Hey, Chris.
Been reading your blog for a while now. I found out about it in some boingboing-type of website. By the way, the "why today's CD's sound like crap" post is probably your best one.

I live in Spain (Chilean-Italian in Spain), and yeah we don't pay incoming calls or messages, but each outgoing one of those is not expensive, but still more expensive than in the US, although over there you have less control about it, especially SMS, if you get it, you get it and pay for it.

I just try and find out with the people I talk with what carrier they use. If you call somebody with the same carrier as you have, it's very very cheap. So, that's another to save $$$ around here.

Keep going.

Bonzo
Bonzo | Email | Homepage | 08.19.08 - 5:28 pm | #

re: US relative rate of wireless adoption "...rates in the U.S. have historically been much lower than in the rest of the developed world; and why our mobile technology and infrastructure are so far behind, in comparison to most of Europe, Australia, and Japan."

The barriers to wireless was higherin the US. It has a lot to do with how shabby or convoluted the wired systems were in those other countries. Cheaper to roll out wireless than run copper.
blackeagle603 | Email | Homepage | 08.19.08 - 9:10 pm | #

True. Its also about how EXPENSIVE their wired infrastructure was, because of government telco monopolies.
Chris Byrne | Email | Homepage | 08.19.08 - 9:24 pm | #

'Nother little gotcha: In BC Canada, the cell sites can use more power than they do in the US. I was on my boat in the San Juan Islands, at least 20 miles from the nearest Canadian city, Vancouver, but unknown to me, all my phone calls got "hijacked" off of McCaw (now Verizon) and onto BC Tel. The result? I paid a buck a minute to roam, and didn't even know I was doing it, so when I got home, I had a nasty surprise in my cell phone bill, which was almost $300, $256 of it being Canoodlian roaming charges.

I know now to use Verizon's "try an upgrade out" plan whenever I go anywhere near Canada. I get a "road warrior" plan, keep it for less than a month and revert back on my return. Verizon doesn't mind me doing that up to twice a year.

BTW, Washing State Ferries has Verizon (form. McCaw) cell-repeaters on most of their bigger boats, and Amtrak has some sort of repeater network on the Cascades business-class trains between Eugene, OR and Seattle. AmCrash was also working on a continuous-link Wi-Fi network on those trains, and it may be up by now. I haven't been on one for two years.
Rivrdog | Email | Homepage | 08.19.08 - 10:01 pm | #

While it doesn't affect the drift of your article, there's some minor inaccuracies WRT your discussion of CDMA.

First - AT&T was never a CDMA carrier - all of the current AT&T predecessors (the original AT&T, Cingular, and their predecessors) used a third system known as TDMA (D-AMPS or IS-54; so-called 2G standards). This put them in a position of *having* to choose a new network standard that would be incompatible no matter which one they chose (CDMA2000 or GSM). They reaped a benefit of being behind the tech curve. The CDMA2000 standard (AKA CDMA in the US) was an upgrade path from AMPS, just as D-AMPS was; but CDMA2000 kept going and D-AMPS didn't. Technically, GSM uses TDMA for multiplexing signal, but nobody refers to it as TDMA, reserving that for the older standard.

Sprint was never a GSM carrier (except possibly during a prelaunch trial on one or two cells in Washington DC). Their PCS standard is simply CDMA on the 1900 band. (All cellular in the US runs on the 1900 or 850 bands - with new service to be deployed on the 700 band after the recent auction). The 1900 band is generally referred to in the US as the PCS band (PCS standing for Presonal Communication Services). Verizon Wirelessuses it for much of their high-speed data coverage and some of their voice coverage - consequently all VZW phones are dual (US) band. Most Sprint phones are dual-badn for roaming, though their network is entirely PCS/1900.

US CDMA phones ESN/MEID are essentially their IMEI - with no US carrier deploying the R-UIM tech that gives CDMA SIM-like capabilites (a shame, and a screw-the-customer outlook). ESN is a holdover from analog (CDMA being an upgrade path from analog), but the numberspace was exhausted, so they went to a bigger numberspace.

Also, in a personal note, I have to quibble with your characterization of Verizon Wireless as having horrible customer service. JD Powers and the cellular forums I follow both characterize Verizon Wireless as having the best or second-best customer service in the industry (Full Disclosure, I work for VZW). (I carried a Sprint phone as my personal device and have no quibble with your characterization of them as "even worse" - I have so far only had to deal with them peripherally outside of one major incident, but it took them 3 months to resolve a 3-minute issue with their billing system). Note well that Verizon Wireless is NOT Verizon Communications. (It's ajoint venture between VZComms and Vodaphone, with VZComms holding a majority stake at 55%).

Finally, Verizon Wireless does have global phones, primarily blackberries, but you can get a Windows Mobile PDA, dumbphone, or even data aircard through them. IIRC they can even be unlocked. Sprint carries at least a WM PDA with global capability as well.
Ian Argent | Email | Homepage | 08.20.08 - 6:23 am | #

Ian,

Thanks for the clarification.

Yaknow I knew that AT&T was TDMA, it just went down the chute somehow.

As I understood it, Sprints original implementation of PCS used GSM signalling protocols over the 1900MHZ band; but they sold off that part of their business several years back, and went to a more standard CDMA implementation.

Of course, my sources could be (probably are) incorrect there. I was on sprint at the time however, and I remember them having a big generational shift in their phones, talking about new networks etc...

I was aware that CDMA in general, and CDMA handsets in the U.S. could be far more capable... we just aren't; seemingly because most consumers are either happy wit the capabilty they have (and mostly never use anyway), or they don't know that they could have more, and therefore never ask.

As to the customer service characterization, I have dealt with all four major carriers (and nextel when they were independent) and several regional carrier personally, as a small business owner, and as an IT manager of a large business; and that is my personal experience.

In my experience, Sprint is by far the worst, most of the regionals are close to as bad, and in my experience Verizon is just above them.

The biggest problems I've had (and heard from others) with both Sprint and Verizon, are in accuracy and timeliness of billing and processing payments; and the occurrence of sudden and unexplained charges.

The difference that makes Verizon acceptable and Sprint unacceptable, is that Verizon generally fixes their problems, whereas Sprint seems to have a philosophy of "blame the customer first", and often will not fix even errors that are clearly their fault.

AT&T/Cingular has a lot of complaints, but I have found them slightly better than Verizon for customer service. I think most of the complaints are because of the spotty nature of GSM service in the U.S. and their general attitude in response (quite poor I believe). I should note, before the Cingular transition, AT&T customer service was even worse than sprint.

Finally, in my experience T-mobile has had the best customer service of all the major wireless carriers.

As to customer satisfaction surveys, yes, Verizon may be the best or second best major carrier; but given the satisfaction with and low expectations of the industry as a whole (frankly, people expect poor customer service from their mobile carrier) in terms of customer service that's like saying you're the least ugly girl at the dance.
Chris Byrne | Email | Homepage | 08.20.08 - 9:32 am | #

I don't know if U.S. Cellular is just a regional carrier here in the mid west but I don't pay for incoming calls or texts.
RipRip | Email | Homepage | 08.20.08 - 12:04 pm | #

You won't get any argument from me about Sprint's lousy customer service - they managed to be the only below-average cellular carrier in the recent JDPowers survey (a neat statistical trick). My reasons for staying with them were enough to override my distaste for the customer experience; and only barely. They tend to be a tad more "enthusiast-friendly" than Verizon Wireless.

As a historical aside, the coverage dominance in the US for CDMA stems from it's transparent backwards-compatibility with AMPS - until the latest generation of phones (EVDO) all CDMA phones would seamlessles work with AMPS (by design of CDMA2000; and technically until CDMA went to MEID for serial numbers, the EVDO handsets *could* have had AMPS; there was just never an EVDO chipset that supported AMPS).

On the other hand, GSM was *not* backwards compatible with anything, the systems had to be built out from scratch; and the leading-edge data services requiring a whole different radio (UTMS and up are CDMA in their air-encoding, though not at all CDMA2000, instead of being TDMA as previous).

On the gripping hand, both CDMA2000 and successors and GSM and successor will have to do a bunch of rearchiteching for LTE (from what I'm given to understand) - they playing field (both domestically and globally) is about to be levelled.
Ian Argent | Email | Homepage | 08.20.08 - 9:15 pm | #

Chris,

I would LOVE to have Verizon lanline service. VZ sold out to FairPoint up here in Maine, and now we are on par with most 3rd world countries. FairPoint does NOT offer online bill paying or even access to your account online. They "HOPE" to have that available in the near future, but i will believe that when I see it. Maine is fast going down the tubes, and I am looking for a way to get out and live elsewhere, and that sucks because it's a very pretty state.

Regardless, I own and LOVE a Tracphone. I have no need for internet use when traveling, outside of access through whatever hotel I am staying at. All I want is a cell phone, and this works just ducky. I have a Motorola that they sold me for $18.00. Came with 30 days service and 20 minutes of airtime. I buy a new service card every 90 days, and plunked down the $100.00 for a one time fee that doubles whatever minutes I purchase for the life of my phone.

All things considered, I have used this same phone all up and down the east coast, and as far west as Salt Lake City, and never had a problem. I figure with the minutes I use, it's running me about $30.00 a month and I can live with that.

Respects,
AW1 Tim | Email | Homepage | 08.20.08 - 9:34 pm | #