How's Your Cell Service?

Coldeagle writes "Well for those of us who are fed up with your current leash...Cellular phone providers... Here is an interesting article on various US cell phone providers and how their service adds up."

You get what you pay for

[Andy Dodd]

Verizon is significantly more expensive than most other US-based providers.

It has always been (in my opinion) worth the extra money, so I'm not surprised they were ranked #1.

Becoming like monopoly's

[Anonymous Coward]

Their becoming useless and using bullying tactics. My sister wished to swap her service away from verizon and verizon proceeded to contact ME telling me i would be paying higher charges because she was leaving the network. their was no information ever about lowering costs if we had the same provider in the first place and I even had my plan at my exiosting price far before she ever had a cell phone. So now they wanted to raise my price probably to pressure me into making her stay, so I told them to get the hell out and I switched too. Their tactics are bullying and that's not service.

This is an interesting article?

[rlsnyder]

The standards for "intersting article" seem to have gotten lower. This is a very brief writeup of a customer satisfaction survey. There is very little information on how the survey was taken, and the scoring on the survey ranks in the range of 0-104, with all services being ranked right next to each other at the top of the spectrum (with only a few % difference between each).

In other words, a short article vaguely describing a survey with largely insignificant differentiation in results. Whoo hoo!

Re:T-Mobile isn't great, but good enough

[ozbon]

I'm sure the towers are registered somewhere - however, it's then got to be mapped against geographic features that nork up coverage etc.

In the UK we used to have these kind of maps, but there were too many cases of people thnking they'd get coverage then not doing so because of geographic features such as hills etc that were creating blackspots. So I think they've actually stopped doing them now - I'd assume they've done the same in the US, although this assumption is speculative rather than based in fact.

Regional Considerations

[timothy_m_smith]

The problem with this article is that mobile service should be rated regionally as opposed to nationally. I understand that some carriers have national plans, but in general each carrier has strengths in different geographic areas.

No

[computechnica]

There are still alot of rural areas out west that do not have any service. I doubt some of the areas in the commercials really had service.

Re:Verizon Wireless

[jmkaza]

Good to hear that Verizon's coverage is good, but as a fellow motorist, I'd prefer that you had watched the road rather than stared at your signal strength bar the whole drive.

Re:Verizon Wireless

[duckpoopy]

Try I-95 near the North Carolina-Virginia border. Very bad to no coverage. I guess it could also be my cheap (V-120) phone.

It seems that phone quality can skew the results of customer surveys, like those in the article. My phone is apparently prone to dropping calls, by no fault of Verizon. Perhaps the companies that push better phones have better perceived service quality.

True

[Andy Dodd]

That's part of why Verizon rocks.

But assuming that one chooses the optimum plan for a given provider, Verizon is significantly more expensive per minute - With other providers, you get more minutes for the same price.

Nonetheless, minutes aren't everything. Having tons of minutes is worthless when you waste them due to dropped calls or can't use them because you're roaming. Per-minute, Verizon is much more expensive, but they are worth every penny.

Re:This is an interesting article?

[lordDallan]

Shout out to rlsnyder for laying the smack down on this being a seriously whack article!

I need to know where the approx. 16,000 folks they surveyed were located too! If they're all on the eastern seaboard or in southern California, what the hell does that tell me about the quality or lack thereof of each companies nationwide coverage. Nothing, that's what.

Etiquette

[div_2n]

Just as with anything else, there is (or should be) etiquette for use. Sometimes it takes quite a while for the social norms to develop. Smokers still seem to think it is and should be acceptable for them to blow smoke right in a non-smokers breathing area. I don't think too many people would argue it is ok to have sex in public (can't wait for responses to that).

The point is that social norms will develop. It will probably take too long (as in smoking) so establishments will probably have no cell phone policies except in special areas. This makes sense anyway as phone conversations tend to be louder than normal conversation. Whenever I get a cell phone call in a public place I always move to a point where I am out of the way and talk just like I was having a conversation with someone right next to me.

Just as a car shouldn't be driven just anywhere (a neighbors lawn), a cell phone shouldn't be used anywhere and anytime. For example, answering a call while your girlfriend is yelling at you is likely to get it broken upside your head. Strangely if they go down while you are actually ON the phone it is ok. Go figure.

Re:Becoming like monopoly's

[espo812]

Becoming like monopoly's (sic)

Interesting. I assume you're trying to make monopoly plural (it doesn't make sense to be posessive in this context). Now, I fail to see how more than one monopoly can exist in the same market, seeing as that would defeat the whole idea of a monopoly.

Re:American vs Japanese cell service

[Pompatus]

I remember when I was in Japan I was impressed by their vastly superior cell phone technology. 3g phones which double as pdas and have video capability.

Like this [samsungusa.com] or the older now $199 model [samsungusa.com] from Sprint? [sprint.com] Ironic they should fair poorly in the poll in the article, but understandable, since I can't get a signal at times in uptown New Orleans (note there are no tall buildings in uptown New Orleans, due to the difficulty and expense of building a structure in the swamp. And in general, we're quite poor). Also, the market [com.com] is a bit different between Japan and the United States.

While our students are lazy and self centered individuals, the Japanese youth know the value of conformity and hard work. Ever hear of crime or poverty in Japan ? There isn't much. Gun control along with a generally more polite attitude keeps crime there very low.

I'm going to skip my flaimbait rant here, because your next sentence

We Americans could learn a lot from the Japanese, although we are still the best damn country in the world our technology is slightly lacking!

astounds me. Tell me, is it our lazy and self centered students, or our high crime and poverty that make America "the best damn country in the world"? I'm a bit confused here.

Re:How's My Cell Service?

[Chelloveck]

Funny, I thought the biggest profit for cell phone companies was retention of customers.

It is, but only because they're not giving incentives to the retained customers. The extra profit comes from the existing customers paying full rate (and probably on an older, more expensive plan) whereas the new customers get XX months or YY minutes discounted. Give the existing customers a discount and they're no longer a profit center.

Which is why phone providers are so vehemently opposed to number portability. The current pricing structures try to get as many new customers as possible, and try to wring as much money as possible from the existing customers. The only incentive there is for people to continue with one provider is that they'd have to get a new number if they switched. Enter number portability and you get to take your number with you to any provider. Now there's absolutely no reason not to jump to a new provider for the incentives every year or two.

Of course, any provider with a sensible pricing policy has nothing to fear. Call me when you find one...

I don't WANT "best," I want GOOD.

[dpbsmith]

Big deal, so Verizon's the best of a bad bunch. Let's see some ratings on an absolute scale.

What do I want from a cell phone? I want it to just work.

Every time I contacted Verizon regarding problems, they implied it was because I had one of those "old" analog phones. So I bought a spiffy new digital tri-mode phone and digital service.

And it still acts weird. People still call me at times when my phone is powered on and showing five signal bars, and get sent to voice mail. And it can take hours for my phone to tell me that I have voice mail.

And sometimes it beeps for no reason at all and I can't figure out why and Verizon's customer service can't tell me.

And if I'm actually walking around with the phone, I hear little bits of garble as if I were briefly underwater--I suppose it's decided to change what tower it's talking to, for no reason.

And when I was on a trip, every time I turned it on, the first call I made would not go through--I'd get a recorded message to the effect that "this mobile unit is not authorized in this area." But the second (and subsequent) phone calls would go through fine. Why? Customer service couldn't tell me.

And all my conversations are strange, because--something nobody bothered to mentioned to me--unlike analog cell phones, which work in real time, the digital phones for some unfathomable reason incorporate a split-second delay of nearly half a second in each direction.

And the thing has a complex, pesky, homebrew user interface that takes me back to the days of character-oriented DOS programs which all had their own UI conventions.

And the "end call" button is also the "power off" button so if you don't have a good sense of timing you can turn the thing off when you just meant to end the call.

And the maps they give you showing where cell service is supposed to exist are just jokes. The coverage areas look like slice of American cheese, but the reality is more like Swiss cheese.

Like so much high-tech gear, it doesn't really work and nobody cares.

Re:T-Mobile isn't great, but good enough

[Abm0raz]

I work for a company that does Phase-I/II** 911 Emergency Management Systems for states including PA, FL, ME, NY, VA, IN, LA, MS, NC and Washington DC. To properly figure out total coverage and signal strength, you need to know the lat/long/alt of every tower, as well as the antenna length, signal strength, and any local interference generators. You take all that info, and you plug it into a composite signal rendering program (such as SIGNAL [edx.com] by EDX [edx.com]. This will give you a "100% coverage" map. This assumes that all surrounding obstacles (trees, mountains, buildings, etc..) have 100% transparency with the carrier wave of the transmission. This is good to analyze the "best case" scenario.

After that, you get a topographic map (usually in .tif format from the state or federal gov't) and plug that in. Place the tower info on the map and run the software again. this will give you an "expected-case" scenario. Then repeat the process with known buildings, structures, etc ... to get the worst-case scenario.

If you ever have the chance to look at some of these maps, you'll see a lot of interesting patterns. Many cell towers aren't located on the top of mountains (like radio and TV towers). Most are located in valleys on the roofs of larger buildings. This is because the signal from cell tower's requires much more power at 800Mzh than radio and TV at lower bands. This increased frequency gives it a smaller propagation distance. This is why you see towers in towns/cities and along major roadways. Most cell companies use mountains to shield signals from bleeding excessively into other cells (because of how it works, especially with billing). This is why you can have a full strength signal going up a hill, lose it at the top (where your radio signal is strongest) and gain cell phone coverage as you go down the other side.

-Ab

** 911 Phase-I is where the dispatchers know your address/location via a Geo-database if you are on a landline and can ship out aid regardless of the info you give them.
911 Phase-II is the same thing, but for cell/satellite phones.

Worthless article.

[faedle]

First off, the point spread is like, what.. 10? So, can we infer from this that the "worst" cell provider (Alltel) is only a little worse than the "best"?

Some other problems: they make no differentiation between, for example, AT&T subscribers on the old DAMPS/TDMA network versus the new GSM network. There is also no mention of regional networks like Cricket and metroPCS (and with their all-you-can-eat pricing, it would be interesting to see how they stack up against "real" cellular providers).

Similarly, since cellular service can often vary widely from region to region, a breakdown by metropolitan area is almost a requirement. In Phoenix, SprintPCS was wonderful, while in Los Angeles it's oversold and almost unusable. NexTel also has a wide variance in quality, and I'm sure the pimping out of the service via Boost Mobile in California (a prepaid provider) is pushing their already heavily loaded Los Angeles network over the edge. Also, some of the technologies fare differently in different environments... a dense city like San Francisco is going to be less friendly to some technologies and more friendly to others.

Oh, and a generic note to those who have commented on Virgin Mobile: in the US, it uses the SprintPCS network.