In Room With No Cell Service, Verizon Works On Future of Mobile 85
alphadogg writes "If you think your house has bad cellular coverage, Verizon Wireless has you beat: A small, windowless room high up in a San Francisco office building gets no service at all. That's not because carriers are neglecting the bustling South of Market business district where the room is located. Instead, it's because Verizon is paying so much attention to what's going on there. The room with zero bars is in the heart of the Verizon Innovation Center, where Verizon network and business experts help developers of new wireless devices and apps to turn their ideas into products."
Eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Please, please, please, please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only are they surprisingly bad at it (hands up, everyone who ever had the pleasure of a phone with a fully Verizoned ROM, or a Comcast-rented cable box UI); but the conflicts of interest inherent between offering a product or service and controlling the infrastructure over which that offering is delivered are irreconcilably dangerous.
Faraday Cage (Score:4, Insightful)
It is called a Faraday Cage [wikipedia.org] and it works very well at blocking RF signals. Pix.... [google.com]
I helped assemble one many years ago. There was an FM radio inside the cage that would receive the local campus station quite well...until the cage door was closed, then would just hiss.
Commercial Radio Studios (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:can you hear me now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy shield room, Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody who develops or tests radio receivers of any kind (including cell phones) has one or more shield rooms - it's no big deal. As a more economical (though less effective) alternative, many also have screen rooms, which are little rooms built out of two-by-fours that are surrounded with copper screening. It's about as amazing as the fact that Ben & Jerry's R&D department has a freezer.