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Ride Along With a Real Verizon Wireless Tester

Posted by samzenpus on from the everything-on-tv-is-real dept.

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

32 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. I gotta say... by deutschemonte · · Score: 3, Funny

    Go, go gadget grocery getter.

    --
    The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
  2. One word. by FireballX301 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wardriving.

    Best, wardriving vehicle, ever.

  3. Can you by mboverload · · Score: 3, Funny
    Verizon: You there? Good
    Slashdot: Nothing to see here, move along

    Almost makes Verizon seem like the good one ;)

  4. Nice map by tealtalon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can see where my nextel drops me everyday on the way home on 275 talking to my wife. Seriously.
    /me calls verizon.

    1. Re:Nice map by RevRigel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's their way of telling you to get off the god damn phone while you're driving.

    2. Re:Nice map by inKubus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why are you talking to your wife on the way home? You should be enjoying your last few moments of silence before dinner! dishes! hold me! sex and the city! blaaaaagh

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    3. Re:Nice map by jaysones · · Score: 5, Funny
      Phone work great when I talk to everyone else

      I'm sure Mrs. Frankenstein is happy to hear from you.

      ;)

    4. Re:Nice map by daikokatana · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

      --
      http://jcsnippets.atspace.com/ - a collection of Java & C# snippets
  5. Mobile debugging by mrm677 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I used to work at Motorola and we would, at times, have to bring an entire debugging setup out in the field. A van, with the phone test board, workstation, and logic analyzer all hooked up.

  6. My friend does this for Nextel by mo26101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A friend of mine does the same thing, except he works for Nextel. Needless to say, the job is quite boring.

  7. Can you hear me now? by jmcmunn · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Uh no, not inside a building.

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

    1. Re:Can you hear me now? by fm6 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I doubt if Sprint or Nextel has special inside-building towers. More likely they just happen to have a tower that's close enough to the various building you go into, and Verizon doesn't.

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

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

  8. I beg to differ. by kryogen1x · · Score: 4, Funny
    A tank would be so much cooler. It would give new meaning to WarDriving.

    Although, you can't pick up chicks in a tank.

  9. spinners by Doppler00 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, but does the wireless tester have SPINNERS on it?

    I hate those things....

  10. Pimp My Ride by Schwing84 · · Score: 5, Funny

    All that equipment but the guy really hoped that MTV and Xzibit would Pimp His Ride!!!

  11. No wonder their service sucks... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...the tester gets a skewed view because he uses equipment worth 3/4 million whereas real users have to use a crappy phone that costs a few hundred.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    1. Re:No wonder their service sucks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Driving around with a cell phone will tell you you're losing your signal.

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

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

    2. Re:No wonder their service sucks... by radish · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, because the guys who run nationwide cell networks with thousands of nodes and millions of subscribers would never have thought of that. My god man, credit them with some intelligence!

      --

      ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

  12. Dropped Calls by bleckywelcky · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Dropped calls for Verizon Wireless are pretty rare these days, with some months of testing seeing none."

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

  13. Download the track? by iCEBaLM · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ok, what the fuck is an .amr file?

    1. Re:Download the track? by keeleysam · · Score: 4, Informative

      Extension: AMR Program and/or Extension Function Company Adaptive Multi-Rate Codec Specific Notes Speech encoding format used in GSM telephony. MIME Type What's This? File Classification Associated Links * Player * Background Paper Identifying Characters: Hex: 23 21 41 4D 52 0A 34 ASCII: #!AMR.4

      --
      Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
  14. Doing something about service.. by inKubus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They've put up a shitload more antennas. It's interesting that people haven't noticed, because they've been camoflauged.

    --
    Cool! Amazing Toys.
    1. Re:Doing something about service.. by silvwolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I did some contract work for Sprint when they were building a network in a southern city. Summer job in college really. I'd drive around to cell phone towers and make sure they had power so Sprint techs could come and do whatever they had to do. I remember two sites in particular that I had trouble with.

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

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

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

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

  15. The 3/4 million car... by s-orbital · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um... are you sure its a good idea to publish a pic with the license plate number of a car carrying $750 000 worth of stuffZors?

    --
    Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
    1. Re:The 3/4 million car... by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Um... are you sure its a good idea to publish a pic with the license plate number of a car carrying $750 000 worth of stuffZors?"

      Good luck catching up with a vehicle that moves 3,000 miles a month!

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  16. Dude, where's my bar? by mveloso · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hope that wagon's got airbags, because the driver's gotta be drinking heavily during his job.

  17. or maybe you're blind by DarkTempes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    most of the equipment looks like it analyzes and stores information from the phones...
    if you actually RTFA and looked at the pictures would see a bunch of expensive equipment plugged into 4 different phones (one for each different company)

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

    the only possible thing i could think of is the phones may be getting a WORSE signal because they are all lying down inside of a metal case...

  18. I did this as a summer intern back in '95 :) by MikkoApo · · Score: 3, Interesting
    My assignment was to test how well the network handled peak hours in the busiest areas around the city's center. My equipment was a laptop equipped with testing software and a mobile phone. I was supposed to sit in bars (the boss marked the places very specifically) and take notes on how each test went.

    The test took place in the middle of the summer, during probably the hottest two weeks of the whole season and the whole city was totally empty, dead, void of people. People went to the beach, parks and on vacation while I was testing the "peak hours". Most of the tests completed without any errors so it wasn't a really succesful assignment unless you count the nice tan I got from it :)

  19. Ahhh... The good old days by Pedrito · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems like a lifetime ago, but I guess it was only about 11 or so years ago, I worked for a wireless engineering consultant firm in Arlington, VA. Among our many projects, one of the biggest during my time there was designing and building out the first Sprint PCS systems in DC, Seattle, and Portland.

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

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

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

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

    Thanks for the memories. I haven't thought about the old drive testing days in quite some time.

  20. I also do this... by OverkillTASF · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

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

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

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

  21. The Other Side by Unca'+Scrooge · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

  22. Re:sigh - I've had a bad day... by pokka · · Score: 4, Interesting

    FFS, *somebody* buy the slashdot editors a copy of StyleWriter.

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