Who, I think, has the best (Digital) service ...
(Generally this is from a local Santa Cruz prospective. Last edited: 4/11/01)
10 = Perfect, 5 = So-so, 0 = Sucks badly...
Wireless Service Provider Typical Sound Quality Customer service * PacBell - GSM 7 - 9+ 3 4 * GTE Ca. - CDMA1 4 - 9 4 7 Sprint - CDMA2 3 - 8 5 4 * Cellular One - TDMA 1 - 8 6 6 AirTouch Oregon - CDMA 4 - 9? 99 Whomevers AMPS8 1 - 9 8 n/a Nextel 2 - 7 7 4 How did I come up with this list? I have a GTE - CDMA phone. I also have a TDMA phone. I've used, or have friends and co-workers that use the others providers. And I'm the person that was responsible for the ~50 or so, wireless phone service, for the company I worked for. Also, my (past) Employer builds wireless test equipment that REQUIRES that we have service with ALL the major (technologies) carriers! Not all phones work the same, some have different audio frequency responses. Have better receiver designs (better sensitivity). Or may handle interference, or weak signal areas better (RF and Firmware). Better Egernomics, and User friendliness.
Notes:
Significant improvements can be realized by using a product that facilitates an external antenna to be used (and a external antenna)! Such as: an external antenna adapter, a "Clear-Talk", or a "Full install car kit", and an external antenna.
* Pac Bell Wireless is now Cengular Wireless; GTE Wireless is now Verizon Wireless; And Cellular One is now AT&T (except in Santa Cruz, this is Dobsen's Cellular One.)
1) Std CDMA (presently, it's IS-95a (IS-2000 soon?)
2) Uses (I think?) EVRC/PureVioce (Qualcomm).
3) PacBell (Cengular) Wireless - GSM. Almost always, vary clear. When sound quality is starting to get poor, I often hear a "watery" sound to the voice, but is understandable, with out effort.
4) GTE (Verizon) Wireless Ca. - CDMA. Usually almost pretty good. It not as clear as I expect it should be, during fades, I hear garbled voice, missing chunks, bursts of static, and sometimes noise. This is particularly true when I had the "Free" phones (the cheep ones)...
Now that I have a Motorola Time Port P8767 phone, it's much, much better. It's usually always vary clear, almost as good as Pac Bell Wireless.
5) Sprint Wireless - CDMA. Varies less than 800 Mhz CDMA, is usually ok (almost as good as GTE). Seems to always have this distortion on the voice, particularly at the first salable of speech (VOX like), not as clear as I would expect.
6) Cellular One - TDMA. Varies dramatically from, Vary good to vary Bad. I often heir differences between cell sites, overall loudness, pass through gain, etc. While talking to a friend he'll go from perfectly clear, to sounding like he's talking through a fan, or chunks of voice is missing, or werst, parts of sentences are goon- All within several minutes?
7) Nextel. Only thing I like is, will work as a two-way radio. User are of the rudest people, wile using to 2 way mode, with volume up, loud, you get to hear there business, loud beeps, and that distinctive distortion, of there voices. A sorta watery, robot sounding, voices. I've heard that the system can't support long phone calls, that if you drive through 3 cell sites, the system will drop you. I was told that the cell site or phones only know who there three clossest nabors are, and after you've been handed off to the 3rd site, that you call will be dropped??
8) AMPS is not Digital, it's Analog, just used as a reference. At its werst, with lots of static, or other voices leaking in, at lease you can tell, barley, what there saying (at the werst). AMPS' werst problem is that it's unincripted, that sum TV's and older scanners, can receive the radio transmissions, easily. Its best feature, is that is almost everywhere.
9) AirTouch (Verizon) Wireless, Oregon - CDMA. I made a changes to our service, we were going way over our allotted minutes. When I called make changes, AirTouch made the new rate plan retroactive (saving us hundreds of dollars), and did not re-start the contract - everyone else would have - Maybe, she liked me???