AT&T Ranked Last in Consumer Reports’ Best Cellphone Service Survey
Roy
Reports hits the streets this week and it doesn�t have much good to say
about AT&T. In a canvass of more than 50,000 readers spanning 26 U.S.
cities, the organization found the carrier had the lowest
customer-satisfaction rating in 19 cities surveyed. Verizon ranked
highest."
or
John Higdon
<EJmdnSQd2eGUEojW...@posted.southvalleyinternet>,
Roy <aa...@aa4re.ampr.org> wrote:
> "The annual survey of wireless customer satisfaction from Consumer
> Reports hits the streets this week and it doesn�t have much good to say
> about AT&T. In a canvass of more than 50,000 readers spanning 26 U.S.
> cities, the organization found the carrier had the lowest
> customer-satisfaction rating in 19 cities surveyed. Verizon ranked
> highest."
That is easy to understand. Verizon is still in the communications
business. AT&T is desperately trying to migrate to the entertainment
business.
--
John Higdon
+1 408 ANdrews 6-4400
AT&T-Free At Last
David Kaye
>Verizon ranked
>highest."
Just to be correct here, this is Verizon Wireless we're talking about here,
not Verizon. Verizon Wireless is part of the legacy of the old Pac Bell and
is half-owned by Britain's Vodafone. Their customer service has always been
good.
Verizon, on the other hand, is the legacy of Bell Atlantic and GTE. It
appears that they inherited GTE's customer service...[ahem]
Roy
Verizon (VZ) and Vierizon Wireless (VZW) are two companies but they are
sharing a lot of stuff between them. For me, its just one bill now.
Also, calls between my home and cellphones are free.
I live in Verizon territory. I have even gone through the predecessors:
Continental and GTE. In my old ISP business, we dealt with both VZ and
AT&T. No problems with customer service that I remember.
The real crappy experiences were when we were ordering and installing
lines where one end was in one phone company's area and the other end
was in a different company's territory. The fun time was when we ran a
T1 into the Pinnacles Telephone area. PacBell couldn't figure out how
to process the order. We finally ordered the line to terminate at the
junction box on the side of the road where the two companies met.
Eric Weaver
> The fun time was when we ran a
> T1 into the Pinnacles Telephone area. PacBell couldn't figure out how
> to process the order. We finally ordered the line to terminate at the
> junction box on the side of the road where the two companies met.
And then what? Pinnacles ran a hand-cranked T1 to their main switchboard?
;^}
SMS
> I live in Verizon territory. I have even gone through the predecessors:
> Continental and GTE. In my old ISP business, we dealt with both VZ and
> AT&T. No problems with customer service that I remember.
I remember when people wouldn't move to Los Gatos because they didn't
want GTE phone service.
My first job out of college was working for GTE Lenkurt in San Carlos.
One of my first assignments was to figure out why Orange County pay
phones were refunding money after a completed call, rather than
collecting it. Payphones used solenoids that operated on + or - 330VDC
based on whether they were supposed to refund the money or collect it.
There was some sort of timing issue with the Strowger switches that was
causing a problem. I tried to explain that I could not troubleshoot the
problem with a non-storage oscilloscope, that I needed a logic analyzer
or a storage scope. I think I knew more about Strowger switches at age
22 than anyone at Lenkurt.
But back to AT&T the root cause of their problems with their wireless
service is NTT Docomo. AT&T, with all their prime 800 MHz spectrum, was
all set to move from TDMA to CDMA, when NTT Docomo came in with a huge
investment that was contingent on AT&T moving to GSM. GSM is far less
suited to the U.S.'s low density than CDMA. Had AT&T gone the CDMA
route, they likely would be the top wireless carrier in the U.S.. In
fact just look back to the days of AMPS when in fact AT&T _was_ the best
wireless carrier.
John Higdon
SMS <scharf...@geemail.com> wrote:
> I remember when people wouldn't move to Los Gatos because they didn't
> want GTE phone service.
And GTE was the "improvement". Before then, it was Western California
Telephone, who had an eclectic collection of Kellog and other nostalgia.
It was so quaint to visit friends in the Los Gatos hills and use their
funny looking phone with a red bar as the hookswitch.
I recall the GTE take over and the techs pulling their hair out. "This
pair changes wire gauge between the CO and the customer FOUR times!!"
At least when GTE took over, you didn't have to dial "9" to call San
Jose!
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>My first job out of college was working for GTE Lenkurt in San Carlos.
I worked for Granger Assoc around 1981, where most of the management
from GTE Lenkurt went after it closed. We even temporarily ended up
with the last prez (name forgotten) of Lenkurt, that was in charge of
the shutdown.
>I think I knew more about Strowger switches at age
>22 than anyone at Lenkurt.
Chuckle. I one brought a rotary stepper and a Strowger switch to high
skool class for show and tell. Nobody could figure out what it did,
but they were certainly impressed by the noises they made. I recently
visited the local Ben Lomond CO and found that the old step by step
and crossbar junk was still sitting silently in racks slowly
depreciating. The IRS forced AT&T to use a rediculously long
depreciation time, so they sit until all the tax benefits are gone.
Thanks for the diversion.
>But back to AT&T the root cause of their problems with their wireless
>service is NTT Docomo. AT&T, with all their prime 800 MHz spectrum, was
>all set to move from TDMA to CDMA, when NTT Docomo came in with a huge
>investment that was contingent on AT&T moving to GSM.
Sorta. AT&T licensed i-Mode (actually m-Mode) from Docomo but I don't
think there were any plans to deploy i-Mode, especially after the deal
was done:
<http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3_522881>
AT&T Wireless plans to accelerate the introduction of wireless
data services by overlaying a Global System for Mobile
Communications (GSM)/General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
platform to its existing nationwide network.
AT&T was always GSM, which is what PacBell PCS and later Cingular used
at the time of the NTT investment in about 2000.
<http://eurotechnology.com/market_reports/imode/faq-int.shtml>
There was an attempt to introduce i-Mode as "m-Mode" via
AT&T-Wireless to the USA, however AT&T-Wireless was later
acquired and is not the same company as today's AT&T which
does not offer m-Mode.
The 800 Mhz spectrum came from the purchase of Cell One from Craig
McCaw in stages between 1992 and 1994. Cell One was running TDMA in
some areas and CDMA in others:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCaw_Cellular_Communications>
As soon as the AT&T took over the local Dobson Cell One network, they
tried to move everyone to 1.9GHz PCS frequencies, thus somewhat
clearing the 800 MHz band which they eventually transitioned to GSM. I
don't know what year this was but I think it was before the NTT
investment.
For a clue as to the AT&T wireless technology muddle see the bottom
of:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_One>
The only connection with CDMA was with the aquisition of Alltel.
>GSM is far less
>suited to the U.S.'s low density than CDMA.
CDMA versus GSM is the topic of far too many flame wars. I'll pass.
>Had AT&T gone the CDMA
>route, they likely would be the top wireless carrier in the U.S.. In
>fact just look back to the days of AMPS when in fact AT&T _was_ the best
>wireless carrier.
AT&T was not in the wireless biz back then. The closest local
approximation was PacBell PCS, which in my opinion and experience had
the absolute worst preformance, coverage, and business practices of
the bunch. AT&T has a problem but it's not technology. They've
successfully sold off or destroyed their technology base over the last
decade. At this time, I consider AT&T to have the best order takers
and public relations staff, but nothing else. It will be a long time
before AT&T hits bottom, but like RCA, even huge companies are able to
destroy themselves. Selecting an allegedly better technology is not
going to save their posterior.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com je...@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
Roy
Actually PacBell was the crappy copper and Pinnacles was nice shiny new
fiber. In all the years that T1 has been there, the failures were all
on the AT&T side.
John Higdon
<J8ydnYHAuvyYk4vW...@posted.southvalleyinternet>,
Roy <aa...@aa4re.ampr.org> wrote:
> Actually PacBell was the crappy copper and Pinnacles was nice shiny new
> fiber. In all the years that T1 has been there, the failures were all
> on the AT&T side.
In my Willow Glen neighborhood, the cabling looks totally third-world.
There are terminal boxes hanging down on the side of poles, wide open
with wires hanging out. One reason I dumped AT&T phone service was that
it got noisy when it rained, developing crackles and hum. It was this
way for ten years...generally unusable in the wintertime until I got rid
of it.
Never looked back!
SMS
> In article
> <J8ydnYHAuvyYk4vW...@posted.southvalleyinternet>,
> Roy <aa...@aa4re.ampr.org> wrote:
>
>> Actually PacBell was the crappy copper and Pinnacles was nice shiny new
>> fiber. In all the years that T1 has been there, the failures were all
>> on the AT&T side.
>
> In my Willow Glen neighborhood, the cabling looks totally third-world.
> There are terminal boxes hanging down on the side of poles, wide open
> with wires hanging out. One reason I dumped AT&T phone service was that
> it got noisy when it rained, developing crackles and hum. It was this
> way for ten years...generally unusable in the wintertime until I got rid
> of it.
I had the rainy weather problems with AT&T until I got sDSL from Covad
and AT&T came out to run a new wire from the pole because I had only 3
wires (red/green/yellow). Whatever they changed, they also solved the
rainy weather problem.
Still, it's pretty amazing that so much of the original copper
infrastructure in the U.S. has held up for so many decades. With Uverse,
AT&T is counting on a lot of that old copper to keep operating for a
long time.
Malcolm Hoar
>about AT&T.
Interesting. I've had cell service (3 lines) from AT&T for the
past two years. It's been satisfactory except for reception at
my home location (difficult site in the hills). I know that
Verizon and Sprint have poor reception here too. T-Mobile is
presumably good since they've just put up a tower 1/4 mile away.
I haven't verified the reception although one of the antennas
appears to point at my house.
AT&T Wireless customer support has been very good in my
experience... night and day compared to AT&T POTS. And I like
their rollover plans. But I can't live with the poor reception
at home any longer.
My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
2. Switch to T-Mobile
Any thoughts?
--
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| Malcolm Hoar "The more I practice, the luckier I get". |
| ma...@malch.com Gary Player. |
| http://www.malch.com/ Shpx gur PQN. |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SMS
<snip>
> My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
>
> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
>
> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
Wow, you're in one of the few places in the Bay Area where T-Mobile has
better coverage than AT&T or Verizon. In my area they recently passed an
ordinance that allows construction of cell phone towers in parks,
because Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile have very poor coverage in parts of
the city, including the hills. Personally I would have told those
residents that were complaining to just switch to Verizon, but it's a
political issue that AT&T doesn't work in large parts of the city, since
this means people can't use the iPhone in the many parts of city where
Apple is located. I hate the idea of putting up cell phone towers in
parks, but I guess I'm in the minority.
Malcolm Hoar
>Malcolm Hoar wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
>>
>> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
>>
>> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
>
>Wow, you're in one of the few places in the Bay Area where T-Mobile has
>better coverage than AT&T or Verizon.
Yup. It kind of sucks. AT&T were at one time planning to put
up a tower nearby but pulled out of the negotiations with the
landowner following one of their mergers. Now I have plenty
of towers within 2 miles but none close enough to be useful :-(
You seem to suggest that T-Mobile coverage around the Bay Area
in general is well below AT&T/Verizon. I haven't experienced
many reception problems with AT&T except at home. Hence I've
been leaning toward the 3G Microcell approach. The initial
reports suggest the thing works pretty well. But I still have
no clue when it might be available here.
>I hate the idea of putting up cell phone towers in parks, but I
>guess I'm in the minority.
I can't think of any towers in the parks around here (Fremont)
so I guess the city is not permitting that. I'd prefer cities
to avoid that when possible although I can imagine there are
some situations where it might be the least undesirable option.
JC Dill
> In article <EJmdnSQd2eGUEojW...@posted.southvalleyinternet>, Roy <aa...@aa4re.ampr.org> wrote:
>> "The annual survey of wireless customer satisfaction from Consumer
>
> Interesting. I've had cell service (3 lines) from AT&T for the
> past two years. It's been satisfactory except for reception at
> my home location (difficult site in the hills). I know that
> Verizon and Sprint have poor reception here too. T-Mobile is
> presumably good since they've just put up a tower 1/4 mile away.
> I haven't verified the reception although one of the antennas
> appears to point at my house.
>
> AT&T Wireless customer support has been very good in my
> experience... night and day compared to AT&T POTS. And I like
> their rollover plans. But I can't live with the poor reception
> at home any longer.
>
> My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
>
> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
>
> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
3. Put up a amplifier antenna system.
http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/FAQ.php
jc
Malcolm Hoar
>> My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
>>
>> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
>>
>> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
>
>3. Put up a amplifier antenna system.
You're right, that is an option. However, when I priced
such a system the cost worked out at about 10 times the
3G microcell. Annectoal reports concerning the performance
are mixed and didn't inspire much confidence.
Bottom line, I'm not willing to fork out $1000+ on this.
I'd be more likely to go with:
4. Live without a cell phone.
I'll probably survive okay ;-)
Malcolm Hoar
>about AT&T.
Not a good week for AT&T. They've "dropped" (i.e. lost)
the suit over Verizon's map commercials:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13908580
SMS
> In article <4b16a861$0$1613$742e...@news.sonic.net>, SMS <scharf...@geemail.com> wrote:
>> Malcolm Hoar wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
>>>
>>> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
>>>
>>> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
>> Wow, you're in one of the few places in the Bay Area where T-Mobile has
>> better coverage than AT&T or Verizon.
>
> Yup. It kind of sucks. AT&T were at one time planning to put
> up a tower nearby but pulled out of the negotiations with the
> landowner following one of their mergers. Now I have plenty
> of towers within 2 miles but none close enough to be useful :-(
>
> You seem to suggest that T-Mobile coverage around the Bay Area
> in general is well below AT&T/Verizon.
T-Mobile took over the old 1900 MHz Pac Bell Mobile Services (which
became Cingular) system. It was truly horrible in terms of coverage and
capacity. They've added towers, but it still is last in terms of
coverage of the four major carriers. At least with Sprint you can roam
onto Verizon, but I don't think T-Mobile lets you roam onto AT&T in
regions where T-Mobile has a presence.
John Higdon
ma...@malch.com (Malcolm Hoar) wrote:
> 4. Live without a cell phone.
>
> I'll probably survive okay ;-)
I could live without a cell phone just fine. They are horrible to talk
on, even if there is decent coverage, because they sound so bad. They
are physically uncomfortable to use. Connections drop. Connections go
silent. They are undoubtedly worse than 19th century telephony ever was.
A pager would work for me just fine if it weren't for the fact that
public phones have gone the way of the horse and buggy. Most people
think it was the cell phone that got rid of them, but I disagree. They
did it to themselves with rip-off pricing and deceptive labeling. When
the utilities owned and operated them they were fine, but when they were
taken over by the COCOT sleaze companies, they became useless.
I have gone to a considerable effort to have excellent wired telephone
service in my home for a simple reason: I'm not going to be reduced to
using a crappy cell phone for all of my telecommunications experience. I
consider the service to be barely useful for emergency calls and that's
it. All other telephony will be on land lines, thank you very much.
Roy
> ...
>
> Interesting. I've had cell service (3 lines) from AT&T for the
> past two years. It's been satisfactory except for reception at
> my home location (difficult site in the hills). I know that
> Verizon and Sprint have poor reception here too. T-Mobile is
> presumably good since they've just put up a tower 1/4 mile away.
> I haven't verified the reception although one of the antennas
> appears to point at my house.
>
> AT&T Wireless customer support has been very good in my
> experience... night and day compared to AT&T POTS. And I like
> their rollover plans. But I can't live with the poor reception
> at home any longer.
>
> My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
>
> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
>
> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>
Verizon and the Verizon Femtocell?
Malcolm Hoar
>Verizon and the Verizon Femtocell?
Hmmm, it looks lame compared to the AT&T offering:
* Costs $250 versus $150
* Burns minutes even when connected via the femtocell
* Only 15ft range for initial call setup
OTOH, it does appear to be available whereas the AT&T
3G microcell is still limited to some small test markets.
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>3. Put up a amplifier antenna system.
> http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/FAQ.php
>jc
4. Or a cellular repeater. I have one of these:
<http://www.wi-ex.com>
that I haven't had much time to play with yet. It sorta, kinda, maybe
works. So far, it's not a magic fix. About $150 to $400 for various
models.
--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Roy
> In article <4B16C141...@aa4re.ampr.org>, Roy <aa...@aa4re.ampr.org> wrote:
>
>> Verizon and the Verizon Femtocell?
>
> Hmmm, it looks lame compared to the AT&T offering:
>
> * Costs $250 versus $150
Sprint has a monthly fee. Verizon doesn't. AT&T may
> * Burns minutes even when connected via the femtocell
Trade off monthly fee versus minutes???? AT&T also may charge minutes
> * Only 15ft range for initial call setup
I saw a comment about this but haven't found anything on the subject
from Verizon This may be relative to signal strength from a cell
tower. The phone is going to decide whether to connect to the tower or
the femtocell.
Malcolm Hoar
>4. Or a cellular repeater. I have one of these:
><http://www.wi-ex.com>
>that I haven't had much time to play with yet. It sorta, kinda, maybe
>works. So far, it's not a magic fix. About $150 to $400 for various
Again, I'm not convinced it would work well without a good
quality external directional antenna on the roof. And that
quickly gets fairly costly.
Malcolm Hoar
>> * Burns minutes even when connected via the femtocell
>
>Trade off monthly fee versus minutes???? AT&T also may charge minutes
The options AT&T have been offering in their test markets
are actually very attractive to me. Of course, they may
decide they can get away with more when it comes to the
national rollout :-(
Also, the Verizon femtocell doesn't handle data. That's
certainly not a showstopper for me today but I strongly
prefer to keep the option open...
SMS
> In article <EJmdnSQd2eGUEojW...@posted.southvalleyinternet>, Roy <aa...@aa4re.ampr.org> wrote:
>> "The annual survey of wireless customer satisfaction from Consumer
>
> Not a good week for AT&T. They've "dropped" (i.e. lost)
> the suit over Verizon's map commercials:
>
> http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13908580
That AT&T lawsuit was pretty ridiculous. The Verizon ad accurately
compared 3G coverage areas of the two carriers. AT&T complained that the
ad didn't show AT&T's 2G and voice coverage, which is why the AT&T map
was so sparse. Duh, the whole ad was about comparing 3G coverage.
Meanwhile, AT&T is reduced to vague claims about "more bars in more
places" (because they include all the GSM-only countries rather than
comparing just U.S. coverage) "fewest dropped calls" (a claim that even
the company that did the study for them rejected), and "fastest 3G
network" (even though real world tests have shown that AT&T's 3G is
almost always slower than Verizon 3G).
It's pretty sad to see what AT&T has become.
Malcolm Hoar
>It's pretty sad to see what AT&T has become.
And the wireless division is their bright spot!
Roy
> ...
>
> Also, the Verizon femtocell doesn't handle data. That's
> certainly not a showstopper for me today but I strongly
> prefer to keep the option open...
>
I don't see this as a problem in the future. Make sure you get a phone
that does Wifi for data :-)
Steve Pope
>You seem to suggest that T-Mobile coverage around the Bay Area
>in general is well below AT&T/Verizon.
In past discussions it seems that while ATT has better signal
strength in more places, it has an inferior fallback policy
and will not revert to plain GSM in areas where the 2.5G
or 3G modes are marginal.
Whether this is true, I'm not sure, it could be just anecdotal.
Steve
John Higdon
spo...@speedymail.org (Steve Pope) wrote:
> In past discussions it seems that while ATT has better signal
> strength in more places, it has an inferior fallback policy
> and will not revert to plain GSM in areas where the 2.5G
> or 3G modes are marginal.
I notice that frequently, although there is what appears to be solid
signal, that when a call or data connection is actually attempted, the
signal drops to almost nothing, or even refuses to connect at all.
I've asked about this, but the moment I cop to having a
"non-AT&T-branded" phone, the conversation is over. I know that the
problem is not my Nokia N95, but the won't provide any help, either.
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>In article <mnidh5psunqru7j7a...@4ax.com>, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>>4. Or a cellular repeater. I have one of these:
>><http://www.wi-ex.com>
>>that I haven't had much time to play with yet. It sorta, kinda, maybe
>>works. So far, it's not a magic fix. About $150 to $400 for various
>
>Again, I'm not convinced it would work well without a good
>quality external directional antenna on the roof. And that
>quickly gets fairly costly.
The amplifier and repeaters are costly, but there are other ways. I've
installed 4 assorted external antennas in the tree tops for various
friends and customers. The total cost was about $50 mostly in
connectors. I have several antenna designs that I use. Most common
is a patch antenna made from urethane foam wall board, aluminum duct
tape, and a Tupperware dish. I also have a biquad design and a rather
complex colinear array. All are directional antennas. I don't use
omnidirectional antennas because they don't have enough gain. The
amps and repeaters all tend to use omnis which is one reason they
don't work well. I'll see if I can dig out some pictures.
One big catch. All these antennas are single band. I build them for
either 800 or 1900Mhz, not both. It's far too complicated to build a
dual band antenna and it's often not necessary. For AT&T, I have no
clue as to which antenna would be appropriate for your house.
There are instructions all over the web on how to build a cell phone
antenna. For example, this one is for 1900 Mhz only:
<http://www.metacafe.com/watch/750707/how_to_make_a_cell_phone_antenna_under_5_minutes/>
and a bicircle (similar to a biquad):
<http://www.wikarekare.org/Antenna/bicircle.html>
The installation is fairly simple. The panel antenna or Tupperware
dish goes on the roof. I use cheap RG-6a/u CATV coaxial cable down to
where the cell phone is located. A "pigtail" adapter between the
RG-6/u coax and the weird connector on the cell phone completes the
installation. Two of these systems use a docking station for the
phone with a DECT 6.0 cordless phone to provide access around the
house. This isn't the one I use, but it's similar:
<http://www.phonelabs.com/prd05.asp>
The problem here is that this is NOT a plug-n-play solution. If you
want cheap, you're going to have to do some work. It also hasn't been
100% successful. Attempts at two other locations were deemed a
failure due to my inability to find a good antenna location and a
neighbors paranoia about "cellular radiation". I tried to install a
much larger corner reflector (which incidentally is dual band) which
caused the neighbor to panic.
One other idea. You can use a passive repeater. That's where you
have an antenna on the roof, a coax cable into the house, and another
antenna inside. No active parts. If you have a VERY strong signal
outside, but nothing at all in the basement, this will provide some
coverage. However, any other combination of signal and location
probably isn't going to work. However, if you have the antennas and
coax, it's worth a try.
Gotta run...
Malcolm Hoar
I do think this is an issue. At my home, 2G and 3G performance
are both crap but the 3G signal is the crappier of the two.
I was able to get some improvement by locking my phone to 2G.
This required that I first hack the 'phone in order to get
at configuration features that AT&T had "hidden" <sigh>.
The ability to hold a call was still unacceptable but the
improvment was definitely worth having. At least until
that particular phone died at the age at 18 months <double
sigh>.
The backup phone that I'm now using doesn't have this problem.
It doesn't do 3G anyway ;-)
Those funky phones that come with a cord look increasingly
attractive...
Malcolm Hoar
>The amplifier and repeaters are costly, but there are other ways. I've
>installed 4 assorted external antennas in the tree tops for various
>friends and customers. The total cost was about $50 mostly in
>connectors. I have several antenna designs that I use.
LOL. You really are amazing, Jeff.
If I could use a homed brewed solution to eliminate or
at least reduce the $75/mo annuity that I pay for cell
service, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
But I have something of a philisophical problem jumping
through all of these hoops just to make AT&T's service
work that way it should have in the first place.
It doesn't help that vertigo prevents me from ascending
to altitudes of more than 6-8 feet :-(
If I could purchase the 3G microcell for $150, I'd have
to hold my nose but the available evidence suggests that
it will provide a very satisfactory plug-and-play solution.
I guess I'll just have to wait for local availability.
Still no firm news on that (I called AT&T again today) but
I suspect that it's within 3 months.
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> In past discussions it seems that while ATT has better signal
> strength in more places, it has an inferior fallback policy
> and will not revert to plain GSM in areas where the 2.5G
> or 3G modes are marginal.
My Blackberry Bold shows GSM on the screen occasionally at startup.
I don't know if I have ever actually placed a phone call at that time, or
if once it sees EDGE it fails to go back. It seems to be a startup thing.
GSM, edge, EDGE.
A recent firmware upgrade gave me the opportunity to turn off 3G, which I
have done, since there is no 3G in my area. Prior to that, it would toggle
back and forth from EDGE to 3G as appropriate.
--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> 4. Or a cellular repeater. I have one of these:
> <http://www.wi-ex.com>
> that I haven't had much time to play with yet. It sorta, kinda, maybe
> works. So far, it's not a magic fix. About $150 to $400 for various
> models.
I bought a "Spotwave z1900 Wireless Cell Phone Signal Booster" at a cost of
$299.99. I see it is now $159 at Amazon.
The good news is that I got my money back.
It is a two piece unit, with a highly directional outdoor antenna that
doesn't have a mounting system that is in accordance with the beamwidth.
I could see no change in my two bars of signal with or without the gadget.
I am impatiently waiting for an AT&T 3G microcell to be available here.
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>In article <vgpdh517s1gbmiele...@4ax.com>, je...@cruzio.com wrote:
>
>>The amplifier and repeaters are costly, but there are other ways. I've
>>installed 4 assorted external antennas in the tree tops for various
>>friends and customers. The total cost was about $50 mostly in
>>connectors. I have several antenna designs that I use.
>
>LOL. You really are amazing, Jeff.
Ummm... ok. I consider myself a problem solver. Knowing how things
work, especially RF, is a big plus. Incidentally, when I'm not busy
solving problems, I keep myself busy creating them.
>If I could use a homed brewed solution to eliminate or
>at least reduce the $75/mo annuity that I pay for cell
>service, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
I thought the goal was to provide usable cell service in your house.
That can be done using most of the ideas everyone has suggested.
However, cutting monthly costs is a different problem. Lots of
options there:
1. Do without.
2. Use Skype or VoIP in the house to cut cell phone minutes and
switch to a metered plan.
3. Call forward the cell phone when at home to your home phone.
4. Use a pager. (I wish the cellular providers would offer an SMS
only plan).
5. SMR or Trunked system to a dispatch center. It's about $35/month
to rent a channel on a GMRS system. Some have phone patches.
6. Dilute the bill by getting your friends and relatives on your
plan. Extra phones are usually about $15/month more (including
taxes). If your current bill is $75, adding a 2nd phone will bring it
up to $90. If you split it with your friend, that's $38/ea.
7. etc.
There plenty of other possibilities, but since I only have a vague
idea of what problem you're trying to solve, and what you have to work
with, I can't be too sure they will work.
>But I have something of a philisophical problem jumping
>through all of these hoops just to make AT&T's service
>work that way it should have in the first place.
Not to worry. All the other vendors lie and cheat about the same. The
only honest cellular provider is a bankrupt cellular provider.
>It doesn't help that vertigo prevents me from ascending
>to altitudes of more than 6-8 feet :-(
Every high skool and kollege have student willing to perform suicidal
acts of daring for cash. In general, they have little fear, expect to
live forever, and tend to bounce, instead of break, when they hit the
ground. They also heal quicker and are somewhat expendable.
However, I'm not stupid. It makes no sense to do the installation
only to have it fail. I have a 30ft long fiberglass window washing
extension pole. The antenna goes on the top and I walk around looking
for a suitable location. If it doesn't work on top of the pole, it's
not going to work on your roof.
Incidentally, don't use the pole in the middle of a crowded shopping
center. I did once trying to track down some wi-fi interference, and
ended up spending a wasted hour explaining what I was doing to the
local constabulary. Also, "Looking for extraterrestrials" is not the
right answer.
>If I could purchase the 3G microcell for $150, I'd have
>to hold my nose but the available evidence suggests that
>it will provide a very satisfactory plug-and-play solution.
I thought you wanted cheap. If that makes you happy in the house,
then you could do as well with cellular call forwarding. When you're
home, if someone calls your cell, then it gets forwarded to your home
phone. When you leave home, the forwarding is reset. Google Voice,
where incoming calls can ring both the house and cell phones will also
work.
>I guess I'll just have to wait for local availability.
>Still no firm news on that (I called AT&T again today) but
>I suspect that it's within 3 months.
Unless you insist that everything goes to your cell phone,
Microcellular doesn't make any financial sense to me.
Jeff Liebermann
>Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>> 4. Or a cellular repeater. I have one of these:
>> <http://www.wi-ex.com>
>> that I haven't had much time to play with yet. It sorta, kinda, maybe
>> works. So far, it's not a magic fix. About $150 to $400 for various
>> models.
>I bought a "Spotwave z1900 Wireless Cell Phone Signal Booster" at a cost of
>$299.99. I see it is now $159 at Amazon.
>The good news is that I got my money back.
<http://www.spotwave.com/residential/products/z1900.asp>
I can explain why this one is rather marginal if you're interested.
Lots of things wrong here.
>It is a two piece unit, with a highly directional outdoor antenna that
>doesn't have a mounting system that is in accordance with the beamwidth.
Baloney. No antenna that small can have much gain or directionality.
>I could see no change in my two bars of signal with or without the gadget.
That's because your cell phone was locking on the direct signal from
the cell site, instead of the signal from the repeater. The cell
phone will NOT select the strongest signal. It will select the signal
with the best SNR (signal to noise ratio). The repeater has an AGC
(automagic gain control). If it gets too strong a signal from the
cell site, it reduce the gain. If the coax loss is high, it's
possible for the direct signal into your house to be better and
cleaner (better SNR) than the signal from the repeater. The most
common causes are local interference and reflections.
Go thee unto:
<http://www.wpsantennas.com/pdf/testmode/FieldTestModes.pdf>
Find your cell phone. Go into the Field Test Mode, and measure your
signal strength and SNR.
>I am impatiently waiting for an AT&T 3G microcell to be available here.
Why? If all you want is to receive calls on your cell phone at home,
use call forwarding or Google Voice. If you need internet access on
your cell phone, plug in, or use Wi-Fi.
David Kaye
>I remember when people wouldn't move to Los Gatos because they didn't
>want GTE phone service.
This was the same in the LA area as well. While people loved to live in Santa
Monica, they often moved to Venice, etc to not have to deal with GTE.
I remember one phone call I made while on my way to visit a friend in LA. I
was in Santa Barbara at a pay phone. I pushed the buttons for his number and
heard the rapid dialing of pulses going through the network. Then I heard
rapid tone dialing. Then off in the distance I heard fainter pulse dialing.
Then I heard rapid tone dialing again.
I assume that the call was translated from the (PUC-required) touch phone into
a GTE pulse office in SBarbara, then probably into a PacTel trunk in Ventura
or Simi Valley or somewhere, and then back to GTE's Santa Monica office, and
then over to my friend in PacTel territory in Silverlake. The tones and
pulsing must have taken a good 20 seconds.
>collecting it. Payphones used solenoids that operated on + or - 330VDC
>based on whether they were supposed to refund the money or collect it.
330VDC? Is that a typo?
David Kaye
>I could live without a cell phone just fine. They are horrible to talk
>on, even if there is decent coverage, because they sound so bad.
Must be your service. I have had Verizon Wireless as my cell service for the
past 8 years and unless I am in a rare bad spot, people don't know I'm on a
cell phone at all. I haven't had wireline service in must be 4 or 5 years,
and even so I hadn't used it in 8.
>They
>are physically uncomfortable to use.
I have a flip phone that's about 4 years old. I prefer that to the totally
flat iPone-style phone. I also prefer a phone that's mainly a phone. I have
good clarity both using the handset itself and using plug-in earpiece and mic.
>Connections drop. Connections go
>silent. They are undoubtedly worse than 19th century telephony ever was.
I've managed to stay connected while driving over about 40 miles of distance
in the Bay Area without being dropped (along 101 and 880 for the most part).
I don't talk while driving any longer (even with headset) because I've come to
realize I need the attention for driving.
I seldom get drops. When I do it's almost always because of shadowing due to
inadequate number of sites, not because of congestion.
All that said, I am aware of dead spots such as Sunol, western Marin, and the
coast between HMB and Santa Cruz. I like to go visit Pescadero, where cell
service is unreliable, but I'm not too worried. I can always phone people
back if they'll leave a message.
>A pager would work for me just fine if it weren't for the fact that
>public phones have gone the way of the horse and buggy.
When I was in the moving and hauling business in the early 90s I posted flyers
with a pager number. The voicemail on that number outlined my rates and
services, and if the caller left a message they were already sold. My pager
went off and I found a phone booth and called them back to schedule. Now,
using a cell phone my callers are not guaranteed sells. I have to outline my
rates and services and listen to them hem and haw while they decide if they
want to go with me or not.
But this is a different world today and I can't go back to pager and voicemail
because potential customers will just go elsewhere. Already I lose potential
customers who won't leave a message while I'm driving.
>did it to themselves with rip-off pricing and deceptive labeling. When
>the utilities owned and operated them they were fine, but when they were
>taken over by the COCOT sleaze companies, they became useless.
But even during that time, the local telcos continued to operate pay phones
until they just weren't profitable anymore.
>I have gone to a considerable effort to have excellent wired telephone
>service in my home for a simple reason: I'm not going to be reduced to
>using a crappy cell phone for all of my telecommunications experience.
Some of us don't have the luxury of sitting at home waiting for phone calls.
When I'm working I'm setting up my next service calls.
John Higdon
sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
> Must be your service. I have had Verizon Wireless as my cell service for the
> past 8 years and unless I am in a rare bad spot, people don't know I'm on a
> cell phone at all. I haven't had wireline service in must be 4 or 5 years,
> and even so I hadn't used it in 8.
I think people have come to accept the ergonomically crappy phones and
the very poor voice quality.
> I've managed to stay connected while driving over about 40 miles of distance
> in the Bay Area without being dropped (along 101 and 880 for the most part).
I used to be able to do that until the service deteriorated to the point
where that became impossible.
> I seldom get drops. When I do it's almost always because of shadowing due to
> inadequate number of sites, not because of congestion.
I never stopped analyze why I get dropped; I just do.
> But even during that time, the local telcos continued to operate pay phones
> until they just weren't profitable anymore.
Another reason for the removal of pay phone is that they became the
center of drug dealing.
> Some of us don't have the luxury of sitting at home waiting for phone calls.
> When I'm working I'm setting up my next service calls.
When I'm in the office, I'm making calls. When I'm out in the field, I'm
not talking on the phone.
John Higdon
sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
> 330VDC? Is that a typo?
Nope. That is correct.
David Kaye
>> 330VDC? Is that a typo?
>
>Nope. That is correct.
>
Eep! Why on earth would a company put that kind of juice on equipment
accessible to the public? Scares the hell out of me.
John Higdon
sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
> Eep! Why on earth would a company put that kind of juice on equipment
> accessible to the public? Scares the hell out of me.
Well, that's the way pay phones worked. The coin mechanism used very
high resistance coils to send the coin to the return or to the box. The
return was to ground, and with out the high resistance, pay phones would
have had more hum in them than they had. Due to the high resistance, a
high voltage was needed to activate them.
The connections were NOT accessible to the public in that they were
pretty secure, and anyone trying to get to the drop directly would sort
of get what he deserved. But as I recall, rarely did anyone try to
connect directly to the telco drop.
This is the main reason that telco would NOT allow customer-supplied
equipment on a coin phone line. FWIW, privately-owned pay phones did not
use this class of service (CO-controlled coin-handling); that's what all
the "smart" stuff was for.
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> On Thu, 3 Dec 2009 02:21:01 +0000 (UTC), do...@07.usenet.us.com wrote:
> <http://www.spotwave.com/residential/products/z1900.asp>
> I can explain why this one is rather marginal if you're interested.
> Lots of things wrong here.
> >It is a two piece unit, with a highly directional outdoor antenna that
> >doesn't have a mounting system that is in accordance with the beamwidth.
> Baloney. No antenna that small can have much gain or directionality.
The only signal indication was a light bar, but it certainly seemed to be
directional, which is what the tech said on the phone was the most
difficult part of installation. The other part is that you don't know
which signal you are monitoring, so if your tower is over there, and you
are pointing over here at someone else's signal ...
> >I could see no change in my two bars of signal with or without the gadget.
> That's because your cell phone was locking on the direct signal from
> the cell site, instead of the signal from the repeater. The cell
I tried to avoid that, moving to places where there was no direct signal,
which is fairly easy in my house.
I think this gadget might work inside a building that is blocking the
entrance of cellular signal, but has a strong signal outside.
> Go thee unto:
> <http://www.wpsantennas.com/pdf/testmode/FieldTestModes.pdf>
> Find your cell phone. Go into the Field Test Mode, and measure your
> signal strength and SNR.
I don't see SNR for any unit on that page. The signal strength on my
Blackberry, which I didn't have at the time, shows as numeric on the home
screen, after entering Alt-NMLL.
The Blackberry has signal level, which is usually around -100, sometimes
-107. It also has a list called Host Routing Table with 20 numbers in it
to identify cell towers, with one of them in bold font when I have
cellular signal. The one at home always seems to be 31009030, although I
can't find any location references to those numbers.
Using the Blackberry sigloc program, I can see signal strength and tower
identifiers, but I just can't figure out how to point the Blackberry for
optimum signal. http://f5bbutils.fairview5.com/signalloc/
I think I can hit two towers from here, but it's all guesswork. sigloc
gives Google Maps tower locations in places I know aren't right, like the
middle of a lake, that I suspect are averages of users' phones reporting in
to Google. Google Maps shows the same location before my GPS locks in.
<http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108052331853034571543.00046ee9d3582689b5255&ll=38.635109,-122.397308&spn=0.672595,1.223602&z=10>
> >I am impatiently waiting for an AT&T 3G microcell to be available here.
> Why? If all you want is to receive calls on your cell phone at home,
You live alone, don't you?
Malcolm Hoar
>Incidentally, don't use the pole in the middle of a crowded shopping
>center. I did once trying to track down some wi-fi interference, and
>ended up spending a wasted hour explaining what I was doing to the
>local constabulary. Also, "Looking for extraterrestrials" is not the
>right answer.
ROTFL
>Unless you insist that everything goes to your cell phone,
>Microcellular doesn't make any financial sense to me.
It really does for me. I work from home but I also run many,
many local errands every day. Turning forwards on and off
would be a royal pain and I'm sure to forget. Furthermore,
most of my calls are to and from other cell phones on
my plan and hence they are "free". If I start forwarding
all of those calls I'd need a plan with a lot more anytime
minutes.
It's nearly all family calls; "Daddy, will you pick me up
from....". My business calls go to a land line at home.
If I'm out those calls drop through to VM although I do
sometimes forward my land line to the cell if I need to
go out and am expecting a call that I don't want to miss.
One phone, everything on speed dial, and the vast majority
of calls charged at 0 cents/min (mobile-to-mobile). It's
perfect except for the lousy reception at my house.
The microcell would fix that for a cost of $150; that's well
under $5/mo assuming it's good for 3+ years. It's annoying
that I have to pay extra to overcome the shortcomings of
AT&T's network. But, at the end of the day, it should give
me exactly what I need for a modest cost. So, in this case,
pragmatism rules I think ;-)
Cost-shared solutions with neighbors would be neat they
are hard to organize as a practical matter. If only the folks
on my street could purchase and share one lawn mower,
table saw, drill press, compressor, nail gun etc... ;-)
Jeff Liebermann
Fast reply. I'm in a rush today.
>I don't see SNR for any unit on that page.
Sorry. It's usually listed as Eb/No for all digital phones. Eb/No is
the energy per bit to noise ratio expressed in dB. Anything better
than about 7dB is required for CMSA voice, after FEC (forward error
correction). I have to lookup the numbers for UMTS but my guess(tm)
is that they're similar. I'll see if I can find some threshold
values. Bug me if I forget as I should know these numbers.
>You live alone, don't you?
Yep. If you house phone is perpetually busy, then consider a 2nd
(i.e. backup) land line also known as VoIP. I use a Linksys SPA-921
on Future-Nine.com for $75/year. A Skype phone would also work. No
need to have the computah running all the time. If you have broadband
internet, you have many options for running VoIP.
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>In article <8p6eh5d1clej7331l...@4ax.com>, je...@cruzio.com wrote:
>>Unless you insist that everything goes to your cell phone,
>>Microcellular doesn't make any financial sense to me.
>
>It really does for me. I work from home but I also run many,
>many local errands every day. Turning forwards on and off
>would be a royal pain and I'm sure to forget.
I have my call forwarding setup in several speed dial slots. I don't
use it much at home or in the office because I have strong signals at
those locations. The speed dial does work, but the timing is tricky.
I sometimes have to do it 2 or 3 times before it works.
>Furthermore,
>most of my calls are to and from other cell phones on
>my plan and hence they are "free". If I start forwarding
>all of those calls I'd need a plan with a lot more anytime
>minutes.
Good points, to a point. With call forwarding on a cell to cell call,
you're not being billed for the minutes on incoming calls, that
originate from someone elses cell phone and are being call forwarded.
As I understand it, you only pay for airtime minutes. However, I
would double check this as I'm not 100.0% sure.
I'll assume that optimizing you cell phone service will not involve
lifestyle changes. One of the alleged benefits of having a GPS in the
phone is that can do location based services. One of the items often
mentioned, but implemented only in Femtocell, is to have the phone
switch to a Wi-Fi connection when within range of the base station at
home. There's nothing to prevent you from doing the same thing using
a generic Wi-Fi router and a do it thyself application for you cell
phone. When your cell detects your home Wi-Fi router, it sends the
magic TT digits to call forward your cell phone. When it loses
contact, it sends the digits to reset your call forwarding. I would
probably automate the function except that I have zero programming
talent.
I once tried to get Verizon to add a service where I could call
forward to a specific number is out of range rather than going to
voice mail. They may have actually done that but my need disappeared
and I haven't followed up.
>It's nearly all family calls; "Daddy, will you pick me up
>from....". My business calls go to a land line at home.
>If I'm out those calls drop through to VM although I do
>sometimes forward my land line to the cell if I need to
>go out and am expecting a call that I don't want to miss.
I pay $75/year for a VoIP number on Future-Nine.com. You can do
almost as well with Skype and Gizmo5. Get a 2nd line and set you main
phone to forward when busy to the VoIP line. That one is busy or
nobody answers, make sure it has voicemail.
>One phone, everything on speed dial, and the vast majority
>of calls charged at 0 cents/min (mobile-to-mobile). It's
>perfect except for the lousy reception at my house.
Actually, I got an interesting surprise with "free" mobile to mobile.
My plan has 1400 free anytime minutes included with 3 phones. Lately,
we've been coming close to the 1400 minute mark. When I engage in a
call to one of the other phones on my plan, it decrements the 1400
minutes at *TWICE* the rate. The minutes for each phone is counted
separately.
>The microcell would fix that for a cost of $150; that's well
>under $5/mo assuming it's good for 3+ years. It's annoying
>that I have to pay extra to overcome the shortcomings of
>AT&T's network. But, at the end of the day, it should give
>me exactly what I need for a modest cost. So, in this case,
>pragmatism rules I think ;-)
Optimist. My crystal ball is at the repair shop, so predictions are
temporarily unavailable.
>Cost-shared solutions with neighbors would be neat they
>are hard to organize as a practical matter. If only the folks
>on my street could purchase and share one lawn mower,
>table saw, drill press, compressor, nail gun etc... ;-)
We do that. Unfortunately, it's my power tools, garden tools,
computer parts, wood splitter, copier, paper, books, that's being
shared. With luck and some coercion, I sometimes even get them back.
SMS
> John Higdon <hi...@kome.com> wrote:
>
>> I could live without a cell phone just fine. They are horrible to talk
>> on, even if there is decent coverage, because they sound so bad.
>
> Must be your service. I have had Verizon Wireless as my cell service for the
> past 8 years and unless I am in a rare bad spot, people don't know I'm on a
> cell phone at all. I haven't had wireline service in must be 4 or 5 years,
> and even so I hadn't used it in 8.
Too many people with AT&T wireless or T-Mobile automatically assume that
all the other carriers are as bad as these GSM carriers. If you look at
Bay Area Consumer Checkbook, and Consumer Reports, both of which do
surveys with huge sample sizes, you'll see that it's no surprise that
Higdon is complaining.
Steve Pope
>Too many people with AT&T wireless or T-Mobile automatically assume that
>all the other carriers are as bad as these GSM carriers.
Do you have anything to back up your view that CDMA carriers outperform
GSM carriers?
Steve
SMS
> Those funky phones that come with a cord look increasingly
> attractive...
I read about those in a history book.
SMS
> 330VDC? Is that a typo?
No, but it's a surprise to most people. The pairs can handle that high
voltage at low current, enough to operate the refund/collect solenoid in
the pay phones. The ringers in WE phones used 90 VAC (20 Hz) so 300+
volts isn't so remarkable. Actually I can't remember the exact voltage,
it was either 310V or 330V, though either would work.
Peter Lawrence
The other problem with AT&T phones that toggle between EDGE and 3G is that
it drains the battery faster. When I'm in a area that's solid 3G or
absolutely no 3G, the battery drains a lot slower than in areas where my
AT&T is flipping between the 3G and EDGE network towers.
- Peter
David Kaye
>The ringers in WE phones used 90 VAC (20 Hz) so 300+
>volts isn't so remarkable.
330 VDC and 90 VAC are different. I've been shocked by telco ringing voltage.
It caused me to flick my hand away. I'm thinking, though I may be wrong
about this, that 330 volts, especially DC, would be more inclined to have the
opposite reaction -- causing the muscles to contract and hold on.
I've been bit by a few of those voltages in old radio B supplies, but it was
just a brushing glance, so I'm no expert on the effects.
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>On Thu, 3 Dec 2009 16:41:38 +0000 (UTC), do...@07.usenet.us.com wrote:
>
>Fast reply. I'm in a rush today.
>
>>I don't see SNR for any unit on that page.
What phone(s) do you have? Different brands have very different field
test mode displays.
>Sorry. It's usually listed as Eb/No for all digital phones. Eb/No is
>the energy per bit to noise ratio expressed in dB. Anything better
>than about 7dB is required for CDMA voice, after FEC (forward error
>correction).
>
>I have to lookup the numbers for UMTS but my guess(tm)
>is that they're similar. I'll see if I can find some threshold
>values. Bug me if I forget as I should know these numbers.
Your phone may also show Ec/lo in dB in the field test mode. Ec/lo
and Eb/No are basically the same thing. Ec is the energy per chip and
lo is the total received power. Ec/lo is also called the signal to
interference ratio.
If you are in a location with reflections or intereference, Ec/lo will
drop, while the signal strength remains roughly constant. This is why
I mumbled that the system decides which cell site to use based on SNR
(signal to noise ratio) and NOT by signal strength.
The system will also adjust the transmit power on both the handset and
the base to keep the Eb/No at a constant and low level so as not to
belch more power than necessary.
Typical target values are:
Voice at 12.2Kbits/sec 7-10 dB
Data to 144Kbits/sec 2.5 dB
EVDO or HSDPA data 0.7 dB
More later (maybe).
John Higdon
sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
> 330 VDC and 90 VAC are different. I've been shocked by telco ringing
> voltage.
> It caused me to flick my hand away. I'm thinking, though I may be wrong
> about this, that 330 volts, especially DC, would be more inclined to have the
> opposite reaction -- causing the muscles to contract and hold on.
I have twice had high voltage (one at 4600 V; the other at 10,000V)
applied between my hand and upper arm when I accidently touched
terminals carrying the main plate supply. The contact was long enough to
be able to "savor" the experience, but apparently the reflexive reaction
was to move in the direction of removing the contact. It wasn't
pleasant, but it wasn't catastrophic, either. That was before I had a
pacemaker!
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> On Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:50:33 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
> wrote:
> >On Thu, 3 Dec 2009 16:41:38 +0000 (UTC), do...@07.usenet.us.com wrote:
> >
> >Fast reply. I'm in a rush today.
> >
> >>I don't see SNR for any unit on that page.
> What phone(s) do you have? Different brands have very different field
> test mode displays.
That page doesn't list SNR as something that is displayed by any phone that
it lists. My Blackberry Bold doesn't display anything on the Status page
that could be imagined to be SNR, by any name.
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> If you house phone is perpetually busy, then consider a 2nd
> (i.e. backup) land line also known as VoIP. I use a Linksys SPA-921
> on Future-Nine.com for $75/year. A Skype phone would also work. No
I use VoIP as my primary office phone. I have a hard adapter and a
softphone on my PC that is the same number as the hard adapter. Incoming
calls ring to my VoIP and cell phone.
If I had a microcell, I would eliminate the VoIP, not pay to have it as a
backup to the cellular. The cellular would be my only phone, saving the
cost of the VoIP.
Peter Lawrence
Read the latest Consumer Reports. Generally speaking, the CDMA cell phones
garnered better ratings for voice quality than the GSM mobile phones.
And overall, Verizon is by far the best rated service provider and AT&T was
the worst rated by a large margin.
- Peter
Peter Lawrence
>>
>> It's nearly all family calls; "Daddy, will you pick me up
>> from....". My business calls go to a land line at home.
>> If I'm out those calls drop through to VM although I do
>> sometimes forward my land line to the cell if I need to
>> go out and am expecting a call that I don't want to miss.
>
> I pay $75/year for a VoIP number on Future-Nine.com. You can do
> almost as well with Skype and Gizmo5. Get a 2nd line and set you main
> phone to forward when busy to the VoIP line. That one is busy or
> nobody answers, make sure it has voicemail.
For a VoIP number, MagicJack is the best deal around: $40 for the first year
then $20 per year thereafter. MagicJack also provides free voice mail or
call forwarding.
- Peter
John Richards
> 330 VDC and 90 VAC are different. I've been shocked by telco ringing voltage.
> It caused me to flick my hand away. I'm thinking, though I may be wrong
> about this, that 330 volts, especially DC, would be more inclined to have the
> opposite reaction -- causing the muscles to contract and hold on.
>
> I've been bit by a few of those voltages in old radio B supplies, but it was
> just a brushing glance, so I'm no expert on the effects.
I once accidentally grabbed unto the 680VDC rail in a ham radio transmitter.
It knocked me clear across the room.
--
John Richards
Peter Lawrence
>
> Interesting. I've had cell service (3 lines) from AT&T for the
> past two years. It's been satisfactory except for reception at
> my home location (difficult site in the hills). I know that
> Verizon and Sprint have poor reception here too. T-Mobile is
> presumably good since they've just put up a tower 1/4 mile away.
> I haven't verified the reception although one of the antennas
> appears to point at my house.
>
> AT&T Wireless customer support has been very good in my
> experience... night and day compared to AT&T POTS. And I like
> their rollover plans. But I can't live with the poor reception
> at home any longer.
>
> My 2 year AT&T contract is almost up so I face the decision:
>
> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
>
> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
>
> Any thoughts?
Why wait for a 3G Microcell from AT&T when you can purchase a Verizon
Femtocell (Network Extender) today?
As long as you have a good broadband connection at home, Verizon's Network
Extender should enable you to get an excellent Verizon CDMA signal in your
home. And unlike Sprint's Femtocell, there is no additional monthly fees
for Verizon's Femtocell. The price of the Verizon Network Extender
(Femtocell) is $250. Again there's no additional monthly fees to use it.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/accessory?action=gotoFemtocell
- Peter
AES
Peter Lawrence <humm...@aol.com> wrote:
> Why wait for a 3G Microcell from AT&T when you can purchase a Verizon
> Femtocell (Network Extender) today?
>
> As long as you have a good broadband connection at home, Verizon's Network
> Extender should enable you to get an excellent Verizon CDMA signal in your
> home. And unlike Sprint's Femtocell, there is no additional monthly fees
> for Verizon's Femtocell. The price of the Verizon Network Extender
> (Femtocell) is $250. Again there's no additional monthly fees to use it.
>
> http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/accessory?action=gotoFemtocell
>
As noted in an earlier post which I'm not sure made it to this group
(didn't see it go by), we acquired one of these a few days ago (paid
$220 retail in Palo Alto Verizon store); plugged it into Comcast Triple
Play Internet connection inside a closet at one end of our house; it got
itself connected to Verizon and found a GPS signal within minutes; and
seems thus far to be working fine: 2 to 4 bars through most of our
house; down to 1 bar at the far end of the house. No signal at the back
of our lot, or at streetside in front.
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>For a VoIP number, MagicJack is the best deal around: $40 for the first year
>then $20 per year thereafter. MagicJack also provides free voice mail or
>call forwarding.
Beware of anything with magic, amazing, miracle, super, ultimate, etc
in the name. They rarely live up to their name.
MagicJack is a good deal, but requires a computah be left on 24x7 in
order to work well for incoming calls. I frequently get asked for
alternatives because of this. Using a laptop might be a suitable
compromise, but if the laptop goes to sleep, an incoming call will be
missed. Also, there's a new Femtocell style MagicJack coming
real-soon-now:
<http://blog.laptopmag.com/magicjack-scoop-new-features-new-device-coming-in-2009-2010>
I was at Costco last night and found that they were selling Ooma Hub:
<http://www.ooma.com/products/ooma-hub>
$180 and you get lifetime free domestic calling. There were plenty of
fine print, hidden charges, and limitations, but still reasonable if
you expect the company to survive (unlike Sun Rocket, which didn't).
When I arrived home, I got itchy fingers and bought another Linksys
SPA-942 for my house on eBay for $85. I've been passing out VoIP
phones to friends and accomplices as presents. The major use seems to
be a 2nd line for the kids to monopolize. One use is also a portable
phone.
I finally delivered (2 months late) an SPA-941 desk phone, Linksys
WTR54G Wi-Fi travel router, and VoIP service. The recipient runs
conferences in hotels and will typically hop around 3-5 hotels per
month. He brings his own VoIP phone to avoid hotel charges and has
been doing this with a laptop for about a year. Now, he wants to try
it with a stand alone phone. For fun, we went to a local coffee shop
with the derrangement, plugged into 117VAC, and ran a test. Lacking
QoS, the audio was sometime garbled, but no worse than a marginal cell
connection. When asked how we were connected to the internet by what
I guess was a UCSC student, I pointed to the AC power line. That
should start some interesting rumors.
Jeff Liebermann
>Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:50:33 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
>> wrote:
>
>> >On Thu, 3 Dec 2009 16:41:38 +0000 (UTC), do...@07.usenet.us.com wrote:
>> >
>> >Fast reply. I'm in a rush today.
>> >
>> >>I don't see SNR for any unit on that page.
>
>> What phone(s) do you have? Different brands have very different field
>> test mode displays.
>
>That page doesn't list SNR as something that is displayed by any phone that
>it lists. My Blackberry Bold doesn't display anything on the Status page
>that could be imagined to be SNR, by any name.
Try:
Options->Status
Then type:
test
I don't have any experience with Blackberries, but there should be be
something in there.
If this is what you're seeing:
<http://www.blackberryforums.com/aftermarket-software/142672-signal-location-utility-blackberry-beta.html>
then you're correct. No SNR, Eb/No, or Ec/lo.
I have a pile of older Blackberries but no 9000 series (Bold) phones
(and few batteries). I'll see if I can borrow a working Bold and see
what the test mode offers.
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> For a VoIP number, MagicJack is the best deal around: $40 for the first
> year then $20 per year thereafter. MagicJack also provides free voice
> mail or call forwarding.
Doesn't that require a PC be on, a gadget hanging out the side of the PC,
and a separate phone? I didn't see a softphone or other alternatives for
MagicJack.
If Skype's offering was a little less confusing to my feeble brain (seems
some of the "sign up for this, and get a discount on that links go around
in circles), I might enjoy Skype. It has a softphone, voicemail,
standalone phones, and combined cell phones. A group that I am in uses it
as a common inbound voicemail number that we can all review, or answer live
(it allows multiple logins, unlike Yahoo), and for a couple of months per
year, we make outbound calls, so caller-ID shows up correctly, in addition
to some mass-voicemail from dialmycalls that appears as that same number.
The number can remain with the group, transferring from one person to
another if group responsibilities change.
But that's a side note.
I am a sucker for glossy advertising. I went with Callvantage because that
was the preferred solution from my company. When they quit, the company
went completely mum on recommendations, but I switched to Vonage. The
price is quite high, but I do have warm fuzzy feelings about the company,
as opposed to packet8, which I thought was either John or Jeff's provider,
but I couldn't get to answer email or phone calls. Maybe Jeff used some
other provider with a similar name that no longer exists. I thought I was
avoiding that dropout with CallVantage.
My preferred solution is a cell phone.
Keith Keller
>
> MagicJack is a good deal, but requires a computah be left on 24x7 in
> order to work well for incoming calls. I frequently get asked for
> alternatives because of this. Using a laptop might be a suitable
> compromise, but if the laptop goes to sleep, an incoming call will be
> missed.
Using a Mac Mini might be a reasonable compromise. They claim not to
support linux (they say early 2010); if they do end up with linux
support, you might be able to use a magicJack with an OpenWRT-based
router that has a USB port.
> When asked how we were connected to the internet by what
> I guess was a UCSC student, I pointed to the AC power line.
That was very cruel. Well done! ;-)
--keith
--
kkeller...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt
see X- headers for PGP signature information
Jeff Liebermann
>I am a sucker for glossy advertising.
The more gloss on the broshure, the less technical detail. I've seen
some that have zero information and few numbers, but lots of gorgeous
artwork, subliminals, and distorted images.
>Maybe Jeff used some
>other provider with a similar name that no longer exists. I thought I was
>avoiding that dropout with CallVantage.
My favorites are Future-Nine (because they're cheap), Gizmo5 (because
they have a reasonable softphone client and will work with a SIP
phone, and Skype (because my customers use Skype). I also use FWD
(Free World Dialup) and SIPBroker for SIP to SIP. Incidentally,
Gizmo5 was recently purchased by Google which might be a good thing.
>My preferred solution is a cell phone.
Methinks you might want to reflect on whether a cell phone is a
solution or is just another problem.
SMS
> My favorites are Future-Nine (because they're cheap), Gizmo5 (because
> they have a reasonable softphone client and will work with a SIP
> phone, and Skype (because my customers use Skype). I also use FWD
> (Free World Dialup) and SIPBroker for SIP to SIP. Incidentally,
> Gizmo5 was recently purchased by Google which might be a good thing.
Probably going to add VOIP to Google Voice.
Jeff Liebermann
<kkeller...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
>On 2009-12-04, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>>
>> MagicJack is a good deal, but requires a computah be left on 24x7 in
>> order to work well for incoming calls. I frequently get asked for
>> alternatives because of this. Using a laptop might be a suitable
>> compromise, but if the laptop goes to sleep, an incoming call will be
>> missed.
>
>Using a Mac Mini might be a reasonable compromise. They claim not to
>support linux (they say early 2010); if they do end up with linux
>support, you might be able to use a magicJack with an OpenWRT-based
>router that has a USB port.
Yeah, that's a good idea. I haven't seen much in the way of MagicJack
for Linux. I wouldn't expect it to be Open Sourced, so if it's
delivered as a statically linked gigantic binary, it may not fit. The
Linux market for such things isn't huge, but it does open the door for
MagicJack appliances.
>> When asked how we were connected to the internet by what
>> I guess was a UCSC student, I pointed to the AC power line.
>
>That was very cruel. Well done! ;-)
There were three techny types at the table besides me. None of them
caught the joke until I pointed it out as we were leaving and
unplugging the hardware. One of them walked over to the student and
informed him what was really happening. I didn't see the exchange as
I was out the door and rapidly walking to my car. Over the next week,
I received three emails hinting that I really should do things like
that.
I once did something similar while on my exercise walk. I sometimes
walk with a group that includes some technical types. The usual walk
is along the San Lornenzo River levee to the beach and back. Santa
Cruz has a large collection of transients with mental problems. One
common manifestation is that they engage in conversations with
invisible people, ghosts, or inanimate objects. We encountered one of
these during the walk. I mentioned that he was a beta tester for an
implanted cell phone. There were no objections for about 2 minutes,
which suggests that they at least temporarily took me seriously.
Peter Lawrence
> Peter Lawrence <humm...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> For a VoIP number, MagicJack is the best deal around: $40 for the first
>> year then $20 per year thereafter. MagicJack also provides free voice
>> mail or call forwarding.
>
> Doesn't that require a PC be on, a gadget hanging out the side of the PC,
> and a separate phone? I didn't see a softphone or other alternatives for
> MagicJack.
Yes, it requires a PC (or Intel Mac) with a High-speed 2.0 USB Port, but it
doesn't have to be a state-of-the-art PC. An old, no longer used desktop,
tower, or notebook PC should work fine also long as your broadband
connection is reliable.
And it does have a soft phone so it doesn't need a separate phone to use it
as long as your computer as audio input and output.
What's also nice about MagicJack is that it has free call-forwarding, so you
don't to need to have the computer on to receive phone calls, instead you
just have incoming calls forwarded for free to another phone (like your
land-line or mobile phone). Or you can have incoming phone calls go to
voice-mail when the computer is turned off. It's your choice.
And the voice-mail has a neat feature that will forward your voice-mail
messages as an attached .wav file to your e-mail address (and this feature
works even if your computer is turned off because the voice-mail message
isn't sent by your computer but by their central office).
It's not perfect, and I wouldn't use it as my only phone, but for it's price
I'm not complaining. I think it's a very good solution if you need a second
or third phone line for your home, or if you want to have portable VoIP
phone option when you travel because the MagicJack is small enough that you
can also take it with you when you travel with your laptop.
Note: when you travel internationally, you can use it to make free phone
calls back to the United States.
- Peter
Peter Lawrence
> On Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:22:57 -0800, Peter Lawrence <humm...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> For a VoIP number, MagicJack is the best deal around: $40 for the first year
>> then $20 per year thereafter. MagicJack also provides free voice mail or
>> call forwarding.
>
> Beware of anything with magic, amazing, miracle, super, ultimate, etc
> in the name. They rarely live up to their name.
>
> MagicJack is a good deal, but requires a computah be left on 24x7 in
> order to work well for incoming calls. I frequently get asked for
> alternatives because of this.
I don't use it as my primary home phone, so this is not issue. For me, it's
an excellent solution for a second phone line and as a very portable VoIP
solution. It's easy to take it along with you when you travel. I use it
mainly to place domestic and international long-distance calls. Also when
the computer is turned off, you have the option of having incoming phone
calls being forwarded for free to another phone number (otherwise the phone
calls would go to the free MagicJack voice mail).
It's a very good inexpensive solution if you need an additional phone line
for your home or when you travel.
- Peter
Keith Keller
>
> Yeah, that's a good idea. I haven't seen much in the way of MagicJack
> for Linux.
I got the "early 2010" availability from their FAQ. One never knows if
that date will slip or not.
> There were three techny types at the table besides me. None of them
> caught the joke until I pointed it out as we were leaving and
> unplugging the hardware.
To be fair, there are devices that claim to allow ethernet over AC power
lines. I've never used these things, so I don't know how functional
they are, but perhaps that's what the techies thought you were doing.
Jeff Liebermann
<kkeller...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
>> There were three techny types at the table besides me. None of them
>> caught the joke until I pointed it out as we were leaving and
>> unplugging the hardware.
>
>To be fair, there are devices that claim to allow ethernet over AC power
>lines. I've never used these things, so I don't know how functional
>they are, but perhaps that's what the techies thought you were doing.
>--keith
<http://www.homeplug.org>
One of the techy types has a HomePlug AV system in his house
(installed by me) mostly to distribute screaming video to various
boxes. However, he didn't notice. Ok, I'll admit that it could be
made to work over the power lines, but it would still be a technical
stretch in a coffee shop. What makes such tricks (and assorted
internet hoaxes) work is that there's a small but finite possibility
that it might actually be true. Even the most outrageous stories have
some tiny basis. Even if you think about it, there's small chance it
might be true.
Another example. I setup an office VoIP phone to include Caller ID. I
also set it to ring starting with the 3rd ring. The idea is to give
the employee time to look at the LCD screen, and redirect the call
before adding more ring noise to the office. There are about 10
phones in the office few of which are ever heard ringing.
However, it also offers some entertainment value. When a client is
sitting at the desk, they can't see the LCD display on the phone. The
phone will silently "ring", but they can't tell. The employee sees
the display indicate an incoming call, excuses themselves to the
client, and answers the phone. Most clients will ask "how did you
know that the phone was going to ring"? The standard answer is ESP or
"in this biz, you have to be psychic".
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> Using a Mac Mini might be a reasonable compromise. They claim not to
> support linux (they say early 2010); if they do end up with linux
> support, you might be able to use a magicJack with an OpenWRT-based
> router that has a USB port.
This gets stranger and stranger. A Mac Mini with a Magic Jack, instead of
a dedicated SIP device?
do...@07.usenet.us.com
That was interesting, but not informative. A long winded text of what the
signal level was during a call attempt. There is a "suggested" number
there, but it looks like it would log the levels during a call to any
number.
> If this is what you're seeing:
> then you're correct. No SNR, Eb/No, or Ec/lo.
It displays signal level, but it doesn't log it.
I am interested in what the cellular tower identifiers mean, and if there
is a list of where they really are.
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 17:28:59 +0000 (UTC), do...@07.usenet.us.com wrote:
> My favorites are Future-Nine (because they're cheap), Gizmo5 (because
> they have a reasonable softphone client and will work with a SIP
> phone, and Skype (because my customers use Skype). I also use FWD
> (Free World Dialup) and SIPBroker for SIP to SIP. Incidentally,
> Gizmo5 was recently purchased by Google which might be a good thing.
The name Gizmo turns me off, although they were on the short list for me,
because of a highly rated softphone. I find myself using Skype when a
cellular call is found to be marginal at a customer location. The
POTS-looking phone number is still the most common access method. For
some reason, people that know I have Skype will call my phone using
SkypeOut instead of at least giving a try on Skype. Maybe because they are
on speakers instead of a headset.
> >My preferred solution is a cell phone.
> Methinks you might want to reflect on whether a cell phone is a
> solution or is just another problem.
A good cell phone would be my only business phone, if it worked well at
home. The caller ID out would be "correct", instead of my home phone, as
would be the case with forwarding. It would follow me around the house and
neighborhood, which isn't true of a VoIP solution.
Internationally, I don't know if the microcell would travel. It clearly
needs a GPS fix for initial setup, but I don't know if it needs that again
after a power failure. The Callvantage hard adapter just needed to be told
via http or dialtones that it hadn't moved. Skype doesn't seem to care
where you are for SkypeOut. The Cisco softphone doesn't care where it is
in the world.
John Higdon
> A good cell phone would be my only business phone, if it worked well at
> home. The caller ID out would be "correct", instead of my home phone, as
> would be the case with forwarding. It would follow me around the house and
> neighborhood, which isn't true of a VoIP solution.
With VOIP, you can set the Caller-ID to anything you want. You can set
calls to follow you simultaneously or sequentially. The voice quality is
infinitely superior. The cost is down in the noise.
..
> ...I face the decision:
> 1. Wait for 3G Microcell availability in the Bay Area, or
> 2. Switch to T-Mobile
>
> Any thoughts?
I'd suggest that you:
(A) get a TMobile phone (or an unlocked GSM phone) via Craigslist, &
(B) sign up for a TMobile month-to-month plan (no contract, i.e.), &
(C) carry both phones for a week and compare coverage at
the various places that matter to you.
I just switched to TMobile because in Berkeley and SF, my ATT phone
would regularly notify me of a new voicemail from a call for which my
phone had failed to ring. This happened with various ATT phones, so I
blame ATT. This might be a manifestation of the of network congestion
that ATT reportedly suffers from in this area.
At TMobile, I pay the same for about the same quantity of minutes, but
they also threw in unlimited texting.
**********
1366294709
David Kaye
>Beware of anything with magic, amazing, miracle, super, ultimate, etc
>in the name. They rarely live up to their name.
And if a movie is a "laugh riot" (or worse yet, a "laff riot") you can bet it
won't be.
SMS
> Keith Keller <kkeller...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
>> Using a Mac Mini might be a reasonable compromise. They claim not to
>> support linux (they say early 2010); if they do end up with linux
>> support, you might be able to use a magicJack with an OpenWRT-based
>> router that has a USB port.
>
> This gets stranger and stranger. A Mac Mini with a Magic Jack, instead of
> a dedicated SIP device?
Very strange indeed. If someone wanted a small dedicated system for a
Magic Jack a $200 netbook would be much more logical.
Jeff Liebermann
>The name Gizmo turns me off, although they were on the short list for me,
Gizmo was unsuccessful at getting me a working phone number 3 times
out of 4 attempts. Their customer service (billing) support was a
running disaster. That was about 4 years ago. As of about 2 years
ago, that seems to be fixed somewhat. From here, it has all the
appearance of one person doing literally everything. It that's true,
I'm rather impressed with what has been done. Despite the billing
mess, I've had no problems with their service. However, I don't use
it very often.
>because of a highly rated softphone.
Some alternatives:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SIP_software>
I've only tried maybe 4 of the clients, so there may be something
better.
>I find myself using Skype when a
>cellular call is found to be marginal at a customer location.
I just borrow the customers POTS phone.
>The
>POTS-looking phone number is still the most common access method. For
>some reason, people that know I have Skype will call my phone using
>SkypeOut instead of at least giving a try on Skype. Maybe because they are
>on speakers instead of a headset.
Chuckle. I've seen the same thing, but I have a different theory.
They're so used to using Skype for calls into the PSTN (public
switched telephone knotwork) that use the same method for everything.
That's especially true if they imported their dialing directory from
their Outlook address book.
>> >My preferred solution is a cell phone.
>
>> Methinks you might want to reflect on whether a cell phone is a
>> solution or is just another problem.
>
>A good cell phone would be my only business phone, if it worked well at
>home. The caller ID out would be "correct", instead of my home phone, as
>would be the case with forwarding. It would follow me around the house and
>neighborhood, which isn't true of a VoIP solution.
I offered some GPS or proximity based solutions. They may not
currently exist but there's an obvious need. Imagine a cell phone
based system, which knows your location, and directs calls (and
features) to the appropriate destination. For example, if I'm at a
movie or concert, the phone automatically switches to vibrate. If I'm
at home, my incoming calls are automagically forwarded to my home
phone (or VoIP phone). If I'm in my office, they go to my office
phone. If I'm at one of my pre-determined customer locations, it goes
to the appropriate extension on their phone system. Geographic phone
routing is not particularly difficult if the switch (call director?)
that controls incoming calls knows where you are located. Maybe
Google Voice.
I'll see if I can find anything that's close. Probably on Google Code
or Sourceforge. I know it can be done, but I'm not the one to do it.
I can't program my way out of a paper bag. Lacking the necessary
software, I guess a Femtocell is a tolerable solution.
However, my comment was about whether a cell phone is really a
productivity aid and business necessity, or whether it's really a
major distraction and addictive pain in the posterior. I find that I
can't do without it, but I'm often tempted to try. I have several
friends that do not have cell phones, and don't appear to be
suffering.
>Internationally, I don't know if the microcell would travel. It clearly
>needs a GPS fix for initial setup, but I don't know if it needs that again
>after a power failure. The Callvantage hard adapter just needed to be told
>via http or dialtones that it hadn't moved. Skype doesn't seem to care
>where you are for SkypeOut. The Cisco softphone doesn't care where it is
>in the world.
Detailed description of how this type of Femtocell works from a recent
patent application:
"Location based femtocell device configuration and handoff"
<http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090196253>
Background [0008]
Additionally, once configured with the information of the macro
base station, the femtocell device can not move to a new location
(i.e. into the coverage area of another macro base station) without
being re-configured.
Jeff Liebermann
>Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>> Try:
>> Options->Status
>> Then type:
>> test
>
>That was interesting, but not informative.
Quality and quantity are mutually exclusive. That's why someone wrote
that application to give you just the important information, not the
details. To someone versed in the various protocols involved, the
detailed data is very very very informative and important.
Diversion. You use Skype. Go thee unto:
tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Advanced Settings
and enable "Display Technical Info During Calls". I can do quit a bit
of troubleshooting with that data.
>A long winded text of what the
>signal level was during a call attempt. There is a "suggested" number
>there, but it looks like it would log the levels during a call to any
>number.
Nice. I'll take a look when I find a Blackberry Curve. I don't know
anything about the logging except that one vendor (AT&T??) has an
application that logs signal and call quality data to an inserted
flash card, which is later collected, crunched, and used for
something. I've done the same using an external computer plugged into
the cell phone, but this seems a better way.
>> If this is what you're seeing:
>> then you're correct. No SNR, Eb/No, or Ec/lo.
>
>It displays signal level, but it doesn't log it.
>I am interested in what the cellular tower identifiers mean, and if there
>is a list of where they really are.
There used to be a site called "Cingular Cell IDs of the West Coast"
but it disappeared with Geocities. I'm not having any luck finding it
again. Incidentally, the magic buzzword is Cell-ID. Tower ID is
quite different.
This is NOT what you asked for, but might be interesting.
<http://www.atttowers.com>
However, you have to register to get anything:
<https://www.atttowers.com/towers/registration.do>
The search engine is broken, so I suggest you search only by County or
City. This only shows towers where AT&T offers colocation and does
not include any of the smaller sites, rooftops, leased locations,
repeaters, etc.
European GSM cell sites:
<http://cellid.telin.nl:8080/wasp/jsp/CellStats.jsp>
Useless, but interesting:
<http://www.celltowerinfo.com/picts/Cell%20Tower%20Location%20Map-%20California%20.jpg>
<http://www.cellreception.com> (tower search)
Jeff Sutter
> SMS <scharf.ste...@geemail.com> wrote:
> >I remember when people wouldn't move to Los Gatos because they didn't
> >want GTE phone service.
>
> This was the same in the LA area as well. While people loved to live in Santa
> Monica, they often moved to Venice, etc to not have to deal with GTE.
Bzzt.
All of Venice was "served" by GTE.
In the service bureau where I worked in high school, the boss parked
on the street - but we had two reserved parking spaces for the GTE
trucks, who where there nearly 5 days a week. Part of my job was
testing the lines twice daily, accounting for the holes in the hunt
groups and overseeing "doing business with GTE". The ad slogans of
the day "GTE... We hear you", "Its amazing [dialtone?]", and "Help!"
provided some comic relief, but nothing resembling phone service.
I relocated a number of businesses inland to Pacific Telephone, so
they could *stay* in business, dialtone being somewhat essential in
those days...
Jeff Liebermann
<lurk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Dec 2, 8:13�pm, sfdavidka...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
>> SMS <scharf.ste...@geemail.com> wrote:
>> >I remember when people wouldn't move to Los Gatos because they didn't
>> >want GTE phone service.
>>
>> This was the same in the LA area as well. �While people loved to live in Santa
>> Monica, they often moved to Venice, etc to not have to deal with GTE. �
>
>Bzzt.
>
>All of Venice was "served" by GTE.
Sorta. I lived on the canals when I went to SMCC (Santa Monica City
College) in about 1966). However, I was sufficiently impoverished
that I couldn't afford a phone. I just ran an extension over to the
neighbors and acted as their answering service.
As I recall, Venice Beach, the canals, Ocean Front, POP (Pacific Ocean
Park) and such. The Marina Del Rey area was Ma Bell. As I vaguely
recall, south of Washington Blvd was Ma Bell, but some of it had
Venice addresses. Although the canals and where I lived were between
Venice Blvd and Washington Blvd, parts of the canal extends south into
the Marina area and eventually dumps into Ballony Creek. Part of that
area was AT&T, while the beach area was GTE.
>In the service bureau where I worked in high school, the boss parked
>on the street - but we had two reserved parking spaces for the GTE
>trucks, who where there nearly 5 days a week. Part of my job was
>testing the lines twice daily, accounting for the holes in the hunt
>groups and overseeing "doing business with GTE". The ad slogans of
>the day "GTE... We hear you", "Its amazing [dialtone?]", and "Help!"
>provided some comic relief, but nothing resembling phone service.
GTE = Got Tone and Excuses
Yeah, that was typical. GTE was running Strowger and rotary CO's long
after Ma Bell went to crossbar. One of my former high skool friends
was Jerry Schneider, who formed a private telephone interconnect
company long before it was legal to do so.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Schneider>
<http://www.bookrags.com/research/jerry-schneider-omc/>
Hmmm... generally accurate, but I see some oddities. oh well.
His offices were in the GTE building on Ocean near Wilshire. An
amazing number of calling customers were quite literally desperate to
get usable phone service. However, all Jerry could do was supply the
hardware, not the phone service.
>I relocated a number of businesses inland to Pacific Telephone, so
>they could *stay* in business, dialtone being somewhat essential in
>those days...
That was also in the days of answering services. I did some work for
them providing radio dispatch. DID (direct in dial) was science
fiction in the 1960's were everything ran over individual copper
pairs. The typical answering service had about 200-400 lines where
10-20 were dead at any given time. Most businesses had an answering
service not to deal with messages, but to insure that someone answered
the phone when the main line in their businesses location would go
dead. One answering service had bundles from both GTE and AT&T. As I
recall, the answering service business would lose customers when the
phone company reinforced (replaced) the lines, and gain customers when
water or construction caused problems.
Ah, the reek of nostalgia...
Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
>On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 11:54:25 -0800 (PST), Jeff Sutter
><lurk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>All of Venice was "served" by GTE.
More nostalgia:
<http://articles.latimes.com/1988-09-04/news/we-2139_1_pay-phones>
"One resident reportedly became so outraged after repeatedly getting a
busy signal from GTE representatives that he took an ax to several of
the old phones."
Roy
> On Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:55:51 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 11:54:25 -0800 (PST), Jeff Sutter
>> <lurk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>> All of Venice was "served" by GTE.
>
> More nostalgia:
> <http://articles.latimes.com/1988-09-04/news/we-2139_1_pay-phones>
> "One resident reportedly became so outraged after repeatedly getting a
> busy signal from GTE representatives that he took an ax to several of
> the old phones."
>
>
I guess the reason my experience with home phone service from GTE was
much better was that Gilroy had Contel which merged with GTE in 1991.
Los Gatos was part of GTE going back to the 1970s.
do...@07.usenet.us.com
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 06:29:30 +0000 (UTC), do...@07.usenet.us.com wrote:
> again. Incidentally, the magic buzzword is Cell-ID. Tower ID is
> quite different.
Semantic slip. I've located some towers via other web sites, and use
Google Earth to look at the locations to see if there is an obvious tower
there. I don't think we have any of the little "hang on a building"
antennas around here.
> This is NOT what you asked for, but might be interesting.
> <http://www.atttowers.com>
Yikes! At a glance, I would say those are the only ones I have found.
http://www.americantower.com/OASISPublic/SitePublicPage/sitelistGenerator.asp
http://www.antennasearch.com/
are two that I have saved. Just towers, often of all sorts, that I then
ponder for applicability.
I could have sworn I visited atttowers before, but if the search engine is
broken, maybe I tried and quit. Not much in Lake County.
Oh, I know... they used to be "Edge Wireless" so they didn't show up here.
The numeric towers are the ones I think are cellular, but the WST are the
microwave towers to the local CO. We don't have wire or fiber coming into
Middletown, as far as I know.
I wonder if that search is what the nice lady at AT&T used when I was
asking about tower locations. "I'll just search for all the towers within
3 miles of your house." I laughed.
The closest of those is blocked by intervening hills. Now if I just had a
directional antenna, or new what the orientation of the Blackberry Bold was,
I could verify some of those.
Edge-30000-30-32640-51
Edge-30000-30-32641-48
Edge-30000-30-32680-34
Edge-30000-30-32682-43
Edge-30000-30-32691-25
Is what The Blackberry Siglloc returns in my area.
99381
99423
99434
99461
99470
13021
Is what AT&T Towers returns, some of which should be the same, some too far
away to be realistic for me to hit from here, I think.
Cingular [31009030]
Cingular [31090030]
seem to be the two that I see in bold in the BlackBerry Host Routing Table.
John Higdon
<kbidnSzlaZLuf4fW...@posted.southvalleyinternet>,
Roy <aa...@aa4re.ampr.org> wrote:
> I guess the reason my experience with home phone service from GTE was
> much better was that Gilroy had Contel which merged with GTE in 1991.
Contel was a really good, progressive independent. When the area's SS7
network was coming together, Contel was an initial player, putting its
DMS office on line at the very start. Contel had major holdings in the
high desert areas of California, and service in places like Victorville
and Barstow was excellent.
Then came GTE. While citizens' groups managed to prevent GTE from
closing down all of the telephone company offices in Victorville, the
GTE Mark of Quality managed to assert itself over the years throughout
the former Contel system, including Gilroy.
> Los Gatos was part of GTE going back to the 1970s.
Los Gatos has always been a joke. Just yesterday, I went to a site at
which DSL had been installed two months previously. It was all in and
working according to Verizon (hereinafter referred to as GTE for clarity
and guilt-assignment). So what did I find? A DSL modem connected to a
phone line, with no DSL carrier apparent. Got to the test board, who
reported that they couldn't see the modem at all. "Need to send out a
tech...", was how it ended up.
Typical GTE: the client has been paying for a service for two months
that it admittedly wasn't using, but GTE wasn't supplying the service
either! Once again, GTE gets paid for non-delivery of a "service".
Of course, now that AT&T has reached that level of service, I'm very
happy to be supplying my own telephony these days.
Eric Weaver
> Of course, now that AT&T has reached that level of service, I'm very
> happy to be supplying my own telephony these days.
>
Think how the public safety agencies feel.
I swear I want to figure out a way to open-source 9-1-1 trunks.
Bypassing leased lines for radio receivers is enough of a challenge for now.
John Higdon
Eric Weaver <we...@sigma.net> wrote:
> Bypassing leased lines for radio receivers is enough of a challenge for now.
AT&T is so bad (how bad is it??) that even radio stations, the last
bastion of backward technology, are starting to migrate from AT&T leased
lines in favor of their own point-to-point wireless networks, even in
today's economy. Stations have had it with "our tests show the problem
to be in the customer's equipment" and "we'll test and get back to you
within the hour" (no call back, of course). The nonsense list is endless.
The small group I work for has already bypassed AT&T for ALL telephone
service, and now they are working on the data circuits. I predicted this
was coming years ago, but now they're listening. AT&T is in the home
entertainment business and wants to sell YOU a "plan". The company is
tired of all this legacy telephone and data stuff and they want to get
on with uVerse.
Eric Weaver
> The small group I work for has already bypassed AT&T for ALL telephone
> service, and now they are working on the data circuits. I predicted this
> was coming years ago, but now they're listening. AT&T is in the home
> entertainment business and wants to sell YOU a "plan". The company is
> tired of all this legacy telephone and data stuff and they want to get
> on with uVerse.
>
Even a certain small radio station of my acquaintance, should they move
out of their current legacy studio, will almost certainly go with a
wireless-based phone provider (you know who I mean...). The new owner
is having SUCH a hassle dealing with AT&T now - they don't make it easy
to disconnect big-ticket services like a PRI.
John Higdon
Eric Weaver <we...@sigma.net> wrote:
> Even a certain small radio station of my acquaintance, should they move
> out of their current legacy studio, will almost certainly go with a
> wireless-based phone provider (you know who I mean...). The new owner
> is having SUCH a hassle dealing with AT&T now - they don't make it easy
> to disconnect big-ticket services like a PRI.
Notice that when we moved the community teapot in the south bay, we
didn't even consider AT&T as a contender for the business.
Again...fully-bypassed including the last mile. It feels GOOD.
David Kaye
>All of Venice was "served" by GTE.
>
Okay, maybe it wasn't Venice. Was it West LA then? Well, somewhere around
there. I do remember that it was an issue with some people.
David Kaye
>Once again, GTE gets paid for non-delivery of a "service".
Maybe that's a good thing given the alternative?
David Kaye
>The new owner
>is having SUCH a hassle dealing with AT&T now - they don't make it easy
>to disconnect big-ticket services like a PRI.
AT&T had the gall to sell my customer a 2-Wire modem, probably THE junkiest of
the junk modems out there. And it quit just a month out of warrantee.
Figures.
Turns out she had the old -- really old -- modem and it worked like a charm.
Why on earth AT&T insists on selling junk is beyond me. You'd think they'd
want to reduce customer complaints, not increase them.
Eric Weaver
> Notice that when we moved the community teapot in the south bay, we
> didn't even consider AT&T as a contender for the business.
> Again...fully-bypassed including the last mile. It feels GOOD.
>
I noted that with great interest! I keep thinking that a certain
Peninsula community teapot might want to emulate that example, but
they're tied up with the institution of which they're a part. And that
one doesn't seem want to want to do anything THAT daring yet.
Jeff Sutter
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 11:54:25 -0800 (PST), Jeff Sutter
>
> >All of Venice was "served" by GTE.
>
> Sorta.
> As I recall, Venice Beach, the canals, Ocean Front, POP (Pacific Ocean
> Park) and such. The Marina Del Rey area was Ma Bell. As I vaguely
> recall, south of Washington Blvd was Ma Bell, but some of it had
> Venice addresses. Although the canals and where I lived were between
> Venice Blvd and Washington Blvd, parts of the canal extends south into
> the Marina area and eventually dumps into Ballony Creek. Part of that
> area was AT&T, while the beach area was GTE.
Well, when you were attending SMCC, I was still using a Fisher-Price
phone, so I can't say I was paying much attention, but I did happen to
look at the 1967 GTE reverse directory yesterday, and while it did
affirm Washington as a CO boundary, and some Playa del Rey addresses
had what we now call Mar Vista prefixes, there was nothing to indicate
Bell service, anywhere in the aforementioned territory.
The same directory shows service ending mostly at Sepulveda to the
east, and Berger to the South.
Jeff Liebermann
Ok. So much for my photographic memory. I could swear that AT&T had
parts of Venice, but I guess not. I stand corrected.
Incidentally, your Fisher-Price phone probably worked better than some
of the Stronberg Carlson instruments that GTE was pushing. Some
models would last forever, while others fell apart almost immediately.
Where did you find a 1967 GTE reverse directory? At the time, reverse
directories only went to the PD and agencies. The telemarketers
hadn't (officially) gotten their hands on the directories at the time.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com je...@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
Jeff Sutter
> Incidentally, your Fisher-Price phone probably worked better than some
> of the Stronberg Carlson instruments that GTE was pushing. Some
> models would last forever, while others fell apart almost immediately.
We once determined that GTE tone desk phones, compared to WECO, were
worthless, by tossing a few off the roof. (28'). The Bell phones were
a bit mangled, chipped or scratched, but they all survived. The AE
sets, if we could find all the pieces, became amateur artwork with
epoxy, superglue, and model paint. After that, we relegated all of
our AE 80's to non-voice applications, i.e. modem and like lines,
ither for manual origination, or as loud ringers on answer positions
in a humming machine room, for the occasional port/device failure.
(One ring good, more rings bad.)
> Where did you find a 1967 GTE reverse directory? At the time, reverse
> directories only went to the PD and agencies. The telemarketers
> hadn't (officially) gotten their hands on the directories at the time.
They're in the reference section at the Santa Monica main library. No
telephone books for that era, though, just a commercial mailing-list
series. If you're ever clearing out a packrat estate, before you
load the dumpster, please remember your local library - Google isn't
scanning old phone books, so far as I know.