Coverage Map Audits Are Needed

Coverage map audits are indeed necessary to ensure accuracy, transparency, and accountability in the cell phone industry. 

Why Won't Wireless Carriers Admit Coverage Problems?

Does Admission of Guilt = Class Action Lawsuits?

There can be several reasons why wireless carriers may be hesitant to openly admit problems with their network coverage or services:

Verizon Has 5X More Lies Than AT&T

Verizon Dead Zones Map Showing Where They Lie

Why Does AT&T Wireless Hate Me?

Randall Stephenson AT&T CEO & Tim McKone AT&T Lobbyist

Deadcellzones.com has been trying to speak with AT&T (NYSE: T) executives for the last 10 years without any success in working with a giant telecom company.  We have sent many emails and made numerous phone calls to executives asking to share out crowdsourced coverage information with AT&T executives in order to help them build out their network where customers need it most.  We have also spoken to a handful of AT&T marketing, network operations, public relations middle management, executives but continually get blown off like our coverage maps are not important and don't exist.  Randall Stephenson my contact information is right here if you or any of your executives want to do the right thing and take our information for free.

Do they ignore us because they have been given a green light from the FCC to lie to consumers about their theoretical coverage maps?  Does AT&T ignore us because we don't have a telecom management pedigree or have raised millions of dollars in venture capital?  What validation do we need to get acknowledged by your employees?  Is this because AT&T would rather see our consumer-generated "dead zone" coverage maps disappear, rather than admit they are under-investing in their infrastructure where they hold spectrum licenses?  It makes good business sense to me to buy a spectrum license in areas that you have no intention of building out cell towers and coverage because if it won't be profitable.  However, is this ethical and shouldn't the FCC be auditing these gaps to give back this spectrum to regional carriers who might actually use it and provide coverage?

Deadcellzones.com has received hundreds of thousands of cell phone coverage complaints over the last decade and we publish them on our AT&T map.  We continue to receive hundreds every day from frustrated customers who want coverage help and ways to improve their over-promised AT&T signal strength. Why do we do this asked one prominent member of the FCC?  Because AT&T does not publish the information themselves because they fear if their competitors get this information they will exploit their weak coverage areas.  Sounds like a win for consumers if cell phone reception was more transparent?    

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Photo From @jbtaylor

Why The FCC is One Big Puppet Show

10 Reasons Why the FCC is a Joke

Despite the enforcement "lip service" you hearing from FCC Chairman Genachowski and Commissioners in the media about net neutrality or the big merger, the FCC is not working for you the consumer and are simply puppets of the carriers.  Here are two very important reasons why it's a failed organizational structure.  #1) The FCC refuses to publicly acknowledge or regulate the difference between actual vs theoretical cellular/broadband coverage and therefore cannot accurately enforce competition.  #2)  99% of their $500M of annual funding for 1,900 employees does not come from the taxpayers and comes directly from fees paid by the carriers themselves.  

One of the biggest arguments in the AT&T and T-Mobile merger is that there is sufficient wireless competition and rural coverage and therefore the merger of two large carriers should be allowed.  We would argue this is totally false and we can provide thousands of consumer-reported examples of where consumers can only get one carrier and sometimes 0 in certain cases.  Competition isn't fair on a regional basis and must be carefully audited by the FCC before allowing the merger to go through.  However, the FCC can't do this because they lack the resources to do it and continue to ignore the dead zone data we generate.  This is a huge failure on the part of the Government and will come back and bite all consumers if this continues.

DeadCellZones.com has reached out to the FCC for help numerous times over the last decade and asked them to take our consumer-reported dead zone data for free.  However, the FCC would rather "try" and generate their own data to mask the problems so they don't piss off their carrier constituencies.  So what did the FCC do?   They responded by launching their own FCC "Dead Zones" reporting website a 10 years later which has failed miserably.  However, their dead zone reporting tool was "designed to fail" because the FCC doesn't really want to know the truth or regulate the wireless carriers' false coverage claims.

Folks it gets even weirder with some questions that were asked of us by FCC executives.  They asked us "why we have created dead zone the maps"?  My answer is always because its the right thing to do by showing the deficiencies of a Government agency that doesn't really work on the consumer's behalf to regulate.  It was the aha moment for me to show there is way too much corruption between the FCC and the companies they regulate.  We won't stop what we are doing until the Government and the carriers themselves acknowledge why and what we are doing is good for consumers.  A little like "David vs Goliath".

The FCC is a "Government-regulated entity" that is funded by the companies they are supposed to be regulating and not the taxpayers.  Its a huge corrupt game the public does not understand and the financial media ignores.  The FCC has 1,900 employees and is supposed to act as an "independent agency" of the US government with an approximate budget of $466 million which is funded by measly $1 million in taxpayer appropriations and the rest in regulatory fees paid by the largest US telecom companies: AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), T-Mobile (NYSE: DTEGY), Sprint (NYSE: S), Cox, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), TimeWarner (NYSE: TWX), Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), etc.  The mission of every employee at the FCC is to write policy but does that really regulate if no one does anything or takes action?  Does this sound like an independent agency or a puppet agency with 99% of its' revenue coming from the companies it regulates?

AT&T is claiming this based on theoretical coverage maps not actual coverage that real customers try and receive.  The reason Deadcellzones.com was started almost 12 years ago was that carriers were being dishonest about where they were providing coverage.  In this decade coverage and speeds have expanded a lot but the same problem still exists.  No entity is auditing the coverage maps and the actual coverage that the carriers claim to provide.  This lack of oversight only hurts the smaller consumer who lives out in the middle of Iowa or Kansas in rural America.

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How to Save Money on Phone Bills

One of the biggest expense items for companies who have large mobile workforces are the monthly cell phone bills.  Companies typically do their best to get all employees under one carrier in order to theoretically save money and get a deal.  However, how do you know that you are getting a deal?

1)  Are you buying new phones for each employee to be on the same plan?
2)  Are you auditing the monthly call activity over your employees?
3)  Are they getting the best service possible in your area?
4)  If all of your employees are on one carrier are you locked into a "good" price?
5)  Should you be encouraging your employees to use free WiFi more often instead of the expensive 4G or WiMax plans?
6)  What if you could give each of your employees a choice of which carrier and the handset or smart phone they wanted to use?
7)  Are you employees spending too much time managing their phone services and reporting expenses?
8)  Are you wasting valuable productivity time provisioning phones to your new employees and getting phones back from employees no longer with the company?
9)  Are you using VoIP for international calls?
10) Lastly, are you auditing and keeping track of the coverage service quality that your employees are getting and using this as leverage when you renew your contract?

Here are some companies that might help you make cheaper international calls with VoIP and audit your cell phone call activity through the carrier. Auditing your call activity is very important these days as dropped calls and coverage quality is actually getting worse as data speeds increase.  Most of these hosted solutions working with cell phones using unified communications tools and are sold directly to small businesses and directly to consumers.

Google Voice - Gives small businesses a second business number and makes voicemail more efficient.  It will also save money on international calls.
Skype - Great for video conferencing and making international calls and for businesses of any size.

Second Voice -  Large enterprises can audit and manage employee phones by adding a second number to an existing employee cell phone. 

Toktumi - Hosted PBX that gives employees a second number and has apps for your smartphone  

Truphone - Cheap VoIP calls from your mobile phone over WiFi
Ring Central - Get 800 numbers and virtual PBX with VoIP for calls
Vonage - VoIP phone service target to home users
Fonality - Viritual PBX in a box for small to medium sized enterprises
Virtual PBX - Hosted PBX for small business
Vbuzzer - VoIP software for PC

Where is T-Mobile Expanding 5g Coverage?

What does 5g coverage expansion really mean for customers and why should they care?  Does it fill T-Mobile's coverage gaps or just provide faster speeds?  Are they fixing areas where they previously claimed to have 4G coverage on their maps?  Are they putting up new cell phone towers or just enhancing the new ones?

Carriers are sending out hyped press releases claiming to expand their network coverage and network speeds on a daily basis. Who is auditing their claims and where do they insist on making claims that are completely false and misleading?  

Here is a great example of a press release that is complete marketing fluff.  This press release is trying to convey their 5G to confuse customers yet don't explain how many towers have it and where it's available.   T-Mobile 5g+ Network Now Delivers Broadest Reach of 5G Speeds in U.S.. Now 5g+ network service is available in nearly 50 major metropolitan areas across the country, with the newest additions including Austin, El Paso, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Waco, Texas; Baltimore, Md.; Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La.; Birmingham, Ala.; Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, Ohio; Ft. Lauderdale and Jacksonville, Fla.; Greenville, S.C.; Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis, Ind.; Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Portland, Ore.; and Wichita, Kan. In addition, T-Mobile has expanded coverage in cities in previously announced metropolitan areas including Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. 4G speeds are now available for customers in Alexandria, McLean and Reston, Va.; Anaheim, Burbank, Glendale, Irvine, Long Beach, and Ontario, CA; Annapolis, Bethesda and Chevy Chase, Md.; and Asheville and Hickory, N.C.

I have a suggestion for you T-Mobile.  Why don't you provide more transparency about where you are expanding 5g coverage on a daily basis on a beautiful coverage map like we do on Deadcellzones.com our T-Mobile coverage map (below)?  Is it because you want to make it virtually impossible for media and consumer advocacy groups like us to audit your coverage claims and 5g expansion progress?  Your press hype is ridiculous and your lack of clarity of where you are expanding coverage is too confusing for any T-Mobile customer to understand the value of your daily press releases.

Here is a suggestion.  Get specific down to the street level on a map so we can easily see where we can expect faster speeds and improved capacity.  Your T-Mobile coverage maps are completely worthless to the average consumer now that dropped calls and data congestion happen more than ever on a daily basis.  Provide a map of where you are expanding coverage that would allow customers, employees, service providers, consumer groups and cell phone tower operators to understand where you have invested your resources to improve capacity and connectivity.   T-Mobile's senior management team needs to wake up and stop be paranoid about your competition because your lack of clarity and transparency is appalling.

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Where is Verizon Expanding Network Coverage?

What does this really mean for customers?  Is Verizon filling coverage gaps in areas where they previously have claimed to have coverage on their maps?  Is Verizon Wireless expanding network capacity to provide better data for its' customers?  Are they putting up new cell phone towers, adding wifi or allowing customers to finally use femtocells?

Carriers are sending out noisy press releases claiming to expand their network coverage in areas throughout the US.  Here is a great example of a press release that is just a waste of time, resources, money and effort.  Verizon Wireless Expands Network Coverage in New Jersey With New Ramtown Cell Site.  This press release is trying to convey a message to their customers explaining that they are adding one new cell phone tower in the state of New Jersey.  Do they really need to do a National press release explaining this to their 92 million customers?   This is a complete waste of time resources, money and just hype that is press release noise.  Here is a suggestion of how to better use your resources and make your media department convey a message that is useful to more people.

I have a suggestion for you Verizon Wireless.  Why don't you provide more transparency about where you are expanding coverage on a daily basis on a beautiful coverage map like we do on our Verizon coverage map (below)?  Is it because you want to make it virtually impossible for media and consumer advocacy groups like Deadcellzones.com to audit your coverage claims and expansion progress?  Your press hype is ridiculous and your lack of clarity of where you are expanding coverage is too confusing for any Verizon customer to understand the value of your daily regional press releases.

Here is a suggestion.  Provide a map of where you are expanding coverage would allow customers, employees, service providers, consumer groups and cell phone tower operators to understand where you have invested your resources to improve capacity and connectivity.   Your Verizon coverage maps are completely worthless to the average consumer now that dropped calls and data congestion are more common than it was ten years ago in 2000.  Your senior management team needs to wake up and stop be paranoid about your competition because your lack of clarity and transparency is appalling.

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Verizon Has 5X More Lies Than AT&T
Verizon Wireless Plans and Coverage Review

Call Failed or Dropped Calls?

It is virtually impossible to complete a call these days without a minimum of at least one dropped call.  Why does this seem to happen at the beginning of the call several times and they seem to work fine?  Failed calls and dropped calls are far more annoying than dead zones themselves.  There is much evidence to point out that as data speeds increase exponentially and the number of users increases on the networks that most cell phone users will experience more coverage and reception problems. Industry studies suggest that as the density of mobile phone users increases for wireless access to cell phone towers the likelihood of dropped calls and data congestion gets much worse.

Most 3G mobile phone users can identify several locations where their smartphone consistently drops calls. Our solution is to provide more transparency about where capacity is needed for data offloading from the network via Wifi to relieve carrier networks. Click on the map links above to report dropped call locations.  Here are some steps to follow after you have submitted your complaint on our map:

The most common cause of dropped calls is not exactly what you may think.  Most people think your proximity to the cell phone tower or location is most important.  However, the amount of people on the same cell tower or network around you is actually the most important these days as competition for signals intensifies.  Obviously, your cell phone will have the strongest signal outdoors and when fewer people are using the phone around you.  Densely populated areas near offices and apartment buildings usually experience the most dropped calls.  Also, rush hour in your car is another common location for dropped calls.

Did you also know that 3G networks actually breath?  This means signal strengths are constantly being adjusted by the carrier according to the other users around you.  If your signal strength has always been good in an area, but suddenly goes bad, try removing the battery from your phone.   Leave the battery out for at least 10 seconds. Replace it and check your signal strength again.   

All of this evidence might encourage you to ask yourself if it still makes sense to stick with your larger mobile operators AT&T and Verizon?  Or might you be better off going with a smaller regional carrier carrier who has less customers around you competing for access to the network?

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Carrier IQ: Mobile Service Intelligence ?'s

Why are wireless carriers unwilling to look at open data source solutions (ie. deadcellzones.com) to solve problems and would rather spend 1000X more on a solution that might not return any more value than free solutions. Is it a control issue?

When I speak with telecom industry insiders about the value that Carrier IQ providers to their customers (who?) it isn't clear.  The only things I have heard from people who know the company is that they have "issues" and their data is "too expensive".  I have tried to reach out to the company several times unsuccessfully to see about building a mutually beneficial relationship.  One of my biggest "pet peeves" being a telecom industry outsider is the incestuous nature of protected carrier business relationships.  As I see it the carriers are unwilling to look at open data source solutions to solving the problem and would rather spend 1000X more on a solution that might not return any more value than we do.  In my view, the RF engineers are trying to protect their jobs at all costs and continue to create complicated stories that the marketing / business people can't comprehend.

From what I hear about their fancy mobile handset intelligence solution is that it provides quantifiable data that their customers can act on but are they really solving the problem better than we are?  What is wrong with having actual customers log complaints where the network stinks for free.  Carrier IQ probably thousands of handsets on the market that are generating data on their behalf that the consumer doesn't even know about. Its impossible to fill in all of the billions of places that have coverage gaps so shouldn't a smart carrier purchase data where their customers WANT it most.  As you can see I am a reluctant supporter of applications that sit on the handset and eat up bandwidth, battery life and network bandwidth.

Bridgescale Partners recently led a a $12M series D round of financing for CarrierIQ a provider of mobile service intelligence solutions that use the mobile phone to give detailed metrics on service quality and usage. Mohr Davidow Ventures, Accel Partners, Charles River Ventures, Nauta Capital, and Intel Capital also participated in the round.  If anyone can share customers or revenue history please post on the comments section below.  However, here is a summary of their funding history which seems very elaborate considering the simple problem they are solving.

Total Funding - $42M

Series A, 8/06 $10M

Mohr Davidow Ventures

Accel Partners

Benchmark Capital

Series C, 1/09 $20M

Intel Capital

Presidio Ventures

Sumitomo Corporation

Series D, 6/10 $12M

Bridgescale Partners

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How to Measure Cell Phone Radiation Levels

Studies are inconclusive about the effect of radiation from cell phones. Tawkon shows you when you're OK to talk on and how to minimize your exposure to mobile phone radiation just when you need to. Tawkon is the only application that recognizes when radiation exposure has increased, alerts you when radiation levels cross a predefined threshold, and provides simple, non-intrusive suggestions to reduce exposure to radiation. Suggestions are based on your real time environment and usage factors.

Tawkon  achieves this with our RRI™ (Real-time Radiation Indication) patent-pending technology. RRI collects and analyzes your phone's dynamic SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) levels, network coverage, location, environmental conditions and phone usage at any given moment. RRI leverages unique smart phones capabilities such as GPS, accelerometer, proximity sensors and more to help minimize radiation exposure during mobile phone usage.  Request a download here.

Mobile phones allow communication from any location via a network of base stations (cellular antennas). Information is transmitted from the mobile phone to the base station and vice versa via high-frequency electromagnetic fields.  Radiation intensity is greatest close to its source (the mobile phone's antenna) and decreases sharply with distance from the phone.  The intensity of cellular (non-ionizing) radiation exposure during a call depends on various factors:

A mobile phone emits less radiation when connection quality is good than when it is poor.

• Connection quality is, for example, better outdoors than in a building or areas with connectivity interferences (basement, elevator, car, etc)
• Connectivity improves with proximity to a cellular base station
• Connectivity can be reduced by phone usage such as antenna orientation (if the phone is held vertically or horizontally), travel speed, etc

The proportion of radiation absorbed by the human body when making a call varies according to:

• The model of mobile phone, conveyed by the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). Maximum SAR levels are set by governmental regulating agencies in many countries (e.g. the FCC in the US)
• The antenna’s proximity from the body

App screen shot

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Clearwire Adds "Honest" Coverage Maps

Kudos to Clearwire who has taken the “coverages map battle" to a whole new level, in a way that potential wireless users might find more useful than anything offered by Verizon or AT&T.   Their coverage maps use anecdotal network data signals from testing to show actual expected performance on a block-by-block level.  View the new maps at Clear.com/imap, which combine RF engineering network-performance graphs on top of a Google Map, allowing you to see a more detailed map of WiMAX deployments in each of its live markets.

It will be interesting to see how Clearwire customers users begin to add locations to our map of 4gdeadzones.com. Not all dead zones are treated equally and eventually 4G and LTE coverage maps will have to be audited for their claims as well. Maybe Clearwire would be open to being the first company to view user-generated maps as a customer-friendly service similar to financial auditing services Deloitte or PricewaterhouseCoopers.  It won't be long before major retailers Amazon, Best Buy Mobile and Radio Shack get into the coverage map business and will force carriers to be more transparent about their coverage.  Auditing is one of the best ways to accomplish this.

WiMAX Operators Fined For Poor Coverage

WiMAX operators fined for failure to reach the coverage target of 25% the population by March of 2009 stipulated by their concessions.

Three of Malaysia's WiMAX operators have been hit with fines relating to failures in rolling out their networks on time, the Star Online reports.   

Tan Sri Francis Yeoh, head of the YTL Group, which owns Y-Max, saying: ‘We believe in having an extensive network up and running as we don’t see the point in having incremental coverage. We take this business seriously. We will have 60% coverage (more than the needed 40%) by the next deadline.’ Additionally, unnamed sources at one of the operators claimed that the delays in achieving the coverage target stemmed from a number of issues including long waits for approval to install the base stations. REDtone meanwhile blamed technical issues with its spectrum allocation for its delays. According to reports, the country’s telecoms watchdog, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), advised REDtone, Asiaspace, and Y-Max Networks that they had failed to reach the 25% population coverage stipulated by their concessions by March 2009. The three operators all face differing levels of financial penalty, with Y-Max looking at an MYR1.9 million (USD559,000) penalty, while Asiaspace and REDtone will be required to pay MYR1.7 million and MYR200,000 respectively.

We promise to provide you coverage just look at our maps.  Where have we heard this story before?  I guess its much easier to audit coverage in a smaller country like Malaysia than the U.S.  Good to see some accountability coming to the telecom industry which notoriously over-promises and under-delivers.  If the FCC wanted to enforce rules it also could become a profit center of fines itself.  All they have to do is levy a fine against the carriers for over-promising coverage and the  Deadcellzones.com community of users can assist in the audit.