Consumer Reports Ratings are Out----Verizon top carrier in 14 outof 20 cities, T-Mobile top carrier in 3 cities

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:27:01 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
<[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:23:39 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
>> <[email protected]> wrote in
>> <[email protected]>:
>
>> >> Differences were actually relatively small and not terribly meaningful
>> >
>> >i can see why cingular would try to spin it that way given that they
>> >looked so bad in the study which showed quite significant differences.
>>
>> Wrong on both counts.
>
>i see you supported that allegation with the same evidence you
>support so many others.

I've posted ample evidence, as I'm sure you know.

>you must feel, well, foolish.

I actually feel, well, puzzled that you would want to make yourself seem
so silly and childish.

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

---

› See More: Consumer Reports Ratings are Out----Verizon top carrier in 14 outof 20 cities, T-Mobile top carrier in 3 cities

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:24:34 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
<[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
>> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
>> >With such a huge statistical sample,
>> >there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
>> >0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
>> >220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
>> >equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
>> >would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
>>
>> On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
>> counts.
>
>john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
>continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.

Truth hurts that much?

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

"Tinman" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> I work on billing and CRM software development, and can empathize with what
> you go through.
>
> It's a tough decision, when dealing with such a myriad of issues. On one
> hand, it's nice to provide structured fields that a CSR must fill in. Take
> that a step further and they merely choose from pick-lists. And then as soon
> as you lock it down that much there is undoubtedly a significant percentage
> of calls that don't fit the structure.
>
> So sometimes--and I am not fond of this--you are back with simple,
> unstructured, notes entry. This requires strong policy-and-procedure on the
> work-flow side to ensure it's being used adequately. Making it simply a
> required entry, without effective policy to go along with it (including
> monitoring) results in what you see: a lot of worthless comments in notes.
> What a waste of valuable information that could have--should have--been
> captured properly during the calls.

As a former tech support rep, I can sympathize with the CSRs.
The pressure to keep call completion time as low as possible is
enormous. Until that policy is changed, you'll continue to see
virtually meaningless cryptic entries in the call logs.

--
John Richards

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

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:24:34 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> <[email protected]>:
>
> >In article <[email protected]>,
> > John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
> >> wrote in <[email protected]>:
> >
> >> >With such a huge statistical sample,
> >> >there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
> >> >0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
> >> >220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
> >> >equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
> >> >would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
> >>
> >> On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
> >> counts.
> >
> >john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
> >continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
>
> Truth hurts that much?

i don't know. you didn't post any

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

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:27:01 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> <[email protected]>:
>
> >In article <[email protected]>,
> > John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:23:39 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> >> <[email protected]> wrote in
> >> <[email protected]>:
> >
> >> >> Differences were actually relatively small and not terribly meaningful
> >> >
> >> >i can see why cingular would try to spin it that way given that they
> >> >looked so bad in the study which showed quite significant differences.
> >>
> >> Wrong on both counts.
> >
> >i see you supported that allegation with the same evidence you
> >support so many others.
>
> I've posted ample evidence, as I'm sure you know.

if by "ample," you mean none whatsoever when you are called on to do
so, i do know that. i commented primarily because i knew you could
not.

james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> i can see why cingular would try to spin it that way given that they
> looked so bad in the study which showed quite significant differences.

As far as I have seen, Cingular hasn't responded publicly to the
Consumer Reports article yet. They are typically very careful in
responses like this, because Consumer Reports has so much influence, and
is so well respected for their surveys (if not their reviews of
products). They typically won't dispute the results, they'll just say
that they are working on improving their network, that they are spending
hundreds of millions of dollars on these improvements, and that future
results will be better.

In some of the metro areas they surveyed, the differences were rather
small, only a couple of points, while in others there were large
differences, including LA, Miami, the Twin Cities, Phoenix, San Diego,
San Francisco, Tampa, and D.C.. Actually Miami blew me away, as Cingular
now owns both the A & B side 800 MHz spectrum, while Verizon is at 1900
MHz. To have such a large difference means that Verizon really went all
out in placing towers in that area.

> a lot of people are going to smirk when they see one of those
> cingular billboards asserting fewest dropped calls, particularly if
> they are driving with someone whose cingular phone has no signal
> whatsoever.... something that happens quite often in the new york
> metropolitan area and connecticut.

Why will they smirk? They need to take Cingular's claim literally. They
aren't going to drop a call when they can't make a call in the first
place. No doubt Cingular wants people to think that "fewest dropped
calls" means the same as "best coverage," but they never claimed to have
the best coverage. Of course they don't have the fewest dropped calls
either.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:05:26 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>In some of the metro areas they surveyed, the differences were rather
>small, only a couple of points, while in others there were large
>differences, including LA, Miami, the Twin Cities, Phoenix, San Diego,
>San Francisco, Tampa, and D.C.. Actually Miami blew me away, as Cingular
>now owns both the A & B side 800 MHz spectrum, while Verizon is at 1900
>MHz. To have such a large difference means that Verizon really went all
>out in placing towers in that area.

The differences were actually small in all areas.

>> a lot of people are going to smirk when they see one of those
>> cingular billboards asserting fewest dropped calls, particularly if
>> they are driving with someone whose cingular phone has no signal
>> whatsoever.... something that happens quite often in the new york
>> metropolitan area and connecticut.
>
>Why will they smirk? They need to take Cingular's claim literally. They
>aren't going to drop a call when they can't make a call in the first
>place. No doubt Cingular wants people to think that "fewest dropped
>calls" means the same as "best coverage," but they never claimed to have
>the best coverage. Of course they don't have the fewest dropped calls
>either.

Kindly take your Verizon trolling someplace more appropriate.

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

On Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:39:48 GMT, John Navas
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:05:26 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
>wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
>>In some of the metro areas they surveyed, the differences were rather
>>small, only a couple of points, while in others there were large
>>differences, including LA, Miami, the Twin Cities, Phoenix, San Diego,
>>San Francisco, Tampa, and D.C.. Actually Miami blew me away, as Cingular
>>now owns both the A & B side 800 MHz spectrum, while Verizon is at 1900
>>MHz. To have such a large difference means that Verizon really went all
>>out in placing towers in that area.
>
>The differences were actually small in all areas.
>
>>> a lot of people are going to smirk when they see one of those
>>> cingular billboards asserting fewest dropped calls, particularly if
>>> they are driving with someone whose cingular phone has no signal
>>> whatsoever.... something that happens quite often in the new york
>>> metropolitan area and connecticut.
>>
>>Why will they smirk? They need to take Cingular's claim literally. They
>>aren't going to drop a call when they can't make a call in the first
>>place. No doubt Cingular wants people to think that "fewest dropped
>>calls" means the same as "best coverage," but they never claimed to have
>>the best coverage. Of course they don't have the fewest dropped calls
>>either.
>
>Kindly take your Verizon trolling someplace more appropriate.


well, so much for surveys. for the real life test go with cingular.
verizon has great coverage.........where they have coverage, but that
is not that many places. i have verizon and i rv, so i get around.
verizon is worthless. cingular has twice the coverage that verizon
has and that is being conservative. i get nothing at all at about 80%
of the places that we go camping at, yet my friends with cingular have
never lost the signal. talk all the tech crap that you want, that is
a real life comparison. verizon sux. their customer support is
terrible. i will drop them as soon as i can and will go to cingular.

james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
> continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.

In order to continue shilling for Cingular, it's a requirement that he
be ignorant of statistics, or at least pretend to be.

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

> james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> > a lot of people are going to smirk when they see one of those
> > cingular billboards asserting fewest dropped calls, particularly if
> > they are driving with someone whose cingular phone has no signal
> > whatsoever.... something that happens quite often in the new york
> > metropolitan area and connecticut.
>
> Why will they smirk? They need to take Cingular's claim literally. They
> aren't going to drop a call when they can't make a call in the first
> place.

that's what my friend, a cingular user realized, when they needed to
borrow my (verizon) phone repeatedly to make calls.


> No doubt Cingular wants people to think that "fewest dropped
> calls" means the same as "best coverage," but they never claimed to have
> the best coverage. Of course they don't have the fewest dropped calls
> either.

and cu nailed them for that blatant misrepresentation.

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

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:05:26 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
> >In some of the metro areas they surveyed, the differences were rather
> >small, only a couple of points, while in others there were large
> >differences, including LA, Miami, the Twin Cities, Phoenix, San Diego,
> >San Francisco, Tampa, and D.C.. Actually Miami blew me away, as Cingular
> >now owns both the A & B side 800 MHz spectrum, while Verizon is at 1900
> >MHz. To have such a large difference means that Verizon really went all
> >out in placing towers in that area.
>
> The differences were actually small in all areas.

john, the cu report i have says otherwise.

can you cite the source you are referring to.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:05:42 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>james g. keegan jr. wrote:
>
>> john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
>> continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
>
>In order to continue shilling for Cingular, it's a requirement that he
>be ignorant of statistics, or at least pretend to be.

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

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

james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> that's what my friend, a cingular user realized, when they needed to
> borrow my (verizon) phone repeatedly to make calls.

Yes, that often happens to me and other members of my family. It's most
common when were in places like state and county parks, not far from our
house, up in the Santa Cruz mountains, and at ski areas around Lake
Tahoe. However in the urban core, Cingular does okay now.

>> No doubt Cingular wants people to think that "fewest dropped
>> calls" means the same as "best coverage," but they never claimed to have
>> the best coverage. Of course they don't have the fewest dropped calls
>> either.
>
> and cu nailed them for that blatant misrepresentation.

It was very nice to see CU nail them like that. Even though other
reports took them to task for the lack of data from Telephia, as well as
the Sprint lawsuit over the claim, a report like that from CU carries
a lot more weight.

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

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:05:42 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
> >james g. keegan jr. wrote:
> >
> >> john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
> >> continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
> >
> >In order to continue shilling for Cingular, it's a requirement that he
> >be ignorant of statistics, or at least pretend to be.
>
> 'Those who have evidence will present their evidence,
> whereas those who do not have evidence will attack the man.'

glad to see you admit attacking the man and had no evidence to
support your attacks.

but, shouldn't you have apologized?

james g. keegan jr. wrote:

> john, the cu report i have says otherwise.
>
> can you cite the source you are referring to.

I have the Consumer Reports January 2007 issue in front of me.

Out of 20 cities:

Cingular was much worse than Verizon in Los Angeles, Miami,
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, San Diego, Tampa, and Washington D.C. (7
cities).

8 or more

Cingular was significantly worse than Verizon in Boston, Cleveland,
Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco (6 cities).

6-7

Cingular was moderately worse than Verizon in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas,
New York, Seattle (5 cities)

4-5

Cingular was slightly worse than Verizon in Denver and Saint Louis (2
cities).

Obviously John is reading a different publication, or he is
fictionalizing again.