JD Power Report on Call Quality

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

In <[email protected]> on Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:29:05
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>The ratings also take into account capacity issues because dropped calls
>are often caused by someone moving into an area where the cell has no
>more capacity. This was a huge problem with Pacific Bell Cellular, which

Only in certain areas at certain times.

>became Cingular, when I first had service with them--they oversold their
>network with very attractive prices, and people that didn't know any
>better at the time, switched to them in droves. So it could be a
>capacity, rather than a coverage issue that explains why Cingular did so
>poorly in comparison to T-Mobile.

It's not -- thanks to the merger and network upgrades, Cingular now has ample
capacity in this area.

--
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

Agent_C wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:52:34 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> "http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060316/lath057.html?.v=49"
>
> Looks like T-Mobile is playing an aggressive game of catch up. Hard to
> believe they're neck-n-neck with Verizon in many regions. That's
> certainly not reflective of my experience.

Depends on the region. In the mid-Atlantic, T-Mobile has quite good
coverage. In fact they were in NYC when Cingular had no network at all
there, and T-Mobile was providing Cingular with service (while the
reverse was true on the west coast).

The west is the region I have the most experience with, and I was quite
surprised to see how well T-Mobile was rated, since they are using
Cingular's old 1900 Mhz network, which had a lot of coverage issues.
Cingular was having a lot of trouble getting permission to install
sufficient towers to provide complete coverage, since they needed more
than AT&T or Verizon due to the lower range of 1900 Mhz.

I think the rankings may be skewed by the type of customers that
T-Mobile attracts. While Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular battle for the
mainstream customers, with pretty similar rates, T-Mobile is going after
younger people that may not travel as much.

Another reason may be the way T-Mobile checks coverage prior to a sale.
In the huge store that they opened next to the community college in my
city, they check coverage down to the specific address, before you sign
up for service. My friend was in that store, and they discouraged him
from signing up when their maps showed no coverage at his house in the
Willow Glen area of San Jose. This contrasts with what Cingular, Sprint,
or Verizon would do! So maybe the brash step of not selling service to
people that have no coverage at their home or office, helps T-Mobile's
score.

It's not surprising for Cingular to be near the bottom in the west, as
their coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as southern
California is lacking once you're outside the urban or suburban core,
but so is T-Mobile's. Or it all could be due to J.D. Power designing the
survey at the request of a specific wireless company. You never know
with J.D. Power. They aren't a non-profit like Consumer Reports.

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

In <[email protected]> on Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:58:01
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>The west is the region I have the most experience with, and I was quite

But not all that much.

>surprised to see how well T-Mobile was rated, since they are using
>Cingular's old 1900 Mhz network, which had a lot of coverage issues.

Blows your story all to hell.

>It's not surprising for Cingular to be near the bottom in the west, as
>their coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as southern
>California is lacking once you're outside the urban or suburban core,

In fact it's quite good, thanks to the merger and to network upgrades, much
better than T-Mobile, again blowing your story all to hell.

>but so is T-Mobile's. Or it all could be due to J.D. Power designing the
>survey at the request of a specific wireless company. You never know
>with J.D. Power. They aren't a non-profit like Consumer Reports.

Attack anything that doesn't fit your agenda. How nice. In fact JD Powers
has all the more reason to be evenhanded.

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

SMS wrote:
> Agent_C wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:52:34 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> "http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060316/lath057.html?.v=49"
>>
>>
>> Looks like T-Mobile is playing an aggressive game of catch up. Hard to
>> believe they're neck-n-neck with Verizon in many regions. That's
>> certainly not reflective of my experience.
>
>
> Depends on the region. In the mid-Atlantic, T-Mobile has quite good
> coverage. In fact they were in NYC when Cingular had no network at all
> there, and T-Mobile was providing Cingular with service (while the
> reverse was true on the west coast).


PA is part of the Mid-Atlantic region and tmobile has terrible coverage
in my half of the state.


>
> The west is the region I have the most experience with, and I was quite
> surprised to see how well T-Mobile was rated, since they are using
> Cingular's old 1900 Mhz network, which had a lot of coverage issues.
> Cingular was having a lot of trouble getting permission to install
> sufficient towers to provide complete coverage, since they needed more
> than AT&T or Verizon due to the lower range of 1900 Mhz.
>
> I think the rankings may be skewed by the type of customers that
> T-Mobile attracts. While Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular battle for the
> mainstream customers, with pretty similar rates, T-Mobile is going after
> younger people that may not travel as much.
>
> Another reason may be the way T-Mobile checks coverage prior to a sale.
> In the huge store that they opened next to the community college in my
> city, they check coverage down to the specific address, before you sign
> up for service. My friend was in that store, and they discouraged him
> from signing up when their maps showed no coverage at his house in the
> Willow Glen area of San Jose. This contrasts with what Cingular, Sprint,
> or Verizon would do! So maybe the brash step of not selling service to
> people that have no coverage at their home or office, helps T-Mobile's
> score.

I think they had to do it because they were annoying so many people. My
friend owns a quickie mart and used to sell them. He gave up because
almost all of them came back.

Tmobile was also quite agressive about trying to shake money out of you
even when the phone didn't work. My friend's girfriend bought one and
found out it didn't work within a block of her house. She had made
exactly 2 calls each under a minute and brought the phone back the next
day. tmobile later sent her a bill for $63 and kept trying to hassle her
until my friend stepped in.


>
> It's not surprising for Cingular to be near the bottom in the west, as
> their coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as southern
> California is lacking once you're outside the urban or suburban core,
> but so is T-Mobile's. Or it all could be due to J.D. Power designing the
> survey at the request of a specific wireless company. You never know
> with J.D. Power. They aren't a non-profit like Consumer Reports.
>

George wrote:

> I think they had to do it because they were annoying so many people.

I'm sure that this was the reason, the fallout may be that there are a
lot less people with phones that don't have coverage in areas where
they're likely to use it the most, hence their good showing in that survey.

In any case, without knowing who commissioned the JD Power survey, and
how they collected their data, you really won't know how valid the
results are. They're not like Consumer Reports, who disclose their
methodology, and who aren't selling survey services to companies. It's
quite easy to design a survey to prove whatever you want to prove. Look
at some of the bizarre automotive surveys down by JD Power.

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

In <[email protected]> on Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:03:14
-0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:

>George wrote:
>
>> I think they had to do it because they were annoying so many people.
>
>I'm sure that this was the reason, the fallout may be that there are a
>lot less people with phones that don't have coverage in areas where
>they're likely to use it the most, hence their good showing in that survey.

Not even a good scramble. It can't be fun dealing with data that blows away
what you've been saying.

>In any case, without knowing who commissioned the JD Power survey, and

Nobody commissioned it.

>how they collected their data, you really won't know how valid the
>results are. They're not like Consumer Reports, who disclose their
>methodology,

Not true.

>and who aren't selling survey services to companies.

Which actually makes JD Powers more evenhanded.

>It's
>quite easy to design a survey to prove whatever you want to prove.

You should know.

>Look
>at some of the bizarre automotive surveys down by JD Power.

Actually well respected.

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

"John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>
> In <[email protected]> on Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:29:05
> -0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>The ratings also take into account capacity issues because dropped calls
>>are often caused by someone moving into an area where the cell has no
>>more capacity. This was a huge problem with Pacific Bell Cellular, which
>
> Only in certain areas at certain times.
>
>>became Cingular, when I first had service with them--they oversold their
>>network with very attractive prices, and people that didn't know any
>>better at the time, switched to them in droves. So it could be a
>>capacity, rather than a coverage issue that explains why Cingular did so
>>poorly in comparison to T-Mobile.
>
> It's not -- thanks to the merger and network upgrades, Cingular now has
> ample
> capacity in this area.

Any proof , or is this more of your uneducated personal opinion?

T-Mobile only has coverage along the major interstates in the
Southwest. This is akin to skewing the results.

John Navas wrote:
>> Presumably, the tests were done where
>> coverage was reasonably good for the technology tested, or else a much
>> more noticeable spread beyond what was observed would be indicated.
>
> I don't think so -- note how many problems were reported per 100 calls.

Considering that the spread is narrow, and J.D. Power claims that "The
overall rate of customers experiencing a wireless call quality problem
has declined for a second consecutive year," my argument seems to be
bolstered. And you think wrong.

Interestingly, Cingular is dead last in all regions except the
Northeast, where U.S. cellular was worse by one index point.


>> All things being equal, the network signalling format should not be a
>> factor in call quality, unless a carrier is neglecting to maintain a
>> network. And if a carrier IS being neglectful, then the results are
>> quite fair in reflecting that.
>
> Again, I don't think so


Again, you think wrong, but that's not surprising.


> -- the D-AMPS ("TDMA") network is being migrated to
> GSM and phased out, which has resulted in degraded service for some D-AMPS
> customers.

So in other words, you admit that Cingular is neglecting maintenance on
their D-AMPS network. Seems to me they got the what they deserved then,
ratings-wise.


--
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Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

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.

So, you're saying I'm right.


> 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? You can't validly compare different technologies.
You said so yourself.



--
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Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

[email protected]lid wrote:

>>> "http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060316/lath057.html?.v=49"
>> Looks like T-Mobile is playing an aggressive game of catch up. Hard to
>> believe they're neck-n-neck with Verizon in many regions. That's
>> certainly not reflective of my experience.

>
> Note that the study does not measure NO SERVICE areas.


And it's not supposed to. It's supposed to measure call quality in
areas where the carriers purport to have coverage.

When you equalize it that way, yes, T-Mobile probably does have a good
call completion rate and relatively few problems per call.

But move out into the sticks, and you have a BIG problem with T-mobile.


--
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Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

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?

Isaiah Beard wrote:

> And it's not supposed to. It's supposed to measure call quality in
> areas where the carriers purport to have coverage.
>
> When you equalize it that way, yes, T-Mobile probably does have a good
> call completion rate and relatively few problems per call.
>
> But move out into the sticks, and you have a BIG problem with T-mobile.

There is some correlation with dropped calls though. For example, I live
in an area with very poor T-Mobile coverage (which was formerly very
poor Cingular coverage when Cingular had the 1900 Mhz spectrum). If
someone is driving down the arterial road near me, they will be
disconnected because of a lack of coverage, and dropped calls are
covered in the survey.

I was just at a friend's office earlier this afternoon, right near my
house, and he was complaining about having to walk down the parking lot
of his office in order to be able to use his T-Mobile phone. Amusingly,
we are both friends with another nearby resident who has been
successfully fighting Cingular/T-Mobile for years over a proposed tower
that would be right over his fence at a small shopping center.

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.

Isaiah Beard wrote:

> So in other words, you admit that Cingular is neglecting maintenance on
> their D-AMPS network. Seems to me they got the what they deserved then,
> ratings-wise.

Cingular stated that 95% of its customers are on GSM, so even if the
TDMA/AMPS network was neglected, it would have negligible effect on the
ratings. Incidentally, I do still use the old AT&T TDMA/AMPS network in
the San Francisco Bay Area, and beyond. There are many areas we travel
to where the TDMA/AMPS phone works, but my MVNO phone on the Cingular
network has no coverage at all.

Cingular is very concerned about how far behind they've fallen in terms
of customer satisfaction, call quality, their data network and their
coverage. Even in the areas where the differences are small, it just
looks bad to always be in last place. It affects their ability to
maintain their prices. OTOH Verizon just laughs at you (silently) when
you try to negotiate a better deal, because they know that any customer
that leaves in a huff for another carrier, will likely be back if they
care about coverage at all.

Cyrus Afzali wrote:
> On 24 Mar 2006 08:31:30 -0800, "fj" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> T-Mobile only has coverage along the major interstates in the
>> Southwest. This is akin to skewing the results.
>
> So you're saying they don't cover all major cities? You know this how?
> That's absolutely, patently false.

Well half-false anyway. On T-Mobile post-paid, you roam onto Cingular in
cities where T-Mobile has no coverage. If you sign up for T-Mobile
prepaid, which doesn't roam, the coverage is much worse.

> Most anywhere I've been in the
> country, if the city has somewhere near 50,000, it's covered.

Well covered somewhat. In my area, the T-Mobile coverage is spotty. They
took over Cingular's old 1900 Mhz network, which also had spotty
coverage, and they don't let you roam onto 800 Mhz in areas where they
have their own 1900 Mhz network, even if their network doesn't cover
your location. They do try to fix their spots with no coverage, but at
least where I live, there are a lot of NIMBY people when it comes to
cell phone towers, and you need a lot more 1900 Mhz towers to cover a
given area than you need 800 Mhz towers.

> T-Mobile
> doesn't lie to people about its coverage; in fact, they make it easier
> than anybody to check coverage before you buy. If you like their
> coverage, buy 'em, if you don't, don't.

Yes, this is one very good point about T-Mobile, and I know someone who
they advised to not sign up for service because of lack of coverage.