Virgin Mobile to Begin Offering $40 Unlimited Prepaid 3G BroadbandService Tomorrow

On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:04:44 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>nospam wrote:
>> In article <[email protected]>, Dennis
>> Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Rarely an issue for you, maybe. I have a Verizon plan which includes
>>> Canada roaming and I visit Toronto frequently, but when I'm there and
>>> within a couple of miles of the lake my phone ignores the all-bar local
>>> service and attaches itself to a Verizon tower it can hear across the
>>> lake (probably 25 miles away) which it can register with but can't actually
>>> use to make a call. It is perfectly useless.
>>
>> that's a drag, but how many people does that actually affect?
>
>A tremendous number, but more on Sprint than on Verizon.

1? 5? 10? I'm having trouble figuring out what "tremendous number" is
supposed to mean.

--
John

"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

---

› See More: Virgin Mobile to Begin Offering $40 Unlimited Prepaid 3G BroadbandService Tomorrow

On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:03:03 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Anonymous User wrote:
>
>> Even more Virgin subscribers don't even realize that it is resold
>> Sprint period. They don't do the research people here in the Usenet
>> and other geeks do.
>
>Actually Virgin is now owned by Sprint, it's not just resold Sprint service.
>
>I just got a call from a lady I used to work with asking me about
>PagePlus. She's on Verizon now, not interested in a smart phone or
>texting, just a plain phone for a couple of hundred minutes a month,
>without continuing to pay $40 a month. Her daughter is on Virgin with no
>coverage at their house, though her phone works at school (where there
>is no AT&T coverage). She's in the Monta Vista area of Cupertino that
>has no locations for more towers, and the school district turned down
>the revenue opportunity to allow an AT&T tower on the school property
>which would have greatly helped coverage in the area.
>
>I know that most urban areas of the country are not as challenging as
>the Bay Area in terms of coverage and don't have the huge differences in
>coverage quality that we have in the Bay Area. It's not as simple as
>finding a carrier that works at your house and your work, you also want
>a carrier that works throughout the greater bay area including the
>surrounding hills and greenbelt.

Which is not a problem with any of the major carriers.

--
John

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]

In article <[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

> >> Rarely an issue for you, maybe. I have a Verizon plan which includes
> >> Canada roaming and I visit Toronto frequently, but when I'm there and
> >> within a couple of miles of the lake my phone ignores the all-bar local
> >> service and attaches itself to a Verizon tower it can hear across the
> >> lake (probably 25 miles away) which it can register with but can't actually
> >> use to make a call. It is perfectly useless.
> >
> > that's a drag, but how many people does that actually affect?
>
> A tremendous number, but more on Sprint than on Verizon.

really? sprint & verizon have roughly 150 million subscribers between
them. of those, how many go to toronto *and* go within a couple miles
of the lake *and* want to make a phone call? even if it's a million
people (doubtful), that's still under 1%.

> >> The fact that cell phones' preference for their home system can sometimes
> >> screw up your service is the reason why almost all GSM phones have manual
> >> network selection menus. CDMA phones generally have nothing to help.
> >
> > mine has sprint only, automatic and roaming only. presumably roaming
> > only would fix your scenario.
>
> Keep that phone because Sprint no longer offers phones with the "roaming
> only" option. They also were able to remove that option remotely from
> some phones that previously had it.

which phones? as i said, removing that feature isn't something they can
easily do.

On 8/26/2010 1:50 AM, nospam wrote:
> In article<[email protected]>, SMS
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>> Rarely an issue for you, maybe. I have a Verizon plan which includes
>>>> Canada roaming and I visit Toronto frequently, but when I'm there and
>>>> within a couple of miles of the lake my phone ignores the all-bar local
>>>> service and attaches itself to a Verizon tower it can hear across the
>>>> lake (probably 25 miles away) which it can register with but can't actually
>>>> use to make a call. It is perfectly useless.
>>>
>>> that's a drag, but how many people does that actually affect?
>>
>> A tremendous number, but more on Sprint than on Verizon.
>
> really? sprint& verizon have roughly 150 million subscribers between
> them. of those, how many go to toronto *and* go within a couple miles
> of the lake *and* want to make a phone call? even if it's a million
> people (doubtful), that's still under 1%.

I'm pretty sure that you understand that the problem is not limited to
Toronto. There are plenty of instances of this problem being reported in
other areas, along with complaints that Sprint has removed the choice to
"Force Roaming" from handsets, a choice that solved the problem (for
those that knew about it) but that obviously was costing Sprint too much
money in roaming revenue.

Actually the bigger problem for Sprint was that so few of their
subscribers were even aware of the past option for forcing roaming. This
is what caused Sprint's poor ratings in terms of coverage because
logically you'd think that Sprint coverage would be a super-set of
Verizon plus Sprint coverage, but that would only be true if the phone
would automatically choose the system with a good signal which is often
not the case.

Sprint's coverage issues are not limited to difficult terrain, they
often have an unusable signal even in flat areas. I was amazed when a
colleague of mine in the Seven Springs area of Cupertino told me that
she had _never_ been able to use her Sprint phone at her house, because
she's not off in the hills or down in a canyon, just a little too far
from where any commercial area where a tower would be permitted.

One of Sprint's big problems is in areas where they can't run around
putting up more towers wherever they desire in order to compensate for
the shorter range and poorer in-building penetration of 1900 MHz PCS.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your POV) I live in one of
those areas. As Steve Jobs pointed out, it can take years to get a new
tower into operation.

In article <[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm pretty sure that you understand that the problem is not limited to
> Toronto. There are plenty of instances of this problem being reported in
> other areas, along with complaints that Sprint has removed the choice to
> "Force Roaming" from handsets, a choice that solved the problem (for
> those that knew about it) but that obviously was costing Sprint too much
> money in roaming revenue.

i'm pretty sure you realize that nearly all of the cellular customers
on any carrier don't use it in a border town and never have this
particular problem. obviously, it's an issue for a few but it's
anything but major.

> Actually the bigger problem for Sprint was that so few of their
> subscribers were even aware of the past option for forcing roaming. This
> is what caused Sprint's poor ratings in terms of coverage because
> logically you'd think that Sprint coverage would be a super-set of
> Verizon plus Sprint coverage, but that would only be true if the phone
> would automatically choose the system with a good signal which is often
> not the case.

which phones? as i said, it would need a firmware update and that isn't
possible over the air with most phones.

> Sprint's coverage issues are not limited to difficult terrain, they
> often have an unusable signal even in flat areas. I was amazed when a
> colleague of mine in the Seven Springs area of Cupertino told me that
> she had _never_ been able to use her Sprint phone at her house, because
> she's not off in the hills or down in a canyon, just a little too far
> from where any commercial area where a tower would be permitted.

there are people on all carriers that have coverage issues of one sort
or another. not a sprint only issue.

> One of Sprint's big problems is in areas where they can't run around
> putting up more towers wherever they desire in order to compensate for
> the shorter range and poorer in-building penetration of 1900 MHz PCS.
> Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your POV) I live in one of
> those areas. As Steve Jobs pointed out, it can take years to get a new
> tower into operation.

neither can anyone else. again, not a sprint only issue.

On 8/26/2010 4:32 AM, George wrote:

>> That's a phone problem, not a general problem. The phone is not
>> supposed to do that unless the signal is "usable". Try a better phone.
>
> Likely you just don't understand the well known phenomena of propagation
> changes over a body of water that he is experiencing.

It's not the phone of course, but the problem he's experiencing is not
limited to signal propagation across water. The same problem is
experienced in any area where a CDMA phone can see a very weak home
signal that's strong enough to register with the cell but not strong
enough to make or receive a all, and thus will not register with a
strong signal from another carrier.

Ironically, in this case he might have avoided the problem by using a
phone with a poorer radio and antenna.

Alas most CDMA phones these days do not allow forced roaming like GSM
phones do. I don't recall Verizon ever offering a phone with forced
roaming, but Sprint had many such models which were extremely useful
given Sprint's network limitations.

On 8/26/2010 7:28 AM, nospam wrote:

<snip>

> neither can anyone else. again, not a sprint only issue.

It's an issue that affects Sprint and T-Mobile far more than Verizon and
AT&T for two reasons. First, Verizon (as GTE) and AT&T (as Cellular One
and under other earlier owners) were able to construct lots of towers
before municipalities were able to strictly regulate them-- T-Mobile and
Sprint, as relative newcomers, were not as fortunate. Second, PCS 1900
MHz (Sprint and T-Mobile) has shorter range and poorer building
penetration, so you need far more towers in order to compensate. Again
Sprint and T-Mobile were late to the game and got stuck with the less
desirable spectrum.

I've been to hearings where T-Mobile was trying to get approval of
towers and in each case the planning commission and city council raised
the question of why Verizon was able to provide coverage without needing
to construct towers in the specific area. The T-Mobile spokesperson
stated the facts--that the T-Mobile system because of its technology
could not cover the area in question from as far a distance as the
Verizon system.

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:46:48 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/26/2010 4:32 AM, George wrote:
>
>>> That's a phone problem, not a general problem. The phone is not
>>> supposed to do that unless the signal is "usable". Try a better phone.
>>
>> Likely you just don't understand the well known phenomena of propagation
>> changes over a body of water that he is experiencing.
>
>It's not the phone of course,

It is in fact often the phone -- different phones have greatly different
performance characteristics (as is obvious from actually using them).

>but the problem he's experiencing is not
>limited to signal propagation across water. The same problem is
>experienced in any area where a CDMA phone can see a very weak home
>signal that's strong enough to register with the cell but not strong
>enough to make or receive a all, and thus will not register with a
>strong signal from another carrier.

No such general problem exists with a good mobile device. If it did,
reviews would be all over it, yet they aren't (just you).

>Ironically, in this case he might have avoided the problem by using a
>phone with a poorer radio and antenna.
>
>Alas most CDMA phones these days do not allow forced roaming like GSM
>phones do. I don't recall Verizon ever offering a phone with forced
>roaming, but Sprint had many such models which were extremely useful
>given Sprint's network limitations.

No such issue actually exists with Sprint.

--
John

"It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant,
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." -Alexander Pope
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame,
as being unwilling to learn." -Benjamin Franklin

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:10:44 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/26/2010 1:50 AM, nospam wrote:
>> In article<[email protected]>, SMS
>> <[email protected]> wrote:

>>> A tremendous number, but more on Sprint than on Verizon.
>>
>> really? sprint& verizon have roughly 150 million subscribers between
>> them. of those, how many go to toronto *and* go within a couple miles
>> of the lake *and* want to make a phone call? even if it's a million
>> people (doubtful), that's still under 1%.
>
>I'm pretty sure that you understand that the problem is not limited to
>Toronto. There are plenty of instances of this problem being reported in
>other areas, along with complaints that Sprint has removed the choice to
>"Force Roaming" from handsets, a choice that solved the problem (for
>those that knew about it) but that obviously was costing Sprint too much
>money in roaming revenue.
>[SNIP]

Proof? And how many is "plenty"? 5? 10? 20?
Or is this just more supposition and made-up "facts"?
(Rhetorical question -- no need to answer.)

--
John

"It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant,
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." -Alexander Pope
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame,
as being unwilling to learn." -Benjamin Franklin

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:15:32 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/26/2010 7:28 AM, nospam wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> neither can anyone else. again, not a sprint only issue.
>
>It's an issue that affects Sprint and T-Mobile far more than Verizon and
>AT&T for two reasons. First, Verizon (as GTE) and AT&T (as Cellular One
>and under other earlier owners) were able to construct lots of towers
>before municipalities were able to strictly regulate them-- T-Mobile and
>Sprint, as relative newcomers, were not as fortunate.

That's beating a very old and long since dead horse. Federal law
greatly curtailed blocking of new cell towers.

>Second, PCS 1900
>MHz (Sprint and T-Mobile) has shorter range and poorer building
>penetration, so you need far more towers in order to compensate.

Nope, as authoritative citations posted here have proved.
I guess(tm) those are "inconvenient facts" you simply ignore.

>Again
>Sprint and T-Mobile were late to the game and got stuck with the less
>desirable spectrum.

Again, that's beating a very old and long since dead horse.

>I've been to hearings where T-Mobile was trying to get approval of
>towers and in each case the planning commission and city council raised
>the question of why Verizon was able to provide coverage without needing
>to construct towers in the specific area. The T-Mobile spokesperson
>stated the facts--that the T-Mobile system because of its technology
>could not cover the area in question from as far a distance as the
>Verizon system.

Your only "proof" is a vague and meaningless personal anecdote.
Actually just more supposition and made-up "facts".

--
John

"It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant,
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." -Alexander Pope
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame,
as being unwilling to learn." -Benjamin Franklin

On 8/26/2010 6:38 AM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> Despite your well rehearsed patter about mom-and-pop rural cellular
> companies all using CDM for its range benefits, there are a lot of mom-
> and-pop GSM carriers out there, living off roaming revenue from AT&T and
> T-Mobile, as well as their own customer base's service fees.

I never said that _all_ the rural carriers used CDMA. There were many
AT&T affiliates that followed AT&T into GSM because of the roaming
revenue. But it is true that in the rural areas I go to the most, it's a
CDMA rural carrier that's the predominant wireless provider in the
area--Golden State Cellular in California, and U.S. Cellular in far
north California and southern Oregon.

AT&T acquired Edge Wireless in northern California, but they never did
anything with it in terms of trying to compete coverage-wise with U.S.
Cellular. I expect that the costs of providing coverage away from the
major highways was a losing financial proposition.

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:26:32 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/26/2010 6:38 AM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> Despite your well rehearsed patter about mom-and-pop rural cellular
>> companies all using CDM for its range benefits, there are a lot of mom-
>> and-pop GSM carriers out there, living off roaming revenue from AT&T and
>> T-Mobile, as well as their own customer base's service fees.
>
>I never said that _all_ the rural carriers used CDMA.

You greatly exaggerate the percentage that do.

>There were many
>AT&T affiliates that followed AT&T into GSM because of the roaming
>revenue.

And superiority of GSM.

>But it is true that in the rural areas I go to the most, it's a
>CDMA rural carrier that's the predominant wireless provider in the
>area--Golden State Cellular in California, and U.S. Cellular in far
>north California and southern Oregon.

And if it's true for you, then it must be true for everyone.

>AT&T acquired Edge Wireless in northern California, but they never did
>anything with it in terms of trying to compete coverage-wise with U.S.
>Cellular. I expect that the costs of providing coverage away from the
>major highways was a losing financial proposition.

More of your usual supposition and made-up "facts".

--
John

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

> And if it's true for you, then it must be true for everyone.

ironic that you should say that.

On 8/26/2010 7:10 AM, SMS wrote:

<snip>

> Actually the bigger problem for Sprint was that so few of their
> subscribers were even aware of the past option for forcing roaming.

Here's a good thread that shows that a lot of people that depended on
forced roaming on Sprint phones would like it back.

"http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=572041"

Sprint's terrible churn numbers are due in large part to coverage issues
which could be partially solved with handsets that roamed when the
signal level was somewhere above the "register with tower but unable to
make or receive calls" level. But of course the flip side of this is
that increasing roaming would cost Sprint a lot of money.

At least Q2 2010 was not a disaster for Sprint, they finally had a net
increase in subscribers after three years of decreases, and they only
lost $760 million.

Someone with deep pockets needs to buy Sprint and fund a quick rollout
of LTE. Maybe Google or Comcast. Comcast could use a wireless company to
compete against AT&T bundles with U-Verse.

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:14:36 -0700, in
<[email protected]>, SMS
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/26/2010 7:10 AM, SMS wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> Actually the bigger problem for Sprint was that so few of their
>> subscribers were even aware of the past option for forcing roaming.
>
>Here's a good thread that shows that a lot of people that depended on
>forced roaming on Sprint phones would like it back.
>
>"http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=572041"
>
>Sprint's terrible churn numbers are due in large part to coverage issues
>which could be partially solved with handsets that roamed when the
>signal level was somewhere above the "register with tower but unable to
>make or receive calls" level. But of course the flip side of this is
>that increasing roaming would cost Sprint a lot of money.

1. "I saw it on the Internet so it must be true!" It's only a _single_
anonymous opinion, no better than yours, and You must be really
desperate to seize on it as proof of "a lot of people".

2. The real reason for Sprint's churn was the very problematic merger
with Nextel.

--
John

"It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant,
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." -Alexander Pope
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame,
as being unwilling to learn." -Benjamin Franklin