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  1. #16
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    B. Wright wrote:

    > Either that or the fact that you had to p*ss so badly it kept
    > you awake. That factor supplements the caffeine effect on long road
    > trips. Cheap service station coffee usually has more caffeine too since
    > it's usually mostly the crappy robusta coffee (with 2x the caffeine over
    > arabica, but not so nice on the tastebuds).
    >
    > As far as the McD's coffee, I tried it once, only because they
    > were marketing how much better they had made it now and sent a free
    > coupon. The only thing that made me happy about it was that I hadn't
    > paid for such crap coffee, I dumped it out.


    I recycled my coupon. I did read that they are now using arabica coffee
    at McDonald's, but I guess there can be bad arabica too.



    See More: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea




  2. #17
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    Todd Allcock wrote:
    > At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:
    >
    >> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
    >> antioxidant benefit.

    >
    > To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
    > the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)


    Without claiming to be "discriminating," I have to admit that I'm a
    coffee snob, though I have some colleagues that are far more snobbish
    (one has done tests on every available brand of ½ and ½ to see which
    foams the best). I think that all the studies on the health benefits of
    coffee have had an effect on increasing the consumption, as coffee
    drinking is no longer viewed as some sort of a vice.

    It would be nice if more "discriminating" people learned that you don't
    have to burn the hell out of the beans, like Starbucks does, and that
    the result is a better tasting cup that doesn't need to be frozenated,
    sugared, flavored, or milked. In time, this may come to pass, and we all
    can enjoy a healthy future with delicious coffee, free wireless
    Internet, and ubiquitous cellular coverage on every carrier.



  3. #18
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    Notan wrote:
    > SMS wrote:
    >> Todd Allcock wrote:
    >>> At 13 Feb 2007 02:20:31 -0800 SMS wrote:
    >>>
    >>>> Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
    >>>> antioxidant benefit.
    >>>
    >>> To be fair, I think that as few of us coffee drinkers are doing it for
    >>> the antioxidants as red wine drinkers are! ;-)

    >>
    >> Without claiming to be "discriminating," I have to admit that I'm a
    >> coffee snob, though I have some colleagues that are far more snobbish
    >> (one has done tests on every available brand of ½ and ½ to see which
    >> foams the best). I think that all the studies on the health benefits
    >> of coffee have had an effect on increasing the consumption, as coffee
    >> drinking is no longer viewed as some sort of a vice.
    >>
    >> It would be nice if more "discriminating" people learned that you
    >> don't have to burn the hell out of the beans, like Starbucks does, and
    >> that the result is a better tasting cup that doesn't need to be
    >> frozenated, sugared, flavored, or milked. In time, this may come to
    >> pass, and we all can enjoy a healthy future with delicious coffee,
    >> free wireless Internet, and ubiquitous cellular coverage on every
    >> carrier.

    >
    > Don't forget "two chickens in every garage."


    And "pot in every car."




  4. #19
    clifto
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area

    SMS wrote:
    > Without claiming to be "discriminating," I have to admit that I'm a
    > coffee snob, though I have some colleagues that are far more snobbish
    > (one has done tests on every available brand of ½ and ½ to see which
    > foams the best). I think that all the studies on the health benefits of
    > coffee have had an effect on increasing the consumption, as coffee
    > drinking is no longer viewed as some sort of a vice.
    >
    > It would be nice if more "discriminating" people learned that you don't
    > have to burn the hell out of the beans, like Starbucks does, and that
    > the result is a better tasting cup that doesn't need to be frozenated,
    > sugared, flavored, or milked. In time, this may come to pass, and we all
    > can enjoy a healthy future with delicious coffee, free wireless
    > Internet, and ubiquitous cellular coverage on every carrier.


    I'm much less "snobbish" than you claim to be about coffee; I will
    frequently drink coffee others pour out. That's why it amazes me so
    that people actually go back for more Starbucks. Then again, I drink
    it black; maybe it's the frappe dolce latte crappay that they like.

    From here on, everyone please specify the way you drink your coffee,
    so we can see if additives have any effect on tolerance of Starbucks.

    --
    "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day,
    they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally.
    I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine."
    -- Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek's Steven Levy



  5. #20
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    clifto wrote:

    > From here on, everyone please specify the way you drink your coffee,
    > so we can see if additives have any effect on tolerance of Starbucks.


    When I drink Starbucks (on the road in an unfamiliar place), I will
    usually get a latte. When I've gotten their regular coffee, it takes
    sugar and/or ½ & ½ to make it palatable. It's too bad that they can't
    offer one medium roast house coffee for snobs, and one burnt roast for
    "discriminating" people. I remember a place in Santa Cruz that had a row
    of Melitta one-cup filter cones, and brewed each cup to order. It was a
    production line, so the wait was minimal, maybe two minutes after you
    paid, but it was worth it, IMVAIO.

    Thank g-d I began drinking good coffee around 1985, prior to Starbuck's
    arrival in this area. I might have never known what non-burnt arabica
    coffee was like. With wireless, I was on Cellular One/AT&T TDMA/AMPS so
    I knew what good cellular was, so when I switched to Cingular GSM I
    immediately noticed the difference, and switched to Verizon CDMA/AMPS as
    soon as possible. Had I never had Cellular One/AT&T, I might have
    thought that Cingular was how cellular was supposed to be (dropped
    calls, system busy, poor coverage).



  6. #21
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    Todd Allcock wrote:

    > Secondly, I realize Cingular had coverage problems out west on 1900MHz
    > (the old PacTel network that T-Mo has inherited.) But post merger, now
    > that Cingular has the old AT&T Wireless network (that apparently you were
    > a former customer of) isn't it nearly as good as the old ATTWS used to be
    > (other than the lack of analog?).


    Yes, it's much better now. But they are still working on filling in a
    surprisingly large number of gaps, especially in new developments where
    farmland, ranches, and orchards are being converted to housing.

    I do a lot of hiking and XC skiing, and this is where the AMPS coverage
    is extremely helpful, even not far from the urban area. If Verizon turns
    off AMPS in 2008, I think that it will make Cingular and Verizon pretty
    close in coverage in the Bay Area, since Cingular is working on catching
    up in digital coverage.

    > As a funny aside, due to Cingular's extreme laziness in updating their
    > IRDBs (the TDMA equivalent of a PRL), my wife and I, both Cingular
    > customers with tri-mode phones, simultaneously roamed on different
    > carriers on a trip to San Diego- she on Verizon (in analog), and I on
    > AT&T TDMA. I'd have preferred the other way around, given the choice-
    > she had a cute little red Nokia 8260 that could barely do ten hours
    > standby in analog, while I had a 5165 with a far sportier battery life.


    Conversely, I was roaming on Cingular's analog network in Florida, in an
    area where there was no digital coverage, CDMA or GSM, and likely never
    will be. Ditto for Alaska, where I was on AT&T Wireless's AMPS network
    (now Cellular One I believe) outside of the cities and towns.

    In 2008, that Forida analog coverage will almost certainly be gone
    unless the FCC changes their policy to only allow AMPS to be turned off
    in areas where there is digital coverage. In Alaska, they'll keep AMPS
    on for a long time, until they come up with a viable alternative, such
    as what Australia is doing with W-CDMA in the outback.



  7. #22
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    Todd Allcock wrote:

    > I realize your main requirement is coverage, and I can understand that.
    > But as a long time cell user, on a pure sound-quality basis only, all
    > else being equal, what's your preference? I used TDMA long before I used
    > GSM, and was pleasantly surprised how much better GSM calls sounded, and
    > I never thought CDMA sounded very good based on very infrequent use of
    > friends' handsets.


    Sound quality depends on several factors. CDMA can degrade each channel
    in order to cram more calls onto one tower, so GSM will be more
    consistent during a call. OTOH, GSM is much more likely to drop the
    call. Cingular's advertising claims not-withstanding, you get a lot more
    dropped calls on Cingular than on Verizon or Sprint.

    Sound quality has always varied more by phone than by technology. A lot
    depends on the CoDec being used in the handset. Voice quality keeps
    declining as the encoding rate goes down. If you use an SMV Codec (CDMA)
    at the same bit rate as an AMR Codec (GSM), the CDMA phone will sound
    better than the GSM phone. However it's up to the operator to decide
    what bit rate will be used, and an AMR equipped phone could sound better
    than a SMV equipped phone, if the the AMR bit rate is much higher.

    All of the recent tests done on sound quality show CDMA to have better
    sound, but these were laboratory tests, with the SMV decoder for CDMA
    and the the AMR decoder for GSM, and with the bit rate not degraded due
    to network congestion.

    I have both Cingular GSM service (on a prepaid MVNO) and Verizon
    CDMA/AMPS, and I don't notice any difference in sound quality.



  8. #23
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    Steven J. Sobol wrote:
    > In article <[email protected]>, SMS wrote:
    >
    >>> (to those without any hearing loss) may actually sound better than those
    >>> with full-range fidelity.

    >> Coffee helps prevent hearing loss.

    >
    > Is it really necessary to re-start the coffee thread?


    IMVAIO, that was the most interesting part of the thread. Navas making
    up stories about Extended GSM, his baseless attacks on Consumer Reports,
    and his endless shilling for Cingular have gotten pretty old, and no one
    pays much attention anymore.

    It's much more interesting to discuss the relative merits of different
    coffees. In fact, I think that future posts should include the type of
    coffee maker, coffee grinder, and mug that the poster uses.

    Coffee Maker: Zojirushi EC-BD15
    "http://nordicgroup.us/bikecoff/bcimages/EK_EC-BD15BA.jpg"

    Coffee Grinder: Bodum Antigua Burr
    "http://nordicgroup.us/bikecoff/bcimages/bodumant.jpeg"

    Mug: Contigo Extreme Vacuum Insulated Leakproof
    "http://nordicgroup.us/bikecoff/bcimages/contigoextremewithhandle.jpg"

    Sorry, I'm getting ready to go out of the country on Saturday, and I've
    been up all night working on a presentation, so I've been drinking a lot
    of coffee.



  9. #24
    Todd Allcock
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area

    At 15 Feb 2007 17:23:52 +0000 John Navas wrote:

    > The good reason is that CR subscribers have considerably different
    > demographics than the universe of cellular, making any CR survey
    > unrepresentative.


    So that begs the question is the CR subscribers' demographic more likely
    or less likely to have good service or bad service? I can't personally
    envision a scenario that would cause CR subscribers to have vastly
    different cell service than non-subscribers.

    > Then there's the problem of self-selction.


    I'll agree that's a bigger problem, assuming that unhappy customers might
    be more likely to "grumble" about service than happy ones are to gush.
    But again, that would drag everyone's scores down- not one carrier's, so
    the relative results wouldn't be much different.

    I suppose the easiest way to make the study accurate for me, would be
    simply to subscribe to CR, then the results would apply to me, since I
    would be part of the represented universe.

    I'll let you all know how my subscription to CR affects my cellphone
    reception... ;-)





  10. #25
    james g. keegan jr.
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area

    In article <[email protected]>,
    John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:

    > On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:13:28 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
    > wrote in <[email protected]>:


    > >I have both Cingular GSM service (on a prepaid MVNO) and Verizon
    > >CDMA/AMPS, and I don't notice any difference in sound quality.

    >
    > But then you have a personal axe to grind against GSM in general and
    > Cingular in particular, not to mention a handset that gives subnormal
    > performance if your reports are accurate and not just made up.


    "Not true, and notably no citations."

    hypocrisy is a bitter pill, john.



  11. #26
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    Todd Allcock wrote:

    > So that begs the question is the CR subscribers' demographic more likely
    > or less likely to have good service or bad service? I can't personally
    > envision a scenario that would cause CR subscribers to have vastly
    > different cell service than non-subscribers.


    Even though there are certainly some demographic differences between CR
    subscribers and the general public, none of these would materially
    affect the results of one carrier more than another carrier. The
    demographics of Consumer Reports readers versus the general population
    include higher education level, higher income, more moderate
    politically, and middle-age to older age. On the one hand, these
    demographics would tend to make people more critical of products and
    services, but on the other hand, these demographics may understand the
    limitations of cellular communications better than uneducated people, so
    they may cut the carriers more slack.

    > I'll agree that's a bigger problem, assuming that unhappy customers might
    > be more likely to "grumble" about service than happy ones are to gush.
    > But again, that would drag everyone's scores down- not one carrier's, so
    > the relative results wouldn't be much different.


    I read a funny article about that in SmartMoney magazine yesterday. It
    seems that there is very little middle ground in most reviews by
    individuals of products and services. They either hate something or love
    it. I.e. a five star review for a stapler at Amazon, "This stapler is
    great. It works very well and staples many papers together."

    What makes the CR survey so valuable is that they don't just ask "how's
    your service?" they go into great detail with questions on specific
    aspects of the service. But as you stated, even if the people that
    choose to respond are more or less critical of a service, this will
    extend across all the carriers, and will cancel out.

    In earlier years, Navas complained that the reason Cingular was rated so
    poorly was that their TDMA subscribers were dragging down their scores
    (though in reality the TDMA/AMPS subscribers were probably dragging the
    scores up). Now that the TDMA subscribers are an insignificant portion
    of the total, he's come up with a new excuse, apparently he believes
    that the Cingular subscribers that choose to respond to the survey are
    somehow more critical of their service than the Verizon subscribers that
    choose to respond. Certainly if there were any evidence that CR's
    subscribers demographics somehow benefit one carrier over another, he'd
    have presented that evidence, or at least a theory of that evidence. As
    you pointed out "non-random and non-representative are not the same thing."

    > I suppose the easiest way to make the study accurate for me, would be
    > simply to subscribe to CR, then the results would apply to me, since I
    > would be part of the represented universe.
    >
    > I'll let you all know how my subscription to CR affects my cellphone
    > reception... ;-)


    I read it at the library, so I guess I'm not represented in the survey
    either.



  12. #27
    Scott
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area

    John Navas <[email protected]> wrote in
    news:[email protected]:

    > On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:15:19 -0700, Todd Allcock
    > <[email protected]> wrote in <[email protected]>:
    >
    >>At 15 Feb 2007 17:23:52 +0000 John Navas wrote:
    >>
    >>> The good reason is that CR subscribers have considerably different
    >>> demographics than the universe of cellular, making any CR survey
    >>> unrepresentative.

    >>
    >>So that begs the question is the CR subscribers' demographic more

    likely
    >>or less likely to have good service or bad service?

    >
    > With all due respect, there is no such question -- you can only make
    > valid generalizations from proper sampling, and the CR survey isn't

    even
    > a proper sampling of CR subscribers (because of self-selection).
    > There's simply no way to know the sample bias. It's thus just pure
    > speculation.



    So you are saying that you can't prove any sample bias. Thanks for
    playing.


    >
    >>I can't personally
    >>envision a scenario that would cause CR subscribers to have vastly
    >>different cell service than non-subscribers.

    >
    > I can easily think of lots of things that would bias the result in
    > unpredictable ways, but without real data, there's simply no way of
    > knowing which of them might be at work.



    Bull****. Unless you can prove that CR subscribers have a skewed view
    of service and coverage, it is a very real-world sample.


    >
    >>> Then there's the problem of self-selction.

    >>
    >>I'll agree that's a bigger problem, assuming that unhappy customers

    might
    >>be more likely to "grumble" about service than happy ones are to gush.
    >>
    >>But again, that would drag everyone's scores down- not one carrier's,

    so
    >>the relative results wouldn't be much different.

    >
    > There are lots of other possible factors that might well differ from
    > carrier to carrier, but again, without real data it's all just
    > speculation.
    >


    You keep talking about "other factors"- there are none. Either they
    have the same view of service or they don't. Period.


    >>I suppose the easiest way to make the study accurate for me, would be
    >>simply to subscribe to CR, then the results would apply to me, since I
    >>would be part of the represented universe.

    >
    > 1. That's not how statistics works. The issue is learning something
    > about the entire target universe, not any one individual.
    >
    > 2. That wouldn't solve the problem of self-selection.


    All surveys are self-selected. No survey is done where the respondent
    is required to answer questions. All those surveyed make the conscious
    decision to participate in the survey, and therefore self-select.

    >
    >>I'll let you all know how my subscription to CR affects my cellphone
    >>reception... ;-)

    >
    > Whatever.
    >


    What? He can't use your argument against you?




  13. #28
    Scott
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area

    SMS <[email protected]> wrote in
    news:[email protected]:


    >
    > I read a funny article about that in SmartMoney magazine yesterday. It
    > seems that there is very little middle ground in most reviews by
    > individuals of products and services. They either hate something or
    > love it. I.e. a five star review for a stapler at Amazon, "This
    > stapler is great. It works very well and staples many papers
    > together."
    >


    As someone responbile for overseeing the Customer Satisfaction program
    (surveys included) for a division a Fortune 100 company, I can see many valid
    points in this. Very few surveys are done where a middle-of-the-road rating
    is given. The majority of responses are typically the highest and lowest
    rating available on the survey.



  14. #29
    Scott
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area

    John Navas <[email protected]> wrote in
    news:[email protected]:


    >
    > At least Cingular used data from a respected third party, unlike
    > Verizon, which bases its own claims entirely on far more suspect
    > internal data, making them much less credible.
    >


    I'm sorry, Mr. Novice- stating that the source of their data is "experience
    with national carriers" (which is the small print now used in their ads)
    hardly qualifies as a respected third party. A respected third party that
    believed the claim to be valid would most certainly allow the use of their
    name. And the fact that they are spinning it this way makes the data far
    less credible than a comapny stating that they are using their own data.




  15. #30
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Steven's Myth of Verizon AMPS coverage in the San Francisco BayArea

    Scott wrote:

    > Bull****. Unless you can prove that CR subscribers have a skewed view
    > of service and coverage, it is a very real-world sample.


    Not only that CR subscribers have a skewed view of service and coverage,
    but that they only have a skewed view of service and coverage when it
    comes to one carrier and not another.

    You gotta love "there's simply no way of knowing which of them might be
    at work." I guess he assume that there simply must be some biases at
    work that affect only Cingular, because it just isn't possible that the
    results are valid. It's a tough road to hoe when you're a shill for
    Cingular, and every survey by every entity shows results that you don't
    like.

    > You keep talking about "other factors"- there are none. Either they
    > have the same view of service or they don't. Period.


    I'd like to see his theory of "other factors" as well. I tried hard to
    imagine what these could possibly be, in a way that doesn't affect all
    the carriers equally, but I couldn't think of any. It will take the
    creative mind of Navas to invent some of these factors, but I have no
    doubt that he's furiously working on it.

    > All surveys are self-selected. No survey is done where the respondent
    > is required to answer questions.


    Bingo!

    Geez, even if CR mailed out surveys at random to the entire country, the
    respondees would still be self-selected, they'd just be more random.
    Even so, there's no evidence at all that the non-randomness has affected
    the results for one carrier and not another. As Todd pointed out
    "non-random and non-representative are not the same thing."

    It's like the Consumer Reports survey of vehicle reliability. It's
    self-selected and non-random, but I don't think that anyone believes
    that a CR subscriber is more or less likely to report what problems they
    had with their vehicle than a non-subscriber, or that they're more
    likely to report problems on a Toyota than a Honda or a Chevy.



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