Nexus One Owners Report Spotty 3G Signals On T-Mobile

rsk writes "One of the most popular questions on the Google Nexus One support forums is the 'Spotty 3G?' thread with almost 700 posts of users complaining about their 3G signal coverage fluctuating up, down, and between EDGE/3G with the phone just sitting on the desk or compared to other 3G devices on the T-Mobile network that don't offer the same unpredictable behavior. One workaround that seems to fix the issue is forcing the phone into '3G' or 'WCDMA Only' mode. This is a bit of a downer given that T-Mobile just finished their 3G upgrade to 7.2Mbps. Official word from Google is 'We are investigating this issue....'"

Comments

Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[dgatwood]

No, really?

Have you seen their coverage maps? They make AT&T look good.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[RobertB-DC]

No, really?

Have you seen their coverage maps? They make AT&T look good.

I <3 T-Mobile, but their coverage has always been an unattractive shade of Suck. Even in Dallas -- home of Texas Instruments, y'all -- my cheap touchscreen is constantly switching from 3G to EDGE, or dropping data altogether. Hearing that Nexus One users are having trouble with T-Mobile's 3G network is like hearing that bears have been discovered crapping in the woods.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[jittles]

I actually had the same problem with my iPhone 3G until the 3.0 OS update came out. I was lucky to have any signal at my desk sometimes. Updated to 3.0 and suddenly I had full bars. Hopefully this is a software issue on the Nexus too.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[clone53421]

Spotty 3G Signals On T-Mobile?

There’s a map for that.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[skirtsteak_asshat]

Then the other guy came out with a reliable, fast network. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called 3G. That's three G's and a touch pad. For touching. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened—the bastards went to four G's. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three G's and a touchpad. Touching or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five G's. Sure, we could go to four G's next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let's play it safe. Let's make a bigger screen and call it the 3G Turbo. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we're a business, that's why! Stop. I just had a stroke of genius. Are you ready? Open your wallets, baby birds, cause Mama's about to drop you one sweet, fat nightcrawler: $40 Data plans. You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, we're the ones who have the edge in the cell phone game. We make the rules. What part of this don't you understand? If two G's is good, and three G's is better, obviously five G's would make us the best fucking network that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the network game by clinging to the two-G industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five G's is the biggest chance of all. Here's the report from Engineering. Someone put it in the bathroom: I want to wipe my ass with it. They don't tell me what to invent—I tell them. And I'm telling them to stick two more G's in there. I don't care how. Make the clients so thin they're invisible. Put some on the handle. I don't care if they have to cram the fifth G in perpendicular to the other four, just do it! You're taking the "fast" part of "fast network" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make network history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that five G's can happen, and it will happen. If you aren't on board, then fuck you. And if you're on the board, then fuck you and your father. People said we couldn't go to three. It'll cost a fortune to manufacture, they said. Well, we did it. Now some egghead in a lab is screaming "Five's crazy?" Well, perhaps he'd be more comfortable in the labs at Norelco, working on fucking electrics. Rotary phones, my white ass! Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Bic's wake and make pens. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Bic is the day I leave the phone game for good, and that won't happen until the day I die! The market? Listen, we make the market. All we have to do is put her out there with a little jingle. It's as easy as, "Hey, browsing with anything less than five G's is like scraping your beard off with a dull hatchet." Or "You'll be so well-connected, I could snort lines off of your chin." Try "Your wallet is going to be so friggin' soft, someone's gonna walk up and tie a goddamn Cub Scout kerchief under it." I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which AT&T is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, sweet Jesus in heaven.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Professor_UNIX]

It looks like if you don't live within a 15-20 mile radius of a major city you're lucky if you can even get EDGE service. There are vast portions of Ohio that have *no* coverage at all, not even GSM voice. Their entire network clusters around the six "big" cities in Ohio and trickles along the interstate highway system, but if you stray away from those areas you get absolutely no coverage at all.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[zn0k]

You're kidding, right?

http://www.cellularmaps.com/3g_compare.shtml

AT&T's 3G coverage is horrible compared to Verizon. T-Mobile's 3G coverage is horrible compared to AT&T.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[whisper_jeff]

I'm having that problem with my iPhone 3GS on the Telus network (in Canada). Unfortunately, Telus doesn't have an Edge system for my phone to fall back to so when it loses its 3G connection, it turns into an iPod... Often, switching it to airplane mode and then back is all it takes to reconnect, but it's a wee bit of a pain. I blame Telus, however - they (and Bell) rushed to get their 3G network launched so I figure it still has some issues to work out. Time, of course, will tell if my assumption is correct...

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[AndrewNeo]

Just 3G coverage? Where I live they make some MVNOs look good. You're lucky to get EDGE here, otherwise you get some pretty consistent GPRS at least. This is a 'major' city, too, we even have actual AT&T 3G. I don't think we'll see good T-mobile coverage here for years.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[zn0k]

Whoops - reading comprehension fail. Big time.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

No, really?

Have you seen their coverage maps? They make AT&T look good.

If you even bothered to read the summary, you would know that the Nexus One is having a hard time keeping a 3G signal even in places where other T-Mobile 3G phones pick it up just fine. The Nexus One owners aren't complaining that T-Mobile's 3G coverage is bad (although that's a valid complaint as well), they're complaining that the coverage is even worse with this specific phone.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[toleraen]

Sounds like your radio firmware got updated with 3.0. I'm guessing that's all the Nexus One needs as well.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[dgatwood]

I remember reading about that iPhone problem. I suspect that it's a bug in the stock firmware for that chipset and that this is another one of those obnoxious flaws in the way the chipset vendors handle patches. As I understand it from talking to some cell phone engineers, when you start out with a chipset, you get a standard copy of the baseband firmware from the chipset manufacturer. I'll call that the baseline version. Patches from clients for cell firmware end up going into a separate tree for that specific client and are not typically propagated back upstream to the baseline, so every phone manufacturer who develops a phone using any given chipset ends up having to find and fix the same set of hundreds of baseband bugs over and over. If that's true, I'm amazed that the cell manufacturers put up with it. That certainly explains why cell phones have so many hundreds (or thousands) of baseband crasher bugs, and it also probably explains why Google is having to relearn all the stuff that Apple just learned a few months ago, and probably Nokia learned a few months before that, and so on.

Sad, really. Everyone suffers because of corporate paranoia and overly strong copyright protection on minor source code patches. Were the firmware an open source project, cellular communications would be in much better shape. Of course, the telecoms are terrified of that because then people would be running rogue baseband firmware, and the tower baseband software probably isn't much more robust than the cell phone baseband software is, so once again, corporate paranoia results in a poor customer experience. And to some degree, the cell companies probably like it this way because it makes it harder for new competitors to build phones that work.

I'm so glad I don't work in telecom. *sigh*

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Sprint before they acquired Nextel

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[jimbolauski]

T-Mobile has always had coverage issues, they don't suscribe to the verizon plan of cover everywhere and charge your customers more for the towers that don't get used.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[bytethese]

You ballsack T-Mobile?

I ballsack them too, my Blackberry for work has THE worst coverage. It makes my iPhone 3GS look good.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[RobertB-DC]

You know, your pithy interpretation of the less-than-three emoticon may be the most accurate description yet for my relationship with T-Mobile.

It gives their "Get More" slogan a whole new meaning as well.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had so many dropped called when I was with AT&T. They were rated the worst network in the nation recently.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[swb]

Bravo! Original, copy or some bastardized version of something else?

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[my_breath_smells]

Patches from clients for cell firmware end up going into a separate tree for that specific client and are not typically propagated back upstream to the baseline, so every phone manufacturer who develops a phone using any given chipset ends up having to find and fix the same set of hundreds of baseband bugs over and over. If that's true, I'm amazed that the cell manufacturers put up with it. That certainly explains why cell phones have so many hundreds (or thousands) of baseband crasher bugs, and it also probably explains why Google is having to relearn all the stuff that Apple just learned a few months ago, and probably Nokia learned a few months before that, and so on.

This is precisely why Apple will never make a CDMA iPhone for Verizon using a Qualcomm chipset. The baseband firmware workload for maintaining fixes for two different chipset vendor's code bases is not justifiable. Apple chose Infineon for their chipset, and I expect their product roadmaps to remain closely aligned regardless of Qualcomm's offerings.

Apple makes a very limited number of hardware SKUs that can be sold worldwide. Don't expect them to offer variants for specific markets.

That, and Apple HATES Verizon.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Old97]

I'm still having that problem with my iPhone 3Gs. I work in the Loop in Chicago. It varies with the time of day too. I suspect that the amount of demand at any given moment is a big part of it.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI: You just cracked up the core engineering office at Clear.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[MrCrassic]

A minor nitpick: The complaint here is that Nexus One owners are experiencing spotty 3G coverage on their phones. Since none of the iPhones support T-Mobile's 3G band, none of them would have this problem.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[ppanon]

And to some degree, the cell companies probably like it this way because it makes it harder for new competitors to build phones that work.

This.

In fact the current state you describe is almost certainly due to cell manufacturers. It's not just about barriers to entry but also about competitive advantage. Otherwise the first adopters of new chips would spend lots of money on bug fixing in development. In contrast, their competitors would be able to release shortly afterwards with the shared firmware bug fixes and price their product lower because they wouldn't need to amortize the debugging costs that the first mover had to absorb. A manufacturer would only let that happen to them once, then they would find another supplier that didn't work that way. It's an interesting variant on the tragedy of the commons.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

The shame is it wasn't completely redone (there's still Norelco/Bic stuff in there), but I can't imagine scouring through all that and remaining sane so props regardless.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[lanner]

Real-world TMobile customer here, with a MyTouch 3G.

I don't have any problem with 3G coverage in Phoenix AZ. Do I really expect to get 3G coverage outside of the city? No. I get EDGE and regular old GSM out on the road and in rural areas, and that's just fine.

More than anything, I would say that 3G and coverage complaints are an issue of expectation management. Customers expect wacky things, like their phones to work underground and behind four feet of concrete and metal, or to get 3G in Podunk Alaska.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Kozz]

Bastardized from The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[RobertLTux]

Clear actually HAS an engineering dept??? I thought they just threw darts at one of those mindmap things

or is it the customer service dept that has the problem with reality??

hint for y'all ftp uploads are NOT FILE SHARING they are a core internet service

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

no no no c=3 is cock and balls. not 3

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Onion, Business section, February 18, 2004
Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades

An Internet classic.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a very good bastardized version of The Onion's 5-blade razor bit:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

c=3

You Asian or something?

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bastardised version of a spiel taking the piss out of the razorblade industry. CBA finding the original source, no doubt taking a few key phrases through google will float it up to the top....

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like your radio firmware got updated with 3.0. I'm guessing that's all the Nexus One needs as well.

No, the radio firmware is mostly the same. The signal representation in bars is just more optimistic than before.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Onion... five blades... that came true, too...

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sure AT&T may look good..... Until you try to connect (in a 3G location). Then you realize that Nexus One guy on the same bus is watching youtube videos while downloading emails, even if he's on Edge.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

You ballsack T-Mobile? I ballsack them too, my Blackberry for work has THE worst coverage. It makes my iPhone 3GS look good.

We should have a contest at which cell networks sucks the most and create a set of criteria of which we all go by for a month of testing. At the end the winner would get a trophy of a Nut sack with the name of the carrier at the base of the nutsack branded the ball sack award.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[fermion]

While I am every bit the conspiracy theorist, we do need to look at reality. The reality is that Google products are in infinite beta. They only have to work well enough to get by, and if data is lost it does mean the end of their business. No one is going to know if a server went down and the search results are different than if the serve was up. Mail accounts are deleted ad hoc, and they are only truly responsible for the few paying end users.

What does this mean? Cell phones are pretty much embedded devices that must work when they leave the factory floor. They can't easily be mussed with after the fact. This is less true of smart phones, but the standard policy of throwing code together to ship a product and then making it work does not really work with cell phones. People do not expect to debug phones in the way that we have to debug general purpose computers. We expect it to do what it does.

Even MS, who should know how to write code had trouble getting a reliable code base together. Apple barely did it, but people tend to be tolerant of less function if the machine is pretty, even I so do. But google, who, as far as I know, does not do 100% uptime embedded devices is competing against companies who have been doing this for maybe longer than the google founders have been alive.

It is only to be expected that they do not have the know how to integrate the components into a reliable stack. Reaching for conspiracy theories and collusion and copyright abuse is simply disrespecting the complexity of the job.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Customers expect wacky things, like their phones to work underground and behind four feet of concrete and metal, or to get 3G in Podunk Alaska.

Actually, mine works fine here in Podunk, but I am having serious cell phone issues in Anchorage, AK!

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[ceoyoyo]

Did the Onion use paragraphs?

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[hazydave]

This IS a real problem. And no one really talks about this.. except maybe Verizon, because they largely don't have it.

Ok.. set the way-back machine to the dawn of cellular phone technology. It was all AMPS, the original analog phone service. And it was 850MHz in the USA, 900MHz in Europe, deal done. Each area could support two cellular providers on that band, period. In the USA, one was usually Verizon (and, to a small extent, the companies Verizon sucked up over the years), the other was probably AT&T (and likewise).

Now, even in this, Verizon was doubly blessed. For one, they started with CDMA, they use CDMA today. Second, the CDMA 3G technology, EvDO, works in the same bandwidth (down to 2.5MHz.. 1.25MHz up, 1.25MHz down) as plain old voice. So every Verizon cell is a 3G cell. Sure, you lose 3G at the fringes, or sometimes when a particular cell is busy, but that's that. And they have the advantage of an 850MHz slot, which means, much more range for the same power. And it works much better in rain, and much, much better through forests and walls. Of course, Verizon also has 1900MHz (1800MHz in Europe) like everyone else.

AT&T Mobility was successful, but not Verizon successful. Neither was Cingular. Together, though, they made themselves the #2 network in the USA. One small problem: AT&T Mobility used DAMPS, the digital TDMA replacement for AMPS. Cingular used GSM (not originally, but by the time of the merger/acquisition). The proper move forward was GSM, but AT&T had to phase that out. That was also where most of their 850MHz slots were being used. They shut down the last DAMPS cell in 2008.. but had to upgrade them.

Two problems here, however, One is that DAMPS had greater range than GSM for regular voice/2G stuff. So some parts of today's cell grid from AT&T is not optimal. That's particularly bad on a standard GSM voice call, because GSM does hard handoff--- one cell drops you before the next one picks you up, as you move. If that fails, you drop the call. CDMA, and GSM/3G (UMTS/HSPA) do soft handoffs... the phone is actually connected to multiple cells at once, and one is dropped only when better ones are connected.

Then there's the GSM 3G technology. You can get that 7.2Mb/s downlink, versus a max of 3.1Mb/s on CDMA, largely because of fatter physical pipes. To see 7.2Mb/s (at least based on AT&Ts set regulation of per-user downlink speeds), you need a full HSPA+ setup, which is two cells bonded together, for a total of 20MHz bandwidth. Even for regular UMTS, you need 10MHz (5MHz up, 5MHz down) for the normal 3G. This meant new spectrum, rather than the CDMA folks being able to re-use their existing spectrum. Kind of.

AT&T actually had more licenses at 1900MHz, thanks to their merger with Cingular, so they could actually do 10MHz at least, 20MHz in some markets, using 850MHz and/or 1900MHz. So they just did. Which is in opposition to what had been planned, but it was legal.

Now, enter T-Mobile. They used to be tiny VoiceStream, at the time the only GSM company in the USA. They were acquired by the German Telecom, which might have been a problem, but they got Catherine Zeta Jones as their spokeswoman, and being really happy to see more of her on a regular basis, I know I didn't mind Germans running the thing. Besides, it's not as if the original VoiceStream did much good.

VoiceStream had a tiny network, and while they built it, they usually only had the single 1900MHz slot. So they didn't the range of AT&T or Verizon. Enter 3G... THEY actually needed the extra spectrum. Which was auctioned off... 1700MHz and 2100MHz. But this took time, of course... they were late to the party. And also, less investment in infrastructure, so even the completed 3G network covers much less.

At this point, though, you have to ask if 3G even matters. AT&T thinks it does... they're still upgrading their network for 7.2Mb/s HSPA+, and claim they'll have over 30 cities wired with the really fast 3G by mid 2010 (if you're an iPod 3GS user, you

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[hazydave]

That fails on several levels.

For one, there's a technology difference. Every Verizon (and probably Sprint) cell is a 3G cell. The EvDO technology works in the same bandwidth as 2G/EDGE/Voice, the original 2.5MHz block. So they don't need new spectrum. So, much cheaper upgrade. GSM's UMTS/HSPA needs at least 10MHz, and the 7.2Mb/s HSPA+ stuff needs 20MHz. They don't necessarily have the license, and even if they do, it's much more gear to add to a cell site.

Second.. Verizon has 850MHz coverage nearly everywhere they want it. 1900MHz makes more sense in very crowded areas, but on 850MHz, you get much more range for the same power. AT&T has most of the other 850MHz licenses, but they had to convert from the older DAMPS system... just completed in 2008. Cingular was laregly 1900MHz, so, much less range per cell.

And in fact, I'm paying less on Verizon than I would be on AT&T, and Verizon actually reaches my house, indoors. So that's easily proven false. T-Mobile has a new lower-cost plan, but I'd have to go outside, and usually to the end of the driveway.

Also, rural coverage isn't necessarily for people who don't use it. It's the coverage you get while on the road, in the middle of nowhere, population-wise, but on a major interstate. If the phone fails, you lose. But you aren't even seeing those on TV... the Verizon ads show the 3G coverage maps. The maps in the AT&T ads show any level of coverage (these are also online), and you'll find they pretty much have the same 2G/EDGE/Voice coverage as Verizon. It's just that only about 1/5th of their cells are 3G. Sprint and T-Mobile don't even really play, unless you're looking for some kind of 4G coverage (Sprint, as part of Clear, has it... others don't, yet. Verizon goes hot this summer, probably, AT&T probably sometime next year. Both on much better spectrum than Clear/Sprint).

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[grouchomarxist]

Bastardized version of an Onion article about razor blades, still including some of the references to razors.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[n4djs]

and I really enjoy trying to make any complaint about their crappy coverage (for example, downtown Decatur GA).. "We show 3 bars of coverage there"... blah blah blah... and they can't seem to handle handoff between particular towers either (at least places I know around the Atlanta area always result in a call drop while traveling along the same path...

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the actual phone was made by HTC? (Who's been making phones for a while now, previously in the Windows Mobile business)

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[mspohr]

I don't think this is a variant on "the tragedy of the commons". There is no "commons" here, just a bunch of walled gardens. If there were a commons of code for these modems, then everyone would have access to the code. There is a "fear of the commons" here that others will profit from the first mover improvements to the commons. It should be the responsibility of the modem manufacturer to provide solid software and they should compensate the phone manufacturers for their work fixing bugs if that is necessary. I don't think any phone manufacturer would intentionally pick a buggy modem set so they could fix it and have a competitive advantage. I think they would much rather buy a modem set that "just works" and compete somewhere else like phone features.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stolen whole-heartedly from The Onion's famous 5 blade razor story, if memory serves me correct...

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Writer of "Symbian OS Internals" said that he knows only 2-3 GSM signaling stack sold in the whole market. Diversity should be a key to success.
There were a widespread sudden crash and reboot obviously due to incompatibility with cell tower happened in Japan on ALL Nokia 3Gs sold in the country. that _was_ weird.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that back when they were ClearWire, I ended up writing up a cheatsheet of OS configuration directions for the two people who brought me my modem, I would speculate it's all over the place.

Although the engineer who did come out and verify that my service was terrible because their local (and primary!) tower only had a dual-T1 for a backhaul was pretty informed.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[WiiVault]

Well played sir, well played.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[ppanon]

I don't think this is a variant on "the tragedy of the commons". There is no "commons" here, just a bunch of walled gardens. If there were a commons of code for these modems, then everyone would have access to the code. There is a "fear of the commons" here that others will profit from the first mover improvements to the commons.

Just what exactly do you think "the tragedy of the commons" is?

Central to Hardin's article is an example (first sketched in an 1833 pamphlet by William Forster Lloyd), of a hypothetical and simplified situation based on medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's example, it is in each herder's interest to put the next (and succeeding) cows he acquires onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the common is exceeded and it is temporarily or permanently damaged for all as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the common will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all.

Clearly a shared base of code fixes is a commons. The point of the tragedy of the commons is that you have people extracting from the commons beyond sustainability because it's in their economic self-interest to do so. In this variant, the cell phone manufacturers are unwilling to contribute to building/improving a commons because doing so is not in their economic self-interest. There's a pretty clear parallel to me.

This is interesting because it has implications for the situations where open source-type communal projects are economically viable and where they are not. When computing systems were relatively rare, operating systems were part of systems that provided first mover advantage and could be sold as products. However, as computing capacity becomes commoditized and ubiquitous, the proposition of setting up a commons appears to become more economically advantageous. If the above is true, it would seem to indicate that open source communal projects are viable for commodity components for infrastructure, but not for core mission critical functions that provide a competitive advantage. If that's the case, then in a mature software development industry, there will only be manufacturers of software for vertical markets because software for horizontal markets will be better supplied by community-supported projects. Which would mean that in the long term, the economics are against the sustainability of Microsoft, Oracle, and other giants of the horizontal product market. In a mature industry the companies that will survive are companies that facilitate maintenance and use of the commons, like RedHat, Canonical, etc., and companies that focus on vertical markets and custom software development, like IBM, EDS, etc.

Re:Spotty 3G on T-Mobile?

[mspohr]

In this case there is no shared code base. There is no commons. Every phone manufacturer is keeping their modifications to themselves. They are afraid that if they create a commons that it will hurt them.

You could argue that they should create a commons and then benefit from sharing code fixes but they are not doing that.

they can stop looking

[girlintraining]

They can stop looking. Either the signal processor is of poor quality, or the antenna is too short. AT&T typically runs at a lower frequency than T-mobile, which means the signal attenuation is greater. The two GSM bands in use in the US are 850 and 1900 Mhz.

Re:they can stop looking

[Shakrai]

The two GSM bands in use in the US are 850 and 1900 Mhz.

T-Mobile is building out a good portion of their 3G network on the AWS band, which is 2110 - 2155 MHz for the downlink and 1710 - 1755 MHz on the upload.

Re:they can stop looking

[drijen]

Wrong. Tmo uses 1700 and 2100.

Re:they can stop looking

[girlintraining]

Wrong. Tmo uses 1700 and 2100.

Still a significantly shorter wavelength than 850.

Never Spotty

[Infiniti2000]

I post from my phone frequently and never hav

Re:Never Spotty

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh crap, is there a candlejack in t

Re:Never Spotty

[greyline]

How did you submit if you lost connection?

Re:Never Spotty

[stillnotelf]

You must be new here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NO_CARRIER#As_Internet_slang (Admittedly, it's not clearly a no carrier joke with no no carrier...)

Re:Never Spotty

[clone53421]

No, you must be new... anytime someone makes a candlejack or lost carrier joke, someone else must invariably be clever and comment on how it clicked submit for y

Re:Never Spotty

[Paul Carver]

I bet you're wishing that your connection had dropped out just before you clicked submit so that you wouldn't have uploaded that incomplete comment. Too bad that your connection was so reliable that it successfully uploaded your comment as soon as you hit the button.

Re:Never Spotty

[ceoyoyo]

It doesn't usually get modded funny though. Apparently the newbies all got mod points too.

Did only whiners buy the Nexus One?

[cmkeane]

I ordered the N1 right out of the box, and it has performed almost flawlessly. The 3G has held as good as anything in REAL use. And it has compared favorably with my experience on the myTouch on t-mobile, and a long list of WM phones on AT&T. It is possible there is a bad batch in the initial production line, or perhaps people are spending WAY too much time looking at their signal status! I have never seen any phone be perfect in holding steady bars/speed level on any carrier in real use - you know, moving about in a building, driving a car, and even just sitting in my office. Too many variables. Its a friggin' phone, not a magical device and large production runs may have some flaws. Now the apparent lack of customer support planned, that is a different story.

Re:Did only whiners buy the Nexus One?

[GooberToo]

Why is this marked troll?!?

Really the big question is, is 3G available when the user wants to use 3G. Otherwise, who cares if its in 2G when the phone isn't being used as that likely provides a huge battery life boost.

Re:Did only whiners buy the Nexus One?

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole thing has the odor of astroturfing on it. We have inflammatory headlines about 'support issues' from news outlets, and this week's non-story about termination fees.

If not an outright FUD campaign by Google's competitors, at the very least the media is blowing things out of proportion to get a story.

Re:Did only whiners buy the Nexus One?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's only the N1 consumer, it's everyone who owns a smartphone. I publish a quality, 4 star, app for 0.99$ and you wouldn't believe the trash people come up with to get their, often 0.60 euros/pounds, back.

People will pay 300% overhead for a bottle of water at an amusement park without thinking twice and only drink half, but when it comes to a 0.60 euro app! Fucker better gimme my money back a month later when I want it! Can't change the launcher icon! 1 star!!

Re:Did only whiners buy the Nexus One?

[PopeRatzo]

I ordered the N1 right out of the box, and it has performed almost flawlessly.

Shhhh.

You're spoiling all this perfectly good appleturfing.

Re:Did only whiners buy the Nexus One?

[d0rp]

I got my Nexus One the first day it was available, and I haven't experienced any problems what-so-ever. I am very happy with it.

And just for completeness: I previously had my RAZR2 on Verizon (though I was looking at getting a Droid or iPhone at the end of the month anyway).

Re:Did only whiners buy the Nexus One?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or this is a competitive marketing campaign to spread FUD by some other company? For all I know 700 complaints (and let's say, 20% are trolls, 10% are likely the same people!, really around 300-400 real complaints) out of what: 20K sold phones is not bad compared to the iPhone3G debut and about par with the 3GS. Think about it.

Re:underpants gnome solved

[MightyMartian]

This is what folks get for being early adopters.

The Heading is Wrong

[DustyShadow]

Should be "T-Mobile Service is Terrible No Matter What Phone You Use"

Re:The Heading is Wrong

[Bo'Bob'O]

I have a G1 and indeed, I have the same trouble. I tend to lock it into Edge mode most of the time.

Re:The Heading is Wrong

[HenryKoren]

I had the displeasure of having a G1 for a little more than a week before I send it back from whence it came. I couldn't even get Edge unless I strolled around my neighborhood looking for their pathetic signal. This after I spent six months competing in the android developer challenge. What a massive disappointment.

I am utterly baffled why Google would sully their reputation by attaching themselves to such a shit network.

How about releasing a CDMA nexus one on Sprint??

Re:The Heading is Wrong

[Mr2001]

I am utterly baffled why Google would sully their reputation by attaching themselves to such a shit network.

More likely, I think, is that they designed the first version of the phone to use the same 3G frequencies that are used in most of the world, so they'd be able to sell it worldwide.

Unfortunately, in the US, T-Mobile is the only carrier that uses the worldwide frequencies. AT&T uses different, incompatible 3G frequencies. It's easy for us to think that T-Mobile is the outlier because AT&T is so much bigger in the US, but it's really the other way around.

Re:The Heading is Wrong

[HenryKoren]

Because the only thing better than mediocre connectivity stateside is getting ass-raped with roaming charges when I place a call overseas. Sigh.

Thanks for the explanation though...

Re:The Heading is Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, in the US, T-Mobile is the only carrier that uses the worldwide frequencies.

No, the most widely used 3G frequency internationally is 1900/2100 (1900 MHz uplink, 2100 MHz downlink). T-Mobile USA uses 1700/2100 and until recently was the only carrier in the world using that.

Re:The Heading is Wrong

[Mr2001]

Hmm, perhaps I was misinformed.

Who knew?

[MongooseKY]

T-Mobile has 3G?

Re:Who knew?

[wfWebber]

Actually, not really.

"Well, yeah," says Google..

[RevWaldo]

"Nexus One is still in beta. You gotta expect the odd hiccup or two. (pause) What?"

Re:"Well, yeah," says Google..

[rhsanborn]

It's on a Google lifecycle. It should be in beta for roughly the next 7 years.

Re:"Well, yeah," says Google..

[robot256]

Funny thing is, you still have to pay for it even though it's in "beta". By rights as a beta tester they should be paying YOU...or are they pulling a M$ and making their customers into beta testers?

Fuck that, I'm stickin' with a phone that acts like a phone instead of a pc.

it's still in beta

[alen]

seriously, i was checking the Android Central forums and there is a whole thread there how it's a known issue with HTC phones going back at least a year and affects all carriers

Re:it's still in beta

[AndrewNeo]

But it's a Nexus One! A Google phone! (whine, complain)

Re:it's still in beta

[hydertech]

You would have thought that before releasing this critter Google would have googled it.

Thank you, beta testers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, beta testers! Now I am more informed of this new phone!

3g? How about just some signal, period?

[damn_registrars]

I have friends who live in suburban developments near where I live, and I can't get any signal while at their house. Two blocks in one direction from there is 4 bars, one block in another direction is 3 bars (followed by a dead spot another block past). I don't give a damn about 3g on T-mobile (as a T-mobile customer) - I just want to be able to use my phone as a phone. I have a pretty decent signal at home, but I can't very well drive home from anywhere and hold signal all the way home.

And even worse, the coverage maps on T-mobile claim that I should get "good" coverage in these locations where I have no signal. And this is on a quad-band blackberry.

Welcome to reality.

[jtownatpunk.net]

This is the same with every 3G phone on every network I've ever used. I've had to add (or un-hide) a band selector on every 3G phone I've ever had because the default settings are always designed to lock onto the STRONGEST signal rather than the FASTEST signal. If I'm going to be doing data-intensive stuff, lock it in 3G. When I'm done, switch it back to auto.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[Tikkun]

Don't you mean welcome to the USA?

Re:Welcome to reality.

[kindbud]

That's a good tip. Not all devices support it, though. But I never have switch it back to auto. I use 3G on Verizon, where I get four bars and 2.5 Mbps on my boat moored at Catalina Island, 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. With Verizon, you can pretty much fix it to 3G-only and never have a problem, except in parts of West Texas.

I wonder sometimes whether the difference is that Verizon uses CDMA, or that Verizon just has way more towers than the other carriers.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[fm6]

Didn't even know you could do this. A link to supporting documentation and/or software will earn you a small bribe.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[clone53421]

Does this help?

Re:Welcome to reality.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Google is your friend. Each phone and carrier are different. Search for

[carrier] lock [phone_model] in 3g mode

or something similar. Most WinMo phones have bandsel.exe hidden and either unhiding it or creating a shortcut to it will restore its functionality. Tho sometimes it is removed and sometimes it doesn't work properly with that particular phone/carrier combo. And, obviously, that won't help with non-WinMo phones. So do a search for your specific setup.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[fm6]

Is the left hand column phone models? If so, no.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[VoltageX]

And not just in the US either. Here in Australia I am constantly setting the band on my N95 to stop it either a) locking on to the 1-bar 3G signal when the 2G network is fine, or b) locking on to the 5-bar 2G signal when the 3-bar 3G signal would work fine.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[fm6]

Gee! Googling for information?! What a novel concept!

It isn't obvious to me that "choose the fastest, not the strongest" is the same as "lock in 3G". If it is, well then thanks for the tip, if not the attitude.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[clone53421]

I suspect so, but you might still find that your phone is similar to one of them.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Your mouth is smarter than your brain. "Sort by fastest" is not the same as "fastest only". If you can't figure out the difference, it's no wonder you can't work google.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Oh, and just to be clear since you seem a little dense. I didn't give you attitude. (Tho I am now, obviously.) I gave you a search string that should lead you to the information you need. I don't have all of the information needed to provide direct links to a solution for your specific configuration. I did, however, provide an example of the platform with which I'm most familiar and pointed out that, even in this single environment which represents a very small subset of the number of possible phone/carrier combinations, there are a number of possibilities that make it impossible to give you a 1-2-3 list of steps to follow. Even within the WinMo family of products, the process of enabling band selection varies.

So instead of sending you down some random road, I gave you the search string you would need to find the appropriate information as quickly as possible. And you come back and give me shit. Right back atcha.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[fm6]

I didn't give you attitude.

"Google is your friend" is usually a sarcastic reminder to people that they can look stuff up for themselves. If you're not being sarcastic, you should avoid the expression.

Civility is your friend. Sorry, not trying to be sarcastic, just illustrating how sarcasm can be more obvious to the sarcasee.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[fm6]

I work Google just fine. (I can no longer read a book without a computer handy, in case I need to look up something.) I also try to express myself clearly, a skill you seem to need work on, since I have no idea what you're trying to say.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[jtownatpunk.net]

I don't need to be civil. I'm on the Internet. I know I'm a jerk and I'm good with that.

Re:Welcome to reality.

[fm6]

I'm glad you feel good about yourself. But if you think that "being a jerk" and "giving attitude" are two different things, then there's something wrong with your brain.

As an ATT customer I can say ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that was just how 3G was supposed to work.

Re:underpants gnome solved

[happy_place]

nah. the underpants guy is what we get when chinese nationals are allowed to post on slashdot and have egg on their faces... :) As for spotty reception, I fail to see how google would be to blame for that. Sounds more like a cell-network problem.

That's why I bailed out from T-mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use 3G service, only basic mobile telephone service, but T-mobile sucked in my area. If I were indoors, 90% of the time I couldn't pick up a signal. I switched to Verizon, and have had no problems since. (I do have a non-usable SIM card Treo, but it was worth the switch.)

Plan for T-Mobile

[gregarican]

Since T-Mobile is a lower-tier provider in the U.S. (although has pretty good customer service from what I recall) perhaps they'd be better to reinvent themselves by partnering with a like-minded company. They should merge with America Online so they can truly jump the shark.

Seriously though, after 8+ years of heavy business use of Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile I'd put them in that order in terms of service coverage. And AT&T and T-Mobile are so far down the pecking order it's a joke...

I don't care about 3G.

[uacsux]

I bought it because it rhymes with Lexus.

I wish i could get a spotty connection...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Seriously, it would be an upgrade...

spotty 3g cause of towers?

[Pros_n_Cons]

T-mobile in my area has a problem. when my friend called up to complain about his mytouch they said he's between two towers so it bounces back and forth. Something is wrong with their implementation of 3g? I really want a nexus but having my phone being pinged back and forth by two towers would suck. Im even considering putting up a repeater in the attic

Re:spotty 3g cause of towers?

[meclamar]

All cell carriers do this normally. At my last apartment I was bouncing between 4 Verizon towers. None gave me good signal. :(

News...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, the sky is blue...

This just in!

[greymond]

A great phone doesn't mean shit when your only choice for service is a string and tin can.

Re:This just in!

[shock1970]

Silly Human... you're supposed to replace the can with the phone!

DDRROOIIDD

[Anonymous Coward]

I love my Verizon Droid.

Re:DDRROOIIDD

[MoralHazard]

I guess it's just too bad that you won't ever get Bluetooth PAN profiles on VZ--you're stuck with using only DUN. So, basically, your Verizon Droid blocks your Internet connection whenever you're making or receiving a voice call, and there's no technical reason why, just that they want to choke you off from using as much data bandwidth as you otherwise would, but without the nasty PR headache of explicit caps or overuse penalties.

Re:DDRROOIIDD

[Professor_UNIX]

Don't you watch the AT&T commercials? It's a limitation of the network that you can't use data at the same time as voice. You need AT&T to do that.

Re:DDRROOIIDD

[Neil Hodges]

Tethering costs extra on Verizon, anyway.

3g, no g

[Anonymous Coward]

EVERYONE has reported spotty 3G coverage with T-mobile...

Spotty 3G on Android over Verizon?

[Tekfactory]

This happens on my Droid with Verizon as well.

3G coverage seems to fluctuate wildly just sitting at my desk or at home.
I can try to download email and it will timeout, but while surfing the web, different websites will load immediately or sometimes not at all.

When I'm at home at least I can hop on the wifi and things improve somewhat.

I'd really like to have a network quality feedback app for Android like AT&T has for the iPhone. Actually I'd like to have a feedback app for a lot of the things on Android, including the Google Maps driving directions BETA won't be replacing my TomTom anytime soon.

I sign up for BETA programs, I've been a real QA tester, I don't mind using BETA software, but give me the ability to provide feedback right there when I'm using the phone.

Re:Spotty 3G on Android over Verizon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind the iPhone was flaky as hell for its first several months on the market. It got better, and so will the Nexus. This shit pretty much is rocket science.

2nd!

[raehl]

I have a 3G phone as well as a 3G broadband modem (a couple actually) The modems are configured to go for 3G at all costs, and I find they do a much better job at sticking to 3G than phones do.

For phones, it's really a no-win situation... do you want customers to be pissed that their data rate stinks or that their call quality/total connectivity stinks?

Re:2nd!

[jtownatpunk.net]

It's one thing to set the phones to behave in a certain way by default. Every device needs to have some sort of common base configuration that meets the needs of the largest number of customers. It's another thing entirely to hide/disable/remove the utilities that would allow the customer to adjust those settings to meet their individual needs. For me, my device is a data link which I occasionally use for voice calls. Since I make more than 0 calls per month, I need the phone feature but it's a distant second to data. But I have to "hack" my device to gain a level of control over it that makes it useful to me. That just ain't right. :)

US-mode telephony

[dltaylor]

Poor service in far too many cases, hardware locked into service providers, limitations on use contrary to the advertising (and, sometimes, contract), but the chumps/marks/"customers" can't really complain, 'cause the major carriers own enough of the government to stifle any redress.

Get used to it; it isn't going to get any better.

Yeah, it may be a troll/whine, but until the tech "fanboys" (us) go cold turkey and stop buying the contracts, there's not even a hope of change (and, yes, I have).

Re:US-mode telephony

[Anonymous Coward]

U just think you're the cat's ass don't you?

t-mobile's data coverage map

[farble1670]

http://coverage.t-mobile.com/default.aspx?MapType=Data

Re:3g? How about just some signal, period?

[BlueScreenOfTOM]

This is why I refuse to switch off Verizon regardless of what awesome deals T-Mobile comes to the table with. I hate everything about Verizon except the fact their coverage can't be beat. I have a Blackberry on AT&T provided by my company, and I will admit it gets similar connectivity in most places I go around cities. But once I go down into the Metro, or anywhere 30 miles+ away from a city, my Blackberry goes dead while my Verizon phone continues to pick up enough of a signal to make a call.

I think people neglect to decide what is really important for them when they choose which mobile carrier to go with these days. Is coverage most important to you? Verizon. Is the iPhone most important to you? AT&T. Is price and openness most important to you? T-Mobile or Sprint. Is push-to-talk most important to you? Sprint/Nextel.

Spotty Coverage on TMobile

[rec9140]

Who would have guessed that there would be spotty coverage on TMobile.

More like NO COVERAGE.

They are DISTANT 4th in the US marketplace among national level carriers.

There are regional carriers which have far more coverage in their region than TMobile as a whole.

Next time pick a REAL CARRIER, translation VERIZON!

GSM coverage in the US is "suboptimal"

[vanyel]

I switched to Sprint from AT&T years ago because of crappy coverage in the switch to digital, but recently caved and got a Cliq from Tmobile. I'd tried the G1 a year ago, and knew what I was getting into, resigning myself to buying a $300 cellular repeater just so I could use the phone at home. It's nice having the features in the Cliq (the options from Sprint were too limited for my tastes, and I travel internationally from time to time and wanted a phone that would work globally), and it works well when it *does* have coverage, but I find myself thinking about getting a cheap Sprint phone/plan just so I have a backup option.

A response from Google?

[sukotto]

You got a response from Google about a technical problem with one of their products?

How the hell did you accomplish that?

When you are on the bleeding edge...

[Pointy_Hair]

... it's always your blood all over the floor. Give it a while and they'll have that shiny new gadget patched up real nice!

minneapolis

[Anonymous Coward]

no one has said this, but t-mobile coverage in mpls-metro is as good if not better than anyone. Anyway, I'll pay one internet bill thanks. When mobile internet competes with cable, dsl, then i'll get on board. But we'll never get fair pricing with all you yahoos snapping up all these goofball gadgets on rip-off plans. Presently its useless. I have a 4 yr old winmo device with 8gb of static html (mainly wikipedia) I have the same (err faster) mobile referencing for free since that is how I acquired my phone. I am awesome everyone else sucks. Here's to t-mobile, for great customer service, the underdog, and the only good choice for anyone who wants to send money to more legitimate democracies.

duh

[gsgleason]

T mobile has spotty 3G coverage, period. I have a G1 and it's always been like that, as well as pretty much everyone else.

Re:3g? How about just some signal, period?

[visualight]

My G1 keeps roaming even though there's no place anywhere I go that doesn't have t-mobile. I keep having manually selecting T-mobile but when I check back an hour later there's a big R and no data.

Aww, What A Cute Liddle Troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a fucking retard.

Typical

[tgibbs]

Doesn't this happen anytime anybody releases a smartphone that is easy to use? All of a sudden, people are actually using the web browser in their phones, and complaining when their internet access is slow. And the demand for bandwidth goes up, and the weaknesses in coverage and the algorithms the phones use to lock onto the network start to stand out. If history is any guide, these problems will gradually subside after a few months and a couple of system upgrades.

Re:Typical

[WiiVault]

Yeah unless its AT&T in which case it continues to get worse and worse.

Re:3g? How about just some signal, period?

[Anonymous Coward]

May be a defective device?

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[Lawrence1986]

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Relativity

[Fnord666]

There's a simple explanation for why Tmobile's coverage fluctuates so much even when you are stationary. It's all about relativity. I don't think they actually have any towers, just mobile trucks that circle the city from time to time providing signal. Think about it. The signal is fluctuating around like you are driving through the city, only it's not you that's moving, it's the towers!

Re:3g? How about just some signal, period?

[damn_registrars]

May be a defective device?

If by that you mean a defective T-mobile cell tower, I would say that is plausible. My wife and I, as well as some friends who pass through the area often, are all T-mobile customers and we all know the same dead spot.

Mod parent up

[WiiVault]

I think I just got a hell of an education in the US cellular system. Thanks poster!