Murphy's Law Still Works at Chez r0k!

[r0k]

I'm 4 days past the end of my 30 day trial period at At&t and now the Verizon iPhone rumors aren't just coming from Ed Hardy or even MacRumors. Now that I've swallowed At&t's hook, it's the Wall Street Journal's turn. Sheesh....

I've had 2 dropped calls, ironically on the eve of the end of my trial. Both times, people on the other end got some lame "At&t Network is experiencing..." recording. Oh well. I'm still happy. For now. That's 2 dropped calls in 30 days. That's 100% more than I had on big red but still a relatively small number. Even the WSJ can get hoodwinked so for all we know it's just another blogger crying wolf, ahem I mean crying VZW iPhone.

In other news, VZW has hinted around about tiered data pricing. So it turns out if I had just bitten my lip and put up with the following for another 5 months: missing stynk and BB OS 0 filefree resets and two devices in my pocket and missed appointments cuz BB OS gobbled them up and phone numbers listed as emails and emails listed as phone numbers and marvelously magically self duplicating contacts sometimes numbering 300 in one sync...

Maybe it isn't Murphy's Law after all. I feel more foolish for having waited so long to tell you the truth. Perhaps then I'd be at the end of an At&t contract now instead of at the beginning...

[Mi An]

I've had 2 dropped calls, ironically on the eve of the end of my trial. Both times, people on the other end got some lame "At&t Network is experiencing..." recording. Oh well. I'm still happy. For now. That's 2 dropped calls in 30 days.

I need to get that recording. I can play it when I get bored with a conversation (this happens for pretty much any conversation exceeding 45 seconds), and then hang up. It's ATT *shrug* what are you gonna do?.

[lelisa13p]

It must be an area/location thing, those dropped calls. I've been with AT&T since they were first AT&T, then BellSouth, then Cingular and then AT&T again, beginning in 1998 for cellphone. In the early years, courtesy of a crappy phone, I had many dropped calls & crappy reception when it worked. However, since 2003 I've probably had a total of 4 dropped calls & 2 of those were when I was deep inside a doctor's building at a bank of elevators. I've used my iPhone since Dec. 6th last year and have had only those 2 doctor's office drops. In the Atlanta metro area we are swamped with AT&T towers, heavy/robust coverage. I've never heard that recording and many family members are also using AT&T (doesn't use any minutes when we talk to each other.)

r0k, do you have Mark the Spot installed?

[r0k]

It must be an area/location thing, those dropped calls. I've been with AT&T since they were first AT&T, then BellSouth, then Cingular and then AT&T again, beginning in 1998 for cellphone. In the early years, courtesy of a crappy phone, I had many dropped calls & crappy reception when it worked. However, since 2003 I've probably had a total of 4 dropped calls & 2 of those were when I was deep inside a doctor's building at a bank of elevators. I've used my iPhone since Dec. 6th last year and have had only those 2 doctor's office drops. In the Atlanta metro area we are swamped with AT&T towers, heavy/robust coverage. I've never heard that recording and many family members are also using AT&T (doesn't use any minutes when we talk to each other.)

r0k, do you have Mark the Spot installed?

I had At&t on their old TDMA network which the poor souls on MetroPCS are now stuck with. I easily had 50 dropped calls a week as I traveled around Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Ontario and Quebec. It was enough to make me switch to Verizon and I never looked back. Until roughly 35 days ago . The two dropped calls I did have were not that memorable. Of course they were at inopportune times. After being with Verizon for a very long time, I got used to the idea that if a call ended unexpectedly, it was the Sprint or Att user on the other end. They almost always called me back to apologize and I never saw "call failed" on my end. Twice in one day seems like a lot, but that was the first time it had happened in 29 days of ownership so it was really 2 calls in a month. Not to shabby at all.

I downloaded Mark the Spot but I don't expect to get to use it "in anger" any time soon. I just might, however use it to mark places where I never got coverage like the basement of the hospital under the shielding below Nuclear Medicine, or the basement of my office where the only phones that work are Verizon because of the femtocells my company installed.

The most memorable "network" related incident I have had since getting my iphone was having my Verizon (work-issued) dumb phone stop working in the middle of the afternoon. I used my iPhone to complete what I was doing and did a battery pull on the Samsung. After the battery pull it worked fine again. I went down to the Verizon office on the first floor to ask them for a replacement phone and they told me their network was down that afternoon. I let them know I had to use my iPhone when their network was down, and I could hold it any way I wanted thanks to the free case Apple had provided. (Yes I can be a little sick at times.)

Thanks again for Mark the Spot. I'm glad to have it but I don't expect to need it very often.

In another humorous wrinkle in my situation, I find out today that Verizon is rolling out 38 markets worth of LTE by the end of THIS year. Know who got left out? Detroit. Wow. West Lafayette Indiana gets in line in front of Detroit for cell network updates. Clearly I live in the Rodney Dangerfield of metropolitan areas.

Can you hear me now? I can't believe Verizon hasn't picked up on the existence of Mark the Spot in their "Map for That" ads.

BTW, sorry I don't have a recording of what the other end gets if one of my iPhone calls drops, but are you still looking for something to play for the telemarketers when they call?

Try this,

or this.

[lelisa13p]

Those are exactly the circumstances for which Mark the Spot was intended, dropped calls or spotty coverage. The latest version includes many more preset options for choosing the cause for app use. I don't think that fact indicates the presence of more failed connections, just the ability to more quickly qualify the type of situation being reported.

[r0k]

As a dog owner, I must admit that when I look at my iPhone screen and see "mark the spot," I can't help but wonder why the icon isn't more... yellow...

[jigwashere]

I know you're at least somewhat anti-google, but Google Voice (GV) might offer a partial solution. As with all things, there are pros and cons to this idea, and YMMV.

If you set up a GV account to simultaneously ring multiple phones (e.g., work, home, cell, etc.), you can seamlessly switch incoming calls from one line to another at your convenience.

To switch phones in the middle of an incoming call, just press * while you're talking, and your other phones will ring. Then, for example, you can pick up the call from your mobile phone (if you're about to head out), or from your desk. There are no passcodes or PINs to enter and, best of all, your caller won't even hear the switch.

Keep in mind that it's not possible to switch phones during calls you make through your Google number.
Switching phones during an incoming call : Receiving Calls - Google Voice Help

This could come in handy when you're in an area with limited reception and have a landline nearby.

Getting Started Guide - Google Voice Help

[Varjak]

r0k, I'm just happy that the rollout of LTE seems concentrated on areas with some concentration of population. One of the 'problems' with the Sprint Evo is that 4G mostly started in secondary markets. I don't mean that to disparage these areas in other ways, but it did seem odd to start with areas with lower population concentrations. I think Baltimore was one of the bigger areas. And not to pile on; but Detroit's population is shrinking. Not the first area they're going to set up.

[rkevwill]

In another humorous wrinkle in my situation, I find out today that Verizon is rolling out 38 markets worth of LTE by the end of THIS year. Know who got left out? Detroit. Wow. West Lafayette Indiana gets in line in front of Detroit for cell network updates. Clearly I live in the Rodney Dangerfield of metropolitan areas.

Ummm, you do know, that West Lafayette IN is the home of Purdue University, the alma mater of astronauts, engineers, and damn good farmers don't ya? Oh, and computer science degrees like my son. Me, I'm just a liberal arts grad from the NCAA finalist and loser, Butler.

My guess is some of VZ's engineers went there. Nothing wrong with favoritism LOL

ADDENDUM....I just thought of one other thing. W Lafayette is a fairly small area, well its spread out mile wise, but small population wise, especially compared to Detroit. Detroit area, is HUGE compared to W Lafayette. Hence, an easier area to deploy.

[r0k]

r0k, I'm just happy that the rollout of LTE seems concentrated on areas with some concentration of population. One of the 'problems' with the Sprint Evo is that 4G mostly started in secondary markets. I don't mean that to disparage these areas in other ways, but it did seem odd to start with areas with lower population concentrations. I think Baltimore was one of the bigger areas. And not to pile on; but Detroit's population is shrinking. Not the first area they're going to set up.

Yes, Detroit's population is shrinking. However we have slid down to number 11 from number 4. I hadn't realized we had slipped down past number 28.

Ummm, you do know, that West Lafayette IN is the home of Purdue University, the alma mater of astronauts, engineers, and damn good farmers don't ya? Oh, and computer science degrees like my son. Me, I'm just a liberal arts grad from the NCAA finalist and loser, Butler.

My guess is some of VZ's engineers went there. Nothing wrong with favoritism LOL

ADDENDUM....I just thought of one other thing. W Lafayette is a fairly small area, well its spread out mile wise, but small population wise, especially compared to Detroit. Detroit area, is HUGE compared to W Lafayette. Hence, an easier area to deploy.

Verizon's signal around here is impeccable. It could be they prioritized areas where the existing CDMA buildout was lacking to bolster their service in those areas. Looking at nationwide data, Verizon always scores in the top two but isn't always the strongest signal in a given area. I wonder if they picked some of the areas based on where they need a boost to focus their LTE launch?