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

At 13 Feb 2007 01:27:49 +0000 John Navas wrote:

> 'Those who have evidence will present their evidence,
> whereas those who do not have evidence will attack the man.'


True enough, but sometimes those requiring evidence are forced to attack
the man who refuses to provide evidence... ;-)

---

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

Todd Allcock wrote:

> A bias that would most likely be even distributed among all carriers- for
> example, if self-selection is, say, 20% more likely to generate replies
> from people unhappy with their service, then all carriers will be skewed
> negatively by presumably the same amount.

That's really the key point. It's not as if the CR subscribers are
somehow biased towards one carrier or another. It's not like surveying a
group of long-distance truck drivers that would necessarily have
coverage requirements that are different from the average person.

> Given the lack of a completely "blind" random survey, the CR one holds up
> pretty well. In the real world, the ideal sample population is difficult
> to find, so you do the best you can with as unbiased a sampling as you can.

It's funny to see people latch onto the lack of a double-blind random
survey every time a survey presents results that they disagree with,
while at the same time not being able to present and reasons why the
survey is not credible. Yet in most cases it's not possible to conduct
such a survey. The CR survey was very well designed, since any bias
cancels out since it would be equal among all carriers. Combine that
with the huge sample size, even larger than the J.D. Power surveys, and
you have results that everyone agrees are the best you can hope for.

> Put another way, other than Cingular's "secret" least-dropped-calls
> study, has any consumer group or independent research firm (i.e. J.D.
> Powers) ever rated Cingular with the best network?

Not only that, but Cingular has steadfastly refused to release the
specifics of that study, which is highly suspect. Sprint is still suing
them, AFAIK, and Cingular countersued claiming that Sprint doesn't have
"the most powerful network" whatever that means.

> My experience over the last few years tends to support the CR study-
> whenever, in my travels, I find myself in an area where some people can't
> get service and some can, the ones who can have more often than not been
> Verizon users. (Because I always ask, out of curiosity.)

Yeah, in my area (SF Bay Area) it's almost always the Verizon users that
have coverage when no one else does. My daughter is constantly letting
her friends and teammates use her phone when their Sprint, T-Mobile, and
Cingular phones don't work. I do have to say that Cingular is improving
quite a bit out here, and I notice a difference over the past year in
terms of improved coverage.

> Certainly that's not scientific, and certainly is not a "representative
> sample" but it is generally the case in my experience.
>
> Having said that, I still wouldn't use Verizon's service- between the
> crippled phones, and high prices, I'm just not interested, but that
> doesn't mean they haven't got the network right.

The crippled phones are an annoyance, though they are often hackable.
Their prices are no higher than Sprint or Cingular, and often are less
due to corporate discounts.




[Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Please post all alt.cellular.cingular
posts to alt.cellular.attws as well. The Cingular name is going away,
and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for posts regarding AT&T's
Wireless Service.]

james g. keegan jr. wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> [...]
>> That's not how it works. Again, study up on sampling.
>
> i hope this doesn't wound you too deeply john, but i suspect that
> most sane readers would accept consumer reports statistics over your
> biased commentary.

Yeah, but he's got the insane reader base locked up.

At 13 Feb 2007 01:26:47 +0000 John Navas wrote:

> when the sampling isn't random, as in the case of CR, where is the
> population isn't representative, and the sample is self-selected, two
> serious flaws.

Non-random and non-representative are not the same thing, necessarily.
If I wanted to determine the average diameter of M&M candies, I could
open a bag, and average the diameters of all of the blue ones. While the
sample was non-random, and perhaps flawed statistically, the sample was
certainly representative and I'll guarantee you my "real world" answer
would be
correct within the margin of error!

Same with the CR study- as non-random as the sample might have been,
there seems to be no good reason to believe why it would not be
representative.

[email protected] wrote:
> At Starbucks the house coffee sits only for 40 mins. Then It is dumped
> out and re-brewed. If you notice on each pot they have electronic egg
> times set to go off. Once it does, It's time for a fresh batch.

Not good enough. 20 minutes is the limit to receive the all the
antioxidant benefit.

Coffee has to be ground, brewed and drunk within 20 minutes, otherwise
it became a pro-oxidant.

"Maximum antioxidant activity was observed for the medium-roasted
coffee; the dark coffee had a lower antioxidant activity despite the
increase in color."

From Effect of roasting on the antioxidant activity of coffee brews.
del Castillo MD, Ames JM, Gordon MH. J Agric Food Chem. 2002 Jun
19;50(13):3698-703. School of Food Biosciences, The University of
Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, UK

One more reason to go to a coffee house that uses a medium roast, rather
than going to Starbucks.

Todd Allcock wrote:

> Same with the CR study- as non-random as the sample might have been,
> there seems to be no good reason to believe why it would not be
> representative.

You could probably find a group of people that was non-representative of
the population as a whole, i.e., heavy urban users such as real estate
agents, highly mobile users with a lot of non-urban use such as
truckers, highly mobile users with mainly urban use such as airline
pilots and flight attendants, etc. It might actually be a useful metric
to know which carriers these groups favor and why.

However nothing suggests that CR subscribers are not representative of
the population as a whole. They are generally higher income, and of
higher education level, which means that they travel more, but this
makes the CR survey even more valuable, for those that are interested in
the best coverage.

I think that we all understand that it's all a sour grapes issue by
Navas. On the plus side, the digression into coffee was very interesting.

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! ;-)

Show me a study that says the effects of caffeine burn off in 20 minutes
and I'll stick a digital alarm on my coffeemaker right now! ;-)

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! ;-)

The proven health benefits of coffee go way beyond the anti-oxidants.

It's beneficial in the prevention of Alzheimer's, Asthma, Apnea, Colon
and Rectal Cancer, Type 2 Diabetes, Gallstones, Impotence, Headache,
Kidney Stones, Obesity, Parkinson's, Radiation Poisoning, Skin Cancer,
and Suicide.

I just don't like to see some ill-informed health food nuts getting
their panties in a bunch over the fact that coffee has caffeine. An
article that was at PlanetRX.com (now defunct) stated: "Most people
don't think of coffee as a medicinal herb, but it is. The beans are
actually seeds of the coffee shrub, therefore an herbal product. And the
caffeine coffee contains is clearly a drug."

Notan wrote:

> Coffee has saved my life, more than once.

My daughter was premature, so I dealt with all the Newborn ICU stuff for
two months. One of the drugs they use to prevent apnea, a common problem
in preemies, is caffeine. We also drank a lot of coffee during that
period. Fortunately there were many coffee houses near the hospital.

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

> james g. keegan jr. wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> > [...]
> >> That's not how it works. Again, study up on sampling.
> >
> > i hope this doesn't wound you too deeply john, but i suspect that
> > most sane readers would accept consumer reports statistics over your
> > biased commentary.
>
> Yeah, but he's got the insane reader base locked up.

that appears to be the case.

At 13 Feb 2007 11:29:14 -0700 Notan wrote:

> Coffee has saved my life, more than once.


Mine too- drinking nearly a gallon on an overnight run from Denver to
Kansas City. Must've been the anti-oxidants! ;-)

Seriously, I'm not discounting the health benefits present in coffee or
red wine, for that matter. I'm just suggesting that they might not be
the primary reason many of us partake in their delights!

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.

Larry wrote:
> SMS <[email protected]> wrote in news:45d081c8$0$27249
> [email protected]:
>
>> What's in it? I use vinegar, but it takes like eight runs of fresh water
>> through the machine afterward to get rid of the vinegar smell.
>>
>>
>
> Sulfamic Acid, H3NSO3. I buy "Kenmore Distiller Cleaner", cat number 42-
> 34543, from Sears in a 12 oz bottle of crystals. Works great on coffee
> pots as well as my water distiller. It simply eats elemental calcium
> depots off stainless steel or aluminum. DON'T GET ANY ON YOU or you'll be
> sorry!

Amazingly, I was able to actually locate this item at my local Sears.
Yes, it does work well. Thanks.

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.

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."