Carl Hutzler's Blog

So AT&T is pissed at Verizon for the TV ads Verizon is running which make fun of AT&T’s lame network. So they sued Verizon. But they lost their fight in court. So what now?

Spread a little FUD.(see video below)

1. Whose got the fastest network? Well AT&T does!

Why? Their HSUPA speeds are actually slightly faster than Verizon’s WCDMA data speeds (5Mbps vs 3Mbps approx). The technical specifications do not lie. But how much faster? Not much that will make much difference to anyone. Latency on both networks likely affects browsing speed more than anything (500ms average!). And isn’t the ability to actually use the data network kind of the first issue. AT&T’s data network is way overloaded and/or broken in many big cities including my own here in Reson, VA.

If AT&T’s network actually worked, then they would be killing Verizon. But as it stands, AT&T is way behind on network planning and everyone knows it. Bad AT&T. Spend less on Ads and more on towers.

2. Talk and Surf at the same time? Yup, GSM standards provide this capability. But how many times do you really need it? Not very often. And I doubt anyone on Verizon even realizes they can’t do it. Very minor point unless you are on conference calls for hours at a time on your cell and need to check your latest email on your cell.

3. Most popular Smart Phones? Well, the iPhone is popular. That is one phone. What is the other phone?

3b. (not 4) Access to 100,000 apps? Yup. iPhone once again. It’s like AT&T is taking credit for Apple’s App Store. Silly. And it is like they think they can make a list of 100 things they are better at even though it is the same thing….”This is a great car. Will get you to your office and back. Even has wheels!”

4. Name that starts with “V”. Funny guys. I get it, humor.

Truth is that AT&T missed the point. Their customers understand the issues especially those with iPhones. Verizon’s 3G network is freakin’ huge. And the coverage is always better than AT&T. Sure they both have coverage in the big cities. But once you get a little out of the way, Verizon still has coverage where AT&T drops to nothing most of the time. Maybe you are lucky and get EDGE coverage, but mostly I find AT&T just does not have any footprint period. Such was the case on my camping trip last weekend. People with VZ phones had full bars. ATT, nothing.

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And on top of the big footprint for 3G data and voice and even older technologies, Verizon also has a huge advantage in their network. IT WORKS! Sure AT&T has footprint in the big cities. But it is not reliable. My iPhone has shown call drop rates as high as 20% a day for a week straigtht as recently as September when the guys at the Apple Store ran some tests on the phone and showed me the results. Wow! That sucks something terrible for plain old phone service.

So instead of this bullshit, AT&T, why not fix your shit?

From an email my father sent me….

How smart is your right foot?
1. While sitting at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number ‘6′ in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction.

This will confuse your mind and you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your foot, but, you can’t. It is pre-programmed in your brain!

And there’s nothing you can do about it! You and I both know how stupid it is, but before the day is done you are going to try it again, if you’ve not already done so.

Last weekend I joined my son and little brother for a little camping with their boy scout troop. We traveled about 90 minutes to Camp Rock Enon, a BSA Camp located near Gore, VA. The camp-out was a combined winter camping/cooking theme. We cooked lunch, dinner and breakfast the following morning and had a great time just hanging out in between, lighting fires, digging holes, trying the obstacle course, and chopping wood. It’s a guy thing ;-)

The adults had some really wonderful stuff to eat. And many thanks to the ladies who did the cooking on this trip (grub masters, although the term seems wrong given the quality of the meals). Chicken fettuccine, Monty Christos, Potato Home Fries, cobbler, cinamon (monkey) bread and more. Best food I ever had :-)

Below are some pictures from the trip. I really enjoyed some of the spider web shots from the morning. We had a very heavy dew that actually started around 4pm the day before! And everything was covered in it by morning.

All of these were shot with my new Canon S90 pocket camera which is a great machine for these type of trips.

The Reston Town Center in Reston, VA is a very upscale shopping and business area located near Dulles Airport about 20 miles outside of our nation’s capital. The mall is home to a number of high end stores including Apple, Bebe, Banana Republic, and many fine resturaunts. In addition, the area is home to numerous fortune 500 businesses including Microsoft, Oracle, Google Sallie Mae, Fannie Mae, and many more. And the town center is also home to a number of 20+ story high rise condo’s priced in the million dollar and up range.

Certainly the Reston Town Center is not a low population, far out suburb. This is a major metropolitan city on its own.

Yet for a week now AT&T has had zero coverage on its 3G network. No voice. No voicemail. No data. Period. My wife noticed it first (around 11/3) as she works in the area every day. Then I noticed it a couple of days later on Sunday 11/8 when I went to a store in the area. I tried to use data to find the phone number of my dog’s vet. I couldn’t. So I tried calling my wife. Nothing. The phone (an iPhone) showed 5 bars but it had no ability to do anything on the network.

Then I noticed that the bars would drop to zero and come back with the E (edge) symbol. Then it would go to NO SERVICE. And then a minute later back to 3G but still no ability to use the phone. Nothing including turning off the phone would help.

On Tuesday I was at the  town center and again having issues so I went to the Apple Store to test one of their phones in the store. Before I could even get to a phone, the Apple Store Greeter guy asked if I needed any help. I explained the issue and he immediately said they were aware of the issue with AT&T. No one in the Apple Store could use the network or was able to make calls at that location! Wow. Bad.

I happen to know someone who works for AT&T and I sent him some info about the issue and he said he escalated it internally. But days have gone by and still no resolution. So today, about a week after it seems to have started (according to the report from AT&T which has notes of first reports on 11/7) I went to the AT&T store at the Reston Town Center. The guy at the counter immediately acknowledged the issue and looked up the problem on an internal status website. He confirmed that it was listed as an issue on his site and had been a problem for over a week even though the status on his site said it was first reported on 11/11 (yesterday). He then told me to contact customer service to report the issue (why did they not report it?).

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So I went home and called AT&T customer service (I could not call them from the town center, that was for sure) and found that they had the issue listed as “closed”! They were very nice and promised to re-open the issue. Then the call center person told me to restart my phone and even remove my SIM daily until the problem was fixed. What this hoo haa had to do with the tower at the town center being down I have no idea. Yes, I tried it. No it did nothing.

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One interesting thing is that she did mention a new cell tower was going up about 3 miles from that area. Coupled with this report from another site, I wonder if the behavior I am seeing at the town center is equipment failure or simply an overloaded cell. Seems that New York people see this odd switching between 3G and E constantly and it is well known that AT&T is severely overloaded in NYC. Who knows.

But I guess in the end I got $70 out of Ma Bell and that made me feel a little better. But I wonder how long it will take the largest cellular company in the United States of America to be able to provide voice service for their customers who pay them north of $150 a month to place and receive phone calls?

UPDATE 11/13/2009: Was back in the area today in the morning around 9:30am. Everything looked like it was working. Called a few people on the drive up and the call lasted all the way through the trouble area. Data was working too. Went to lunch at the town center around 11:45am and everything still worked great. Maybe AT&T had actually solved the issue. My AT&T contact even said that he had confirmed the issue was solved and they thought he (and I) were crazy to be still reporting the issue.

At 12:30pm everything came to a halt just like it has everyday for the last week+. My phone said NO SERVICE. I could not make calls. No data. Nothing. I switched to EDGE and was able to make a call and leave a vmail for about 45 seconds before I was dropped. And this call was made while sitting in the Barnes and Noble parking lot in my Jeep Wrangler with the engine off. No reception issues there, right?

Some screenshots below if it could possibly get AT&T to admit that maybe, just maybe, the problem may not yet be solved. One could only hope. Check out the one shot with the small circle instead of 3G or E (edge)…that is the GPRS network symbol. Man, that is grim. Makes me wonder why AT&T is so upset with Verizon that they are suing them about their latest TV ads. If Verizon has that much larger of a 3G network and if it even works half as good as the small footprint of 3G that AT&T has, Verizon should be tooting their own horn. You betcha.

We live in a very nicely wooded wooded neighborhood in Reston, VA. We love the trees, shade, and beautiful fall colors except for one small issue…the falling of those leaves.

The first year, Rylan and I raked the leaves and put them into bags. I think we did 100 bags! The process was time consuming to say the least. I think we (mostly me) spent 30 hours doing it.

I got a bit smarter the next year and purchased an electric leaf blower. This was a great step up. I could blow the leaves into small piles which saved some time (and energy) raking. And I could get a lot of the leaves from in between the foliage in the garden beds too. But I still had to bag them. At the time, I had a back yard that did not have a lot of grass and I would just blow them up onto the dirt areas and that solved half the problem. But I still had to bag the front yard.

A few years later I got a little smarter yet and started the “tarp” method. I would blow the leaves onto a huge tarp and drag them onto the driveway where I would let it rain on them and I would drive on them and much them down a bit. Then I would bag them using a shovel to just scoop them up. Much faster. And the wet leaves packed the bags much fuller. Less bags, less work. Still was a bit hard getting the bags to the curb as they were heavy and sometimes burst.

I have also tried lawn mowing the leaves into mulch. That does not work well for large volumes but works fine for the last bit of clean-up after you have done the raking. I have also tried using the bag on the mower, but it just fills way to quickly. And you still have to dump the bag somewhere.

This year I started thinking a little outside of the box.

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Earlier in 2009, my dad figured out a system for scanning slides. In the process, he enabled me to digitize slides from many years back including all the hikes I had taken over the years with my friends out west. I took the time (a lot of time!) to create a site and log all the trips, the routes, and many of the stories of our adventures.

Finally it is complete. Enjoy 3mormons1jew.com