Filed for divorce with Cingular today

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:23:25 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>It's not so much having coverage in order to engage in a gab fest while
>on top of Half Dome, it's having coverage while driving to and from your
>vacation location, as well as being reachable in case of emergency.

Then you'll need something other than cellular (e.g., satphone), because
there are many places with no coverage at all. For emergencies, nothing
beats a PLB.

>The
>problem with GSM, and to a lesser extent CDMA, is that the rural
>coverage is very poor because it's impractical to install enough towers
>to cover rural areas, especially when they are not flat.

It's actually just a matter of deployment, with AMPS having been around
a lot longer, and digital catching up rapidly.

>Navas is really grasping at straws with his rationalizations of why it's
>an advantage to have no coverage.

I've said nothing of the kind.

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

---

› See More: Filed for divorce with Cingular today

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 11:29:08 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
>> Everyone in this thread knows the context of the conversation is the United
>> States, but his statement clearly alludes to the entire world's marketshare,
>> which is out of context.
>
>He keeps claiming that it's become the leading technology in the USA.
>Yet it not only has far fewer users and far less coverage, but has been
>losing market share to CDMA quarter after quarter.

Wrong on all counts.

>It got a boost during
>the conversion from TDMA to GSM, but this was due solely to one carrier
>moving from TDMA to GSM.

Which of course counts, and is part of why it's actually been gaining
share over the past few years.

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

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:49:34 GMT, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
<[email protected]> wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Scott <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> "John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>
>>> GSM has range comparable to CDMA2000, and has become the leading
>>> technology in the USA, rapidly gaining share over the past few years.
>>
>> You can't be the leading technology with fewer users. GSM has always and
>> continues to have fewer users in the US than CDMA.
>
>John likes to mix context in order to prove a point. GSM is leading
>worldwide.

Irrelevant in this context.

>In the USA it is trailing and has always trailed.

In the USA it has gained share rapidly over the past few years.

>His growth
>facts are based upon transient data heavily influenced by protocol migration
>on the same carrier, but he uses them anyway.

You bet. Counts just like any other share change.

>The dicussion in this thread
>has been 100% about the USA, and yet he throughs in a comment that, while
>technically true, is only true for the entire planet and not for the United
>States ... which as I just said, is the context of this discussion.

My comments actually apply to the USA.

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

At 08 Aug 2006 17:46:19 -0600 Scott wrote:
>

> And how many millions of visitors do the national parks and resort
areas see
> every year?
>
Many, including myself.

>
> ...But many people
> like the ability to maintain contact while on vacation- many more than
don't
> want coverage.
>
Probably true, but the $64,000 question is how many are willing to pay
for it?

I use T-Mobile as my primary carrier, because I can get 1000 minutes and
unlimited data for $45/month. However, I know this means I get spotty
rural coverage on road trips and little or no coverage in National parks.
But am I willing to spend $15-25 more each and every month to get
coverage in the Grand Canyon or Rocky Mountain National Park?

Nope.

One's choice of service provider is a series of tradeoffs. T-Mobile GSM
gives me lackluster coversge compared to Verizon or Sprint's AMPS fallback,
but I get cheap minutes and data with easy switching of phones to suit my
mood, need or environment (with a simple SIM swap I left my $300 PDA
phone in the hotel room and "risked" my venerable $6 eBay Nokia 5190 to
the salt, sea and sand at a Cape Cod beach vacation three weeks ago.)
And, to keep this post on topic for the group, what the heck is up with
Cingular coverage in New England? In Boston, the Cape, and Rhode Island,
I got much better coverage with my T-Mo MDA than with my Cingular-based
Beyond Wireless prepaid phone. (Stupidly I brought my Nokia 3560 instead
of my 5120 or 232 that let me manually select 800MHz providers. On the
Mid-Cape beach (in Dennisport) we stayed at, for example, T-Mo reception
was quite poor, Cingular was non-existant, and meanwhilethe Sprint and
Verizon users were all chatting away...



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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Scott wrote:
> And how many millions of visitors do the national parks and resort areas see
> every year?
>
>>What percentage of people live in the far reaches of a Western National
>>Park? Some folks are happy to not have cell coverage when they go on
>>vacation.
>
> And some folks like to spread peanut butter on their chest. But many people
> like the ability to maintain contact while on vacation- many more than don't
> want coverage.

I had all 4 bars digital TDMA coverage at Glacier Park Lodge, East
Glacier, MT, which actually lies outside Glacier Park boundaries.
Within, you are lucky to get an AM radio station. But, people want to
play with their electronic toys 24/7/365

Joe Versaggi wrote:

> I had all 4 bars digital TDMA coverage at Glacier Park Lodge, East
> Glacier, MT, which actually lies outside Glacier Park boundaries.
> Within, you are lucky to get an AM radio station. But, people want to
> play with their electronic toys 24/7/365

I guess it's because of the unsightly towers, but it's amusing that
national parks will allow all sorts of commercial enterprises and
technology into the park, but often won't allow cellular sites.

For example, many people go to Yellowstone to see Old Faithful "erupt"
but few are aware of what happened to Old Faithful, after a small
earthquake hit the area.

I worked at the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone for three months with a
private contractor that worked with the Army Corp of engineers to
install the gas powered steam boilers and pipe work. This was in 1997
(after Old Faithful stopped erupting naturally). I worked on the
micro-controllers and the driver circuits for the valve solenoids. The
valves are opened in a precise sequence to allow the "eruption" to build
and subside as close as possible to what it did when the eruptions were
naturally occurring.

It's an amazingly complex system. It had to be programmed to introduce a
degree of randomness to the eruption interval and duration, but the
duration of the previous eruption also affects the duration of
subsequent eruptions. Multiple controllers are used in a voting
configuration, to ensure reliability, and there is a manual over-ride as
well, which allows parallel valves to be opened and closed manually.

Almost no park visitors are aware that this system exists, and even most
of the employees of the concessionaires are not aware of it. The park
rangers all know, but they won't volunteer the information for obvious
reasons. Most of the work was done on winter weekdays when the park
isn't heavily used. The pipes run under the main road, and back behind
the snow lodge. The few times we were asked by park visitors about what
we were doing, we told them that we were working on a new steam heating
system for Old Faithful Lodge, so that it could be kept open year-round.

John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:37:15 GMT, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
> <[email protected]> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
>>Jack Zwick <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> I always paid EVERY bill 3 weeks early, and still do.
>>
>>A good accountant or financial adviser will tell you to pay any bill [that is
>>not accumulating interest over time] as close to the due date as possible.
>>Three weeks is a good way for them to have the money you pay them for the
>>entire year for an extra three weeks. So, say $1200 doing work for them for
>>three weeks for free. You should be holding that money and earning interest
>>or other ROI.
>
> Paying it early can also lead to confusion and errors. I personally use
> online banking to automatically pay bills just a few days before then
> are due.
>

Paying a bill early isn't an issue unless they haven't billed you yet ...

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:01:26 GMT, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
<[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:37:15 GMT, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
>> <[email protected]> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>>
>>>Jack Zwick <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>> I always paid EVERY bill 3 weeks early, and still do.
>>>
>>>A good accountant or financial adviser will tell you to pay any bill [that is
>>>not accumulating interest over time] as close to the due date as possible.
>>>Three weeks is a good way for them to have the money you pay them for the
>>>entire year for an extra three weeks. So, say $1200 doing work for them for
>>>three weeks for free. You should be holding that money and earning interest
>>>or other ROI.
>>
>> Paying it early can also lead to confusion and errors. I personally use
>> online banking to automatically pay bills just a few days before then
>> are due.
>
>Paying a bill early isn't an issue unless they haven't billed you yet ...

The problem is (usually) people, not (usually) computers, and as
I wrote, it can lead to confusion and errors -- I've personally
experienced cases in the past where paying my bill early led to
confusion and errors, which is part of why I no longer do that.

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

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

> Paying a bill early isn't an issue unless they haven't billed you yet ...

It makes no difference whether they have billed you yet or not. On
little-used credit cards, such as those for department stores, I'll
often pay electronically soon after charging something. These cards are
only used when the store requires their use for a big extra discount,
and I'm likely to forget to pay them otherwise.

The one thing you want to avoid is making a mortgage payment within the
same billing period as a previous payment, as it may get applied as
extra principal, rather than as the next month's payment (though this is
easy to fix with a phone call).

John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:01:26 GMT, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> <[email protected]>:
>
>>John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:37:15 GMT, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
>>> <[email protected]> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>>>
>>>>Jack Zwick <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I always paid EVERY bill 3 weeks early, and still do.
>>>>
>>>>A good accountant or financial adviser will tell you to pay any bill [that is
>>>>not accumulating interest over time] as close to the due date as possible.
>>>>Three weeks is a good way for them to have the money you pay them for the
>>>>entire year for an extra three weeks. So, say $1200 doing work for them for
>>>>three weeks for free. You should be holding that money and earning interest
>>>>or other ROI.
>>>
>>> Paying it early can also lead to confusion and errors. I personally use
>>> online banking to automatically pay bills just a few days before then
>>> are due.
>>
>>Paying a bill early isn't an issue unless they haven't billed you yet ...
>
> The problem is (usually) people, not (usually) computers, and as
> I wrote, it can lead to confusion and errors -- I've personally
> experienced cases in the past where paying my bill early led to
> confusion and errors, which is part of why I no longer do that.
>

Since when is billing handled by people? I doubt they even open the envelope.
Like I said, if you have been billed [invoiced] there will not be an issue
paying unless accounts receivable is staffed by apes ... but then you have
have an entirely different issue then paying your bill earlier than the due
date.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
>> Paying a bill early isn't an issue unless they haven't billed you yet ...
>
> It makes no difference whether they have billed you yet or not. On
> little-used credit cards, such as those for department stores, I'll
> often pay electronically soon after charging something. These cards are
> only used when the store requires their use for a big extra discount,
> and I'm likely to forget to pay them otherwise.
>
> The one thing you want to avoid is making a mortgage payment within the
> same billing period as a previous payment, as it may get applied as
> extra principal, rather than as the next month's payment (though this is
> easy to fix with a phone call).

Indeed ... it is case by case. I agree entirely.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:51:29 GMT, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
<[email protected]> wrote in <[email protected]>:

>John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:

>> The problem is (usually) people, not (usually) computers, and as
>> I wrote, it can lead to confusion and errors -- I've personally
>> experienced cases in the past where paying my bill early led to
>> confusion and errors, which is part of why I no longer do that.
>
>Since when is billing handled by people?

Lots of times.

>I doubt they even open the envelope.

Not in the normal course.

>Like I said, if you have been billed [invoiced] there will not be an issue
>paying unless accounts receivable is staffed by apes ...

And there you have it.

>but then you have
>have an entirely different issue then paying your bill earlier than the due
>date.

My experience is that paying the bill early makes errors more likely.
YMMV. Are we done now? Have the last word.

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

Will my Sprint cell phone work faithfully while I am watching the geyser in
Yellowstone? Will I get service?


"SMS" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Joe Versaggi wrote:
>
>> I had all 4 bars digital TDMA coverage at Glacier Park Lodge, East
>> Glacier, MT, which actually lies outside Glacier Park boundaries. Within,
>> you are lucky to get an AM radio station. But, people want to play with
>> their electronic toys 24/7/365
>
> I guess it's because of the unsightly towers, but it's amusing that
> national parks will allow all sorts of commercial enterprises and
> technology into the park, but often won't allow cellular sites.
>
> For example, many people go to Yellowstone to see Old Faithful "erupt" but
> few are aware of what happened to Old Faithful, after a small earthquake
> hit the area.
>
> I worked at the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone for three months with a
> private contractor that worked with the Army Corp of engineers to install
> the gas powered steam boilers and pipe work. This was in 1997 (after Old
> Faithful stopped erupting naturally). I worked on the micro-controllers
> and the driver circuits for the valve solenoids. The valves are opened in
> a precise sequence to allow the "eruption" to build and subside as close
> as possible to what it did when the eruptions were naturally occurring.
>
> It's an amazingly complex system. It had to be programmed to introduce a
> degree of randomness to the eruption interval and duration, but the
> duration of the previous eruption also affects the duration of subsequent
> eruptions. Multiple controllers are used in a voting configuration, to
> ensure reliability, and there is a manual over-ride as well, which allows
> parallel valves to be opened and closed manually.
>
> Almost no park visitors are aware that this system exists, and even most
> of the employees of the concessionaires are not aware of it. The park
> rangers all know, but they won't volunteer the information for obvious
> reasons. Most of the work was done on winter weekdays when the park isn't
> heavily used. The pipes run under the main road, and back behind the snow
> lodge. The few times we were asked by park visitors about what we were
> doing, we told them that we were working on a new steam heating system for
> Old Faithful Lodge, so that it could be kept open year-round.

"Mij Adyaw" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:z_tCg.54651$xB.46563@fed1read10...
> Will my Sprint cell phone work faithfully while I am watching the geyser
> in Yellowstone? Will I get service?
>
>
> "SMS" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Joe Versaggi wrote:
<snip>
>> I worked at the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone for three months with a
>> private contractor that worked with the Army Corp of engineers to install
>> the gas powered steam boilers and pipe work. This was in 1997 (after Old
>> Faithful stopped erupting naturally). I worked on the micro-controllers
>> and the driver circuits for the valve solenoids. The valves are opened in
>> a precise sequence to allow the "eruption" to build and subside as close
>> as possible to what it did when the eruptions were naturally occurring.

I feel I've been 'Snoped'.