them.
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> amazed us all with the following in
news:uE8gl.19772$ZP4.13320@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com:
> The Bob wrote:
>
> > Now you're officially grasping at imaginary straws and showing an
> amazing lack of knowledge about the business. Dropped calls are a
> viable and industry-accepted measure of network quality. Your
> insistance that network quality be based struictly on coverage is
> assinine. Verizon has great coverage in NYC but frequently
experiences
> capacity problems- does that mean that by sinply covering the city
they
> can claim to be the best?
>
> You need to do some research about how the wireless companies work,
> rather than make these ridiculous statements. Dropped calls are _one_
> measure of network quality, but they don't take into account other
> factors such as whether a call can be placed at all.
>
> If you look at the metrics of the various independent surveys, both
> dropped calls _and_ the ability to make/receive a call at all are
> evaluated. For example, the Bay Area survey done by a local non-profit
> consumer group, looked at four quality of service related areas: local
> connections, out-of-area connections, dropped calls, and sound
quality.
>
> For the Bay Area
> ----------------
> Local connections (being able to initiate or receive a call), the
> rankings were (best to worst): Verizon (91%), AT&T (81%), Sprint
(77%),
> T-Mobile (72%), Nextel (62%), MetroPCS (46%).
>
> Out of area connections, the rankings were (best to worst): Verizon
> (93%), AT&T (87%), T-Mobile (84%), Sprint (80%), Nextel (65%),
MetroPCS
> (25%).
>
> Dropped calls, the rankings were (best to worst): Verizon (90%),
> T-Mobile 84%), AT&T (79%), Sprint (73%), Nextel (67%), MetroPCS (58%).
>
> Sound quality, the rankings were (best to worst): Sprint (92%),
Verizon
> (91%), T-Mobile (90%), Nextel (87%, AT&T (85%) & MetroPCS (85%) (tie).
>
> They also looked at the results for the six other metro areas where
they
> publish, and the results were about the same.
>
> It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at these numbers, as well
as
> very similar numbers from the Consumer Report survey, as well as the
> results of surveys from JD Power and the Yankee group, to figure out
why
> some carriers have much higher churn rates than others.
>
> > A Verizon phone operates exactly the same, as does an AT&T phone.
> What's your point?
>
> It's very different because Sprint coverage is a tiny subset of
Verizon
> coverage, but there are very, very few, if any, areas where Sprint has
> coverage but Verizon doesn't. The worst it gets is areas such as south
> Florida where AT&T ended up with both the A&B side cellular because
AT&T
> had one side, and Cingular had the other. There both Verizon and
Sprint
> suffer on the PCS side, though the flat terrain and sufficient tower
> locations make the problem much less serious than it is in hilly areas
> with fewer locations for towers.
>
> > The upside for Verizon is that their native network is a fraciton of
> their coverage map.
>
> You don't understand the structure of the cellular/PCS business in the
> U.S.. Roaming agreements with carriers that duplicate your own
coverage
> are very different than roaming agreements with rural carriers that
> cover areas where you don't have your own coverage. Verizon has, over
> time, modified their PRLs to disallow roaming onto other CDMA carriers
> in areas where Verizon has native coverage. So if you're in a Verizon
> dead spot you're S.O.L., you won't roam onto Sprint even if Sprint has
> coverage in that dead spot. If Sprint is allowing roaming, even in
areas
> where Sprint has native coverage, then Sprint should be doing much
> better in terms of both coverage and dropped calls. The problem
appears
> to be that to take full advantage of Verizon (or other 800 MHz
carrier)
> roaming the Sprint subscriber would have to set up his handset to
force
> roaming, and of course very, very few subscribers know that this would
> help them.
>
I left your response verbatim because I noticed that both times you
responded (and with a very Navas-like pasting of material), you
conveniently left out the part of my post that dealt with Verizon
capacity issues in NYC.
On 2009-01-29, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> You don't understand the structure of the cellular/PCS business in the
> U.S.. Roaming agreements with carriers that duplicate your own coverage
> are very different than roaming agreements with rural carriers that
> cover areas where you don't have your own coverage. Verizon has, over
> time, modified their PRLs to disallow roaming onto other CDMA carriers
> in areas where Verizon has native coverage. So if you're in a Verizon
> dead spot you're S.O.L., you won't roam onto Sprint even if Sprint has
> coverage in that dead spot. If Sprint is allowing roaming, even in areas
> where Sprint has native coverage, then Sprint should be doing much
> better in terms of both coverage and dropped calls.
That doesn't really make sense at all. There is no call handoff between
networks, so how would roaming reduce dropped calls? Your calls will
drop any time you move from native to roaming service. And allowing
roaming in small coverage seams doesn't improve dead spots all that
much either. When I'm in Toronto my Verizon phone often prefers an
absolutely useless Verizon tower it can hear across the lake, more than
20 miles away, to the all-bar (free) roaming service, so from my point of
view coverage in Toronto on Verizon really sucks.
> The problem appears
> to be that to take full advantage of Verizon (or other 800 MHz carrier)
> roaming the Sprint subscriber would have to set up his handset to force
> roaming, and of course very, very few subscribers know that this would
> help them.
So you really think that the service you get from Verizon when you are
paying Sprint is the same service you get from Verizon when you pay
Verizon? Verizon is already the most overloaded carrier in the bay
area, sending one in three incoming calls to voicemail some business
day afternoons and with their data service becoming wretched during
the same period (somehow, though, the surveys never ask about this so
there are no statistics). Given that Verizon is already apparently
forced into load-shedding measures, do you think they give the same
priority to roaming phones as their own? When Verizon dumps a call
from a Verizon phone that makes Verizon look bad, but when it dumps
a call from a Sprint phone that only shows up in Sprint's survey
statistics. Which do you think Verizon would prefer?
Dennis Ferguson <dcferguson@pacbell.net> amazed us all with the
following in news:slrngo2afn.kl.dcferguson@akit-ferguson.com:
>
> So you really think that the service you get from Verizon when you are
> paying Sprint is the same service you get from Verizon when you pay
> Verizon? Verizon is already the most overloaded carrier in the bay
> area, sending one in three incoming calls to voicemail some business
> day afternoons and with their data service becoming wretched during
> the same period (somehow, though, the surveys never ask about this so
> there are no statistics). Given that Verizon is already apparently
> forced into load-shedding measures, do you think they give the same
> priority to roaming phones as their own? When Verizon dumps a call
> from a Verizon phone that makes Verizon look bad, but when it dumps
> a call from a Sprint phone that only shows up in Sprint's survey
> statistics. Which do you think Verizon would prefer?
>
And with that paragraph, you just added an entirely new element to the
entire "dropped call network quality" discussion. Could it be that
Sprint's numbers are lower not because of poor Sprint network coverage, but
because of poor Verizon network coverage in areas where they roam? I'm
going to bet that Scharf's "local non-profit consumer group" numbers only
took into account the branding of the phone, not the network performing the
job.
By deprioritizing non-native calls on their network (which would be the
right business decision, no matter how slimy), Verizon is always going to
come out on top and be able to manipulate the public perception of the
competition.
> That doesn't really make sense at all. There is no call handoff between
> networks, so how would roaming reduce dropped calls?
If the Sprint subscriber's call is started as a roaming call on Verizon
it doesn't drop when the subscriber moves into an area with Sprint
coverage, it hands off to another Verizon cell. But yes, if you start as
a native call on Sprint, and move into an area with no Sprint coverage,
the call will drop. This is why it can be useful to force the Sprint
handset to roam, even when you're in an area with Sprint coverage, and
not in a dead zone.
> So you really think that the service you get from Verizon when you are
> paying Sprint is the same service you get from Verizon when you pay
> Verizon?
I'm not saying that, but some others have claimed that forcing the
Sprint handset to roam, rather than use native Sprint coverage, gets you
equivalent Verizon service. Perhaps such forced roaming is a way for
Sprint subscribers to improve the service that all the surveys show is
far below Verizon's service quality.
> Verizon is already the most overloaded carrier in the bay
> area, sending one in three incoming calls to voicemail some business
> day afternoons and with their data service becoming wretched during
> the same period (somehow, though, the surveys never ask about this so
> there are no statistics).
So where did you get your "one in three" statistic?
> forced into load-shedding measures, do you think they give the same
> priority to roaming phones as their own?
If they have a roaming agreement, and the CDMA phone has PRL that
includes Verizon's tower, they likely have not programmed in a system of
prioritizing which phone to deny service to. It's so rare with CDMA that
calls are dropped due to capacity problems that it's a non-issue. If
they did decide to prioritize which phones to deny service to, they
might well decide to favor the phone that's roaming because it may
represent extra roaming revenue to them (versus no extra revenue from
one of their own phones).
> When Verizon dumps a call
> from a Verizon phone that makes Verizon look bad, but when it dumps
> a call from a Sprint phone that only shows up in Sprint's survey
> statistics. Which do you think Verizon would prefer?
They'd prefer the roaming revenue. They already have so much higher
survey numbers than Sprint that the extra revenue is much more attractive.
> Someone needs to take one of those sellphone jammers to the meeting...(c;]
>
> They'll be more ready to allow construction if their phones at dead....
Heh, I doubt it. People are stupid like that, whining about lack of coverage,
but still refusing to allow any new towers in the neighborhood.
--
Steve Sobol, Victorville, California, USA
Microsoft's new marketing slogan for Windows is "Life Without Walls."
But if you have no walls, how can you have windows?
Steve Sobol wrote:
> On 2009-01-28, Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:
>
>> Someone needs to take one of those sellphone jammers to the meeting...(c;]
>>
>> They'll be more ready to allow construction if their phones at dead....
>
> Heh, I doubt it. People are stupid like that, whining about lack of coverage,
> but still refusing to allow any new towers in the neighborhood.
In reality, the amount of whining is pretty small. This was a "push"
survey, not a random survey, so the whiners were the ones that were more
likely to fill it out.
The one thing people around my town care about the most is that their
home values don't go down. Putting in towers by playgrounds, or that are
visible from homes are guaranteed ways to decrease home values,
especially among some of the dominant ethnic groups. Values continue to
increase, bucking the national trend, and no one wants to do anything
that changes that.
The planning commissioners were almost doing free advertising for
Verizon, every time they mentioned that the coverage issues were with
the other three carriers, and not Verizon, and every time they asked one
of the residents that favored towers in parks up what carrier they had
it was AT&T.
The bottom line in my city, and in much of the Bay Area, is that if you
want the most ubiquitous coverage you forgo the iPhone and sign up with
Verizon. It's never been a secret, and every survey confirms it. If you
can live with less coverage, then you get more choices. You can be
pissed at Verizon for a lot of things, their lousy handset selection,
their defeaturing of handsets, their elimination of pay as you go data
plans, the reduction of off-peak hours, and elimination of free
holidays, but you can't fault their coverage.
Steve Sobol wrote:
> On 2009-01-28, Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:
>
>> Someone needs to take one of those sellphone jammers to the meeting...(c;]
>>
>> They'll be more ready to allow construction if their phones at dead....
>
> Heh, I doubt it. People are stupid like that, whining about lack of coverage,
> but still refusing to allow any new towers in the neighborhood.
>
>
A "tower" does not HAVE to be obvious and/or ugly. I've seen one along
the Pennsylvania Turnpike that looks very much like a tree. It's a
rather odd looking tree but it's far from immediately obvious that it's
not really a tree!
"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote in
news:EdydnfZ6YN4Ghh_UnZ2dnUVZ_jednZ2d@giganews.com :
> Steve Sobol wrote:
>> On 2009-01-28, Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Someone needs to take one of those sellphone jammers to the
>>> meeting...(c;]
>>>
>>> They'll be more ready to allow construction if their phones at
>>> dead....
>>
>> Heh, I doubt it. People are stupid like that, whining about lack of
>> coverage, but still refusing to allow any new towers in the
>> neighborhood.
>>
>>
>
> A "tower" does not HAVE to be obvious and/or ugly. I've seen one
> along the Pennsylvania Turnpike that looks very much like a tree.
> It's a rather odd looking tree but it's far from immediately obvious
> that it's not really a tree!
>
>
SMS wrote:
> Steve Sobol wrote:
>> On 2009-01-28, Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Someone needs to take one of those sellphone jammers to the
>>> meeting...(c;]
>>>
>>> They'll be more ready to allow construction if their phones at dead....
>>
>> Heh, I doubt it. People are stupid like that, whining about lack of
>> coverage,
>> but still refusing to allow any new towers in the neighborhood.
>
> In reality, the amount of whining is pretty small. This was a "push"
> survey, not a random survey, so the whiners were the ones that were more
> likely to fill it out.
Exactly, it only takes one whiner. My friend owns a light industrial
business that is in a nearby town. His facility is next to two others.
The three properties sit behind some houses and there is a road that
leads back to them. A few years back someone decided to build their
house right on the access road. Immediately they began complaining about
those "terrible trucks" going in and out. In reality there are few
deliveries and probably 100 employee cars total. VZW wants to build a
fill in site in that area so they approached my friend. My friend
welcomed them because there is a perfect spot near the rear of his
building.
When the new neighbor found out about the tower she got herself on every
TV station and newspaper to complain how the "radiation" would hurt her
children and isn't it enough she has to "put up" with those terrible
trucks. So now it has to go through the court system to proceed.
>
> The one thing people around my town care about the most is that their
> home values don't go down. Putting in towers by playgrounds, or that are
> visible from homes are guaranteed ways to decrease home values,
> especially among some of the dominant ethnic groups. Values continue to
> increase, bucking the national trend, and no one wants to do anything
> that changes that.
>
> The planning commissioners were almost doing free advertising for
> Verizon, every time they mentioned that the coverage issues were with
> the other three carriers, and not Verizon, and every time they asked one
> of the residents that favored towers in parks up what carrier they had
> it was AT&T.
>
> The bottom line in my city, and in much of the Bay Area, is that if you
> want the most ubiquitous coverage you forgo the iPhone and sign up with
> Verizon. It's never been a secret, and every survey confirms it. If you
> can live with less coverage, then you get more choices. You can be
> pissed at Verizon for a lot of things, their lousy handset selection,
> their defeaturing of handsets, their elimination of pay as you go data
> plans, the reduction of off-peak hours, and elimination of free
> holidays, but you can't fault their coverage.
> When the new neighbor found out about the tower she got herself on every
> TV station and newspaper to complain how the "radiation" would hurt her
> children and isn't it enough she has to "put up" with those terrible
> trucks. So now it has to go through the court system to proceed.
The lady is stupid. A tower can't be turned down based on RF concerns.
You can stop them other ways.
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> amazed us all with the following in
news:iTdgl.5997$jZ1.2969@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com:
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>
>> That doesn't really make sense at all. There is no call handoff
>> between networks, so how would roaming reduce dropped calls?
>
> If the Sprint subscriber's call is started as a roaming call on
> Verizon it doesn't drop when the subscriber moves into an area with
> Sprint coverage, it hands off to another Verizon cell. But yes, if you
> start as a native call on Sprint, and move into an area with no Sprint
> coverage, the call will drop.
No it will not. Your absolute statement is patently false, moron.
> This is why it can be useful to force
> the Sprint handset to roam, even when you're in an area with Sprint
> coverage, and not in a dead zone.
How many Sprint phones do you own?
>
>> So you really think that the service you get from Verizon when you
>> are paying Sprint is the same service you get from Verizon when you
>> pay Verizon?
>
> I'm not saying that, but some others have claimed that forcing the
> Sprint handset to roam, rather than use native Sprint coverage, gets
> you equivalent Verizon service.
Um- no. They have said that it allows for the nearest tower to take the
call.
> Perhaps such forced roaming is a way
> for Sprint subscribers to improve the service that all the surveys
> show is far below Verizon's service quality.
>
>> Verizon is already the most overloaded carrier in the bay
>> area, sending one in three incoming calls to voicemail some business
>> day afternoons and with their data service becoming wretched during
>> the same period (somehow, though, the surveys never ask about this so
>> there are no statistics).
>
> So where did you get your "one in three" statistic?
Probably from a local non-profit consumer group.
>
>> forced into load-shedding measures, do you think they give the same
>> priority to roaming phones as their own?
>
> If they have a roaming agreement, and the CDMA phone has PRL that
> includes Verizon's tower, they likely have not programmed in a system
> of prioritizing which phone to deny service to.
But you don't know for sure, do you?
>It's so rare with CDMA
> that calls are dropped due to capacity problems that it's a non-issue.
Cite?
> If they did decide to prioritize which phones to deny service to, they
> might well decide to favor the phone that's roaming because it may
> represent extra roaming revenue to them (versus no extra revenue from
> one of their own phones).
>
But again, you don't know, do you?
>> When Verizon dumps a call
>> from a Verizon phone that makes Verizon look bad, but when it dumps
>> a call from a Sprint phone that only shows up in Sprint's survey
>> statistics. Which do you think Verizon would prefer?
>
> They'd prefer the roaming revenue. They already have so much higher
> survey numbers than Sprint that the extra revenue is much more
> attractive.
>
> A "tower" does not HAVE to be obvious and/or ugly. I've seen one along
> the Pennsylvania Turnpike that looks very much like a tree. It's a
> rather odd looking tree but it's far from immediately obvious that it's
> not really a tree!
I'd rather just have a tower that looks like a tower, than a tower that
is poorly disguised as a tree.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:38:45 -0800
SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>
> > A "tower" does not HAVE to be obvious and/or ugly. I've seen one
> > along the Pennsylvania Turnpike that looks very much like a tree.
> > It's a rather odd looking tree but it's far from immediately
> > obvious that it's not really a tree!
>
> I'd rather just have a tower that looks like a tower, than a tower
> that is poorly disguised as a tree.
There may be more of them around you than you think:
"Larry" <noone@home.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9BA2B1F1AD848noonehomecom@74.209.131.13...
>> A "tower" does not HAVE to be obvious and/or ugly. I've seen one
>> along the Pennsylvania Turnpike that looks very much like a tree.
>> It's a rather odd looking tree but it's far from immediately obvious
>> that it's not really a tree!
>>
>>
>
> Ugly?! No tower is "ugly". Case in point:
> http://www.oldradio.com/archives/sta...ccs/wsmtwr.htm
> Since 1932, this tower IS Nashville! How beautiful she is in her new coat
> of bright red and white paint....(c;]
>
> Some are simply more beautiful than others.....
Agreed. When I erected a 9' BUD ("Big Ugly Dish") satellite antenna in the
backyard of my last house in the mid-90s, my neighbor told me "you know
those come in 18" now, right?" I explained that the big dishes were better
for reasons X, Y, and Z, and besides, the small ones weren't a functional
work of art- a testament to technology in living sculpture. ;-)
Kidding aside, we're surrounded by a lot of ugly crap in and around our
houses and neighborhoods that we all take for granted and no longer even
notice that makes our lives easier- asphalt or concrete roads, utility
poles, TV antennas (making a comeback thanks to the digital transition) and
2-ton steel wheeled monsters parked in our paved driveways or garages (yes-
entire giant "rooms" in our houses specially constructed to house
automobiles) which are taking up the space that the elegant winding
picket-fenced path to the house would've been a hundred years ago.
Dutch <buryit@blackholespam.net> amazed us all with the following in
news:20090129214617.74b0bd7a@12078.net:
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:38:45 -0800
> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>>
>> > A "tower" does not HAVE to be obvious and/or ugly. I've seen one
>> > along the Pennsylvania Turnpike that looks very much like a tree.
>> > It's a rather odd looking tree but it's far from immediately
>> > obvious that it's not really a tree!
>>
>> I'd rather just have a tower that looks like a tower, than a tower
>> that is poorly disguised as a tree.
>
> There may be more of them around you than you think:
>
> http://waynesword.palomar.edu/faketree.htm
>
We have a number of them in Colorado. I drove by a couple of them for
years on the way back and forth to the office without even realizing it.
When placed in a grove of trees they can blend in fairly well unless you
are looking for them.
On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:17:23 -0600
Paul Miner <pminer@elrancho.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:46:17 -0500, Dutch <buryit@blackholespam.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:38:45 -0800
> >SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> >>
> >> > A "tower" does not HAVE to be obvious and/or ugly. I've seen one
> >> > along the Pennsylvania Turnpike that looks very much like a tree.
> >> > It's a rather odd looking tree but it's far from immediately
> >> > obvious that it's not really a tree!
> >>
> >> I'd rather just have a tower that looks like a tower, than a tower
> >> that is poorly disguised as a tree.
> >
> >There may be more of them around you than you think:
> >
> >http://waynesword.palomar.edu/faketree.htm
>
> "Cell phone signals are in the same frequency range as microwave ovens
> at about 100 gigahertz."
>
> :-)
Yeah, I don't quite know what they had in mind there. Earlier
on, they did reference the 800-900 MHz band though. Apparently the
author is a better photographer than he is a technical researcher. :-)
On 2009-01-29, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>> Verizon is already the most overloaded carrier in the bay
>> area, sending one in three incoming calls to voicemail some business
>> day afternoons and with their data service becoming wretched during
>> the same period (somehow, though, the surveys never ask about this so
>> there are no statistics).
>
> So where did you get your "one in three" statistic?
Observing what my phone does. You may not get enough calls
to notice, though I seem to remember a post from you noting
that this had happened to you as well (though I'm too lazy
to google it).
>> forced into load-shedding measures, do you think they give the same
>> priority to roaming phones as their own?
>
> If they have a roaming agreement, and the CDMA phone has PRL that
> includes Verizon's tower, they likely have not programmed in a system of
> prioritizing which phone to deny service to. It's so rare with CDMA that
> calls are dropped due to capacity problems that it's a non-issue. If
To be clear there isn't a big difference between the capacity of
CDMA and of GSM systems these days, given equivalent spectrum and
infrastructure. Unfortunately the latter bits aren't equal
at all in the bay area. Verizon has the smallest amount of spectrum
in operation of any of the four biggest operators, the largest customer
base to serve and, according to you, maybe even gets by with a smaller
number of towers. If there are load problems anywhere it is Verizon
which has them.
Never the less, you are right that it is uncommon for dropped calls
to be caused by capacity problems at any carrier, mostly because the
operators take other load-shedding measures which draw fewer complaints
before they're forced to drop calls. The early measures seem to include
sending new incoming calls to voice mail, then blocking new outgoing
calls; by the time they get to dropping calls in progress they're in
deep, deep trouble. Verizon clearly isn't in deep, deep trouble, but
they really like to send incoming calls to voice mail during the busy
part of some days.
So I agree that Verizon doesn't often drop their own customers'
calls due to load problems (nor does anyone else), but they manage
this by taking other load-shedding actions first, before they get
to that point. The argument that Verizon doesn't drop calls because
their capacity is infinite doesn't match real life, they instead
don't drop customer calls because they take other measures to
manage load before it gets that bad. So the issue again is,
would they really send their own customers' calls to voice mail
to avoid dumping someone else's customers calls in progress?
> they did decide to prioritize which phones to deny service to, they
> might well decide to favor the phone that's roaming because it may
> represent extra roaming revenue to them (versus no extra revenue from
> one of their own phones).
>
>> When Verizon dumps a call
>> from a Verizon phone that makes Verizon look bad, but when it dumps
>> a call from a Sprint phone that only shows up in Sprint's survey
>> statistics. Which do you think Verizon would prefer?
>
> They'd prefer the roaming revenue. They already have so much higher
> survey numbers than Sprint that the extra revenue is much more attractive.
What makes you think that dropping calls reduces call revenue?
I've seen surveys which detect dropped calls by looking for
quick callbacks to the same number, which is kind of what I'd
expect many people to do when a call is dropped. What dropped
calls do, however, is piss off your customers, and I'm quite
sure Verizon would rather piss off Sprint's customers than their
own.
More than this, my understanding is that between carriers which
have significant non-overlapping areas (and pre-Alltel Sprint had
good coverage in places, often in the midwest, where Verizon was absent;
that could change now) the (reciprocal) roaming rates they charge each
other are generally quite small. While you might not make much this
way you don't pay much either. The latter reduces your risk of loss
if something odd happens one month, while the former encourages others
to use your network rather than avoid it, giving you a little extra
revenue rather than none at all. Charging other carriers less
than you charge your own customers only makes sense if what you
are selling doesn't cost you much, e.g. it just consumes otherwise
idle capacity on the network you already have. For it really
not to cost you much, however, you need to make sure that roaming
doesn't push up your peak loads to the point where you need to
spend real money on new capacity, and it is for this reason I
suspect that in times of trouble roamers are among the things
they begin to drop first.
Re: Sprint to dump almost 15% of employees 
Linear Mode
