JD Power Report on Call Quality

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Sun, 26 Mar 2006 08:58:14
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>It all varies by area. In many areas of the east, Voicestream had a
>pretty good 1900 Mhz network, while in the west, Cingular's 1900 Mhz
>network, which T-Mobile now uses, was never very good.

Nonsense.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

---

› See More: JD Power Report on Call Quality

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:22:34 -0500,
Isaiah Beard <[email protected]> wrote:

>John Navas wrote:
>>>> That tells me that call quality from all carriers is nearly equal.
>>> I would guess that means that no matter how you slice it, Cingular's big
>>> ballyhoo about being the network "with the lowest dropped calls" doesn't
>>> amount to much, except maybe a lot of bunk.
>>
>> Again, I don't think any such conclusion can be validly drawn, because of
>> lumping different technologies together (D-AMPS, 1900-only GSM, standard
>> dual-band GSM, and GSM with ENS).
>
>So in other words: Cingular's "independently conducted" study is ALSO
>unable to obtain a valid conclusion, because it too compares differing
>technologies.
>
>So, Cingular's study is bunk.

Impossible to say, since the methodology isn't available (AFAIK). Regardless,
I personally don't put much stock in it.

>So, you're saying I'm right.

No.

>> I know from my own experience that ENS and
>> free dual-network roaming with GSM (on which I'm guessing the Cingular claim
>> is based) is quite a bit superior to the other things being lumped in with it.
>
>Superior to what?

Non-ENS GSM.
Single band GSM.
D-AMPS ("TDMA").

>You can't validly compare different technologies.

Of course you can.

>You said so yourself.

Not true. I said you can't aggregate the results in a meaningful manner, not
that you can't compare them. Read more carefully.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on 27 Mar 2006
10:12:32 -0800, [email protected] wrote:

>
>DecaturTxCowboy wrote:
>> SMS wrote:
>> > "http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060316/lath057.html?.v=49"
>>
>> Looks like an average of only 8% difference between all the carriers.
>> Given all the overall information, the report really isn't that significant.
>
>Wonder what year this is for ...

2005.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:17:33
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>It's still surprising how poorly Cingular did in comparison to T-Mobile.
>Cingular's coverage in the west, especially in the San Francisco Bay
>Area is not very good, but certainly it's better than T-Mobile's.

As I've commented before, it's probably due to lumping together ENS GSM,
non-ENS GSM, single-band GSM, and D-AMPS ("TDMA") for Cingular versus pure GSM
for T-Mobile, which strongly suggests that Cingular would rank much higher on
the basis of ENS GSM or even that plus dual-band GSM.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Mon, 27 Mar 2006 04:55:07
GMT, Michael Wise <[email protected]> wrote:

>You know that better than anybody else...isn't that right Mr. Navas?
>After all, its why you never bothered responding to the facts (with
>pics) I posted which clearly showed your little Corte Madera claim about
>VZW coverage to be BS.

Dream on.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:51:04 -0500,
Peter <[email protected]> wrote:

>SMS wrote:
>> "http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060316/lath057.html?.v=49"
>Why in all of this discussion no comment on the fact that almost 25% of
>all wireless calls have at least one quality problem?
>
>24 reported problems per 100 calls (PP100)in 2006. They don't say how
>the Call Quality Index Rankings are calculated, but isn't it fair to say
>that all carriers are equally bad rather than good?

Correct.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

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


> >You know that better than anybody else...isn't that right Mr. Navas?
> >After all, its why you never bothered responding to the facts (with
> >pics) I posted which clearly showed your little Corte Madera claim about
> >VZW coverage to be BS.
>
> Dream on.


Is that the best response you can muster up to my field report complete
with photographs of my VZW phone's signal strength all around San
Clemente Park in Corte Madera?

Surely you haven't forgotten your public claims of VZW having no or poor
signal in that area?


--Mike

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:53:36
GMT, Michael Wise <[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> >You know that better than anybody else...isn't that right Mr. Navas?
>> >After all, its why you never bothered responding to the facts (with
>> >pics) I posted which clearly showed your little Corte Madera claim about
>> >VZW coverage to be BS.
>>
>> Dream on.
>
>Is that the best response you can muster up to my field report complete
>with photographs of my VZW phone's signal strength all around San
>Clemente Park in Corte Madera?
>
>Surely you haven't forgotten your public claims of VZW having no or poor
>signal in that area?

That's not what I wrote, which actually is:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...e=source&hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...e=source&hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...e=source&hl=en
Kindly stick to what I actually write, rather than make up straw men for the
sake of pointless argument.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

> Isaiah Beard <[email protected]> wrote:
>> You can't validly compare different technologies.

John Navas refuted:
> Of course you can.

Total rubbish. Nonsense.

CDMA suffers from cell breathing when the loading increases and the
weaker/est callers get dropped. Not so for GSM/TDMA.

DecaturTxCowboy wrote:
>> Isaiah Beard <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> You can't validly compare different technologies.
>
> John Navas refuted:
>> Of course you can.
>
> Total rubbish. Nonsense.
>
> CDMA suffers from cell breathing when the loading
> increases and the weaker/est callers get dropped. Not so
> for GSM/TDMA.

GSM/TDMA doesn't "suffer" from that because they have
a fixed number of channels. You either get one or you don't.
So there are a number of constraints you would impose
while varying others that you are comparing/measuring
in order to do the comparison.

Or make evaluations like what is the density before the
cell starts to shrink? More or less than GSM/TDMA?
etc. I think you can compare.

-Quick

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

> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>
> In <[email protected]> on Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:53:36
> GMT, Michael Wise <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >In article <[email protected]>,
> > John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> >You know that better than anybody else...isn't that right Mr. Navas?
> >> >After all, its why you never bothered responding to the facts (with
> >> >pics) I posted which clearly showed your little Corte Madera claim about
> >> >VZW coverage to be BS.
> >>
> >> Dream on.
> >
> >Is that the best response you can muster up to my field report complete
> >with photographs of my VZW phone's signal strength all around San
> >Clemente Park in Corte Madera?
> >
> >Surely you haven't forgotten your public claims of VZW having no or poor
> >signal in that area?
>
> That's not what I wrote, which actually is:
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...795786db?dmode
> =source&hl=en
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...94b68277?dmode
> =source&hl=en
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...188b2074?dmode
> =source&hl=en
> Kindly stick to what I actually write, rather than make up straw men for the
> sake of pointless argument.


Kindly read your own words, starting with the last of the three posts
you cited:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...c2ebc188b2074?
dmode=source&hl=en

You said: "Again, *house* near San Clemente Park. The Verizon phone
works (poorly), but not inside. Cingular works inside as well as
outside. Going outside to make and take calls isn't a reasonable
option."

As I stated after that, there's no way for me to run tests inside of
stranger's houses, but I could and did test outside throughout the
entire residential area surrounding San Clemente Park to verify your
claim of a VZW phone working "poorly" in that area.


My tests (which I included photos for proof) showed that at no location
in any of over a dozen points in the entire neighborhood around San
Clemente Park did my VZW phone perform "poorly."


Curiously, you dropped completely out of the discussion once I presented
the data...even when asked several times to comment on it. Now, weeks
later, you try to rewrite history.


At least have the intellectual integrity to admit when you are
wrong...especially when you are proved to be wrong in a public forum.


--Mike

Quick wrote:
> DecaturTxCowboy wrote:
>>> Isaiah Beard <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> You can't validly compare different technologies.
>> John Navas refuted:
>>> Of course you can.
>> Total rubbish. Nonsense.
>>
>> CDMA suffers from cell breathing when the loading
>> increases and the weaker/est callers get dropped. Not so
>> for GSM/TDMA.
>
> GSM/TDMA doesn't "suffer" from that because they have
> a fixed number of channels. You either get one or you don't.
> So there are a number of constraints you would impose
> while varying others that you are comparing/measuring
> in order to do the comparison.

This is correct. With GSM, if you move into the area of a cell that is
at capacity, the call drops. This used to be a big problem on Cingular
when they were 1900 Mhz, and they over-sold the network. OTOH, if there
was no channel available when you tried to initiate a call, then you got
a "system busy, please try later" recording. With CDMA, the voice
quality is degraded as the cell becomes overloaded, but the call doesn't
drop.

I think that if I was in a fixed position, then maybe waiting for a GSM
channel would be preferable to degraded voice quality. However when
you're moving from cell to cell, you probably would prefer degraded
voice quality over having the call drop. In reality, neither are real
issues anymore, except in isolated situations.

"John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>
> In <[email protected]> on Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:17:33
> -0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>It's still surprising how poorly Cingular did in comparison to T-Mobile.
>>Cingular's coverage in the west, especially in the San Francisco Bay
>>Area is not very good, but certainly it's better than T-Mobile's.
>
> As I've commented before, it's probably due to lumping together ENS GSM,
> non-ENS GSM, single-band GSM, and D-AMPS ("TDMA") for Cingular versus pure
> GSM
> for T-Mobile, which strongly suggests that Cingular would rank much higher
> on
> the basis of ENS GSM or even that plus dual-band GSM.
>

Actually, it was a random, statistically significant sample of all Cingular
users, as it was for all other carriers. Your dimwitted claims that they
should only worry about GSM data simply mirrors the third world attitude
exhibited by Cingular in dealing with their non-orange network customers.

[email protected] wrote:
> DecaturTxCowboy wrote:
>> SMS wrote:
>>> "http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060316/lath057.html?.v=49"
>> Looks like an average of only 8% difference between all the carriers.
>> Given all the overall information, the report really isn't that significant.
>
> Wonder what year this is for because a few years ago the Old Can you
> hear me now has been replaced.... I had plans that were awful in call
> quality. Now I have had Verizon for many years I do wonder how the
> rest of the companies are for my particular area and the areas I go

2005.

Of course in most areas of the country the differences weren't that big,
but in my area (west) there was a pretty big difference.

I don't know what it's attributable to. At first I thought that maybe
Cingular still had a lot of customers on the older TDMA/AMPS system
(from AT&T) or from Cingular themselves in some areas), but I later saw
that Cingular's statement that 95% of their voice traffic is now on GSM
(but not necessarily 95% of their customers, at the end of 2005 it was
86% GSM). In the west, it would be even higher, because unlike in many
areas of the country, Cingular never had their own TDMA/AMPS network in
the west, the only TDMA/AMPS customers they have are from AT&T. If
anything, the areas where Cingular used to have a TDMA/AMPS network,
tended to be better scoring areas in call quality for Cingular.

Scott wrote:

> Actually, it was a random, statistically significant sample of all Cingular
> users, as it was for all other carriers. Your dimwitted claims that they
> should only worry about GSM data simply mirrors the third world attitude
> exhibited by Cingular in dealing with their non-orange network customers.

Cingular recently stated that 95% of their voice traffic is on the GSM
network. The effect on the survey results of TDMA is negligible, if it
has any effect at all. In fact, the areas where both Cingular and AT&T
each had their own TDMA network did better than the areas where Cingular
was always GSM only, and AT&T had the only TDMA network.

"Speaking at the TelecomNext conference, Cingular's CEO Stan Sigman says
that the company plans to finalise the migration of its customers to the
GSM platform and shut down its legacy TDMA network in 2008. He said that
over 95% of voice traffic is now carried by the company's GSM network.
Cingular has been migrating its network to an all-GSM based platform
since it aquired AT&T Wireless back in 2004, which at the time was a
TDMA operator." ("http://www.cellular-news.com/story/16683.php").