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Verizon's 'Can You Hear Me Now' Fleet Testing 4G
itwbennett writes "On the sidelines of the CTIA trade show in San Diego last week, Verizon showed off one of its test vehicles, a Chevy Tahoe equipped with a variety of phones and mobile data devices. The devices make voice and data calls over the air and are wired up to testing equipment in the back of the truck. The carrier has about 100 such vehicles around the U.S., and testers drive about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per year while conducting ongoing network tests, said Tom Badger, director of network system performance. One thing Verizon doesn't use: the well-known phrase from its TV commercials."
75% of 4G traffic will be similar to the above. I for one can't wait.
While this is all well and good, I'm surprised they can't get this data from the handsets themselves - Dropped calls / choppy calls / slow-loading pages, low-bandwidth connections - I'm surprised their own network monitoring systems can't provide this data without have to drive millions of miles.
Pfffffttt..... surely there are more interesting and useful things we can do with 100 Tahoes. How about welding 6 of them together side by side to form a solid wall of Tahoe, then deploy them on 6 lane freeways. People who refuse to travel at least at the speed limit will be run over by the wall of Tahoe - thus eliminating gridlock.
I'll feed them if they come to my house and my work. Test my area please!
We had a technician install Verizon FiOS at our house last week, and he called me at work to ask me where we wanted the wireless router. Unfortunately, we couldn't hear each other because we both have Verizon wireless and my home has terrible coverage. If they can't install their own services because their own infrastructure doesn't work, then they should report that feedback too.
One thing Verizon doesn't use: the well-known phrase from its TV commercials."
Any hints on what this well known phrase might be since it seems to be significant enough to refer to? I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be a few billion of us outside of Verizon's service area who haven't heard it.
All of the phone manufacturers have vehicles like that. Back when I worked in the mobile industry, we had a van fully equipped with all sorts of gear for measuring, recording and testing the network. It would do more than just measure signal quality. It would try to simulate a variety of conditions to see how hand-off worked. Early versions of CDMA would end up dropping your call even if you had all bars. Turns out the signal was strong to multiple towers and both ended up dropping the phone. There's all sorts of conditions that affect call quality.
Does Verizon wanted data or advertising. One could get a lot more data from a simple cheap monitoring device(like the USB computer). Pick a phone with a GPS and a signal strength output. You might need to hack the phone to get your outputs. Then program the device to make calls and record the signal strength and location over time. Results out of standards can be texted back to a central monitoring sight using the same phone when it's back in an area with phone service.
Now that you have a cheap set up, put one in every Verizon vehicle. You could even take this one step more and get hikers to add the device to there pack for data off road.
So, what is the point of this???? It is illegal to use cell phones while driving in a whole bunch of places, and the list is growing all the time. I need coverage in my home, client's offices, tall buildings with offices not near windows, airports, city parks, restaurants, etc. Not my car. So what is the big deal with focusing so much testing doing something that is both dangerous and potentially illegal???
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
In fact, pitifully incompetent. There's no need to spend so much on vehicles and wages, if you have a bit of imagination. I was recently working for GlobalMobilePhoneProvider, who also sell M2M (machine-to-machine) applications. They gave away data mobile units to the company that collects garbage, and fitted them to the garbage trucks. Guess what? Those guys visit every premises. And collect signal strength data. And they collect signal strength not only of GMPP's network, but al the competitors too. What's the cost? A few hundred mass-produced cell devices, no wages, and no capital cost of trucks.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
At least one other instance of this sort of testing has been shown to customers before. Years ago there was a TV show showcasing how cell companies tested not only their networks, but their competitor's as well. The test vehicle was a station wagon loaded to capacity with testing equipment and antennas.
You can't test your system using wired methods; running a $100 billion dollar annual revenue company, one might say 100 such vehicles (2 per state! have you seen how big Texas, California and Alaska are?) is almost criminally negligent in terms of measuring quality of service of both your and your competitor's service, both to your customers, and to your shareholders.
moox. for a new generation.
I do not want people to be charged extra for 4G service when there service area does not offer 4G but they have a 4G capable phone. Currently, Sprint charges $10 extra a month for "premium" 4G service even though a vast majority of their network is only 3G.
Tahoes? Looking at those pictures, you could fit all that equipment in my Nissan Versa, cutting the vehicles' non-personnel operation costs in half.
The Tahoe LS (2WD) gets 15MPG, slightly more when you're cruising at highway speeds (because you're going faster, covering more miles) 1million miles/15 miles per gallon = 66666 Gallons of fuel (rounding off that last 0.7 gallon) 66666 is the postal code of the beast! And that's quit a lot of fuel.
That's all fine and dandy, but that's not going to help in the locations where there are no garbage collection customers!
Open highways, outlying rural areas, etc, etc.
The cake is a lie.
First of all, signal strength is only one of many factors they care to measure. In addition the numerous variables that affect any NLOS radio system, LTE adds MIMO techniques, which means you also have to care about the spatial correlation in your multi-antenna set up and how it varies with other conditions and your location. Also, MIMO relies on some rather sophisticated digital signal processing, and the implementation of this processing is left up to the individual device manufacturer and thus its performance will vary among not just RF conditions, but among different devices. Throw in the fact that LTE has no in-built capability for voice calls, and now you have a slew of devices that have to fall back to the CDMA2000 network to make or receive a phone call.
Looking at the setup as described in the article, I really doubt it's terribly interested in signal strength at all. They're collecting data through several different consumer handsets and devices, so I think they are more interested in evaluating their performance and behavior under less-than-ideal RF conditions. They're interested in how the devices perform handovers, fall backs, how their MIMO implementations handle various real-world conditions, and generally how nicely they devices play with their network.
Show me a prosperous white nation that WASN'T built on the backs of free labor from blacks.
I am mostly cutting and pasting from a reply to a post I made earlier in this thread, but signal strength is only one of many factors they care to measure. In addition the numerous variables that affect any NLOS radio system, LTE adds MIMO techniques, which means you also have to care about the spatial correlation in your multi-antenna set up and how it varies with other conditions and your location. Also, MIMO relies on some rather sophisticated digital signal processing, and the implementation of this processing is left up to the individual device manufacturer and thus its performance will vary among not just RF conditions, but among different devices. Throw in the fact that LTE has no in-built capability for voice calls, and now you have a slew of devices that have to fall back to the CDMA2000 network to make or receive a phone call.
Looking at the setup as described in the article, I really doubt it's terribly interested in signal strength at all. All you need for that is a single radio on a single antenna, paired with a GPS receiver. But in these setups, they're collecting data through several different consumer handsets and devices, so I think they are more interested in evaluating their performance and behavior under less-than-ideal RF conditions. They're interested in how the devices perform handovers, fall backs, how their MIMO implementations handle various real-world conditions, and generally how nicely they devices play with their network.
This explains a lot. A Tahoe simply won't fit in my apt, in my cube, on my train to work, or anywhere else I need a signal.
Verizon better be careful with testing it's mobile data or they might come back to find thousand $ mobile data bills at their desk when they are done...
You so realize that the cost of this is probably a tiny fraction of 1% if their yearly revenue, right? Even if this cost them $500 million a year (most likely a magnitude or more higher than it actually costs them) it would only represent 1.8% of their yearly revenue.
The US Postal service should be offering their trucks to house this equipment for a fee. No other service travels to more parts of the country more regularly. Certainly piggybacking onto postal trucks would save Verizon (and ATT, Sprint, T-mob) money and give them better testing coverage.
It would also help fund the Postal service which is billions in the hole.
Veramocor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SkeGC-5gXQ
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