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Verizon's Wireless Road Warriors
Joey Patterson writes "CNN has an article about how Verizon Wireless uses technicians who drive around the country in station wagons filled with wireless gear to look for holes in the company's cell phone network and analyze the service of its competitors. This program isn't cheap (the cars cost $270,000 and $15/mile to operate), but it definitely helps Verizon find out where they stand relative to their competitors."
Can you ping me now? Good...
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
all your post are belong to me!!... ha ha ha, wasn't that funny?
I was gonna submit this yesterday but thought, nah, doubt they'd find it interesting enough. Guess I was wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.
Take a company like Microsoft, with $40-something billion in the stronghold. They should start programs like these to see what their customers want. Just random things like these that make them that little bit better. I say kudos to VeriZon for helping your customers!
Hargun
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
fp Yeah!!!!
first post
Maybe they'll just take over the whole country and then we can get that annoying guy off those Verizon ads because they won't need him anymore. :P
We got used to hearing these stuff. This is just another commercialized piece of news!!
All Wireless companies do this, in fact you can find Agilent products especialy made for this! While the article was fun to read, its not really a new thing (the vans) as the clueless submitter (and /. poster) made it out to be.
While I do find that ad campaign highly annoying, it's
pretty cool to know that those guys are out there.
Pretty much everywhere I've been in the US (and parts
of Canada, I've rarely lost signal. (Paid a lot of
roaming fees, but that's my fault for not having a
national plan, I guess)
then again, they need to get a few of them off the
road and into my office building, reception's awful
in there.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
Verizon is a damn sweatshop. Fuck the company and their bullshit van.
Eating a woman's pussy is about the most wonderful thing you can do for her. It makes her feel loved, admired, sexy, and of course it makes her cum like crazy. Many women prefer it to intercourse, and for most, it is the easiest way to cum with a man. You may have the littlest dick on the planet, but if you give great head, you will be appreciated as a fabulous lover. Yes, it's that important. Besides, lots of women expect it these days - you might as well know what you're doing.
:), but I have a few things that seem unsaid.
First off, guys seem to have a strange love/hate relationship with women's genitalia. Guys that can't wait to get their dick into one are often reluctant to put their face "down there". For every guy who says he loves to eat pussy, there's another one who's squeamish. Women know this, and it affects their ability to lay back and enjoy the experience. There is nothing more exciting to a woman than to know that her partner finds her delicious. Don't be coy; tell her. When a guy fingers a lady and then smells, licks, sucks the juice off his finger and sighs as if in heaven, she knows this is her lucky day.
What if your sweet lady doesn't smell or taste very sweet? Don't suffer. (Don't complain, either.) Take a nice hot shower or bath together. Lather up both of your bodies and slide them together. It's like a whole body fuck. Soap up her vulva, washing between her outer and inner lips. Spread her lips apart and gently wash her clitoris. Hey, don't stop - this feels great! Run your soapy hand down the crack of her ass, and rub a finger all around her anus. You can stick one finger in and wash around inside too, if you anticipate any anal play, and I suggest you do. But don't put those soapy fingers up her vagina. Instead, rinse them off well and stick one or two inside, making a circular motion. Think about washing the inside of a tall glass - same thing. Now wasn't that fun? And now you can feel free to let your tongue wander anywhere it pleases...
So now what? You've found a comfy spot to play, you've been kissing passionately, your tongues darting around each other's mouths like playful otters. You've moved down to nibble one of her hardening nipples and she's starting to groan, grinding her pelvis against your stomach. STOP. I know it was just starting to get good. But was she really groaning and humping you, or was it your own excitement you were detecting? I strongly prefer to be excited before a guy starts plunging his tongue into my inner recesses. Use your judgement, and kiss, lick, and fondle your way down her stomach, up her thighs, until she's arching up her back trying to get you to eat her. Of course, if she really was groaning and grinding, go for it... I also don't particularly enjoy a guy endlessly nibbling my inner thigh while my clit is quivering in anticipation.
If the woman you are with is somewhat hesitant about your going down on her, start off with her lying on her back, perhaps half-sitting. Lay down between her legs, with her legs over your shoulders. She may enjoy laying or sitting at the edge of the bed with you kneeling. She can also straddle your face, but be prepared to get very wet. There are endless varieties of positions where you can press your face up to her cunt, some of which strike me as more acrobatic than erotic, but feel free to experiment. And then there's 69...
69 is one of my favorite positions. On the plus side, you both get to enjoy the sublime sensations of getting head, simultaneously. The upside down positioning of a woman's pussy and your mouth is an easy fit and there's more room for your hands. On the negative side, it's a less than ideal position for a woman to give head. Plus, if you need to read this article, you may be better off concentrating your energies on pleasing her, without too much distraction. But even for experienced 69'ers, it's easy to short-change your partner. "It feels soooo good, I'm just gonna stop for a second and concentrate on what you're...aaaarrrgghhh". Get the picture? Some show of will-power is in order.
69 can be done male on top, female on top, or side by side. The latter two are easier, though it's more restful with both partners laying down. Some women love being licked on all fours, so if female-on-top 69 drives her wild, take the hint and find some other ways to eat her in this position. I happen to enjoy male on top, but for many women this is a sure choking position. If a woman can, or wants to try, to deep throat you, this is THE position. When her head is thrust back you can really slide your cock all the way down her throat. But don't forget what you're supposed to be doing!
So there you are staring at it - the mysterious hole from whence you came, and into which you hope to cum again... First, an anatomy lesson...
Before I go any further, a few words about the clitoris, accent on the first syllable. Most of you know it, but for those who don't, it is THE woman's sex organ, period. It may feel great to be fucked vaginally, anally or otherwise, but if the stimulation is not right there, on the clitoris, you're ignoring the place that's going to make her cum, and presumably that's why you're reading this, right? It's right there at the top juncture of her inner lips, a small knob of pink flesh. This is where it's at boys, and don't forget it. Almost any licking and sucking of the labia or vaginal entrance is going to feel just dandy; just remember that this is pleasurable teasing, not the main event. I can't tell you how many guys have thrust their tongues up my vagina thinking that this was going to make me cum. They were wrong. Of course, with a little manual stimulation....but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Women feel differently about how much direct stimulation they can take on their clitoris. Some women will adore it if you suck hard on their exposed clits, others will shriek in pain. You may encounter a woman who is completely unable to take direct stimulation of her clit; the goal is still the same, but you'll have to stimulate it indirectly, such as through her labia. IMPORTANT NOTE: Often, what is unacceptably rough at first may be fine after she's very excited. The fact is, most women really need a good bit of stimulation before a targeted attack on their clitoris, but once they're there, that's where you want to devote your attention.
The key here is go slow, ask questions, and if she's comfortable with it, leave the lights on and really explore. Body language often does tell what feels best, but I promise, she will appreciate your attentiveness if you ask outright. If she seems shy, get her to guide your hands and mouth with her own hand, and pay attention. If she starts bucking up against your mouth and gasping in ragged little breaths, for God's sake, don't use this opportunity to try something different. Just keep doing exactly what you're doing.
I want to reiterate, there is almost nothing you can do that won't feel terrific, so relax! I promise, you may be confused and uncertain, but she's in heaven. Any licking and sucking of the labia, vaginal entrance, clitoris, or anal area is going to feel just great, and I'd no sooner tell guys to "do it exactly like this" than I would tell every chef to follow the same recipe. But for those who are compelled to RTFM, here are a few techniques that you might like to try:
Try lapping her pussy from vaginal entrance up to her clit, leaving your tongue soft and jaw relaxed. This is a good way to start your tonguing.
Run your tongue between the inner and outer labia on one side, while holding the two together with your lips. Good job, now do the other side.
Fuck her pussy with your tongue - in and out, around and around, etc. This feels nice. Not wonderful or incredible or earth-shaking; nice.
Spread her outer lips with your hand. Then, with your tongue pointed and stiff, gently flick here and there. Feel free to roam, but keep coming back to her clit. This drives some women wild, and others can't take it. Some may prefer that you always leave your tongue soft, so when you try this, pay attention to whether those moans are ecstacy or pain.
The following techniques should not be introduced until your partner is really hot (i.e. she's no longer coherent). These are very intense actions which may be "too much" for some women, even when nearing orgasm.
With her clit still exposed, give it a quick little suck - pulling it into your mouth briefly and letting it go. This is a lot like licking a bit of cake batter off of your pinky. This feels incredible, and is a fine thing to do if you feel like torturing her (see PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER below).
Take her exposed clit into your mouth and gently (at first, anyway) suck on it, simultaneously flicking your tongue over and around it. This can be done very lightly or very aggressively, and combined with fingering, will usually rapidly produce an intense orgasm.
Another choice technique involves rolling your tongue into a tube. If you can't do this with your tongue, you can't learn it - it's genetic. For those who can, this works best in an inverted or 69 position. Roll your tongue into a tube around the shaft of her clitoris. Slide it up and down; in effect, your tongue makes a tiny pussy for her clit to fuck. This also is likely to bring her over the edge.
Fingers are a valuable adjunct to eating pussy. Most women masturbate by pressing a finger or fingers over their clit, possibly "thru" the skin of their inner or outer lips, and vigorously rubbing in a circular or back-and-forth direction. You can do this too, and it is most helpful to ask, or better yet, have her show you how she likes it done. You will never be a good lover until you can bring your woman to climax with your hands. When you fuck her from behind, or up her ass, or really in any position which doesn't allow her to simultaneously rub her vulva against your body, reach down or around and rub her clit. I know it's distracting, but just do it anyway. One important point to note: make sure that your fingers are well lubricated. There is nothing more uncomfortable (and sometimes downright painful) than a dry finger roughly rubbed across one's clitoris.
Of course, that's not all you can do with your fingers. One technique which is very exciting is to spread her lips wide apart with one hand, and with your index finger straight like a pencil, flick the side of it rapidly across her clit. This motion alone will often bring a woman to orgasm. Combining this with the addition of some tongue action elsewhere is nothing short of bliss.
Sticking one or more fingers inside her vagina is also wonderful. You can simply move them in and out (this feels best with at least two or three fingers, pushed in hard), or wriggling them around. A particularly intense motion is to face your hand so that you have two fingers inside her with your palm facing the front of her body. Now move your fingers rapidly, as if waving hello. You are aiming to stimulate a particular part of the woman's vagina - namely the lower anterior (front) part. When combined with sucking her clit, this is nearly certain to bring her to a fast and intense climax.
An excellent way to begin manual stimulation is to stick one (and later two) fingers inside her, with your palm cupped over the mons area. I'm talking about that fleshy "mound" over her pubic bone. Your finger goes in and out and the ball of your hand is pressed hard against her vulva. You may want to rub or even shake the entire area with your palm.
Fingers also do nice things to tight little butt holes, but that's a whole other story...
ANAL PLAY
This stuff is purely optional. If anal play doesn't turn you on, don't do it. If you're uncomfortable, she'll pick up on your feelings and start wondering if it's her pussy that's turning you off. Don't feel that you can't be a good lover without anal play; you can.
Cleanliness is of the essence. (remember that nice soapy shower?) Scoop out some luscious juices (from a very wet pussy) with your finger and rub it around her anus. (If she isn't well lubricated, saliva works too.) If that's all you or she feels comfortable with, fine - it still feels great. But I think most women enjoy the feel of a finger pushed up their ass while they're being fucked or eaten. You need to be gentle, possibly even leaving your finger still. Try moving it in and out a little, or around in a circle. If she starts moaning, you know you're doing something right.
It's really fun to feel a woman's anus rhythmically squeezing your finger as she cums. (And it's great for her, too) You're probably thinking about what that would feel like around your dick, and it's something you should certainly explore. Ass-fucking is somewhat out of the scope of this article, but suffice to say, if she doesn't like a finger up her butt, she sure as hell won't want your big dick up there. Even if she does enjoy this sort of play, she may still be somewhat apprehensive about putting something so large up there. The keys to success are sufficient (i.e. copious amounts of) lubrication (a water-soluble type such as K-Y, which is safe for condoms), relaxation on her part, and a slow, gentle, approach. She'll certainly tell you if she wants you to thrust harder or deeper. And remember, if you want to feel that delicious squeezing around your cock, reach around and diddle that clit!
As for anallingus - why not? Don't feel like you HAVE to do it to satisfy your woman. But if the idea turns you on, great. Let your tongue rove as it pleases. It's not necessary to actually put your tongue inside her butt to stimulate the area. Back and forth, around and around, you get the picture.
One hygiene note: once that finger (or your penis) has been inside her ass, don't even think about putting it anywhere else. Carelessness in this regard can cause a horrendous infection.
I haven't met a lot of men who are completely comfortable going down on a woman when she has her period. But some are. Most women are at their horniest before and sometimes during their period. You should definitely find a way to make her cum when she's bleeding, be it thru intercourse, manual, or oral stimulation. If you feel comfortable going down on her, great. It's perfectly safe. You may suggest that she insert a tampon, and then wash up. (As you now know, you don't need to get anywhere near her vagina to make her cum.) Or you could lay down a few old towels, turn out the lights, and forget about it.
I think variety is crucial. Some guy posted an article detailing a road map of kissing and licking (first here, then here, etc.) Much better to do the unexpected; sometimes a hungry, aggressive approach, other times a laid-back, leisurely one. You can even even include your nose, or your chin into the act. Start slow, that's the key, and let your lover guide the speed of the crescendo. In all cases, start gently. Roughness and clumsiness are big turn-offs. As she gets more and more excited, pay more attention to her clitoris. When she's three breathes away from cumming, moving your mouth off or away from her clit is agony. That's fine if you're intentionally torturing her, just understand that this is what you are doing. The only prohibition is to be reasonably gentle with her clit. Nibbling or biting is fine elsewhere, but we're talking about a sensitive spot.
Speaking of prolonging the agony... I think this is great fun. Bring your partner just to the edge of orgasm, and stop. This is not easy unless you really know your lover well. Instead, just have her help you. Say, "Grab my head and stop me just before you think you're gonna cum." Then take your sweet time. Blow on her clit, take it into your mouth just briefly, flick it just the very slightest bit. You will have this woman squirming and moaning like she's dying. Finger her deeply, enjoy the ecstasy you are imparting, and finally, have pity. Let the poor woman cum.
Okay, she's practically suffocating you, she's pressed so hard against your face; she's screaming and bucking up in the air; you feel her pussy contracting wildly - how long should you keep it up?? The simple answer is, until she makes you stop. Some women may stop you after five seconds from the start of their climax, others may be able to roll right into another orgasm if you keep going. Do come up for air, but remember, her excitement does not drop off as sharply as yours does. Play it safe by continuing the stimulation.
How many times does she need to cum? Some women are very content to have one orgasm. A whole lot of women would really like to cum again, but need about five minutes to recoup. Many women are so sensitive right after they cum that they may push your head violently away. This doesn't necessarily mean they've had enough, only that you need to stop for a few minutes. In fact most women, given a short rest between, are capable of cumming again and again. A smaller percentage of women are able to cum repeatedly with continued stimulation. This is the much-touted multiple-orgasm that is experienced by a minority of women. I know this makes it difficult to know when enough is enough, but there's a simple answer: ask her.
It happens to all of us sometimes - distraction, embarrassment, anxiety, or just an inability to "let go". What do you do about it? The first question is, can she easily bring herself to a climax in the privacy of her own home. If the answer is no - then she needs to do some homework. There are two books on the subject that I know of: For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality by Lonnie Barbach, and Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving by Betty Dodson; pick up one. Then tell her to read it, study it, and practice, practice, practice!
Now if your partner is orgasmic only when alone - ask her point blank: "Is there something different I can do?" Many women are shy about criticizing their lovers, but if asked outright will surprise you with a very specific answer. It may be a simple matter of mechanics, like a little to right please, or not so rough, or more pressure and faster. Ah... perfect.
But suppose everything is wonderful. She says you're doing everything right but she just can't cum. There are two probable causes: selfconsciousness and/or self-loathing. For women who can't help watching themselves, the best approach is to eliminate anything that focuses her attention on what the two of you are doing. This is a "be here now" kind of thing - definitely not an introspective activity. Get that mirror off the ceiling. Dim the lights or turn them off completely. Put on some soft music. Share a glass of port. (I said A glass - getting drunk will definitely not help). Have her lay on her back, or propped up comfortably with some pillows. This is not the time for her to sit on your face, or the edge of the bed, or standing up against a wall. Arrange a time when you can devote a long period to eating her pussy, and then just keep it up. Forget everything I said about asking her questions - just close your eyes and get into it. I know this can be a difficult and exhausting exercise, but she will be extravagantly thankful for your efforts. It gets easier each time. If all else fails, get accustomed to masturbating together. Gradually begin to add your stimulation to her own, right before she's about to cum anyway. Over time, you can take over completely.
For women who themselves feel that their cunts are dirty or distasteful, all of the above methods may be helpful, but the underlying issue must also be addressed. I am amazed at how many women are ambivalent about their own genitals. They don't love "that part" of their body, and they can't believe that you would either. Yes, it is important to be clean. But clean means a daily shower which includes washing the vulva. It doesn't mean vainly attempting to remove every trace of smell or taste. The natural fragrance and secretions of a healthy woman are beautiful and erotic. Hopefully you agree (and if not, try hard to cultivate this attitude). When she learns to love her pussy, she will be infinitely more comfortable with your loving it too.
Hey, I have a lot of respect for all you guys who like to eat pussy because there are too few of you out there. And I'm not the only woman who says this. Furthermore, some of you guys who are giving it the old college try are not doing too well, so maybe this little lesson will help you out. When a woman finds a man who gives good head, she's found a treasure she's not going to let go of too quickly. This is one rare customer and she knows it. She won't even tell her girlfriends about it or that guy will become the most popular man in town. So, remember, most guys can fuck, and those who can usually do it satisfactorily, but the guy who gives good head, he's got it made.
Most women are shy about their bodies. Even if you've got the world's most gorgeous woman in bed with you, she's going to worry about how you like her body. Tell her it's beautiful, tell her which parts you like best, tell her anything, but get her to trust you enough to let you down between her legs.
Now stop and look at what you see. Beautiful, isn't it? There is nothing that makes a woman more unique than her pussy. I know. I've seen plenty of them. They come in all different sizes, colors and shapes; some are tucked inside like a little girl's cunnie and some have thick luscious lips that come out to greet you. Some are nested in brushes of fur and others are covered with transparent fuzz. Appreciate your woman's unique qualities and tell her what makes her special.
Women are a good deal more verbal than men, especially during love-making. They also respond more to verbal love, which means, the more you talk to her, the easier it will be to get her off. So all the time you're petting and stroking her beautiful pussy, talk to her about it.
Now look at it again. Gently pull the lips apart and look at her inner lips, even lick them if you want to. Now spread the tops of her pussy up until you can find her clit. Women have clits in all different sizes, just like you guys have different sized cocks. It doesn't mean a thing as far as her capacity for orgasm. All it means is more of her is hidden underneath her foreskin.
Whenever you touch a woman's pussy, make sure your finger is wet. You can lick it or moisten it with juices from inside her. Be sure, by all means, to wet it before you touch her clit because it doesn't have any juices of it's own and it's extremely sensitive. Your finger will stick to it if it's dry and that hurts. But you don't want to touch her clit anyway. You have to work up to that. Before she becomes aroused, her clit is too delicate to be handled.
Approach her pussy slowly. Women, even more so than men, love to be teased. The inner part of her thigh is her most tender spot. Lick it, kiss it, make designs on it with the tip of your tongue. Come dangerously close to her pussy, then float away. Make her anticipate it.
Now lick the crease where her leg joins her pussy. Nuzzle your face into her bush. Brush your lips over her slit without pressing down on it to further excite her. After you've done this to the point where your lady is bucking up from her seat and she's straining to get more of you closer to her, then put your lips right on top of her slit.
Kiss her, gently, then harder. Now use your tongue to separate her pussy lips and when she opens up, run your tongue up and down between the layers of pussy flesh. Gently spread her legs more with your hands. Everything you do with a woman you're about to eat must be done gently.
Tongue-fuck her. This feels define. It also teases the hell out of her because by now she wants some attention given to her clit. Check it out. See if her clit has gotten hard enough to peek out of it's covering. If so, lick it. If you can't see it, it might still be waiting for you underneath. So bring your tongue up tot he top of her slit and feel for her clit. You may barely experience it's presence. But even if you can't feel the tiny pearl, you can make it rise by licking the skin that covers it. Lick hard now and press into her skin.
Gently pull the pussy lips away and flick your tongue against the clit, hood covered or not. Do this quickly. This should cause her legs to shudder. When you sense she's getting up there toward orgasm, make your lips into an O and take the clit into your mouth. Start to suck gently and watch your lady's face for her reaction. If she can handle it, begin to suck harder. If she digs it, suck even harder. Go with her. If she lifts her pelvis into the air with the tension of her rising orgasm, move with her, don't fight her. Hang on, and keep your hot mouth on her clit. Don't let go. That's what she'll be saying too: 'Don't stop. Don't ever stop!'
There's a reason for that, most men stop too soon. Just like with cock sucking, this is something worth learning about and worth learning to do well. I know a man who's a lousy fuck, simply lousy, but he can eat pussy like nobody I know and he never has trouble getting a date. Girls are falling all over him.
But back to your pussy eating session...There's another thing you can do to intensify your woman's pleasure. You can finger-fuck her while she's enjoying your clit-licking talents. Before, curing or after. She'll really like it. In addition to the erogenous zones surrounding her clit, a woman has another extremely sensitive area at the roof of her vagina. This is what you rub up against when you're fucking her. Well, since your cock is pretty far away from your mouth, your fingers will have to do the fucking.
Take two fingers. One is too skinny and three is too wide and therefore can't get deep enough. Make sure they're wet so you don't irritate her skin. Slide them inside, slowly at first, then a little faster. Fuck her with them rhythmically. Speed up only when she does. Listen to her breathing.
She'll let you know what to do. If you're sucking her clit and finger-fucking her at the same time, you're giving her far more stimulation than you would be giving her with your cock alone. So you can count on it that she's getting high on this. If there's any doubt, check her out for symptoms. Each woman is unique. You may have one who's nipples get hard when she's excited or only when she's having an orgasm. Your girl might flush red or begin to tremble. Get to know her symptoms and you'll be a more sensitive lover.
When she starts to have an orgasm, for heaven's sakes, don't let go of that clit. Hang in there for the duration. When she starts to come down from the first orgasm, press your tongue along the underside of the clit, leaving your lips covering the top. Move your tongue in and out of her cunt. If your fingers are inside, move them a little too, gently though, things are extremely sensitive just now.
If you play your cards right, you'll get some multiple orgasms this way. A woman stays excited for a full hour after she's had an orgasm. Do you realize the full impact of that information? The potential? One woman was clocked at 56 orgasms at one sitting. Do you know what effect you would have on a woman you gave 56 orgasms to? She'd be yours as long as you wanted her.
The last advice I have for you is this: After you've made her come, make her your slave by giving her the best head she's ever had, don't leave her alone just yet. Talk to her, stroke her body, caress her breasts. Keep making love to her quietly until she's come all the way down. A man can get off and go to sleep in the same breath and feel no remorse, no sense of loss. But a woman by nature requires some sensitivity from her lover in those first few moments after sex.
Oral sex can be the most exciting sexual experiences you can have. But it's what you make it. Take your time, practice often, pay attention to your lover's signals, and most of all, enjoy yourself.
In my experience, one of the main reasons that partners avoid female oral sex is due to a percieved or even experienced poor taste. While it is true that women run the range from pleasant (tasty!) to sour or uric tasting, there are easy steps to ensure that your partner will be tasting her sweetest.
First and most obviously, a good vigorous shower will do much to neutralize the taste of your partner. In fact, oral sex in the shower, while not a favorite method of mine, has a completely neutral taste if you stick to the upper regions of your partner's sex. If your partner has not showered recently, or has physically exerted herself recently, her taste will be much stronger. This, however, can be a good thing!
Secondly, foreplay will improve upon both the taste and the experience in general if your can get her juices flowing. I have never found an extremely aroused, wet woman to taste unpleasant. Quite the contrary!
FOREPLAY:
Do it! Take your time! Have fun! Experiment! A common male misunderstanding is that females are aroused most through physical contact. Not true. I have aroused women greatly simply by acting sexy. Tension is a wonderful tool, use it. If you can build tension to the point where the barest touch sends electric shivers through both of you, you can't lose! Similarly, even the best love techniques will not turn on a woman who isn't in the mood. (If you can get her in the mood, well then you're talking.)
Take your time, explore your partner (there's a lot more there than nipples and a clitoris!), build tension, have fun.
There are two basic positions that I have found very versitile and succesful. For a very comfortable session, have her lie on her back with legs spread and knees bent slightly. Lie on your stomach between her legs, put your right arm under her left leg and your left arm under her right - somewhat of an intimate hug. Now you should find your head situated conveniently and comfortably near the center of your attention.
Less comfortable, but a bit wilder is the following. Lie on your back, prop a couple of pillows (or fold one over) under your head. Have your partner kneel facing you with one knee on each side of your head, above your shoulders. The sexy part of this position (IMHO) is that your partner can look down at you and watch you eating her out. (Yum) Versatility and comfort are reduced for the giver, so I only occasionally partake in this position.
These are by no means the only positions. Again, experiment, have fun. If you can find a bed where your partner can lie down with her legs dangling off the bed and resting flat on the floor, you're in luck. Now you can have her sit just at the edge of the bed, lie back, and give you plenty of access while you kneel/sit in front of her sex.
Woman are very different in some respects of their genitalia, but the major parts are the same. A woman's sex from the oral sex point of view consists of two sets of lips (outer and inner) that meet just below the vaginal opening and some variable distance above the clitoris; the vaginal opening (immediately above the nether meeting of above-mentioned lips), a smooth section of skin between the vaginal opening and the clitoris (I have no clue as to its technical name, hereafter it will be refered to as the "scav") and the clitoris and its surrounding folds.
If you get the chance, explore your partner in a location with decent lighting. Use your hand to spread her sex and explore her, find out what's where and what's what. Like I said earlier, women are different. Especially the location and shape of the clitoris. It can be buried, protruding, surrounded by many folds of flesh, or hanging out it the open. The best method I have found for finding your partner's clitoris (If all else fails, ask!), is to place a finger at the very base of her sex and gently run it up her scav until you feel a slight bump. That's it.
So your partner is showered, excited and feeling sexy. It's the big moment, what to do? Don't simply dive in. Take your time, excite her. In my opinion, I can usually tell how good my partner is at oral sex by how she "goes down" on me. By "going down" I mean the process by which she goes from kising my lips to sucking oh-so-wonderfully on my sex.
Depending on your partner, different methods of going down will work more effectively. If you've gotten to this point with your partner, you should have a fair idea of what she likes. Take advantage of that knowledge. One thing that I highly recommend however, is a sexy look. Sexy looks can make all the difference, and the best place to throw one in is as you're licking, sucking and kissing your way down her stomach stop, look up and smile devilishly.
Unbutton your partners jean's, pull the tabs back and kiss her newly exposed flesh. Unzip her pants, pull the tabs back as far as they can go and place light, tender kisses on her abdomen and around the top of her panties. Watch it, some women are very ticklish here!
(Note the above doesn't work so well if she doesn't have jeans on but you're all smart enough to figure it out...) Once you've removed everything but her panties, stop. You have a unique opportunity for further arousal. Kiss her legs and inner thighs with gentle kisses. Work your way up each leg and make a point of stopping at the line of her underwear. Kiss again along the top of her underwear, and along the other two borders.
Now move to her cotton (silk? lace? latex?) covered sex. Plant firm, dry kisses through her underwear on her sex, low and right around the vaginal entrance works best for me. If your partner is really excited, often her underwear will be damp and will smell (pleasantly) of her sex.
Removing the underwear is again a matter of choice. You know your partner best, I prefer either gently sliding it all the way off with my fingers, or pulling it part way down with my teeth first.
It is not unusual for your partner's lips to be closed together. A very excited woman's lips may be slightly spread allready ("pouting"). Again, building tension can be accomplished by light kisses on either side of her sex as well as light blowing. (Do not inflate your partner! This can be very dangerous!!) Spreading her lips can be accomplished by placing your tongue first at the base of her sex, and then firmly running your tongue all the way up. Continue with a few long licks from the base of her sex all the way to the top past her clitoris. Vary the firmness of your tongue from hard and pointed to broad and soft.
The best and most proven method of making your partner cum through oral sex is by repeated, rythmic stroking of her clitoris with your tongue. The tongue is uniquely suited for this purpose because of it's texture, versatility, and pliability. It is difficult (and tiring) to apply too much pressure to your partner's clitoris. Some women are much more sensitive than others however. Be receptive to any sharp gasps, you could be being too affectionate. If this is the case, move away from direct contact or adopt a gentler technique.
Repeated, rythmic stroking can be accomplished in a variety of ways. I prefer either rapid, repeated verticle licks with a firm, pointed tongue, or planting your tongue firmly against your partner's clitoris and vigorously shaking your head back and forth. (Tiring, maybe. But it's worth it!) If you are having trouble finding the correct angle or method for rhythmically lingually carresing her clitoris, or if you want to try something fun and new:
Toungue the abc's. No seriously! This is a great oral excercise on any part of the body. Toungue the abc's starting with lower case, and moving though upper case. (Heck, you could do the whole ANSI ASCII set if you'd like!) Be especially perceptive while you do this, vary your speed and watch for sharp intakes of breath - chances are you've hit the right angle. The abc's give a large variety of different strokes, so come back to this excersize as often as you'd like.
A general rule of thumb (tongue?) is to start slow and pick up the pace as you go along. This is definately a general rule though, feel free to break it by varying your rhythm, both slowly and predictably as well as quickly and startlingly.
Lick between the inner and outer lips; penetrate the vagina deeply (a much stronger, iron-like taste here); "tease" the entrance to her vagina with rapid pokes of your toungue at varying depths; don't forget your hands, often a woman will feel a need or ache for something inside of her while very aroused, oblige her with a finger or two. Both kissing and manually manipulating your partner is tough, anyone with succesful methods is welcome to pipe in.
Talk to your partner, ask her what she likes. Experiment (if you can) with many different partners. What excites one woman a lot may not excite another as much, but may still be well worth trying. On the other hand, you may not notice a subtle pleasurable technique on one woman that can be easily learned on another. The better you know your parnter, the more effectively you can please her. Have fun!
I tried to be a lot less pretentious than the male version of this article for a few reasons. The major one is that women are very different, the above suggestions may work wonderfully with one woman and so-so with another. Some women simply aren't responsive to oral sex due to strong moral constraints. Secondly, I am not an expert, though I love oral sex and have had the joy of pleasuring 10-20 women. Third, I am still young (18) and have a lot to learn.
So feel free to comment on what you've read (men and women) and reply either over the net or to me personally. Thanks. Hope you found this helpfull and enjoy!
Q. What is cunnilingus?
Cunnilingus is the fine art of making love to a vagina with your mouth and tongue. It is a delicate skill, requiring patience, practice, and dedication to get it right, but any woman you learn to do it right for will appreciate you all the more for it.
What applies to the penis applies to the vulva-- every one is different, requiring a different touch to make its owner happy. But few tools can equal the tongue for the amount of pleasure it can deliver to a happy vagina.
This article assumes that you know what a vulva looks like and can identify with some precision the mons veneris, labia majora, clitoral hood, clitoris, labia minora, urethra, vagina, and perineum, to name them (approximately) from top to bottom.
Q. How fast should I go?
This isn't an attack. Don't go after the clitoris like a fireman attacking a fire. Quite often at first, the clitoris is far too sensitive for direct stimulation. Lick around it, stimulating the hood, teasing her inner labia, tasting her. Take your time and listen to her. Some women make noise, and some do not. It will be a while before you learn exactly what your lover prefers as far as oral sex is concerned.
Some women may like additional stimulation-- a finger or two into the vagina, or perhaps even the anus. She may want your hands to reach up and play with her breasts, or she may want your fingers to hold her labia apart so that your tongue can get at her vulva more directly.
Q. I've heard cunnilingus doesn't taste good.
If the taste or smell bothers you or is a concern, ask her to wash first. Most people who enjoy cunnilingus agree that a clean vagina is a good, if acquired, taste.
As a woman nears her climax, she may want more direct stimulation. In general, fast, rhythmic stimulation is most effective at causing climax-- but there shouldn't be a rush to get there. Take your time and learn to appreciate what you can do for her.
Q. What about cunnilingus during menstruation?
Some people are particularly turned off at the suggestion of cunnilingus during menstruation. If it is a concern to you, then wait. A tampon may well hold the blood back, as will a diaphragm, but some men can't stand the taste anyway. If your partner is healthy, however, there is no particular danger in menstrual blood, and some women find that orgasms during their periods allievate cramps.
In my experience, when you try to explain to a man "in the moment" that he is doing oral sex (or sometimes anything) wrong, often the result is a disaster. You aren't into it, because you are trying to direct, and I guess for many guys it comes off as simply insulting. It isn't a very "supportive process," to borrow a friend's phraseology.
Example: "No, not there,...there..." (Quizzical looks, no change in behavior.)
Now, if you go looking for diagrams of women's vaginas, you will find yourself either looking at medical textbooks or special references, such as Our Bodies, Ourselves --- which, is presented as a "for women only" sort of thing. The original edition even gave this little rap to men about not buying it "for" women. Yeesh! Good book, but talk about "attitude." The new edition has thankfully dropped this negative proscription.
You will sometimes NOT even find a clear picture of a woman's vagina in a general sex reference, such as the original The Joy of Sex. And you won't find a discussion of the parts of the vulva in most places. Now, go look for a picture of a man's penis that is reasonably edifying, and you'll find them all over. I only discovered this when I tried to look it up, and since I had never purchased Our Bodies, Ourselves, I was SOL (corrected that, recently). I however, and all women, have a ready-made "reference manual," provided we have gotten over the idea, or never had it, that looking at it will somehow be a "bad thing." Men don't have this reference manual readily "at hand," at least if their partner, if they have one, is not immediately available and cooperative.
I have also read, and just reread, the Cunnilingus FAQ. Though it seemed excellent in terms of mood, style of approach, all the "beginning" stuff, I found when I applied her technique suggestions to me and my experience as a recipient, or my experience as a giver, it was a bit short on specifics. I am sure the described approach works very well for the woman who wrote it
So, you have gone through all the beginning motions, taking a reasonable amount of time, and you are starting to "get down to business." First, PLEASE turn on the lights. Working in the dark is for experts at best. I am assuming you are sitting between her legs, facing her, or some variation on this. Now really LOOK at what is there. Where her hair is (or was, some people shave) is the mons veneris, the pubic mound. If she is not aroused, everything is likely, but not guaranteed, to be enclosed within the outer lips or labia majora, the edges of the pubic mound that comes together to enclose her vulva.
As you spread this apart (she can bring her knees up and out, and/or you can use your hands), you will now see the inner folds of skin of the vulva, the inner lips or labia minora. These (usually) go all around the vaginal opening, and come in a variety of interesting and pleasing shapes and textures.
As you observe that this encircles the vaginal opening, at the top of this you will find what might look like a button or might look like a very tiny penis, covered by an additional flap of skin. The flap of skin is the "hood" of the clitoris, and is very sensitive, as is the clitoris. This is the female equivalent of the male foreskin, though it is much looser than that corresponding organ.
If you see what looks like a button underneath the hood, then what you are seeing is the glans of the clitoris, exactly equivalent to your own penis glans, or head of the penis. If you see a bit more than that, then there is probably some of the shaft of the clitoris extending in your partner. I stress this since most men would not be particularly enthused by a blow job that only gave attention to their penis head and extended not a centimeter below there. Many might find it annoying or even painful, depending on how rough their partner is with them and how sensitive they are to pain in that area. However, told "give attention to the clitoris," by fable and book, many brave soldiers run to do battle on the field of their woman's desires with their tongue, only to find their partner is telling them to please stop, it hurts, or it doesn't do anything for me. This may or may not be a comment on your technique, some women don't like oral sex. I would just like to suggest an approach that probably has a higher average success rate.
The shaft of the clitoris is attached internally, back into the body of the woman. Pressure on the spot above the glans and underneath the hood will generally give you access to the part of the shaft equivalent to the part of your penis that is towards your body, whereas underneath the glans will give you access to the part of the shaft that is equivalent to the part of your penis that is away from your body. It is likely that the skin directly below the glans will be functionally equivalent to what is for most men the most sensitive and pleasurable part of the penis for play, and the inner vaginal lips are also usually quite sensitive "in a good way." Going down/in/back, you may or may not see the urethra, if you do this is the location of the grafenberg spot (g-spot), which we have all heard on this newsgroup is quite varied in response, some women love stimulation there, others do not. Try licking your tongue around there, if it is visible, and see, in the course of your "investigations."
O.K., so now you have the picture. You did trim/file your nails first, didn't you? Play with your hands, play with your mouth, go all over, gently at first, increasing stimulation and focus as her body responds, and coming in "closer on" the clitoral area as she becomes more aroused. Lick, suck, point your tongue and apply pressure, use it like a "miniature penis" under the glans, penetrating her as you go, make little circles with your tongue, lick up and down along the skin in front of the clitoris, up and down the inner vaginal lips, etc. These are ideas, find some others, listen to her responses and comments. Remember to GO SLOW --- I believe impatience and expectations of quick response are "generally recognized as" the most common error in sexual encounters. Eventually the clitoris will become probably become erect, and stimulation that is "more direct" (like enclosing your mouth on the area and gently sucking) will stimulate a sufficient amount of the organ in question to be interesting. Watch what you are doing, and what happens, the entire area will become "engorged" and swollen if things are proceeding closer to orgasm.
Some women may not, or may prefer not, to orgasm this way. Most will probably, however, enjoy the experience a great deal. Hopefully this "explanation and comparison" to the corresponding male body parts will allow you to not be (still) in the dark with the lights on.
At least here in the Twin Cities Verizon advertises that you will never have to pay a roaming fee. Of course you will never have to since Verizon doesn't allow your phone to roam. Either you are on their network, or your phone doesn't work. There coverage area in MN is pretty horrible unless you actually live in a large city and never travel out of it.
I recently bought my first cell phone. I shopped around the few places in town, trying to determine who could meet my needs the cheapest. I needed to be able to contact my girlfriend 150 miles away cheaply and often. We'd been going through about $150 in phone cards monthly and needed to majorly cut that back. After explaining this, they tried to sell me a 300 minute a month plan. We've been known to go through 300 minutes in a day. Then they tried a few plans in the thousands of minutes, but they were rapidly approcahing the cost of phone cards, and for fewer minutes. Their main argument was that they had excellent nationwide coverage and none of their competitors' networks actually functioned. I left in frustration and signed up with a regional provider who offered unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes on their network, so I got 2 of the cheap plans and am now saving over $80 a month. In conclusion, Verizon sucks. Little guy rocks. Sounds like microsoft and linux :)
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
Good.
The various telecom operators in Holland are doing exactly the same. There is even a advertisement campaign on television going on right now about this.
Hm... since I suppose this thread will be filled with a ton of "verizon rules/verizon sucks" posts, I might as well chip in my 2 cents.
Basically, the coverage is excellent -- I've been covered from San Francisco to Rocky Point (Sonora) to Toronto to Boston. Basically the only time I lose coverage altogether is underground. I used to have analog-only in southwest Michigan, but a quick roaming-software upgrade fixed that; I think now they're piggybacking on sprint's network here, whereas they weren't before.
That said, Verizon leaves a TON to be desired in the customer service department. The reason I bought my phone is because I've truly been traveling across the country for the last year. Trying to change billing addresses is a HUGE hassle; Verizon was cobbled together from 3-4 disparate wireless companies across the country, and it still shows. You have to get a totally new account number when you move, and sometimes you get double-billed for up to a month.
That, and you're basically not allowed to move out of their "preferred market" areas. My new address was about 20 miles south of the Verizon market limits in SW Michigan, same area code and everything, and they were adamant about not allowing me to change my address to that "uncovered" location (note: digital service works just fine here). Long story short, I ended up using a friend's address and paying all my bills online; it's not perfect, but I'm getting along.
So, yeah. it doesn't surprise me that verizon has all these techs in trucks all over the country; their coverage shows it. Now if only they'd hire that clever IBM basketball team to integrate their billing across the nation.
You'd think they would be able to do this from their home office - except for the part about testing each of their competitors signal at the same point. Do they really need to do that though? What they should be doing is comparing signal strengh to usage, and concentrate on making the high usage areas have a good signal, regardless of their competitors.
When I commuted across the Bay Bridge, there was a gap in the Sprint services on the bridge that lasted no more than 50 yards, but it would always drop your call. I'm sure that's one of the heaviest populated gaps in service in the country, yet it went uncovered for years.
It's precisely programs like this which show the strengths of a capitalistic economy. I attend a Public University, and the service is terrible. The administration does not care about its students, because the large majority of their funding comes from government and corporate grants.
To contrast, the competition in the cellphone market is forcing companies like Verizon to make sure that their service is good so that customers don't leave. The end result: more for the consumers at less cost.
I'm not saying capitalism fixes all problems. Certainly, it doesn't, especially the problem that many markets tend to move towards a monopolistic market, but it has some MAJOR advantages, and this is one of them.
-=Lothsahn=-
Here in Charlotte, NC, I can attest to Verizon Wireless' much better connection and clarity. I was at CompUSA with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and got a call on my SprintPCS phone. The connection was very poor and was quickly dropped. I tried to call the person back, and received a "Network is Busy" message.
.02.
My friend let me borrow his Verizon Wireless phone and I was able to call the person back and get perfect reception.
Also, my friend's Verizon Wireless phone works in the elevators at work, where as my SprintPCS phone reception is gone the second the elevator doors shut.
I'll be switching to Verizon Wireless very soon.
Anyways, just my
Have a great day!
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
the cars cost $270,000 and $15/mile to operate
I thought it was just the one guy on a cell phone and a friend on the other end saying "Yup. Still hear ya'" Man, how I do get that gig?
for a blackhat to persue war driving on company time? With so much gear, plus training, it would be so easy to sniff for unprotected wireless LAN's, especially if the drivers are by themselves. Who watches the Road Warriors?
And for just a few grand I'll gladly give them my GPS coordinates of where I get dropped calls, without fail (or with fail, depends on how you look at it).
In that commercial where he is walking around saying "Can you hear me now?" he would stop in that forest and say "Hmm... can't hear me? OK we need a cell tower right over here." and then cut to an aerial shot of the forest with a big cell phone tower coming out of the tree line finally cut to families sitting around the clearing under the cell tower enjoying their newfound reception.
adam
They better not forget to sock away a few more of those big bucks to pay for the medical expenses of those poor cats who have to drive around in those cancer-boxes they're driving around. :-|
MY FREAKING BEDROOM!
Can you hear me now? NO!
"It costs about $15 a mile to operate the cars" -- At minimum wage, thats only about 2 miles per hour - what a safety problem on highways! I think I could lower that cost down to $0.30/mile, if you catch my drift...
I'm about to dump Nextel not because of spotty service but because they won't stick to the contract. Twice in as many months, they've reduced the value of the service being provided to the end user without any reduction in price. In April, we lost an hour of evening time. They bumped it back to 9pm. This time, we're losing our "to the second" billing. A 1 minute, 36 second call used to be billed as 1 minute, 36 seconds. Now it'll be billed as 2 minutes.
That "to the second" rounding was very unique to Nextel. Very few other carriers billed like this and it made Nextel very attractive. And it was getting harder and harder to find a carrier that started the off-peak clock before 9pm. When I saw that Nextel was still starting at 8pm, I jumped on it.
How long will it be before Nextel decides to drop their "floating home area" policy on my account? I call it that because I don't recal the exact term. Basically, any location with Nextel service becomes my home area. If I visit family in Oregon, I can make all the local calls I want. If I go back east, same thing. Whatever is local to that region becomes local for me. But how long will that last? Pretty soon, someone at Nextel is going to realize how much more money they could make by eliminating this feature.
And, yes, I'm still in my 1 year contract. Sure they give me an opt-out window but I signed up expecting to get the services I was promised for at least a year. I bought a $200 phone. I bought spare batteries. I bought a data cable. I bought a car charger. I was expecting to use these things for at least a year and probably longer. (I was with my previous carrier for 2 years and only switched because they couldn't provide a data connection. I was with the company before that for 3 years.) Nevermind the fact that this is my only phone and I'd have to spend countless hours contacting family, friends, banks, clubs, companies, etc. giving out my new number.
Having good coverage is worthless if you can't trust the company to provide the services you purchased at the agreed price for the length of your contract.
And, it wouldn't be that tough to figure out where: call enters a cell from another cell, there aren't many roads that allow that to happen. So they can figure the probabilities of calls being dropped on particular roads.
Alternatively, they could ask customers. Their service drives me crazy: there are spots on every one of the freeways I use where calls are ALWAYS dropped.
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
If they want to know where they stand for coverage they could allow people an easy way to provide feedback. Any one who as has had the pleasure of walking around 'down town' Los Alos knows that VW doesn't really have coverage there. Stand on the major road in front of Banderas (a killer BBQ restaurant that is ALWAYS PACKED with the rich and beautiful) and you will find that the quality of signal varies drastically minute to minute and is never good enough to have a 5 minute call without a drop.
:-)
There are similar holes in Mountain View of all places - near the old Sun Campus. I reported this one to them about 2.5 years ago. They've done a lot about it so far
helps Verizon find out where they stand relative to their competitors.
Why, the same place they stand relative to their employees, of course. Right on the windpipe.
--saint
AT&T does the same thing, I've known a guy that does that for about 2 years now.
something Bell Atlantic and Nynex never seemed able to do.
"Now you've had enough... bitch."
Sapere Aude - Homer
I was backpacking a few years ago in the Sierra Nevada. I came upon a group of people, and one of them had suffered a back injury. They needed an emergency evacuation. The leader of the group had been trying to use her cell phone for an hour. Fortunately, as a ham radio operator, I was able to call in a sheriff's helicopter. Verizon may have good coverage compared to it's competitors, but I think it's misleading not to tell people there's LOTS of places your cell phone won't work.
Not for Verizon, but another wireless company that begins with a V.
h tm l
Thankfully, I don't do it full time. I do do it several hours a week when troubleshooting.
It's pretty boring. But it does make for some impressive phonebills.
Our local paper had an article about the person in Minneapolis that does this for Verizon. She doesn't sound like she knows what she's talking about, but unless you're interpreting the data, basically anyone can do the driving.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/2260767.
These same vans will be equipped with ECM gear to actively jam other services cell transmissions... Sort of the minivan equivolent of the EA-6B Prowler ^__^
"Enemy cell tower, 9 o'clock! He's transmitting!"
"Goose switch to active jamming!"
"But what about that other tower!?"
"Don't worry about the tower, you just keep those fighter off..." Um, Nevermind.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I thought that was just a gimick they used in their TV commercials. Somebody's smoking crack.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
3 things:
1. Every wireless company does this.
2. In britain, wireless companies have been sued by employees when the employee contracted a tumour, which doctors believed was caused by the large amounts of electromagnetic radiation that he was exposed to day in day out by useing a cell phone almost constantly to check signal.
3. This whole article is fairly redundant, and seems more like some kind of "yay for verizon, they do something everyone else does, but look, theres an article on slashdot about them, they must be something special. yay"
thankyou.
You'd think they would be able to do this from their home office - except for the part about testing each of their competitors signal at the same point. Do they really need to do that though? What they should be doing is comparing signal strengh to usage, and concentrate on making the high usage areas have a good signal, regardless of their competitors.
I'm not really understanding what you mean by that "be able to do this from their home office." The point is to make sure people on their network, using a phone from where people use the phones from: on the ground. How would they be able to make sure the signal strength is good enough from their office.
Maybe you are referring to when the network is overloaded, the article mentioned that, but even if they could tell that from their office, I'm pretty sure the point of their testing is primarily to make sure that their signal is good enough for people to make phone calls with acceptable quality (no cutting out for a few secs) and that the calls don't get dropped for no good reason.
I'm pretty sure they are working to make sure that high usage areas have good coverage, hence all the rush hour traffic the guy says he gets stuck in. I've never seen one of those cars drive up my side street here.
Just this past Thursday at work, we had a Verizon Wireless rep come in to demonstrate (read: sales-pitch) their new 144Kb/s wireless Aircards that transmit data over their digital network, and also function as a regular cellphone. He slipped the PCMCIA card into his laptop, plugged in an ear-bud/mic combo and used an app to make a call to the cellphone of a guy in the back of the room.
The initial connection was a bit too quiet for them to hear each other, so after tweaking the volume setting on his end, the Verizon rep offhandedly said, "Can you hear me now?"
The whole room burst into laughter for a good 30 seconds.
This is not a Fugazi
They also use this data to help generate the coverage maps you see in shops
Honestly, if they are going to spend that much money ($275k + $15/mile) they should sink a ton more into DSL.
When I had DSL the service absolutely blew. 1000+ms pings everywhere and only 70k/s for 768/128.
I don't own a cell phone, none of that shit is important to me. They need to fix other problems first.
A large company spending large sums of cash to actually improve their product? Their service? Kudos to them for doing this rather than spending the money on more marketing BS.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
i wonder if there is a way that for reception in buildings to be relatively good. there are 2 cases when you would like to use your cell phone:
case 1: in car, need help
well, this case is rather trivial
case 2: you are at a meeting inside a building and need to call someone
the solution to that one is not quite as obvious. it is very inconvenient to have to walk outside in order to get good reception or attach a 6' antenna. perhaps if your whole BODY could act as one, (the phone connected to body) and some wires... just an idea
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
you mean the anoying can you hear me now? guy really exists? maybee if were luckey, he will have an unfortunate run in with steve "dud your getting a dell" guy.
or perhaps the maytag repairman can fix them, he has nothing to do anyway...
All the cell company's have lousy coverage out here in the west. No one wants to spend the money, especially considering we've got fewer people, and much less Congressional representation.
u smap_ 492f2.gif
Can't get Cable modem, because there's no cable.
Can't get DSL -- too far from the phone company's POP.
Can't get better than 34.4 modem connection, because the lines are sooo old.
Can't get cell covereage, because there's no cell towers.
Can't get cell towers, because there's no customers.
Can't get customers, because there's no cell coverage.
Look at:
http://www1.sprintpcs.com/media/Assets/Maps/
and see just how much uncovered area there is out west.
The problem with gaps in your carriers service is that your phone (if you have roaming) will pick up a competitors tower. So if Verizon's signal is really weak (or there's a gap), and lets say AT&T's signal is really strong, some Verizon phones may jump to AT&T for service, and leave you roaming in your home area. When that happens, generally no one is happy.
(1). The customer isn't happy because they have to pay roaming charges in their supposed home area and
(2). Your carrier isn't happy because they have to pay their competitors for you using their service.
So it is definately beneficial for them to check on their competitors, because the wireless carrier wants to keep as much traffic as it can on it's home network, not on the competitors.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
They don't seem to do anything about it once they
find out the service sucks. When I've called in
complaining that people call me and the calls go
to voicemail since they can't find my phone, they
say its because they don't have a tower close me
me (even though the phone is on, and says it has a signal). They said they planned to have towers added, but in over a year, nothings changed.
My apartment is in a wood & brick building, I have only one PC, a window air conditioner, and my cell had such bad reception I cancelled it altogether. That was Cingular
But my company cell phone was always fine in the same apartment. That phone is on Verizon.
Verizon Wireless appears to actually care (in the most hard-nosed, financial sense of using customer service) about its customers. I've been using them since the Airtouch days, and have had mixed experiences with service and billing. However, a couple of times recently, I've had, well, extraordinary customer service people on the phone who practically begged to come to my home and apologize for minor problems.
I'm on a $120/month plan with tax (for home/office/roaming, 900 minutes, nationwide). Perhaps I'm escalated into a better support category. But still.
The other day, I was off to Canada for a few days, and I called Verizon to see if I could get a Canada roaming plan. Not only did they have one ($10/month) but they would pro-rate it just for when I needed it and automatically turn it off. Zounds.
Something went wrong, though, and it was applied for just three days instead of two weeks. I called up, they found the record, apologized profusely, added another note to their system, and said there was no way I'd be charged anything extra.
Amazing. Weird. It's not the customer's fault. What a strange idea.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
Feel free to mod me down\flame me\whatever, but thats how it looks from here.
...$15/mile to operate
..Which dwindles in comparison to my gas guzzling '72 Buick Riviera with the 455ci engine.
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
funny thing is i can drive around in my SUV with only $20.00 worth of equipment (i.e.: a cheap ass cell phone) and find holes in their coverage, and it would still cost $15.00 per mile to opperate. grumble grumble gass guzzlers grumble grumble...
For people like me who lives in the Bay Area, CA, the one big hole is North Lake Tahoe. When I go up in the winter for snowboarding, the signal is so bad that I could barely make a call. I think the worst is Kings Beach where Northstar is.
Nice to see they can effectively distract the public from the fact that they "created" profit for the company out of non-existent money in the employee's pension fund so the senior managers could get their bonuses for last year.
the real problem is coverage out in the middle of nowhere, and it doesn't take a bunch of rocket scientists driving around in a damn million-dollar van to figure out that:
no cell site nearby = no coverage
I live 20 miles outside of Boston, and my phone -barely- manages to register itself on the network if I put it in the window on the top floor of the house. Absolutely pathetic.
Besides, all this is bullshit PR anyway...it doesn't take a van loaded with equipment to figure this crap out. The nextel phone I had could be put into a "test" mode where it outputted a half dozen statistics every 2-5 seconds on signal strength, noise, ID number of the cell it was in, stuff like that.
The link should be this:
_ 492f2.gif
http://www1.sprintpcs.com/media/Assets/Maps/usmap
Neither of these may be high usage areas, but if they're green on the coverage map, I'll be mightily pissed if my phone doesn't work there after I break down. And I'll let them know afterward, if I live.
I live in Australia and by far the most popular of (the two) mobile phone standards is GSM.
GSM is nice. It operatees between countries and between carriers fairly well. (But at this stage it's not set up for full roaming here. Only for 000/112/911 calls it will pick the closest tower regardless of carrier)
It always amuses me when I go for a long drive out of a capital city and play 'spot the cell tower'. The carriers like to boast their superior 'highway' coverage and to do this each of the 3 carriers sports their own huge, expensive (to install as well as maintain - pay someone to drive several 100Km to a remote site just to check battery levels and tell me that's economical) communications tower every 50Km or so even though the traffic they handle would probably be very small/emergencies only.
The dominate carrier (Telstra) seems to be building base stations along highways and in tiny towns right across the country. I rekon these towers would be lucky if they handled more than one call at once on any given day, but I guess customers like it when they look at their phone and it doesn't say 'no signal'...
Now... I don't know if Verizon uses GSM or if what they use can do this - would it make more sense for areas of low usage for competitors to create one base station to cover the area and just split the costs? The tower isn't likely to turn a profit but its softened a bit because the cost is shared between the companies. Coverage then exists where none did before and customers in 'difficult' and/or 'low usage' areas benefit.
Just in the quiet areas though! In the major towns, cities etc the companies can do as they do now and reap the rewards of their jumping over each other and waving fat cheque books around to sign up the next owner of that tall building or the council of that nice big hill overlooking the city...
Look at any mass-market manufacturer (Sony, Verizon, SprintPCS, AT&T, ...)'s customer service. It universally, unquestionably sucks (Dell and IBM are notable exceptions). When you're in the cell phone business, and there are only 2-3 competitors, everybody's mass market, so customer service will continue to suck.
If my time is worth $200/hr, I should be able to pay an extra $10/mo (for example) for sane, decent customer service. (e.g. that which Diner's Club provides: instant customer service phone call pickup and competant service, all for $80/yr)
Bottom line on cell phones: I'm switching to Verizon for the coverage and unlimited off-peak time, but I don't expect better customer service, due to the gov't regulated monopoly...
Gimme a number where I can call these guys at, there is absolutely horrible reception in this one area right outside a mid-sized town. And you know what the funny thing is, whenever you look at anyone's detailed coverage map, every single company has bad coverage in that area. And the bad coverage area is exactly the same shape, with the exact same boundaries, nobody is shift slightly to the north/south or east/west... it's too the point that I would think that they are all using the same freaking towers. Damn conspiracy. Anyhow, reception sucks horribly out there, and I have to make a lot of calls to cell phones in that area, usually always have to wait until they move out of the area.
And yes, the area is rural, but it isn't extremly rural, there are still houses on all of the roads every hundred feet or so. And the funny thing is, if you move to the west or to the south into even more rural areas, where there is like 1 house on every road between the intersections, the reception is crystal clear.
[/rant]
just another case of something where if a corporation does it it's accepted business practice, but if you do it you go to jail.
fuck that. time to knock over some towers.
I wonder every time I see these "news" stories whether a journalist really thought they'd found something intriguing or whether a VP (e.g., at Verizon) simply called up his old frat brother (e.g., at AOL/TimeWarner) asking him to "just run this one story for me."
A couple of months back I saw the Indigo Girls on CNN Headline News (?)...I puzzled over it for a bit before arriving at the conclusion that Sony must have figured out that all of the old pot-smoking college-age feministas have moved on to high-powered sales/consulting/executive jobs, so they now have to reach them between the "Orbitz Travel Outlook" and "Business Updates".
Actually, Verizon Wireless and the Verizon "Baby-bell" that does all the land-line telephone stuff are two seperate companies under the same name.
Verizon wireless is a joint venture between Verizon telephone and Vodaphone Communications (more known in Europe). See this page for more information. www.verizonwireless.com/jsp/aboutus/index.jsp
So complaining to Verizon wireless about the quality of DSL service will not get you very far.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
The ads are a very clever way to counter the truth, which is that wireless coverage today is spotty and unreliable; the maps that are supposed to show coverage are somewhere between wildly optimistic and outright deceptive; and there's no honest, impartial rating or measurement service to let you compare services before buying.
If you happen to live in an area where the coverage is reliable, peace. Live long and prosper.
It's not always a matter of signal strength, either. I don't know whether Verizon technicians have driven Massachusetts Route 3 near Bedford at rush hour, but the signal strength is consistently high--it's just that calls don't get through.
Yes, I use Verizon wireless. The main thing that keeps me from changing is I have no way of knowing whether the competition would be any better.
It does seem like the various vendors would have an interest in splitting the towers in the remote areas, and agreeing to compete only in the high traffic areas. I wonder if that would have antitrust implications, at least in the U.S., though.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I'm not talking about wilderness or animal reserves (of which the 50% number is highly inflated because it includes the Reservations given to the Native Americans), I'm talking about access in towns of population 10,000 and higher. Been getting your facts from "unbiased" sources lik Fox News, eh?
Most of the Eastern U.S. isn't in a big city, they're just between the big cities. (Hell, look at Maine in the map -- it's got horrible coverage.) The phone company coverage schemes (especially Sprint's PCS network) focus upon getting coverage along the interstate system. As if everyone lives within 10 miles of an interstate, and as if everyone only travels along interstates. It's like they want truckers chatting on the cell phone while driving.
Drive from Chicago to Seattle sometime. You'll lose coverage in any moderately mountainous area (because the cell companies refuse to use the "cell" portion of the network and put up repeaters). Moreover, in the broad expanses of the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, eastern Washington -- where there are no mountains to interfere, the covereage still doesn't exist. Get to a city like Billings, and the coverage appears. Get 5 miles from town, and it goes away. Reason? There's one freaking cell tower. Oooh, what an investment in infrastructure. You know how many dead spots there are in town with only one tower?
Try taking highway 2, or even Amtrack along the same route, and you'll find even worse coverage.
The phone and cable companies like to pretend that it's too expensive to provide service in remote areas. For areas of the same population out East, they easily provide it. The numbers (# of paying subscribers) means that the system will fund iteself, and will pay off. But the infrastructure never gets built because of the cycle of no customers, no service, no service, no customers.
Saying that we should all move to a big city is a cop out. All the jobs aren't in big cities.
I worked for them back when Verizon wireless was still just AirTouch and was in the Southern California market. I used to install the monitoring equipment in mostly Jeep Wagoneers and Ford Broncos. The Tauri (Taruseses? :-) were just comming into use then. AirTouch also used to give out an enormous amount of free airtime we employees. However, we had to pay full pop for the equipment. No sweet bundle deals like customers. (Average going price of a nice handset + accessories at employee cost? $450). The reason being was it's a form of cheap network monitoring. There was a voicemail box we were to call and report problem areas, time and date of the incident, mobile number, blah blah... Anyway, this is most likely a carry-over from their absorbtion of AirTouch. They've been doing the mobile monitoring for ages. Quite often where to monitor was driven by customer feedback. They also had a plethora of other interesting toys at their disposal, used to assist law enforcement in cloning ring stings (back in the once prevalent analog days) and tracing and tracking of criminals via cell calls. The pay wasn't great but the work was fun and I learned quite a bit. At one point I was volunteering with the (phone) network folks in an effort to work in that department but ended up in their IT dept instead. As a result I got to see the whole of the works from handset to the pieces of fiber interfacing them to the PTSN and Baby Bel. Even got to work on some cell sites and play with some DEC switches (I think they've gone all Lucent since then). I've since moved on and am still in the IT biz now.
Wow! They bought SIXTY vans? At TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THOU each? Why, that's 16.2 MILLION dollars! Big bucks for sure!
They're spending a whopping 0.025% of their revenue (67.2 billion) or $0.52 per customer (31 million wireless customers) to see whether their customers are actually getting what are paying for.
Be still my heart!
(Say, I wonder how much they spent on the television advertising showing those technicians?)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Hook up a GPS and transmitter unit to what ever your gear is and hire "long haul" truck drivers to driver the gear around
There was an article about a year ago about Cellular One (now AT&T) doing that in the bay area.
Apparently they haven't driven the Ohio Turnpike between Cleveland and Toledo lately. Geez... complete shite. Let's not even mention their coverage in the southern Clevelan suburbs.
Yeah, right. I live in the metro area of Boston, MA. The heart of Verizon-land. And while at home, I get a crap signal from them on every verizon phone I've used.
Happily, AT&T gives me a much better signal - never a drop or a fade-out. So I dropped Verizon (after they dropped my calls dozens of times), and picked up AT&T.
Drive around the country all you want. But if you can't service one of your biggest metro areas well, then get out of the business.
Plus they changed their off peak from 8pm to 9pm. Who need their crap. AT&T rocks for me.
Christ, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is out, and the "NATALIE PORTMAN NAKED AND PETRIFIED" trolls aren't even raving about it! Shit! Start at it trolls!
They were adamant about not allowing you to change your address?
Tell them that you never agreed to relinquish your rights to freedom of movement under the agreement, and that you are moving to the following new address. Either you update your records or cancel the contract.
Morons... I'd simply contact the Atty General of your state and file a complaint...
The article is interesting from two perspectives:
1) The vehicle is a Ford Taurus
2) The guy driving it is a retired Marine...
Guess that means:
1) The car isn't going to get 'jacked' or stolen... Haven't heard of them being big targets for thieves...
2) Any crackhead stupid enough to TRY to jack the car will get the Marine Whammy put on him so fast he'll never walk again...
Guess I have to give a point to Verizon for thinking...
Cingular also uses third-party tester Telephia, a 4-year-old wireless market analysis firm that says it observes 1 billion wireless calls a day on average.
1 billion observed calls a day? Now EVERYONE can know how it feels to live in a rural community full of hicks with cellphone scanners.
I really have to move.
Being an ILEC network technician from a different company than Verizon, I've still got to give them a nod. Out of every wireless network provider that I've provisioned circuits, rings etc for, they have, by far, the most service going in, the best coverage and some damn good technicians to work with, sometimes a little impatient but can you blame them?
There's a big dead spot right in the middle of Irvine, CA- on the hill side of Turtle Rock, right between UCI, and the huge technology center of the Irvine Spectrum. This is really surprising- it's a big, wealthy neighborhood that must have hundreds of Verizon subscribers. It's been a problem for years. Everyone complains about it. But last I checked, a few months ago, the hole was still there.
I recently drove across the country on I-20. From just outside Shreveport, LA, to Brimingham, AL, there were plenty of holes, and no digital coverage at all. I'm sure the user density out there is pretty low, but I'm sure the people who do have cell phones really rely on them. The poor are being screwed again...
I recently learned the hard way how much more power an analog signal takes. Normally, my Star-Tac gives me a couple of hours' talk time. But with an analog signal, I only get 15-20 minutes! Obviously, digital service is what allows our phones to be so small these days. Big, bulky, heavy batteries aren't required. If you're going to be stuck with analog service in your area, be prepared!
they want to make sure they can track you everywhere so they scan for coverage holes and install a new tower or increase the signal strength
If only they'd expend the same resources getting me decent broadband. I mean, Sheesh... A mile from UUNET and three miles from AOL and all I can get is iDSL.... You'd think we'd have Major bandwidth...
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
It was a pretty interesting idea for Verizon to did they test their connections by dialing to the company from underground? not just how far it is...but if underground passages really interefere with the connections..just a thought.
http://www.palmzone.net
Verizon dude: "We get signal!"
Customer: "What you say!!!"
Customer: "Main screen turn on!"
Sprint PCS guy "How are you gentlemen??"
eh, you know the story...
Sheesh...you'd think cell phone companies would start using technology more...software is already out there for the entire US for signal propagation overlaying major/minor roadways and highways.
Marketing gimmicks....
Man I would love to see the results of this testing. Hell I would certainly pay to see a REAL coverage map before I decide on a new provider or plan and get locked into another 1 or 2 year contract for crappy service.
Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
I am moving to Baltimore in a few months. Anyone care to comment on Verizon service there? Particularly on 95 north of the tunnel.
As providers start building location based services into their handsets, it will only be a matter of time until the phones will keep track of the places they recieve poor/no coverage and report back to the companies. I wouldn't mind my phone using some of it's batteries to help build out a network.
Just my 02
David
Their selling point is to be shiny jewelry / status item for stupid people.
Maybe you get crappy service and pay out your ass but as long as you can "Bleep" people and annoy everyone around you with obnoxious tones it's all good.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
but that doesn't seem to work for verizon...
I tried that I can't here you now for weeks and still they can't fix the problem..so I go to cingular and it works fine...
In case you didn't know, this is just routine network measurements that every single operator in the world is conducting.
The cars and the gear are expensive, probably the equivalent of few seconds of revenue for such operators.
They basically use theoretical network planning tools and they use road measurements to improve their model and of course compare with the competition.
Good to see that the US guys seem to learn cellular basics. Hey, one day you might even be using a real wireless system!
All wireless companies, not just verizon, have "station wagons" that go out and test signal... It's one of the most important components of truly testing their system's performance. They can use computerized propagation tools, but in order to know the true state of their system, they have to "drive test" it.
um... you know that's just a commercial, right?
In the US, there are some anti-trust/monopoly issues that prevent it. I don't know all the details, but my understanding is that some municipalities tried to get the cell service providers to cooperate and build one shared tower instead of having to zone land for everyone. But, it wasn't allowed by law.
There appears to be a way around it: the service providers don't actually own the tower -- it's owned by someone else, who rents it to any (or all) of the service providers. But, each still has to install their own equipment.
Ultimately, I think that that seamless roaming agreements (I have one that gives nationwide service, a reasonable allocation of peak time and more off-peak time that I could ever use, with no roaming or long-distance fees) would be a better solution than full coverage by EVERY provider in low-density areas.
That really annoying guy in their commercials... "Can you hear me now?" I'm glad he's roving around the country. I'm looking forward to bludgeoning the annoying SOB senseless with whatever blunt instrument happens to be handy...
instead we drove blazers, with expensive ass equipment much fun it was, i once spent 14 hours driving in new jersey (the armpit of the states) gah i hated that but the overtime was fun. it was a fun co-op
http://omgwtfmedia.blogspot.com/
Here's the greatest logical fallacy with big, wealthy neighborhoods:
Wealthy neighborhood resident: "We can't get any cell-phone signal in our backyard"
Cell Phone Carrier: "Ok, great, we'll install a wireless tower nearby and greatly improve your signal strength."
Wealthy neighborhood resident:" Oh no you don't, you aren't putting one of those ugly cell towers in my backyard.
Cell-phone carrier: "But I thought you wanted us to fix the hole in the service?!?!"
Wealthy neighborhood resident: "We do, but we don't want any of those big ugly cell-phone towers in our neighborhood."
Happens all the time. People bitch that they can't get any good service, then they bitch that cell phone companies are trying to install cell towers in their neighborhoods. It's a lose-lose situation. The residents don't get cell service and the cellular companies still hear people bitch about the service gap.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
Hmm...they are getting "600 lines of data that detail the signal availability, clarity and speed of connection as well as which cell tower is being used to complete a call." And they are doing stats on competitor calls also. Wonder if you could do pull that back with a homebrew rig?(for less $$s) Seems like the hard way to accomplish what they're trying to do. Wouldn't it be cheaper to stick a GPS IC in a random sampling of customers' phones (giving them a discount on their monthly plans for the privilege) and just have the phone report in stats (in the background) for dropped connections when it reestablished service.
Can you hear me now?
*BLAM!*
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
for the cost of 10 of those cars and no miles, they could set up a call center and let customers do it for them. I'd call and report three dead spots that continually piss me off on the way to work if I knew they were going to do anything.
pucker up, buttercup
Not that it makes too much of a difference but the $67.2 billion was revenue for all of Verizon Communications. Verizon Wireless only made ~$4 billion if I remember correctly. $67.2 billion for a wireless provider would be absolutely incredible.
Used to be an an analyst for UK mobile network provider BT Cellnet/mmO2.
:)
Network quality and coverage is a big issue for the networks because it's one of the few differentiators for an otherwise commoditized service.
When I was working there they would make frequent appeals for staff to report any 'holes' in the network that they found whilst travelling around. Guess this approach is more practical in little old England than it would be in North America
Where can I find the map of their results posted? Answer: I the best of my knowledge, no cellular company posts this information publically. That whole Verizon ad campaign puts a bad taste in my mouth.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Someone let me know when the Verizon guy makes it to Maine. Once you get north of Bangor, even a 3 Watt analog car phone has lousy coverage. Trying to use a digital up here is just an excercise in futility.
Driving around in a station wagon "full" of equipment sounds like ancient times. I took a course in "mobility and wireless networks" at my University (Swedish)), where a representative from Ericsson was invited and demo:ed a device that looked exactly like a normal cell phone.
He hooked it up to a laptop via serial and USB and got all kinds of data from the GSM/GPRS network.
It was also very easy to inject malformatted data in the GSM/GPRS network and simply make it crash, he told us. The networks in the area where they develop it were prone to be down... ;)
Here you have a link to the official website (http://www.ericsson.com/tems/gsm/pocket-gsm.shtml ) along with a picture of it. He told us it cost about US$20.000 to get hold of one of them, and many phone operators in Europe use them.
I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home
Columbus OHIO Clintonville area north of henderson on high street. It sucks bad....
...on the rail lines because it stinks on the LIRR right in Verison's backyard.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Detailed Sprint PCS coverage maps, by city