And folks thought I was obsessive in my cell phone Odyssey! Buying a cell phone is the most difficult purchase you can make. You have three opposing entities: - The Carrier: Tmo, Vzn, ATT, Sprint ... - The OS: iOS, Android, .. and the others - The Handset mfgr: Samsung, Apple, Moto, ...
The mix is awful. What finally moved me to iPhone w/ Vzn (shudder) was that I couldn't stand the way the the handset mfgrs pissed all over android to "make it better". This wasn't just me. Tests showed that adding onto vanilla Android lowered battery life noticeably. If you can get vanilla Android, do that. All the info I got from that long but useful conversation (thank you all) was enough defense so that when I entered the arena against the horror (Vzn) I could smack down all their lies and get a reasonably good plan+phone. I also found out that us old folks can get a deal. Vzn has a 65+ plan that saves you a bunch. Still way more than Tmo, but OK given the better coverage. One warning: if you do get an iPhone, you will find that Apple will distort/improve (you choose) your experience because they are trying to make the iPhone experience the same across the carriers so they force the carriers into doing things they do not want to do. For example, you may find them shipping the phone directly to you, rather than walking out of the store with the iPhone. I have to admit that getting good coverage w/ Vzn in Santa Fe is nice. It'll cost you more in those sneaky "fees and taxes" however, 'cause Santa Fe charges them extra for the extra towers .. and you foot the bill. BTW: One reason iPhone does not have 4G, 5G, LTE, Gamaray Telco w/ radiation burns .. is that they discovered that all these super high bandwidth systems: 1-Only work in NY and LA (and a few other huge cities) 2-Suck battery like crazy 3-Are lies anyway .. so they decided to go w/ standard 3G (which of course Tmo does NOT use) which is good enough if you get real 3G. If you really do love watching videos on your phone, maybe you should consider the trade-offs. BTW YouTube works fine w/ 3G. I can go on forever, but better stop here, -- Owen On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 8:58 PM, Victoria Hughes <[email protected]>wrote: > FYI re TMOBILE: > > I have just had the latest in a round of totally unsuccessful interactions > with T-Mobile. > I have a Galaxy S2. > I have *only* had phone service with them for* three months: * > however I've had to deal with constant lousy coverage and unexplained gaps > in service, > I've replaced the original new phone that turned out to be defective, > with another 'new' phone > which today suddenly lost all signal so after almost two hours on live > chat with a representative, I had to erase all data and re-set everything > to the factory settings > > This all started right *before* I had a phone meeting with a client. > > T-Mobile's only comment was 'well, unfortunately things just happen every > so often. We apologize for the inconvenience' > > I could NEVER get away with that attitude as a business person. Never. > > I am now *happily* going to pay the $200 to break my contract with them > so I can sign up with Verizon. > > Why did Americans end up with such total scam phone service? > When did we blink? How did this get legislated? > > > > > Tory > > > > > On Dec 21, 2011, at 7:34 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > > Just to follow up on this thread for those who care: > > I finally got around to ordering (and then got around to installing) a > Wilson Electronics DB Pro with a directional (Yagi) outdoor receiving > antenna and an omnidirectional indoor antenna. It is a dual band > "transciever", essentially taking in whatever signal it finds in those > bands from the Yagi and retransmitting them (after amplification) on the > omni (to be placed at least 20 feet away and not in "front" of the Yagi). > > I'm testing against T-Mobile on an iPhone4 (not 4s). My wife is still on > ATT with her iPhone 2g (soon to be replaced with a 4s), I'll do some > testing there as well. For those of you who followed the earlier thread, > my location near Otowi bridge on NM 502 at the Rio Grande has almost zero > effective cell coverage. We are down low and all the known towers > (espanola, pojoaque, white rock, pajarito mountain) nearby are either > marginally line of site or completely blocked by intermediate topography. > My goal is to get good enough coverage to delete my wired landline > service (which we hardly use even with cell phones not working)... I expect > to use my wireless (900Mhz from Tewacom) with Skype to provide a backup > alternative to the Cell coverage. I'm testing Google Voice to integrate > it all (hah!). > > Using the aforementioned "field test mode" on my iPhone4 I was able to > verify that I was getting a modestly better signal... using the RSSI > (received signal strength indicator) measure in the field test mode, I was > able to roughly map the net strength of signal to my phone with and without > the repeater turned on. > > The Yagi is about 15 feet above the ground (a permanent installation will > b ecloser to 20) facing roughly due East which is both my best guess as to > where the tower I'm most likely to use is, and corroborated by some ad-hoc > direction testing with the RSSI. The Omni is roughly in the center of > my 30'x30'x20'(tall) stucco-mesh-frame faraday cage of a house. > > At the location of the Yagi, my signal strength is roughly the same > whether the system is on or not (not surprising as one step in the > installation is to reduce the retransmit strength until there is no > detected interference). At the opposite end of the house, the signal is > similar with the system on and virtually zero without it (far end of my > faraday cage of a house)... at ground level, I normally see from 0 to 1.5 > bars which means I get the occasional incoming call that i can't answer and > can rarely call out (to the point of never trying). With the system on I > get a very usable signal equal to 3 bars... As I wander away from the > house outside, the rebroadcast signal drops off fairly quickly but it > appears I might get useable signal on most of my 1.5 acre property where > previously I had a few hot spots where I might get enough to catch an > incoming call for a few seconds. > > I am testing with data as we speak and so far, so bad... in fact, the > whole signal dropped out in the middle of my attempt to get to my favorite > speed-test site (speakeasy.net) and of course, when I got there, I am > told that my favorite method requires Flash 7, apparently not on my > Safari/iPhone4 (not surprising). So I'll have to find a better solution > for testing... meanwhile anecdotally, Google Maps loads at least as slow > as I'm used to *anywhere* without wifi. Well, fortunately I don't care so > much about Data, or at all at home where I have WiFi. > > Overall I'd say the Wilson system works well, mostly as expected and seems > to meet my needs/desires. Internet research suggests that Wilson is the > best system with only a few spurious compliants while all the other options > have many complaints (though many of those sound spurious as well?!). > > FWIW, it is also worth noticing that Wilson Electronics is a small-town > company out of St. George Utah... the quality of their engineering, > packaging, documentation, online support rivals that of any large scale > consumer product supplier I know of. That said, there may be little going > on in St George beyond shipping... the parts and primary packaging may come > directly from China and there may be nothing more than a small warehouse in > St. George, but indications are that the engineering and support may > becoming from there as well. A business article linked from their website > suggests that they sell 200,000 units per year and hired 50 new employees > in the last quarter... clearly a big deal for a small town like St. George. > > Let me know if you are interested in more specifics. > > - STeve > > Gil - > > > Thanks! Very Interesting! > > > My iPhone does have a "field test mode" (*3001#12345#*) which does expose > the alternate towers that it sees (and might use). I see no indication > anywhere that I could influence it's choice, nor have I been able to find a > concise description of the algorithm/heuristics likely used to decide. > The most obvious of course, would seem to be signal strength, but that > ignores issues such as congestion. > > > Since GSM is a Frequency Division Multiplex hybridized with Time Division > Multiplex, it seems like there would be almost immediate feedback to the > mobile device as it tries to connect as to whether there even *was* an > available time/frequency slot to use... the heuristic could be as simple as > "try the strongest signal you see, if it is full, try the next, repeat". > > > Along with a dB indication of (useable?) signal there is something called > RSSI (received signal strength indicator) which seems useful for > recognizing how much interference in the band there might be. It tops out > at about 50 underneath a tower but is as low as 5 when still useable. > Multiple towers competing and/or possibly other sources of interference > run this number up without running up the "useable" signal. > > > There are two very cryptic numbers, C1 and C2 which from the mumbo jumbo > I've found, might relate to the heuristic which I was seeking above... but > I don't know yet... this is subtle and complicated stuff and it appears > that short of finding a professional training course, there isn't much > information laying around for the motivated layman. > > > See what we have become in this Internet/Google/Wikipedia age? We DO > expect a LOT! > > Depending on the phone there might be a # code to get it to search for > > more frequencies. Might take a bit of diging though. My oold Cinguluar > > phone for instance used #689# that let it borrow other towers in > > range. I'll check for the potenial andriod # codes to see if there's > > something simillar. > > > On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 12:45 PM, Steve Smith<[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm hoping *someone* out there knows more about this than I do, though none > > of the earlier discussion seemed to bring any of that out. > > > I took up Gary Nelson's question about Cell Towers/Coverage, my own > > frustrations, and the other resulting conversations to do a little research > > and see if I could learn more and maybe even fix up some of my own > > problems/challenges. > > > I'm testing iPhone 2, 3G, 4 against ATT and T-Mobile SIMS right now. > Mostly > > at my house (very marginal signal if any) but will be doing other places. > > I'm looking at Cell Repeaters (primarily for my home, but maybe also > > mobile). I'm therefore *mostly* sorting out GSM related issues, but there > > is a lot of overlap in general RF issues, repeaters, tower locations, etc. > > > I started trying to write up what I know (so far) and discovered that (as > > often is the case) the more I know, the more I know I don't know. My 3rd > > Class Radiotelephony license from 1974 and a BS in Physics provides just > > enough background to get me in trouble. I wrote a long, rambly overview of > > what I know (dominated by what that made me realize I *didn't* know) and > > decided most of you don't care. > > > So, if there are others trying to make actionable sense (or merely slake > > your curiosity) about the issues of Cell Reception and the potential use of > > Repeaters, ping me and we can discuss offline. Maybe once we learn enough, > > one or more of us can write up a (more) concise "lessons learned". > > > My long-winded ramble was useful (to me) already, as trying to explain it > to > > the larger crowd caused me to dig just a little deeper than I was for more > > "practical" reasons. Now to get my nose back on the practical grindstone. > > > - Steve > >
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