Speaking of Cell Service

[deadheadskier]

....As much as I agree that smaller companies give better service than the big boys where it seems to be all about money, coverage area is one thing I'd love to see universalized. It is said that the vast majority of people rarely travel further than 20 miles away from home outside of vacations, so for some it might not be as big of an issue as me. My business travels take me all over New England and most places Verizon works okay, but not all. It seems that Unicell is the best carrier for the boonies.

One would have to think that pretty much every square inch of New England now has cell service available by some carrier. I would like to see that network shared.

 

[Paul]

....As much as I agree that smaller companies give better service than the big boys where it seems to be all about money, coverage area is one thing I'd love to see universalized. It is said that the vast majority of people rarely travel further than 20 miles away from home outside of vacations, so for some it might not be as big of an issue as me. My business travels take me all over New England and most places Verizon works okay, but not all. It seems that Unicell is the best carrier for the boonies.

One would have to think that pretty much every square inch of New England now has cell service available by some carrier. I would like to see that network shared.

Sorry Ryan, it don't work like that. There's no fiscal benefit to any of the carriers by sharing the RANs (Radio frequency Access Networks) The only way you'd see this happen is via government intervention. And we all know how much that helped-out the wire-line networks...

 

[dmc]

They just put a huge cell tower on Hunter (Verizon)...

I'm gonna get calls in my fillings...

 

[Philpug]

They all equally suck.

 

[deadheadskier]

Sorry Ryan, it don't work like that. There's no fiscal benefit to any of the carriers by sharing the RANs (Radio frequency Access Networks) The only way you'd see this happen is via government intervention. And we all know how much that helped-out the wire-line networks...

Oh I agree, and recognize that. I can still bitch about though :lol:

 

[Paul]

Not to mention that from a technological standpoint, it would be a nightmare.

Think of it this way... If you want to choose your landline service provider, its a pretty simple task as your basically choosing between copper (or glass) wires (or fiber) A copper wire is a copper wire. If you live in East Bumblefark, NH as long as a provider can get a wire to your house, what difference does it make? Obviously, if at&t can bring in a T1, whereas Joe's supah retahded phone staah can only provide dial-up, its a pretty obvious choice.

RF (cellular) is different. The device chooses the provider based on how strong the signal is at any given moment. The lower the RF, the better the signal usually is, especially when you factor topography, tree density, buildings etc... Within any given frequency band (850Mhz and 1900Mhz for UMTS 3G) All providers carry traffic on the same 5MHz channel per Cellular Node. What differentiates the traffic to/from your device to/from your carrier of chouce is a 24bit scrambling code. The device gets the code from the HLR (database server) Every HLR in every node would need to know every scrambling code for every carrier in every frequency for every individual's mobile device. That's a really big number. Also, every device would need to know how to discriminate the best carrier channel among a very large number of choices. This would hurt as hand-offs would be constant.
Think about it, your device would constantly be handing your call off to different providers, between different technologies (ATT uses GSM, like the rest of the world, all other US carriers use some form of WCDMA-EVo) and different frequencies.

It won't work.

 

[deadheadskier]

learn me about satellite phone technology

 

[Warp Daddy]

OK OK i give up -- my eyes are glazing over now

 

[bvibert]

Not to mention that from a technological standpoint, it would be a nightmare.

Think of it this way... If you want to choose your landline service provider, its a pretty simple task as your basically choosing between copper (or glass) wires (or fiber) A copper wire is a copper wire. If you live in East Bumblefark, NH as long as a provider can get a wire to your house, what difference does it make? Obviously, if at&t can bring in a T1, whereas Joe's supah retahded phone staah can only provide dial-up, its a pretty obvious choice.

RF (cellular) is different. The device chooses the provider based on how strong the signal is at any given moment. The lower the RF, the better the signal usually is, especially when you factor topography, tree density, buildings etc... Within any given frequency band (850Mhz and 1900Mhz for UMTS 3G) All providers carry traffic on the same 5MHz channel per Cellular Node. What differentiates the traffic to/from your device to/from your carrier of chouce is a 24bit scrambling code. The device gets the code from the HLR (database server) Every HLR in every node would need to know every scrambling code for every carrier in every frequency for every individual's mobile device. That's a really big number. Also, every device would need to know how to discriminate the best carrier channel among a very large number of choices. This would hurt as hand-offs would be constant.
Think about it, your device would constantly be handing your call off to different providers, between different technologies (ATT uses GSM, like the rest of the world, all other US carriers use some form of WCDMA-EVo) and different frequencies.

It won't work.

You forgot about the flux capacitor. :dunce:

Seriously, thanks, that's a lot more than I ever knew about how cell phones work.

 

[Paul]

OK OK i give up -- my eyes are glazing over now

Yep, my job is a cure for insomnia.