Consumer Reports Ratings are Out----Verizon top carrier in 14 outof 20 cities, T-Mobile top carrier in 3 cities

The January 2007 Consumer Reports has their annual survey of cellular
phone service out. They surveyed about 43,000 cellular subscribers and
rate the carriers in 20 metropolitan areas on metrics of coverage,
network congestion, dropped calls, and static.

As in previous years, Verizon is the top carrier in most metro areas,
but T-Mobile and Alltel also did well in many areas.

The most amusing part of the story is the sidebar about Cingular's claim
of "fewest dropped calls." Consumer Reports states: "our own surveys
have found Cingular to be only about average when it comes to dropped
calls and one of the poorer performers in terms of overall satisfaction."

This annual survey is statistically the most accurate survey of wireless
carriers, though J.D. Power's survey of about 24,000 users has a
similarly small margin of errer. JD Power reached essentially the same
conclusions as Consumer Reports, with Verizon and T-Mobile leading in
all regions.

The metro areas where Verizon had a significant lead over Cingular (8 or
more points) were Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Diego, San
Francisco, Tampa, and Washington D.C..

On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:38:14 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45761f08$0$82584$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>The January 2007 Consumer Reports has their annual survey of cellular
>phone service out. They surveyed about 43,000 cellular subscribers and
>rate the carriers in 20 metropolitan areas on metrics of coverage,
>network congestion, dropped calls, and static.
>
>As in previous years, Verizon is the top carrier in most metro areas,
>but T-Mobile and Alltel also did well in many areas.
>
>The most amusing part of the story is the sidebar about Cingular's claim
>of "fewest dropped calls." Consumer Reports states: "our own surveys
>have found Cingular to be only about average when it comes to dropped
>calls and one of the poorer performers in terms of overall satisfaction."
>
>This annual survey is statistically the most accurate survey of wireless
>carriers,

Actually not a good statistical sample, due to its self-selected nature
from a non-representative universe.

>though J.D. Power's survey of about 24,000 users has a
>similarly small margin of errer.

Actually a fairly large margin of error, comparable in size to
differences between carriers.

>JD Power reached essentially the same
>conclusions as Consumer Reports, with Verizon and T-Mobile leading in
>all regions.

The conclusion actually reached was:

As a group, the carriers still leave much to be desired, Consumer
Reports editorialized.

They scored only 66 on a scale of 100 for overall satisfaction. ...

In other words, differences were relatively small and not terribly
meaningful.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

> In short, I would rate, based upon my or aquaintance experience as :
>
> 1. Verizon
> 2. T-Mobile
> 3. Sprint PCS
> 4. Cingular

I have a lot of friends and relatives in the Twin Cities area, and they
all use Verizon, after trying other carriers.. One friend lives west of
the metro area out near Hamburg, and the only thing that worked when I
visited them last year on their farm was AMPS. Cingular is hopeless in
the Twin-Cities, as the CR survey showed.

I think that it's rather amusing where CR states "our subscribers may
not be representative of the U.S. population as a whole." While true, it
also makes the CR survey even more valuable, since they're surveying
people with higher education levels, and higher incomes, that understand
the differences and why they exist. With such a huge statistical sample,
there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> 220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
> equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
> would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
>

I am sure John Navas can argue with them ... in fact, I am sure he already
has.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> 220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
>> equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
>> would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
>>
>
> I am sure John Navas can argue with them ... in fact, I am sure he already
> has.

Many people don't understand, or do understand but lie about, the
margins of error in surveys like this. They'll claim that 43,000 surveys
out of 200,000,000 qualified respondents is not valid, because "gee,
what if those 43,000 respondents happen to be all biased one way or
another. It doesn't work that way of course. You can get a very low
margin of error with a relatively small sample. In reality the CR sample
was extremely large, and even when you break it down by city, as they
did, the sample was still large.

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <4577589f$0$82555$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>I think that it's rather amusing where CR states "our subscribers may
>not be representative of the U.S. population as a whole."

What actually "rather amusing" is how you try to explain away the
admitted bias in CD surveys.

>While true, it
>also makes the CR survey even more valuable, since they're surveying
>people with higher education levels, and higher incomes, that understand
>the differences and why they exist.

There's no evidence of that.

>With such a huge statistical sample,
>there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
>0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
>220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
>equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
>would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.

On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
counts.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:21:34 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45783179$0$82525$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>> In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> 220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
>>> equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
>>> would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
>>>
>>
>> I am sure John Navas can argue with them ... in fact, I am sure he already
>> has.
>
>Many people don't understand, or do understand but lie about, the
>margins of error in surveys like this.

Either you don't, or you're being deliberately misleading.

>They'll claim that 43,000 surveys
>out of 200,000,000 qualified respondents is not valid, because "gee,
>what if those 43,000 respondents happen to be all biased one way or
>another.

The problem is self-selected sample from a non-representative universe,
a problem that size cannot overcome.

>It doesn't work that way of course. You can get a very low
>margin of error with a relatively small sample.

Actually not.

>In reality the CR sample
>was extremely large, and even when you break it down by city, as they
>did, the sample was still large.

But still suffering from the above defect.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

In article <ph7hn2l0caa3np35ufc69v7onihl01q5i0@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <4577589f$0$82555$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

> >With such a huge statistical sample,
> >there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
> >0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
> >220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
> >equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
> >would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
>
> On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
> counts.

john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:24:34 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
<jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
<jgkeegan-3B0144.18243407122006@individual.net>:

>In article <ph7hn2l0caa3np35ufc69v7onihl01q5i0@4ax.com>,
> John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
>> wrote in <4577589f$0$82555$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>
>> >With such a huge statistical sample,
>> >there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
>> >0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
>> >220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
>> >equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
>> >would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
>>
>> On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
>> counts.
>
>john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
>continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.

Truth hurts that much?

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

In article <159hn29hkcjooqgbubg1r7lmdkou34henb@4ax.com>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:24:34 -0500, "james g. keegan jr."
> <jgkeegan@gmail.com> wrote in
> <jgkeegan-3B0144.18243407122006@individual.net>:
>
> >In article <ph7hn2l0caa3np35ufc69v7onihl01q5i0@4ax.com>,
> > John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:56:20 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> >> wrote in <4577589f$0$82555$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
> >
> >> >With such a huge statistical sample,
> >> >there is an extremely small margin or error in the results, less than
> >> >0.5% if the entire population of subscribers in the U.S. (around
> >> >220,000,000) is used. If the 43,000 responses were divided by 20 cities
> >> >equally, this would be 2000 responses per city, the margin of error
> >> >would be less than 2%. No one can argue with these results.
> >>
> >> On the contrary -- that's "voodoo statistics", wrong on virtually all
> >> counts.
> >
> >john, you're going to have a hard time shilling for cingular if you
> >continue to demonstrate your ignorance of statistics.
>
> Truth hurts that much?

i don't know. you didn't post any