[PLUG] [OT?] Do functional cell phones exist? - T-Mobile digression

[Chuck Hast]

I used to do coverage studies for utilities back when they were all moving
from
paper to anything from a regular laptop (all but the thinkpads lasted
months in
a utility service truck, the thinkpads would last perhaps 2 years) to
hardened
devices some of which were precursors to today's tablets.

What I found out about them is the GSM based systems, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc
were better at handling a link reliably. Also they could do data and voice
at the
same time. The device was treated as a NIC card on the network so if you
sent
a frame of data and the system was busy, it would back off and retry.
Usually
getting it on the second try.


Verizon and Sprint both were CDMA at that time and you either got data or
voice, and when you did data it was handled as a dialup connection.

That dialup was the weakness in the CDMA camp, I found out about this when
I did a study for the Hillsborough County, FL Sheriff office.

DUN cost VZN the contract, the reason was that if you had not done a data
transaction after a time set by the tower side of the connection, it would
drop
the link between the subscriber unit and the tower, meanwhile all above it
was
kept alive. The idea was that as soon as you needed to send data the subsc-
riber side would bring up the DUN connection and press on where it left off.
BUT... always a "but"... If the resources on the tower end were exhausted,
it
would drop the data call and you had to go reinitiate the whole thing.
During
the test which tested for that very thing, we had it happen 3 times, all of
them
in high crime areas, when the data was presented the deputies themselves
stood up and told them that they would not support a solution that dropped
the connection in the most difficult areas of the area of responsibility.


The GSM based carriers did not have that issue, as that piece of the link
was
connectionless and it would just retry the packet, usually no more than 1 or
two times at most. T-Mobile did not have good coverage at that time so they
were not selected, AT&T did have the coverage so they got it.

Sprint did not do too bad until the President  came to town, the Feds took
over
the network for almost a day (we were doing our coverage study when he
came into town and about 2 hours prior to his arrival we lost all
connectivity, we
called them and they would not say anything, the Sheriff called and they
told
him the network had been "pre-empted" by the Feds. Needless to say that
did no good for Sprint, but the big issue was that like VZN the DUN would
go away and there was no assurance that it could come back, and if you
had a car stopped and were trying to run a tag or check for warrants you did
not want something that made you have to re-setup the data link.

In my present job, I do most of my communications as wireless data, the
company uses VZN, in high population areas they do well, but where I live
and where a lot of my customers are, they only have 1xRTT, which is the
old CDMA system. If it passes data it is only very slowly, and in many cases
not at all, if a voice call comes in, the data exchange stops. The most
irritating
thing is that the phone will not try to go to 3 or 4g when it is available
it will
stick to the 1xRTT like a tick on a dog. At times I have to drive all the
way down
into town in order to get my phone to go to 4G, and I know a lot of places
where
it stays on 1xRTT there is 3 or 4G coverage, my experience is the GSM dev-
ices will always seek the highest data rate connection, appears that the
VZN devices do not do so, at least the ones I have had while working with
the company I work for. At times I give up and use my phone as the data
link (AT&T) in order to get something through because the stinking phone
will not get off of 1xRTT so I can send something.

I have talked to VZN about it and all I get told is "that is the way it
is". Not what
I want to hear.



On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 9:20 AM, Richard Owlett <rowlett at cloud85.net> wrote:

> On 12/24/2015 1:40 AM, Chuck Hast wrote:
> > That is good. Looks like their data offering is good.
> >
>
> I recently moved off dial-up, choosing connectivity via cell network.
> Initially I looked for a USB dongle which would loosely be a
> "cell modem [I required physical tethering to my laptop.]
> Until coming across T-mobile, the major carriers with a physical
> presence locally were only interested in selling me a top of line
> smart phone with a multi GB plan.
>
> The T-mobile rep actually listened to me and took time to
> understand my motivations.
> As they no longer sold USB dongles (locally/nationally???), he
> suggested their Z915 WiFi Hotspot and how WiFi could be disabled.
> The T-mobile Terms of Service went so far as to use how they
> handled exceeding monthly data limit as a selling point. Made an
> impression as another major carrier had recently been penalized
> by FTC for doing the same but hiding it from the consumer.
>
> I now have physically larger object which functions as I wanted.
>
>
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>



-- 

Chuck Hast  -- KP4DJT --
Glass, five thousand years of history and getting better.
The only container material that the USDA gives blanket approval on.