AT&T Wins Gizmodo 3G Bandwidth Test 156
ink writes "Gizmodo has completed a 12-city test of 3G cellular bandwidth speed. Verizon won four of the twelve, however AT&T scored higher with six: 'Let's get this straight right away: We didn't test dropped voice calls, we didn't test customer service, and we didn't test map coverage by wandering around in the boonies. We tested the ability of the networks to deliver 3G data in and around cities, including both concrete canyons and picket-fenced 'burbs. And while every 3G network gave us troubles on occasion, AT&T's wasn't measurably more or less reliable than Verizon's.'"
What about sustained transfers? (Score:3, Interesting)
I find I can get a nice burst for the first couple of megabytes then Im throttled pretty badly. Id like to know which carrier doesnt do this. It doesnt look related to reception.
Re:What about sustained transfers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I find I can get a nice burst for the first couple of megabytes then Im throttled pretty badly. Id like to know which carrier doesnt do this. It doesnt look related to reception.
Short answer: it seems that all US carriers do this, either because (i) they underestimated demand and under-invested in infrastructure, or (ii) because they can maximize their revenues while minimizing their costs, and the customers are trapped into long term contracts.
This sort of throttling by carriers is unheard-of in more advanced countries, such as Finland or Sweden. None of the carriers do that here; if they tried it, they'd have no customers left within a month or two (terminating a contract is trivial, and does not entail penalties). There are no usage caps on 3G either - unlimited actually does mean unlimited.
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Well, you hit the nail on the head on the contracts. There are a few other issues as well:
1. No phone subsidies. That makes the cost of the service the cost of providing the service, only. It greatly simplifies the relationship with the consumer and gets rid of those long-term tie-ins.
2. Everybody is GSM. That means that you can walk over to a store, plug in a new SIM, port your phone number, and now you're in business with the new customer.
These kinds of arrangements mean that you could switch provid
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Yes but I managed to get the elusive +2 Flamebait mod. Wooo.
Re:What about sustained transfers? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I get 150KB/s downloads out in Manassas in Virginia with AT&T 3G. Sustained. It's actually better than the cable service that when I need to download anything of significant size (Ubuntu, iPhone SDK, etc.), I break out the 3G. The free cable service with the HOA is only 50KB/sec by comparison. It sucks but hey it's free.
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I get 150KB/s downloads out in Manassas in Virginia with AT&T 3G.
Wha?? Is anyone in the UK reading this and thinking what I'm thinking? I've got an iPhone 3GS and download speeds are ridiculously slow all the time no matter where you are (I live and work in London).
This post reminded me to ask somebody else about this - O2's 3G seems to go at about the same speed as my 14.4K modem did in 1996. Is that other people's experience too?
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Try a sustained download of a single large file. I don't have an iPhone, but I did have tethering on my non-ATT, non-smart, non-iPhone a while back. The download speed was fine, but I was getting 1000 -- 2000+ ms latency, which killed everything else.
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Seems limited to London/England - O2 Germany's HSDPA is awesome around here (Cologne, Duesseldorf, Aachen... that area), with sustained downloads usually between 100 and 400KByte/s depending on the time of day and signal quality.
Look at the latency (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I can see, the latency on the Verizon lines is much better. That's more important to me, at least, considering the amount of VoiP I do on my cell phone.
I mean, uh, browsing I do on mobile networks.
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It seems to vary, like the throughput does, and roughly correlated with it. For example, AT&T latency seems better at all the locations in Atlanta [gizmodo.com]. It does have some absolutely terrible ones in some cities, though (700ms+ latencies).
Re:Look at the latency (Score:4, Interesting)
Setup a test rig that automatically tests download speed and latency from a few different servers (globally dispersed) every 30 seconds. Have it geotag each result.
Drive around each of the cities (and metro area surrounding them), and gather the data over a few days for each city.
Then, compute a few different metrics. First, for each carrier, generate a heat map of download speeds (It would wind up looking something like Verizon's 3g Map, but with different colors denoting speed ranges). If there are multiple readings in a given area (Say 100m^2), average them.
Second, figure out the peak speed, minimum speed, average speed (Both mean and RMS) as well as the standard deviation for each carrier.
There's so much focus on peak speed these days (well, at least that's what gets the press), that I think people forget that what matters is the average experience. It's like with stereo amplifiers: Peak wattage tells you nothing about overall power output, RMS wattage (Root Mean Square) tells you about power output...
Just my idea. Feel free to steal or rip it to shreds...
Re:Look at the latency (Score:5, Funny)
Second, figure out the peak speed, minimum speed, average speed (Both mean and RMS)...
I always thought RMS [stallman.org] and mean [merriam-webster.com] were synonymous.
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Speedtest.net already does this, although I don't think they publish the information broken down with 3G only numbers. It specifically tests 3G speeds using the iPhone app, and geo-tags your location to get the closest server with the lowest ping times. They do have the info on file though. I wonder why they don't publish it?
http://www.speedtest.net/global.php [speedtest.net]
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But there's another logistical challenge... Running a 3g modem and a GPS receiver at the same time at a fast enough rate to get the kind of data coverage we're talking about would be hell on a battery. Which is why I don't know if an App would cut it (it wou
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Here's some anecdotal evidence of how horrible Verizon is, in practice, in my area and how they're losing ground to other carriers. My area is the "rural midwest", specifically the state of South Dakota.
Mission, South Dakota. If you haven't heard of it, look it up on Wikipedia or something. It's nowhere.
A friend and I drove there recently to visit another friend from Rapid City. Our reception along i90 was fairly similar: we'd both lose signal completely in the 'valleys' between the hills from time to time
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Mission, South Dakota. If you haven't heard of it, look it up on Wikipedia or something. It's nowhere.
That is among the many punishments you get for living in South Dakota.
Re:Look at the latency (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, and this is why I have nothing but contempt for typical "best provider performance" conclusions that are driven solely by single-connection TCP transfer tests (e.g. speedtest.net).
In most cases, latency matters more than bandwidth (where bandwidth is roughly the same within an order of magnitude or so). This is why there's a very strong correlation between the provider that had the lowest measured latency and the provider that had the lowest page retrieval time. In the end, real-world page loading is precisely what we use smartphones for, and so we need to know how that application performs, instead of what raw transfer rates are.
I still think the Gizmodo tests are deficient, though, as they are unclear as to whether they repeated the tests at regular intervals over a 24-hour period. Network congestion varies throughout the day, and at any given moment one path may be more congested than another. A valid test, IMO, would take the average (or median) of each metric over a 24-hour period (or even longer, covering both a weekday and a weekend, since usage varies among them).
Re:Look at the latency (Score:4, Informative)
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No wonder AT&T is complaining about Verizon's "we have 5x more 3G" campaign when Verizon's 3G is the same as AT&T's 2G (which does have more coverage than Verizon's 3G).
The truth is that the provider's definition of "*G" is what ever their marketing departments say it is. There is no absolute standard of comparison on the marketing front. You have to dig into the actual specs to do so.
Better Sample Size (Score:5, Informative)
While I care about speed, I care more about coverage and reliability. Did the testers cherry pick AT&T friendly locations? I know when I went to Washington D.C. earlier this year that not only was my 3G coverage under AT&T spotty, my ability to simply connect to AT&T and make calls was also poor. It would be a much more interesting test if this was performed in every city over a certain population size. In my opinion 12 cities does not make a good test.
I'll admit I'm biased though. I've been an AT&T mobile customer for a bit over 2 years now and I don't like their service or support.
Re:Better Sample Size (Score:5, Insightful)
They also failed to give a price to service ratio, that would have made things a lot more fair. Yeah, you might get a faster network but if the price difference is $15 a month, many people might reconsider.
This test the way it is, is akin to someone comparing an Intel Atom to a Pentium 4 to a Core i7 based on pure speed and saying that the Core i7 is the better bet, all the while ignoring the fact that a Pentium 4 box is much cheaper and an Intel Atom CPU is going to give you better battery life.
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The coasts probably got most of the love because that's where you always hear of people having major connection issues (such as NYC and SF). You don't often hear of people in, oh... Kansas worked up because their iPhone's aren't connecting to the network.
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Live on the Oregon Coast - AT&T's coverage is complete ass.
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Exactly, and also they completely left out the midwest. Well, thanks Gizmodo, if I move to the coasts I'll know what service to get, but since there weren't any tests done even close to where I live the data is totally useless.
Man, what assholes, conducting their own limited experiment, on their own dime, and then publishing their results for anyone to read free WITHOUT even ATTEMPTING to conduct it WORLDWIDE!
I hardly see why gizmodo should be sarcastically thanked for this. Their results are noteworthy: that verizon is not significantly better than ATT in areas sampled, that all this "Ours is faster!" is somewhere between "complete fucking marketing bullshit" and "Depends." Your area isn't directly sampled, but this was never
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Exactly, and also they completely left out the midwest. Well, thanks Gizmodo, if I move to the coasts I'll know what service to get, but since there weren't any tests done even close to where I live the data is totally useless.
That's unfortunate for you, but most of the world's population lives close to a coast, and the USA is no exception. There's better coverage on the coasts because there's more people there. Gizmodo wisely chose to serve the vast majority of their readership.
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Last I checked, the Great Lakes are a coastline and in the midwest. Cities like Detroit and Chicago reside there. I'd say there is a lot of people in Chicago.
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I've been an AT&T mobile customer for a bit over 2 years now and I don't like their service or support.
Why are you still with them ?.. If it's because they are the only game in your town, then you do like their service.. If it's because they are the only one who has the phone you want, then you do like their support.. Your with them for a reason.. it's just more fun to bitch.
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I've been an AT&T mobile customer for a bit over 2 years now and I don't like their service or support.
Why are you still with them ?.. If it's because they are the only game in your town, then you do like their service.. If it's because they are the only one who has the phone you want, then you do like their support.. Your with them for a reason.. it's just more fun to bitch.
I had a two year contract with them which was up this month. Ah, maybe you didn't consider that before you jumped to far gone imaginary conclusions.
I don't like their coverage. I don't like their crappy support. And now that my contract is up I'm in the process of switching carriers. Though I'm sure you could have said something worthwhile... it's just more fun to just come across as a pedantic asswad.
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12 cities is a fairly good test, presuming it was done without foreknowledge of coverage. Really, it's a much better test than your one city version.
I've only had three cell carriers in the past decade, and they were all about the same when it came to CS - they all suck donkey balls. Coverage is utterly random - or rather it's entirely RF physics based, which is to say effectively random - and you'll find mysterious dead areas on every carrier. I even tried a dual-phone month on my last switch (two 30 day p
Price/speed needed (Score:1, Redundant)
They all suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Having been through Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T over the years (never tried Sprint), my conclusion is they're all way oversold with shitty reliability and doubly shitty and uneven customer service. Typical megacorporations to whom any individual customer matters NOT AT ALL.
Re:I use AT&T, (Score:5, Insightful)
That's easy to do when the potential of a device is so limited.
I on the other hand will say that I will never use the full potential of my Android phone and that is not through lack of trying. I have a phone that sync's my Gmail, ISP mail and work mail into separate programs that can be open at the same time each with different notification settings, can be turned on and off independent of each other and programmed to operate on different schedules (I.E. I want my personal mail on Saturday, not my work mail).
Saying that you use the full potential of anything is not good, this means that you will reach the limitations of the device leaving no room for growth. The Iphone is a closed ecosystem, a completely controlled environment where there is little variation, thus little change (mutation, the iphone is akin to monoculture farming, which tends to degrades the species over time) where as Android is an entirely open ecosystem where new variables can enter easily leading to new functions or enhancements of existing ones.
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Another fanboy who fails to realise that the mobile phone market is changing. Leave no criticism unattacked, no matter how accurate.
Most people (including me and you) do not use the full power of their personal computers, yet almost everyone has one. This is where the mobile phone market is going, being headed by Android, it is being turned into something similar to the PC market wh
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No amount of pleading with them could get them to change even though I threatened to move (my contract was up). I was basically told that they did NOT want me, so I switched as soon as I could.
The worst that Sprint,t-mobile and ATT ever did to me was overpriced international and text (they all do that)... Verizon is truly in a cla
I have no particular interest in multitasking (Score:2, Troll)
on a phone. Here are the things I did want:
- Phone + Google + Evolution + Mac OS calendar, all synced, automatically, all the time
- GTD system task manager that syncs automatically to a web-based GTD system (Toodledo)
- A rapidly accessible text + voice + photo notes system with tagging that syncs automatically to a web-based interface
- No more "event" syncs (i.e. put in dock/plug into USB, have to remember to sync), all syncs immediate and transparent
- The REAL web of non-"mobile" pages, including AJAX capa
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on a phone. Here are the things I did want:
- Phone + Google + Evolution + Mac OS calendar, all synced, automatically, all the time
- GTD system task manager that syncs automatically to a web-based GTD system (Toodledo)
I Googled GTD Blackberry
First result: http://www.isaacbowman.com/gtd-blackberry-productivity [isaacbowman.com] but it doesn't sync... so
I Googled toodledo blackberry and, low and behold, the first result:
http://www.taskjot.com/ [taskjot.com]
- A rapidly accessible text + voice + photo notes system with tagging that syncs automatically to a web-based interface
http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/blackberry-platform/reviews/35220.aspx [brighthub.com]
Another first result
- No more "event" syncs (i.e. put in dock/plug into USB, have to remember to sync), all syncs immediate and transparent
http://www.google.com/mobile/products/sync.html#p=default [google.com]
First result, again
- The REAL web of non-"mobile" pages, including AJAX capability
http://www.opera.com/mini/ [opera.com]
fi.... oh fuck it, you know...
- Flexibility to grow in capabilities
Ability to develop my own apps and not need RIM's blessing before use. Oh, an
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Oops, I missed the first point...
That's ok tho, Google Sync, mentioned in the 4th point, has it covered :)
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- Great GPS integration for nearly every app both for consumption (shopping, dining, directions) and production (contextualizing input data)
iPhone gave me all of this. I tried Palm and Blackberry and they never came close to what I wanted. The iPhone is actually the first technology device in a very long time that I'm absolutely fully satisfied with. No complaints, no qualms, no niggles. That never happens, but it happened with the iPhone. You'd have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
No complaints at all? How about battery life (or lack thereof) when using the GPS. Hope you always have a car charger available or don't need to use the phone after about 2 hours of GPS use.
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1. Network limitation -- 3G technologies allow voice and data to be used simultaneously. This is a SPRINT issue (and a Curve issue, as even GSM Curves aren't 3G). The first two iPhones couldn't do this, either, as they were 2G phones. The iPhone 3G, much like my BlackBerry Bold, being a 3G phone, is capable of this.
2. Carrier-imposed restriction. This worked fine on my AT&T Curve, and works fine on my AT&T Bold.
3A. The iPhone browser does? Oh, wait, it can't run in the background AT ALL. This works
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Well, I don't think it's that Apple demanded that AT&T didn't cripple the phone, so much as Apple didn't give AT&T the opportunity to customize the firmware. Further, AT&T didn't cripple the BB media player in the same way Sprint apparently did. I listen to my MP3s and AACs in the background (while browsing) all the time on my Bold; I did so on my ST&T curve, as well.
Ever consider that Apple only sells the iPhone through AT&T in the US because they're the only carrier that would accept n
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That's weird, on my Sprint cheapo slider phone I could play Pandora in the background. My ATT smart phone for work is useless though, when I get 3g coverage, and I'm in a city, Phoenix to be specific, it'll constantly switch back and forth to edge, and forget using WIFI since Automatic network connection simply doesn't work. I was trying to call into a support line with it a week ago and I got so fed up with waiting in the queue only to have my call dropped that I just called with my damned Sprint phone. Su
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Mind naming the phones here? A bad phone is a bad phone, and if it can't decide which network to use and WiFi is crap (can't blame the provider, there -- it's not their WiFi) then it sounds like a phone issue.
Also...
You'll notice that I said both BlackBerries I've owned can play Pandora in the background. You'll also notice that they only make mobile apps for WinMo, BlackBerry, and iPhone, which is how I noticed that you're lying about your cheapo slider.
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Since you're an idiot that can't read their page and still have the nerve to call me a liar. Here's a list of phones that aren't BB, WinMo, or iPhone. Sprint Phones including Sliders [pandora.com]
As for Wifi, I didn't say the wifi didn't work, I said that automatic detection didn't, because every ATT does to lock you in means that it favors MediaNet even when reception is crappy and WIFI reception is good. So I force it to manually use WIFI for each of the services. This is fine for me, but I can't expect my users to wan
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9 months ago, last time I looked at that page, they only supported WinMo, BB, and iPhone. In fact, the most recent copy of that page on archive.org is from July 30, 2008, which leads me to believe that it hasn't changed in that long, until the recent addition of other platforms. Since archive.org hasn't picked that up just yet, I'm going to guess that it's very recent. Since you've resorted to name calling, you must not have considered this possibility. That's sad, as I mention that I actually use the servi
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Actually you called me a liar so you started it by saying I was lying about my cheapo slider phone. ;)
I don't take kindly to being called a liar because quite simply, as a sysadmin, my word is relied upon by a great many and thus, it is important to be honest. The M520 from Samsung is what I had with Pandora and that was two years ago now. This is not even remotely recent as the M520 was one of the first to receive the Pandora app. Was kinda why I bought it to begin with.
That said, one of my duties is that
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I'm sorry to have offended you. That said, was the "you started it" really necessary? :)
I have zero WinMo experience, mostly because WinCE sucked hard when I used that, partially because people I know who have WinMo phones tell me it sucks equally hard, if not harder, so I was replying based on my experience with my BB.
You do realize that, with a BB and BES, you can configure these things on the BES and the user never has to see them, right? I've, personally, never touched a BES, but I'm told by colleagues
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When did I say I screamed at them?
I'm always polite with support staff; after all, it's not their fault AT&T shipped those jobs to their country.
It's actually very rude and quite presumptuous of you to assume that, because I complained about AT&T's outsourcing to India that I must automatically be an asshole.
I'd like you to meet my friend. His name is Kettle.
Kettle, this is Pot.
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And in the last 5 years, they've been outsourcing to India for support. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get someone without a heavy accent.
Yes, they help when you can understand them. Yes, they do go out of their way to do so. My issue is that, really, as much as I'd rather not work the phones, it would be nice to have that job right now.
That said, what part of my comment was anti-AT&T?
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And in the last 5 years, they've been outsourcing to India for support. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get someone without a heavy accent.
Yes, they help when you can understand them. Yes, they do go out of their way to do so. My issue is that, really, as much as I'd rather not work the phones, it would be nice to have that job right now.
That said, what part of my comment was anti-AT&T?
It really depends which support department you are calling. Basic phone service, billing issues, roaming issues, data phones, etc are all handled by different departments. I know for a fact the Roaming and Data support departments are domestic. So if you have an issue with your BB, iPhone, PDA, etc, you will be speaking with someone in the U.S. Whether or not English is their primary language is a different story however. :-)
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Nah, the effed my bill a couple of times. Habib-English is apparently the only language they're allowed to speak in the billing department.
Otherwise, as I thought I had implied at least fairly strongly, I'm quite happy with AT&T. There's no way in hell I'd still be with them going on 10 years if I wasn't.
I always wonder if people who can't get reception worth a damn just have the free phones. I know I thought all the services sucked when I just had free phones. When I came to accept this and decided I s
Piss off, 3G (Score:5, Insightful)
3G is a joke, but it's not a funny one. The FCC promised that we'd start to see high speed wireless internet now that the spectrum's been auctioned off. But like everything else, they seem to have lied -- shoving costs down the consumer's throat in the middle of a recession, raking in the money with a smile from the auctions... Everything about the so-called digital transition was a scam. Price fixing of LCD TV prices, running out of converter boxes -- and charging twice as much as they were worth in the store to soak up the free money those vouchers gave them... hmph.
Where's the alternatives here? They all have bandwidth caps. None of them are investing in the backhaul infrastructure. The network coverage is a joke, the handsets have disabled tethering, locked in the search engines... I mean, hell -- a pringles can and a wifi card does better than every other solution we have here in the United States for mobile internet. What the hell happened?
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I am very curious, though, has anybody brought out services on the freed-up analog TV bandwidth? Are these 3g services using that?
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I am a huge fan of the digital TV conversion, since the picture is so good (better than cable or satellite digital), and not encrypted. I didn't pay much above the coupon price for my analog converter boxes, either.
The picture is good. But that's no excuse for what they did. Switching to a widescreen format meant that for those still using standard TVs, 33% of the available viewing space was lost for those who stuck with it. For those who upgraded, the smallest LCD TV sets cost over $500. Comparably, they were about twice as expensive as the previous generation. That's a lot of cash to be forking out at a time when we're in a recession and 10% or more of the population is unemployed -- let alone under-employed. We all
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I did get finally upgrade my computer monitor recently, a 21.5" 1920x1080 for a little under $100 from staples.com on Black Friday, so I can watch full-res HDTV on that using a USB ATSC receiver.
I certainly can't condone price-fixing though.
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A 16:9 image on a 4:3 screen leaves 25% (not 33%) black, and 16:9 digital TVs were available for under $300 (not over $500). 3G spectrum was allocated years ago, long before the analog TV cut-off; it takes time (and a lot of money) to roll out new services in new frequency bands. Since Congress kept changing the analog cut-off date, nobody was going to spend a dime buying and building out equipment to utilize the old high-UHF frequency until it was actually available. You might start seeing some of it in
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Except, in rural areas, where reception was spotty previously. Sure, you'd get TV signal, just slightly 'snowed'.
Now, good luck watching TV if there's inclement weather.
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What the hell happened?
Human nature to screw over each other as much as possible.
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Wha? (Score:4, Insightful)
So how is this a 'win' exactly? Sounds more like a tie to me.
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not Article Title "AT&T Wins Gizmodo 3G Reliability Test".
Notice any difference in the two?
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So how is this a 'win' exactly?
I think they forgot the asterisk after "wins" in the title:
* true only for sufficiently extreme values of fanboyism
I mean, c'mon, it is Gizmodo.
That isn't the problem with AT&T (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone should go do a test of the dropped call quantity and voice quality when in these same areas. That is where AT&T is so difficult to have to use as a primary phone line. The data service is actually much more reliable, and ironically makes Skype average much higher in quality / reliability from the same phone in the same place.
At least, in my experience.
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I agree. Who cares about data speeds when you can't rely on your PHONE to make calls?
"dang, this is taking a little longer to download."
"WTF?!? HELLO? HELLO? ARRGH!!! I was on hold for a hour to talk to that rep!!!"
One of these scenarios irritates me, the other makes me want to murder death kill.
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I think AT&T's network issues must be highly localized in the northeast, because I've been an AT&T user since before they were using GSM, and I've never had an unexplainable dropped call anywhere I've traveled. My cell is and has always been my only phone; I don't have a landline. However, I keep hearing about all these dropped calls on AT&T.
Sure, if I'm way out in the woods and I lose signal, it drops. If I go through a deep tunnel and lose signal, it drops. But if I've got signal, the call
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Just for the record, the issues I've seen with dropped calls were while in the southwest, so the problems are at least not totally localized in the northeast.
Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
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Simple answer. The congress is owned by corporate interests in this country.
Because any state of affairs (Score:3, Insightful)
in which we do not agree to be raped every hour on the hour by corporations is in fact socialism, and socialism we leave for the "evildoers."
Same reason we prefer the poor to starve and the sick to have no medical care.
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Same reason we prefer the poor to starve and the sick to have no medical care.
How else are we going to fight poverty?
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As if anyone is preventing you from donating to charities who feed the poor and provide medical care. Unless you want to donate other people's money, of course.
Re:Honest question (Score:4, Insightful)
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One, the EU will not become a single market for mobile communications for decades due to the fact that each nation has it's own telco's and telecommunications laws. The only ones that could reach across Europe are Hutchin
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3. The EU is pro-consumer,
Up until the EU's ruling elite decide that being pro-consumer is no longer in its self-interest. The EU is set up to have little or no accountability. Right now the people who run the EU wish to increase the power of the central government, the people of the various countries that make up the EU are opposed to this. Therefore, those who actually run the EU wish to appear responsive to the needs and wants of the common man. Once they have the power they are in the process of acquiring, that will no longer be
Milestone vs. Droid (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you, Americans, put up with your mobile operators specifically disabling features (like tethering or bluetooth) on phones being sold via contracts?
Because we get such a deep "discount" on the handset. Ideally, a 24-month plan with a $175 ETF would have a $7.50 per month discount if I bring my own phone, but the carriers offer no such discount. Besides, the CDMA carriers (Verizon and Sprint) don't use CSIM cards.
the operator would be advertising a specific phone model, while in reality, the phone model being advertised in reality has more or better features than the one sold to you under it's name by the operator.
Not necessarily. The standard unlocked GSM phone is sold under one name, and the carrier's version carries a slightly different name. For example, Motorola Droid is Verizon's customized version of Motorola Milestone.
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Why do you, Americans, put up with your mobile operators specifically disabling features (like tethering or bluetooth) on phones being sold via contracts?
A -few- of us see cell phones as interesting toys at best. Sure, I like all the features, and I do obviously read some of the slashdot news articles on mobile phones because I'm a nerd, but I'm not going to march on washington just because my mobile options are more limited than they are in other markets.
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Because we can get nothing better, and because we cannot improve our situation in any way due to the deathgrip companies have on our government and media.
In other words, we put up with it because we know it's only going to get worse as time goes on, and we might as well enjoy what we can now before they strip it from it.
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"Why do you, Americans, put up with your mobile operators specifically disabling features (like tethering or bluetooth) on phones"
That is like asking why the innocent prisoner tolerates being shackled up or why the Jews tolerated Hitler or Pharaoh enslaving them. Some escape by not using mobile phone technology. Most just put up with whatever is forced on them. Will you play the part of Moses and lead us to freedom in the promised land of unlocked phones and reliable 3G service?
I guess what I am really aski
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Amen. Mod parent up.
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How we Americans deal with it (some of us anyway) is we hack the phone to tether anyway for free, and smile every time we use it.
Or we purchase a plan that (legitimately) allows tethering. Yes, it is more expensive, but it is available. If you actually abide by your contract with your carrier, the carrier doesn't try and disable features that you have paid to use.
I am on AT&T with a tethering plan and I overall get good performance. I use it when I am at client sites that don’t have unrestricted Internet access for consultants or at hotels that have a crappy Internet connection (which is common). In the cities I travel to
Average speeds are meaningless. (Score:3, Insightful)
What matters to me is the performance I get from the tower I'm connected to at the moment I'm trying to use it. I don't give two shits if the tower five miles up the road is giving 1700/350kbps when the one I'm using is doing 100/300. And I don't care if the one that was giving me 100/300 on Friday afternoon is able to do 1500/320 on Saturday morning because I'm not there Saturday morning. I need their network to function wherever I happen to be at whatever time I need to use it.
AT&T == Cherry Picker (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the thing -- everyone knows Verizon has a much larger square-mile coverage than AT&T. Wide coverage is important to many people for many reasons. But to accomplish this, you must do less cherry picking. AT&T on the other hand, does not concern itself with wide coverage, but instead focuses on the investments that yield the highest return.
You can decide for yourself which strategy is better. As a customer, I prefer a company that favors customer satisfaction. That said, I am neither an AT&T customer nor a Verizon customer. I am a T-Mobile customer largely because it was convenient at the time and presently have no incentive to change... Sprint burned their bridge with me... I hated that I had to become angry and threaten to leave in order to get anything done with my account. While I am sure there is no shortage of horror stories about T-Mobile, I haven't had any myself.
Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
Here's the thing -- everyone knows Verizon has a much larger square-mile coverage than AT&T. Wide coverage is important to many people for many reasons. But to accomplish this, you must do less cherry picking. AT&T on the other hand, does not concern itself with wide coverage, but instead focuses on the investments that yield the highest return.
What you call cherry picking, I call serving the densest markets first.
Isn't that better serving more customers in the end than the strategy of getting a wid
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Verizon covers all the same areas as AT&T. Nice attempt at spin though.
No they don't (Score:2)
Verizon covers all the same areas as AT&T. Nice attempt at spin though.
I didn't spin anything, I attempted to explain something to you. Since reception failed, I will sum up.
Verizon doesn't "cover the same areas" from the standpoint of data speeds, which is what the primary article is all about. AT&T has chosen to optimize for those people instead of wider physical basic coverage. That's the devil's argument in a nutshell, that AT&T has optimized differently to serve a large number of core us
Because they didn't use the iPhone (Score:2, Interesting)
A big part of AT&T's problem is really that the iPhone's radio sucks. When tests are done using a different device, AT&T scores pretty good. I switched from AT&T (not the iPhone) to Verizon, and I don't see any improvement in call quality.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13digi.html?_r=4&ref=technology [nytimes.com]
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It's not a problem with the iPhone's radio. The problem is that AT&T segregates iPhone data from the rest of the network and locks it at a certain percent of the network traffic. I suppose it's so that the data-hungry iPhone users don't make the network crawl for everyone, but the downside is that iPhone users get screwed with dropped calls etc.
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A big part of AT&T's problem is really that the iPhone's radio sucks.
I'm a North-West European iPhone user and I never have dropped calls.
As much as AT&T is bashed, they're not too bad (Score:3, Informative)
At least here in metro Boston (and Eastern new England in general) I've had pretty good luck with AT&T since the latter part of 2008 - about six months after the iPhone 3G came out my service improved a lot. Most of my old dead spots are gone now, and there are places where my iPhone 3GS works well (like the client in Gloucester I was at today) and my colleague's Verizon Blackberry dies. Data speeds are very good anywhere I get 2 or more bars of service, and though there are still dead spots (eastbound on 128 through Manchester, for instance, anytime after dark) or Devereux Beach in Marblehead) they are far fewer than they ever were before.
On the other hand, my sister and her husband both went to iPhones this year in southern CT and they were much happier with Verizon's service. I don't visit them too often but I haven't noticed any issues when I've been there - I think it really depends on how much you use it and rely on it in a place.
Overall, using an iPhone's been a much better experience than my old Verizon Treo 700p provided - not only is it far more useful as a device, but I don't have to reboot it several times daily. The AT&T experience outside the coasts and major metro areas may be different, but mine's not bad. And the few times I've needed to call customer service they've been helpful.
Odd, but I'm not complaining!
Well, I feel a little better now.... (Score:2)
Results can also depend on the device used. (Score:2)
Just for the record, my iPhone is in an Otter Box case while his is not cased, and I still get much better reception at his house.
Re:It's not the 12 that counts, it's the rest... (Score:4, Insightful)
I travel all over (in the US). I usually consult in city that are not the major metropolitan centers (in the US). If you are NOT in the major metros (in the US), Verizon wins 9 times out of 10. Once I got back on Verizon, covered (in the US).
If you don't travel, get the best signal provider in your area. If you travel (only in the US), Verizon is best.
There, I fixed that for you. A CDMA phone is going to be useless outside of the US unless you have a "world" phone which also includes a SIM and GSM radio for the rest of the world outside of the US. If you travel internationally, you are better off with a GSM/HSPA phone.
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Funny
I get a kick out of those map ads. The "Island of forgotten toys" one cracks me up. Probably because that Rudolph special was a must see every year when I was a kid.