Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

John Smith wrote:
> I would just like to point out a little tid bit this brief article does
> not:
> AT&T added 2.7M net adds in Q4 and Verizon added 2.0M, but 1.9M of
> Verizon's adds were customers signing up under the Verizon name, while
> only 1.2M customers signed under the AT&T name (this is known as retail
> vs. wholesale adds - yes, if you haven't figured by now, I work in the
> industry).
> This means 1.5M of AT&T's adds were wholesale, AKA TracFone and other
> resellers. These subscribers bring down the company's overall revenue
> and therefore their ability to continue to build out their network. They
> are a cancer to the company.

AT&T doesn't view them like that. They view the wholesale customers and
their own GoPhone customers as revenue that they would not otherwise
have because few of these customers would be signing up as retail
customers, either because of credit issues, or because they simply don't
use the phone enough to make a postpaid account worth the expense. Even
if they did want to buy regular postpaid service there is no guarantee
that they'd get it from AT&T, in fact there is only about a 30% chance
of that (based on the net additions of all the major carriers). Yes,
these customers drive down the ARPU a little, but remember that some of
these MVNOs offer exceptionally poor deals, and many users will end up
spending _more_ per month.

While AT&T's network does suffer from "circuits full" more than
Verizon's, it's not a huge problem in most markets, and the extra
revenue is apparently worth a slightly less reliable network. Looking at
Consumer Reports issue, in 16 out of 20 markets, Verizon had less of a
problem with "circuits full," but only in three markets did AT&T have a
big problem with "circuits full," and the results probably would not
have been affected much if they didn't have all those MVNO customers.

Verizon seems to look at MVNOs and prepaid as devaluing their product.
Their own prepaid is very expensive, and they don't have many MVNOs.
PagePlus has been a Verizon MVNO for a very long time, and even though
they are both the least expensive MVNO (in per minute charges), they are
not well known so Verizon apparently is not going to stop reselling to them.


[Note: alt.cellular.cingular removed from follow-up newsgroups. Cingular
no longer exists. alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts
regarding AT&T's Wireless Service. Please do not post to
alt.cellular.cingular, and remove alt.cellular.cingular from follow-ups.]

On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:23:54 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <47ab13d0$0$84192$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>While AT&T's network does suffer from "circuits full" more than
>Verizon's,

Unsupported claim, as usual, and simply not true -- AT&T has much more
spectrum per user than Verizon, as I've spelled out in prior posts.

--
Best regards,
John Navas <http:/navasgroup.com>

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

In alt.cellular.attws John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:23:54 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <47ab13d0$0$84192$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
>>While AT&T's network does suffer from "circuits full" more than
>>Verizon's,
>
> Unsupported claim, as usual, and simply not true -- AT&T has much more
> spectrum per user than Verizon, as I've spelled out in prior posts.
>

Unsupported, yes. Simply not true ... well that has yet to be proven. Links?
I am sure YOU can certainly provide a relaible source that indicates that it
is not true. I can tell you my test pre-paid phone did suffer dropped calls.
With Verizon [post-paid] I don't think I have had more than 1 or 2 dropped
calls and whatever caused them never appeared to be caused by calling from a
marginal coverage area.

So .. citiation please?!

BTW ... I used my pre-paid phone for a couple of months and had several
dropped calls. Lots of "holes" in the network. That is what drove me to
choose Verizon over AT&T [then Cingular] when I was looking for an alternative
to Sprint PCS. I have had perhaps two dropped calls with Verizon over the
nearly two years that I have used them; and I am not even convinced the calls
dropped on the Verizon side as I was, at least in two cases I remember,
talking to somebody else on a cell phone.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

In the land of the dark the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> In alt.cellular.attws John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:23:54 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>> wrote in <47ab13d0$0$84192$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>>
>>> While AT&T's network does suffer from "circuits full" more than
>>> Verizon's,
>> Unsupported claim, as usual, and simply not true -- AT&T has much more
>> spectrum per user than Verizon, as I've spelled out in prior posts.
>>
>
> Unsupported, yes.

Not unsupported at all.

You can choose who to believe. Multiple surveys by multiple independent
entities that surveyed tens of thousands of subscribers with no reason
to lie about their experiences, or John Navas's personal experience.

"Circuits Full" or "System Busy" is one of the key metrics that the
surveys measure.

On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:21:43 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <47ac8efd$0$84248$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>> In alt.cellular.attws John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:23:54 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>>> wrote in <47ab13d0$0$84192$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>>>
>>>> While AT&T's network does suffer from "circuits full" more than
>>>> Verizon's,
>>> Unsupported claim, as usual, and simply not true -- AT&T has much more
>>> spectrum per user than Verizon, as I've spelled out in prior posts.
>>
>> Unsupported, yes.
>
>Not unsupported at all.

Unsupported, yes.

>You can choose who to believe. Multiple surveys by multiple independent
>entities that surveyed tens of thousands of subscribers with no reason
>to lie about their experiences, or John Navas's personal experience.

You substantially misrepresent those reports, as I've previously shown
in detail.

>"Circuits Full" or "System Busy" is one of the key metrics that the
>surveys measure.

Not true.

--
Best regards,
John Navas <http:/navasgroup.com>

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

At 08 Feb 2008 17:37:31 +0000 John Navas wrote:


> >You can choose who to believe. Multiple surveys by multiple independent
> >entities that surveyed tens of thousands of subscribers with no reason
> >to lie about their experiences, or John Navas's personal experience.
>
> You substantially misrepresent those reports, as I've previously shown
> in detail.


If by "misrepresent" you mean "quote," yes, he does.

And if by "shown in detail" you mean "offer your personal opinion as to why
CR's subscribers do not represent a valid statistical sample," yes, you have.





> >"Circuits Full" or "System Busy" is one of the key metrics that the
> >surveys measure.
>
> Not true.

It's broken out separately in CR's survey. Personally I don't find "system
busy" or lack of coverage as a problem with my carrier (T-Mobile) but I'll
conceed they certainly don't measure up to Verizon in those areas.
However, I think Verizon is horribly overpriced in terms of both voice and
data, and has a crummy, overpriced, crippled handset selection, so they
don't measure up (for me) as a value proposition- their "20% better
network" (a number I'm pulling out of my behind for an illustration)
doesn't justify their 108% higher cost: a T-Mobile family plan with 2
WinMobile phones w/unlimited data/e-mail costs me $72/month ($60 base plus
$6 data per phone), with Verizon it would be $150 ($70 base, $40
data/phone.) This, of course, doesn't negate Verizon's strengths- they
just don't justify the added cost (again, for me.) "The Network" has a
diminishing rate of return...

On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:30:15 -0700, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in <foi74i$5r3$1@aioe.org>:

>At 08 Feb 2008 17:37:31 +0000 John Navas wrote:
>
>> >You can choose who to believe. Multiple surveys by multiple independent
>> >entities that surveyed tens of thousands of subscribers with no reason
>> >to lie about their experiences, or John Navas's personal experience.
>>
>> You substantially misrepresent those reports, as I've previously shown
>> in detail.
>
>If by "misrepresent" you mean "quote," yes, he does.

I mean just what I wrote: misrepresent.

>And if by "shown in detail" you mean "offer your personal opinion as to why
>CR's subscribers do not represent a valid statistical sample," yes, you have.

That's one aspect. Other aspects include claiming they say things that
they don't actually say, drawing conclusions that aren't supported by
the data, and greatly exaggerating small differences.

In the case of JDPowers, for example, I've shown in detail how the
differences between carriers are actually small, on the order of
sampling error.

Steven has long had a clear agenda of putting down GSM in general and
AT&T/Cingular in particular (because of poor service at his wife's
workplace), to the point of endless bashing and trolling here.

The facts speak for themselves.

--
Best regards,
John Navas <http:/navasgroup.com>

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

In alt.cellular.attws SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>> In alt.cellular.attws John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:23:54 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>>> wrote in <47ab13d0$0$84192$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>>>
>>>> While AT&T's network does suffer from "circuits full" more than
>>>> Verizon's,
>>> Unsupported claim, as usual, and simply not true -- AT&T has much more
>>> spectrum per user than Verizon, as I've spelled out in prior posts.
>>>
>>
>> Unsupported, yes.
>
> Not unsupported at all.
>
> You can choose who to believe. Multiple surveys by multiple independent
> entities that surveyed tens of thousands of subscribers with no reason
> to lie about their experiences, or John Navas's personal experience.
>
> "Circuits Full" or "System Busy" is one of the key metrics that the
> surveys measure.

I think I was agreeing with you, not disagreeing.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

In the land of the dark the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead

In alt.cellular.attws John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>>"Circuits Full" or "System Busy" is one of the key metrics that the
>>surveys measure.
>
> Not true.
>

It isn't?

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

In the land of the dark the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead

Todd Allcock wrote:

> And if by "shown in detail" you mean "offer your personal opinion as to why
> CR's subscribers do not represent a valid statistical sample," yes, you have.

He's offered his opinion, but his contention that the surveys, by CR and
others, do not represent a valid sample in terms of the conclusions they
draw, has no basis in fact.

While it is true that CR subscribers may not be representative of the
population as a whole in many ways, i.e. income, education, politics,
race, etc., there isn't any evidence that these characteristics of the
respondents had any effect on their network experiences.

> It's broken out separately in CR's survey. Personally I don't find "system
> busy" or lack of coverage as a problem with my carrier (T-Mobile) but I'll
> conceed they certainly don't measure up to Verizon in those areas.

There are only certain instances and certain times when "System Busy" is
a big issue with carriers. Special events, natural disasters, etc.

> However, I think Verizon is horribly overpriced in terms of both voice and
> data,

I think you should check out
"http://www.mobileburn.com/plans.jsp?source=MENU" and do some comparisons.

I.e., a $40 plan on the top five carriers, a $60 plan on the top five
carriers, 700 minute family plans, etc. Verizon is not "horribly
overpriced," they are right about in line with the other carriers.

> and has a crummy, overpriced, crippled handset selection,

A valid criticism.

In alt.cellular.attws Todd Allcock <elecconnec@americaonline.com> wrote:
>
>> >"Circuits Full" or "System Busy" is one of the key metrics that the
>> >surveys measure.
>>
>> Not true.
>
> It's broken out separately in CR's survey. Personally I don't find "system
> busy" or lack of coverage as a problem with my carrier (T-Mobile) but I'll
> conceed they certainly don't measure up to Verizon in those areas.
> However, I think Verizon is horribly overpriced in terms of both voice and
> data, and has a crummy, overpriced, crippled handset selection, so they
> don't measure up (for me) as a value proposition- their "20% better
> network" (a number I'm pulling out of my behind for an illustration)
> doesn't justify their 108% higher cost: a T-Mobile family plan with 2
> WinMobile phones w/unlimited data/e-mail costs me $72/month ($60 base plus
> $6 data per phone), with Verizon it would be $150 ($70 base, $40
> data/phone.) This, of course, doesn't negate Verizon's strengths- they
> just don't justify the added cost (again, for me.) "The Network" has a
> diminishing rate of return...
>

Funny. I sit here in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. A MAJOR suburb with a lot of
technology companies. I sit here with FULL 1x voice signal on my LG VX8300.
EVDO is one bar less. I NEVER have a problem making or receiving phone calls.
The guy that sits next to me leaves his phone sitting high up on top of his
monitor so that it has full view of the window. Whenever it rings ... he runs
to the door and talks. He uses T-Mobile. I worked at the only real IT
department out in Delano MN [far western suburb of Minneapolis] and the same
story applies except replace T-Mobile with Sprint PCS. The ONLY reason
T-Mobile worked there is that the company made a deal with T-Mobile to be the
companies mobile provider and in return that company allowed them to put
T-Mobile antennas on their roof.

For me ... the price difference pays for itself on a day to day basis.
T-Mobile has a reasonable reputation in town, but heading out and it gets
spotty ... but then, I just gave an example where they have virtually no
coverage in town. AT&T and Verizon do alright because their celluar frequency
signal travels further [and they don't seem to share towers with T-Mobile and
Sprint PCS here in any event as even PCS will travel the 6 blocks to the
tower].

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

In the land of the dark the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead

On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:27:32 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <47acac7a$0$84213$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> And if by "shown in detail" you mean "offer your personal opinion as to why
>> CR's subscribers do not represent a valid statistical sample," yes, you have.
>
>He's offered his opinion, but his contention that the surveys, by CR and
>others, do not represent a valid sample in terms of the conclusions they
>draw, has no basis in fact.

The basis is in statistics.

>While it is true that CR subscribers may not be representative of the
>population as a whole in many ways, i.e. income, education, politics,
>race, etc., there isn't any evidence that these characteristics of the
>respondents had any effect on their network experiences.

More importantly, there's no evidence that it doesn't bias the results,
and in the absence of such evidence, since the sample is non-random and
self-selected, bias must be assumed. The only real question is how much
bias, which is unknown.

--
Best regards,
John Navas <http:/navasgroup.com>

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

At 08 Feb 2008 19:31:59 +0000 Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

> > "The Network" has a
> > diminishing rate of return...
> >
>
> Funny. I sit here in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. A MAJOR suburb with a lot
of
> technology companies. I sit here with FULL 1x voice signal on my LG
VX8300.
> EVDO is one bar less. I NEVER have a problem making or receiving phone
calls.
> The guy that sits next to me leaves his phone sitting high up on top of
his
> monitor so that it has full view of the window. Whenever it rings ... he
runs
> to the door and talks. He uses T-Mobile.

Sure- I never meant to imply my choice of carrier would work fr everyone.
I was a happy Cingular (TDMA) user, and when I moved to my present home in
SW suburban Denver, neither AT&T (Cingular and ATTWS hadn't merged yet, so
ATTWS was the Cingular roaming partner here) nor Verizon worked at my house-
T-Mobile, Sprint, Qwest (Sprint MVNO) and Nextel were t e only options
with reception in my neighborhood. (Years later, Verizon and AT&T, to a
lesser extent, now work here as well.)

> I worked at the only real IT
> department out in Delano MN [far western suburb of Minneapolis] and the
same
> story applies except replace T-Mobile with Sprint PCS. The ONLY reason
> T-Mobile worked there is that the company made a deal with T-Mobile to be
the
> companies mobile provider and in return that company allowed them to put
> T-Mobile antennas on their roof.
>
> For me ... the price difference pays for itself on a day to day basis.
> T-Mobile has a reasonable reputation in town, but heading out and it gets
> spotty ... but then, I just gave an example where they have virtually no
> coverage in town. AT&T and Verizon do alright because their celluar
frequency
> signal travels further [and they don't seem to share towers with T-Mobile
and
> Sprint PCS here in any event as even PCS will travel the 6 blocks to the
> tower].

Fair enough. If I was in a similar circumstance as yours, I suspect I'd be
stuck with Verizon as well! ;-)

At 08 Feb 2008 11:27:32 -0800 SMS wrote:

> > However, I think Verizon is horribly overpriced in terms of both voice
and
> > data,
>
> I think you should check out
> "http://www.mobileburn.com/plans.jsp?source=MENU"
> and do some comparisons.

In my case (which I explained in my post, and again below,) that's really
not necessary.

> I.e., a $40 plan on the top five carriers, a $60 plan on the top five
> carriers, 700 minute family plans, etc. Verizon is not "horribly
overpriced,"
> they are right about in line with the other carriers.


Until you want data, that is! As I said, my wife and I both use Windows
Mobile-based smartphones. Verizon _requires_ $40/month EACH for data on
top of a voice plan. I'm paying $12/month for data for BOTH with T-Mobile,
on top of a $10 cheaper 1000 minutes/month family plan. Essentially I get
voice and data for roughly the price of voice alone on Verizon.

Even Verizon's voice prices are the highest of any carrier, especially if
you factor the other carrier's "gimmicks" in (Sprint offers the lowest
overage charges, AT&T has rollover, and T-Mo offers a lot more minutes, any
of which might allow you to "drop a rung" down the rate plan ladder
compared to a Verizon plan, but even so, the difference isn't as large as
their difference in data pricing. And, fortunately for me, Denver is one
of T-Mo's better markets in terms of coverage, making my choice that much
more palatable. I even keep a PagePlus phone in the glovebox for backup if
I'm in a lousy T-Mo coverage area but have yet to have needed it. (Prior
to the elimination of TDMA, I used to use Beyond Wireless as back up, which
never cost me any real money. I just activated a different leftover analog
or TDMA phone from my 10 years with Cingular each time one expired, or
augmented my collection with $1-2 thriftshop AT&T TDMA phones available by
the boatload after the GSM conversion! Right before the TDMA activation
deadline (Last January, IIRC) I called BW and activated every analog and
TDMA phone I had left (close to a dozen, including my first cellphone- a
RadioShack/Nokia copy of the old Motorola "brick" phones I bought in
Nebraska in 1990!), and let my kids and their friends run around the
neighborhood using them like walkie-talkies until the 35 minutes of starter
airtime on each was used up! ;-)

Again, I'm not trying to suggest my choice was the best for everyone- there
are certainly places carrier A, B, or won't work, but in this day and age
those places are fewer and farther between. In my own case, having access
to voice and e-mail, say, 98% of the time, beats access to voice-only 100%
of the time (because paying $80/month for data just ain't gonna happen, my
friend!)

> > and has a crummy, overpriced, crippled handset selection,
>
> A valid criticism.

And actually my smallest beef with Verizon- I could certainly make do with
their smartphone selection, even if higher priced than other carrier's
equivalents, but the data fees are outrageous. If push came to shove, I'd
go Sprint SERO before Verizon, and just pray I never needed to call CS!

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 08 Feb 2008 11:27:32 -0800 SMS wrote:
>
>>> However, I think Verizon is horribly overpriced in terms of both voice
> and
>>> data,
>> I think you should check out
>> "http://www.mobileburn.com/plans.jsp?source=MENU"
>> and do some comparisons.
>
> In my case (which I explained in my post, and again below,) that's really
> not necessary.
>
>> I.e., a $40 plan on the top five carriers, a $60 plan on the top five
>> carriers, 700 minute family plans, etc. Verizon is not "horribly
> overpriced,"
>> they are right about in line with the other carriers.
>
>
> Until you want data, that is!

Right, but you said that it was horribly priced in terms of both voice
and data. It's not overpriced at all in terms of voice. It's actually
often less than the other carriers for voice because they offer a large
number of corporate discounts, plus their garbage fees are lower.
However they do really sock it to you if you go over your minutes, and
there is no rollover like on AT&T.