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Ride Along With a Real Verizon Wireless Tester 304

Posted by samzenpus from the everything-on-tv-is-real dept.
jonknee writes "So you're probably sick of the Can you hear me now? ads, but here's a new article about a real-life Verizon Wireless network tester. This guy logs over 3,000 miles a month in a station wagon decked out with over a quarter-million dollars worth of network gear (I dare say the most valuable station wagon ever?). An audio file is linked at the bottom of the article that has a few minute sample of the audio Verizon tests with. It's bizarre!"
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Ride Along With a Real Verizon Wireless Tester More

Ride Along With a Real Verizon Wireless Tester

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  • I gotta say... (Score:3, Funny)

    by deutschemonte ( 764566 ) <lane,montgomery&gmail,com> on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:08PM (#12161170) Homepage
    Go, go gadget grocery getter.

  • One word. (Score:5, Funny)

    by FireballX301 ( 766274 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:09PM (#12161173) Journal
    Wardriving.

    Best, wardriving vehicle, ever.

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:As a customer (Score:2, Informative)

      by Skater ( 41976 )
      I happen to be in Buckhannon, WV, and I only barely have service. The only way I got a reliable 1-bar signal was to go outside, so I turned the phone off entirely.

      This is the first time I've had this problem with Verizon, though.

      I saw a sign in town for another service provider that said, "What good are the minutes if you don't have service?" I guess they're aware of the problem Verizon has here and ready to take advantage!

    • Doing something about service.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by inKubus ( 199753 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:34PM (#12161403) Homepage Journal
      They've put up a shitload more antennas. It's interesting that people haven't noticed, because they've been camoflauged [utilitycamo.com].

      • Re:Doing something about service.. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by silvwolf ( 103567 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:09AM (#12163232)
        I did some contract work for Sprint when they were building a network in a southern city. Summer job in college really. I'd drive around to cell phone towers and make sure they had power so Sprint techs could come and do whatever they had to do. I remember two sites in particular that I had trouble with.

        The first was on a church's property. Kinda wooded area, pretty big for a church. I drove around the area for a good 10 minutes before calling my boss and asking where the tower was. It was one of those camoflauged trees. I was looking for the damn cell phone tower and couldn't find it!

        Second one was also a church. This time the antenna array was up in the bell tower. I was kinda prepared for that one and could barely see the antennas poking out.

        Another interesting one was out in the middle of a cow field on the side of the highway. There was a mud road out the to the tower. Cows were too busy chowing down to give me a second look.

        I guess these were created out of a catch 22 type situation.. People in rich neighborhoods wanted / needed cell phone service, but weren't willing to put up with the ugly looking tower next to the clubhouse. So the companies that build the towers had to come up with something.

  • Can you (Score:4, Funny)

    by mboverload ( 657893 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:11PM (#12161189) Journal
    Verizon: You there? Good
    Slashdot: Nothing to see here, move along

    Almost makes Verizon seem like the good one ;)

  • What's the old joke? - "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon carrying magtapes".

  • Nice map (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tealtalon ( 714179 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:12PM (#12161193)
    I can see where my nextel drops me everyday on the way home on 275 talking to my wife. Seriously.
    /me calls verizon.

    • Re:Nice map (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RevRigel ( 90335 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:28PM (#12161356)
      That's their way of telling you to get off the god damn phone while you're driving.
      • Especially when I also drive on I-275!

      • Re:Nice map (Score:3, Interesting)

        by michaelhood ( 667393 )
        What is your hang up with people driving while talking on the phone? I can say to a certainty that in 99% of driving conditions (I live in SoCal, we don't have weather), my driving skills aren't affected by a phone conversation. In the other 1%, I stay off the freaking phone.

        There are plenty of people who can't chew gum and drive at the same time, lets worry about the people who can't multitask. Phones just happen to be a common activity, and driving is too, so occasionally they overlap. And so they get m

        • Re:Nice map (Score:3, Insightful)

          by daikokatana ( 845609 )
          I have to agree that phones are not the only evil distraction in a car, but I do not agree with what you are saying. You would not believe how many drivers are out there talking on the phone while not paying attention to the road. Besides, where do you draw the line? If talking on the phone is allowed, then why not drunk driving? Both of which have been proven to influence the level of concentration a person has.

    • Re:Nice map (Score:5, Funny)

      by inKubus ( 199753 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:28PM (#12161358) Homepage Journal
      Why are you talking to your wife on the way home? You should be enjoying your last few moments of silence before dinner! dishes! hold me! sex and the city! blaaaaagh

  • Does he use tape playback? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Continually saying "Can you hear me now" has to violate some sort of OSHA regs, never mind those states with laws about talking on a cell phone while driving.

  • Mobile debugging (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mrm677 ( 456727 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:14PM (#12161213)
    I used to work at Motorola and we would, at times, have to bring an entire debugging setup out in the field. A van, with the phone test board, workstation, and logic analyzer all hooked up.

  • My friend does this for Nextel (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mo26101 ( 518770 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:14PM (#12161217)
    A friend of mine does the same thing, except he works for Nextel. Needless to say, the job is quite boring.
    • My assignment was to test how well the network handled peak hours in the busiest areas around the city's center. My equipment was a laptop equipped with testing software and a mobile phone. I was supposed to sit in bars (the boss marked the places very specifically) and take notes on how each test went.

      The test took place in the middle of the summer, during probably the hottest two weeks of the whole season and the whole city was totally empty, dead, void of people. People went to the beach, parks and on

    • Dude, it's not even that much driving. I do over half that much just doing my daily commutes for work each month. My father was a salesman with a multistate territory, his best ever was putting 120K miles on a car in 22 months. I believe the leasing angency was in sheer awe of someone that does that much driving =) If you drive every work day (average 20 work days per month) to do 3,000 miles a month you only have to drive 150 miles a day, that is simply nothing.

  • Can you hear me now? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jmcmunn ( 307798 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:16PM (#12161229)

    Uh no, not inside a building.

    That's why I no longer have Verizon. Who cares if some jackass on a commercial can talk when he's in Death Valley...I couldn't get a signal inside. Now with my Sprint phone, at least I get one bar, which is just enough to get calls and head for the window. Verizon has nothing on Sprint or Nextel, both of which consistantly get better service here in Michigan. (at least for everyone I know)

    • Your phone (Score:3, Interesting)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      A lot of that depends on your phone too. I know that my flip-phone doesn't get great reception in the local mall, whereas friends with a standard nokia phone can manage in many places I can't.

    • Re:Can you hear me now? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:49PM (#12161526) Homepage Journal
      I doubt if Sprint or Nextel has special inside-building towers. More likely they just happen to have a tower that's close enough to the various building you go into, and Verizon doesn't.

      One sad thing about the U.S. cell system is that all there are so many incompatible cell protocols and systems. You get a phone that handles 3 or 4 different protocols, you worry about "roaming" charges -- and you still often find yourself in places where your particular provider just can't serve you.

      The Europeans did the right thing when they agreed that all their providers would have to use GSM, so everybody's phone would work with everybody's network. U.S. providers complain that GSM doesn't use bandwidth efficiently. But from the consumer point of view, their hodge-podge of GSM alternates is really inefficient.

      • The Europeans did the right thing when they agreed that all their providers would have to use GSM, so everybody's phone would work with everybody's network. U.S. providers complain that GSM doesn't use bandwidth efficiently. But from the consumer point of view, their hodge-podge of GSM alternates is really inefficient.

        Ya know, we have GSM in the states now, and it works really well. I may have to roam if I'm off in Buttfuck IA, but I'll get signal.

      • I wouldn't be surprised if they do have in-building towers in some places. For instance, some SF cell providers have coverate in the BART system in stations that are three to five stories under ground (Powell St Station, for one). I don't know if they have a tower or some sort of repeater, but I would be surprised if the signal was coming through fifty feet of dirt, power lines, reinforced concrete, and city water mains. --Pat

      • Nextel repeaters (Score:3, Informative)

        by Aero ( 98829 )
        Can't speak for Sprint, but Nextel offers repeaters, and they're the only reason why we get coverage inside the glass-steel-and-concrete cage that I work in. Before they got installed, you couldn't get a signal if you were more than 15 feet away from an exterior wall. That doesn't mean I like the service (I don't), but certain departments that I work with are absolutely in love with the rassa-sassa-frassin' PTT function (and have too many people who will ramble on and on for minutes at a time over a half-d
    • I'll second that! In the Boston area, Sprint actually has a few weird assed holes outside that it drops, but part of that is that residents of certain areas don't want any towers to 'mess up the landscape'.

      However, inside sprint is MUCH more workable than Verizon. My girlfriend drops all of her calls in her apartment, while mine works fine. Her phone is unuasable in most stores and even in my apartment. I get perfect sprint reception.

  • Harvard Sentences (Score:3, Informative)

    by eltoyoboyo ( 750015 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:21PM (#12161276) Journal
    The Harvard Sentences used to test [columbia.edu], that are mentioned in the article, seem to be missing a key phrase:

    I had an idea that we parked our car in the Harvard Yard.

    (Boston Dialect article here [about.com] or here. [wikipedia.org])

  • spinners (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doppler00 ( 534739 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:21PM (#12161278) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, but does the wireless tester have SPINNERS on it?

    I hate those things....

  • Pimp My Ride (Score:5, Funny)

    by Schwing84 ( 782710 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:23PM (#12161305)
    All that equipment but the guy really hoped that MTV and Xzibit would Pimp His Ride!!!

  • ... so I can take the karma hit of being a Grammar Nazi asshole.

    ...the article that has a few minute sample...

    So, is that meant to be a sample that is a few minutes long, or are their several tiny (minute) samples?

    FFS, *somebody* buy the slashdot editors a copy of StyleWriter [editorsoftware.com].

    cLive ;-)

    • Me too.

      ...or are their several tiny (minute) samples?

      The word you're looking for is there, not their.

      Maybe the Slashdot editors do have StyleWriter; I hear that it doesn't catch everything. Sorry, that just struck me as funny. ;-)

    • Re:sigh - I've had a bad day... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pokka ( 557695 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @11:32PM (#12162802)
      FFS, *somebody* buy the slashdot editors a copy of StyleWriter.

      Ha, I know this is off-topic, but I find it hilarious that their site has an example image [editorsoftware.com] of a document that's been "fixed" by StyleWriter. One of the sentences has been corrected to "I assume you'll dealing this soon..." Are you sure the slashdot editors don't already have a copy? :)

  • Down already (Score:2, Informative)

    by numLocked ( 801188 )
    The site is down already, and i saw someone requesting a mirror, so if anyone doesn't know about it, www.mirrordot.com mirrors everything slashdot links to. I've never seen it go down.

  • No wonder their service sucks... (Score:4, Funny)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:24PM (#12161314) Journal
    ...the tester gets a skewed view because he uses equipment worth 3/4 million whereas real users have to use a crappy phone that costs a few hundred.
    • most of the equipment looks like it analyzes and stores information from the phones...
      if you actually RTFA and looked at the pictures would see a bunch of expensive equipment plugged into 4 different phones (one for each different company)

      he doesn't have any special external antennas to boost the signal or skew the results.

      the only possible thing i could think of is the phones may be getting a WORSE signal because they are all lying down inside of a metal case...
    • Just to expand on that a little - this guy is using large car aerials. Most people just use a cellphone with a hidden built-in aerial a couple of inches long.

      Unless they are scaling their results back - they are getting skewed numbers.

    • Re:No wonder their service sucks... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @09:02PM (#12161628)
      Driving around with a cell phone will tell you you're losing your signal.

      Driving around with an HP 8563 spectrum analyzer and a standard-gain antenna will tell you why you're losing your signal.

      This is sorta important if you're in the cell-phone business.

  • Dropped Calls (Score:5, Informative)

    by bleckywelcky ( 518520 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:25PM (#12161328)
    "Dropped calls for Verizon Wireless are pretty rare these days, with some months of testing seeing none."

    Well that's all fine and dandy for them. Unfortunately, I get a dropped call or two each week, in an area Verizon advertises as being completely covered.
    • "Well that's all fine and dandy for them. Unfortunately, I get a dropped call or two each week, in an area Verizon advertises as being completely covered."

      Are you inside a building? There is only so much Verizon can do.
      • Nope, I get dropped calls outside all the time. The only building I ever expect my phone to work in is my stick-built house. If I get dropped calls in a steel and concrete building, I don't complain - I expected it anyhow.
    • I'll take dropped calls over what I get now - calls that never come in.

      I'll be sitting in my cube and then my Verizon phone starts chiming that I have a new voicemail, but no indication that I ever missed a call.
    • I get a dropped call or two each week, in an area Verizon advertises as being completely covered.

      A few things:

      This testing rig isn't able to do a lot of indoor testing (being a car and all). Some buildings are pretty effective Faraday cages.

      The cell phone company I work for (no, not Verizon)ocasionally will take hanset testing equipment to large customers, and test their phones. We find between 40-60% of the handsets have some sort of service affecting fault.

      No mobile phone company in their right mind

  • Download the track? (Score:4, Funny)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:28PM (#12161353)
    Ok, what the fuck is an .amr file?
  • Here [networkmirror.com]

    Annoying ads go away tomorrow (less annoying ones to return a a TBA date)

  • The 3/4 million car... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by s-orbital ( 598727 ) <.slashdot.org. .at. .arthurk.com.> on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:43PM (#12161479) Homepage Journal
    Um... are you sure its a good idea to publish a pic with the license plate number of a car carrying $750 000 worth of stuffZors?

  • Dude, where's my bar? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @08:45PM (#12161488)
    I hope that wagon's got airbags, because the driver's gotta be drinking heavily during his job.
    • More to the point, I hope that passenger side airbag is disabled. Nothing disrupts the flow of your day like that laptop in the cradle propelled through your forehead at roughly the force of an exploding handgrenade in case of a collision.

  • /. effect (Score:2, Funny)

    by grommet_tdi ( 584038 )
    Can you hear me now? ... ... ... Hello?
  • Well, now if I see a White Ford Taurus station wagon with that license plate number, I'll know how much it's worth...
  • didn't they have a Tech Now show (NBC11 in the San Francisco Bay Area) that covered this like a year ago?

    Anyways, I'm sure there are more expensive station wagons out there....hell...wait until Pimp My Ride gets a hold of one....or some hip-hop rapper buys a dub version with jewels and crap.
  • Heh, I remember once, in the early-mid 80's having about $350K of equipment in my car that I was taking down to a Navy customer site (let's just say it was lots of array processors to analyze underwater sounds).

    At a stop light, before I reached the gates of the base, I had this sudden panic though - crap! If I am rear-ended right now, I wonder if all this stuff is insured!

    Fortunately I didn't find out, nor was my nice little Datsun 240Z harmed in any way, but man, what a bummer if some little old lady c

  • Ahhh... The good old days (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @09:35PM (#12161914)
    It seems like a lifetime ago, but I guess it was only about 11 or so years ago, I worked for a wireless engineering consultant firm in Arlington, VA. Among our many projects, one of the biggest during my time there was designing and building out the first Sprint PCS systems in DC, Seattle, and Portland.

    We didn't own the vans we did drive testing in (the process of checking the signal by driving around with special equipment and software). We rented them. That was fun. We'd rent a nice brand new minivan from Budget or some car rental place and the first thing we'd do is rip out the dash board so we could run power cables to the alternator (I assume that's where they were plugging in. I dealt more with the software side).

    In addition to some fairly expensive equipment, some of which our company designed, we also had specially modded PCS phones that, with a serial cable, would provide signal strength and other information to the computers.

    We'd have maybe 3 or 4 laptops, each with a phone and GPS attached, and then we'd just go cruising around town recording signal strength, intereference measurements, and so on.

    And if it wasn't just plain old geeky fun, the young engineers involved were simply a great group of people and we had a blast doing it together. And somehow we usually managed to get the minivans put back together well enough that we never got sued.

    Thanks for the memories. I haven't thought about the old drive testing days in quite some time.
  • Also known as two years' worth of daily changed inscrutable SIGs.

  • The big secret is that many of these companies simply piggy-back on one another. In the area I work, Cingular put up a bunch of towers and really covered the area in the way it should be done. Note that I do not mean to imply that Cingular regularly does this. Other carriers, not wanting to be outdone by Cingular, but also not wanting to actually do any work, simply made a deal with Cingular to use their towers. The result is an impacted network, and crappy service for all!

    If you go to any of the copor
  • Some college students started doing this already, but want to provide it to the public. http://www.signalmaps.com [signalmaps.com]

  • I also do this... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OverkillTASF ( 670675 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @10:01PM (#12162157)
    It paid $15/hour, which I thought was great. I mean, all I have to do is drive, right? Well, when hours are from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and you factor in the potential cost of meals and lodging... Not to mention the fact that sitting in one precise position for that long is KILLER... I drove 550 miles in one day, and didn't actually end up going anywhere, because we just drove every road back and forth to cover an entire area. I don't think I was ever more than 30 miles from where I started. It's really crippling, psychologically, to be all "Wow, I can't wait 'til we get there!" because you feel like you're on a road trip. And then you realize... "Oh yeah... I'm just gonna end up back where I started." After a while, it was pretty enjoyable though, because I went nuts and was entertained by everything I saw on the side of the road.

    Didn't really learn much as far as wireless goes, though I talked to the engineer a lot... Long car trips not to. Here's what I don't get...

    Sprint wants to test their cell reception and compare it to their competitors... They hire company A to do it. Company A calls Company B for staffing. Company A pays Company B, and Engineer is hired, and paid by Company B. Company B then calls Company C to inquire about a drive. Company B pays Company C, and Company C find and pays the drive. Turning in hours was maddening. And think about how freaking expensive these drives are when you figure that everyone is making a profit in that multi-tiered platform. Sheesh!

    P.S... Normally, the signs say "Watch For Children". But there were a few in the Blacksburg area I think that said "Watch Children". I was quite disappointed when I didn't see kids on the side of the road twirling plates, juggling chainsaws, and performing magic tricks for my entertainment.

  • Capacity, not coverage problem. (Score:3, Informative)

    by katharsis83 ( 581371 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @10:04PM (#12162182)
    Verizon has serious problems with their cell phone service, and they're testing for it the wrong way. Verizon has excellent coverage in the SF Bay Area - I can get 5-bars of service almost everywhere I go; I can even sometimes get text messages underground on BART.

    The problem Verizon has is capacity; they've over-booked each of their cell phone towers. I'm not sure but I think most CDMA towers for Verizon can handle 80-100 simultaneous calls, and this gets to be a real problem in densely packed metropolitan areas. I get 5-bars of reception, but I can't place any calls, or they get dropped within 1-2 minutes of connecting. Sometimes it takes 2-3 minutes just to connect when I dial. They need to stop this crap about super-coverage when their capacity sucks donkey nuts.

    This is making me consider switching over to AT&T, but their "New Every 2" plan is coming up for me soon. Does anyone here have experience in the Bay Area with AT&T service? I used to have them in their TDMA days, but switched to Verizon ~2 years ago.

  • The Other Side (Score:5, Funny)

    by Unca' Scrooge ( 677951 ) on Wednesday April 06, 2005 @11:26PM (#12162759)

    I'd like to see them air a commercial from the point of view of the poor guy stuck at his desk all day...

    "....yes....yes....yes....yes....yes....yes...."

  • "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon" ...with wireless access?

  • Harvard Sentences (Score:2, Informative)

    by plimsoll ( 247070 )

    After I heard the Verizon Wireless testing audio track [mobiletracker.net] linked in TFA [mobiletracker.net] I had to google the surrealist sentences they chose. I stumbled upon the weird-ass Harvard Psychoacoustic Sentence List [cmu.edu], and I don't know which is stranger; the official test sentences or the unofficial ones they added themselves.

    Here are the first 20 sentences of the test [mobiletracker.net], noting the gender of the reader and the stanza:

    F[H21/08]: (unintelligible) taught the new maid to serve.
    M[H06/03]: Adding fast leads to wrong sums.
    M[H06/04]: The s

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