My Digital Life

Hurray! After 6 Months AT&T Finally Turns Up 3G on a New Cell Site Down My Street

3G signal strength inside my home has been terrible until yesterday. It has forced me to use 2G while at home (iPhone did not switch bands effectively and caused too many dropped calls), which has been a real pain since on the iPhone it takes 4 taps and I have to remember to do it.

Back in early 2009, I heard that AT&T was about to put a new cell site down my street and I was quite excited. Little did I know it would take so long to activate. The antennas were put up back in May, but apparently there were issues with Verizon (the local phone company) installing the appropriate backhaul circuit and Dominion Power installing a dedicated power feed. Even after all the regulatory and contractual hoops AT&T has to jump through to get a cell site approved, they then have to deal with the local phone and power companies taking their sweet time to deliver critical infrastructure. Especially Verizon who has no real incentive to give AT&T any slack when it comes to building out their 3G network, I know this is cut throat business but…

Anyway, it looks like yesterday was the magical day when all the stars aligned themselves and now I have 5 bar 3G coverage even the depth of my basement. And look at that dslreports speed test result…

Blogged with Word 2010

My Directv HR20-700 Video and Audio Stutter Issues (Update 3)

Back in mid-September Directv released a new version of their software. After the automatic upgrade issues with my recordings started to occur. The video and audio would drop out and essentially stopping the playback from 2 to 5 seconds. This happened so many times that it made the viewing experience of recorded content lousy. I have had no issues with watching live TV, but I seldom do anymore other than for sporting events.

In mid-October Directv released version 0x0368 of their software. This version helped considerably but the problem was still very noticeable.

I have been a Directv customer for 14 years now, but with the onslaught of Verizon FIOS marketing, the fact that I have FIOS for internet and home phone service, I was starting to think hard about switching to their TV service. The two biggest issues I have had with switching are:

1. The Motorola DVR which FIOS provides is substandard and they don't allow you to add an external drive.
2. If you purchase (additional cost) a Tivo DVR which provides the external drive functionality, you are stuck using one way cable cards which eliminates any pay per view or interactive feature.

Yes, FIOS could work for me, but the overall Directv experience is better and their iPhone app is a great little tool. The forums like dbstalk.com have provided very little help other than to the RBR (Red Button Reset) the DVR. This seems to help a little but you have to do it almost daily so that is not a solution. As I was planning my potential move to FIOS, I decided to call Directv customer service to see what they would suggest (I have to say I was pretty skeptical). As I explained my problem, the CS person narrowed the potential issue down to the disk and suggested I run a disk scan and report any errors.

I ran the disk scan (RBR, wait on the "just a few more moments" message, press the front panel down key and record button simultaneously until the scan message comes up). It took 16 hours to scan my 1 Terabyte external hard drive. No errors were found, but the scan clearly resolved some issues.

Last night I started watching recorded programs and although not perfect there are no audio dropouts and the video stutters are blips that do not negatively impact the viewing experience.

Bottom line this clearly a disk related issue associated with the update and probably associated with the external drive functionality which is supposedly unsupported but operational.

Updates:

11/23/09: Good weekend for recorded material with only minor video and audio stutters. It was interesting that the hard drive started making quite a bit of noise again (I wonder what is going on, could it be defragmenting?), but if it makes things watchable I will live with (my DVR and HD are in a cabinet 20 feet away from my LCD panel). I may schedule another scan this week.

11/21/09: I ran another scan Wednesday night and last night watched 3 recorded shows. This seem to help quite a bit, I had 2 minor video/audio stutters on a 30 minute show. I will keep monitoring.

11/19/09: I am sorry to say that the video and audio dropouts/stutters are back when I watched 2 recorded shows last night. I had planned on running another scan and started it around 10PM last night. It is about 60% done this morning. If this does not work, I may purchase a Western Digital My DVR drive to see if that helps (I would need it anyway if I went to a Tivo/FIOS setup).

 

Note: BTW, I am using a special starter edition of Office 2010 (closed beta w NDA) to edit this blog post I created with Office 2007. It is funny to see the file being opened in compatibility mode.

3G Coverage by Population

After the Verizon ad attack against AT&T 3G footprint, I thought it would be interesting to find out what the four major carriers 3G coverage is by population.

1. Verizon Wireless 284 million (source: mocoNews.net)
2. AT&T Wireless 233 million (source: AT&T)
3. T-Mobile USA UMTS/HSPA 200 million by the end of 2009 (source: Business Wire)
4. Sprint EVDO Rev A/0 170 million (source: Sprint)

The Sprint number seems low but it came from their web site, and the reference to 2006 looks like this page has not been updated for a while. I guess that is par for the course for Sprint…

A Major Reason I Love Lenovo ThinkPads

I have been using ThinkPads since the late 90's and have always been very happy with the design, durability and IBM service. I feel I am probably in the minority but I love the trackpoint, it works for me not to have to raise my hands while typing to use the mouse functions.

I have not had to use the depot warranty service for several years now. At the beginning of this year the middle latch of my 2 ½ year old X60 tablet fell out and I lost it. The latch pushes up and down through the LCD panel case so you can lock the panel to the keyboard base in either standard clamshell mode or reverse tablet mode where the LCD is exposed.

The reversible latch (at the top of this picture).

I finally planned some time where I was not going to need my X60 tablet; I was going to be away for the weekend and planned on using my VAIO P. I called Lenovo/IBM (IBM currently provides the service in the US) on Tuesday, they shipped a return box which I received on Wednesday. Thursday evening I took my machine to the local UPS store; IBM received the machine on Friday, repaired and shipped it back on Saturday for delivery on Monday morning. This level of service makes the rather dull but business looking ThinkPad a winner and the fact that Lenovo has so far kept IBM's design philosophy and build quality is what keeps me coming back.

My X60 is 2 ½ years old; it has worked very well with Windows Vista and is working even better with Windows 7. At this point I have no need to move to a newer model for the foreseeable future…

Verizon Has a Point with Their 3G Ads

I have been travelling this weekend and had the opportunity to borrow (not from Verizon) a Verizon Wireless MiFi 2200. The drive south from Washington, DC on I95 shows how far AT&T has to go before they provide the level of 3G coverage Verizon currently has. That said it does not mean that AT&T does not have coverage, they do but at the slower EDGE speed. This is where the Verizon ads are slightly misleading; I think most individuals don't make or understand the distinction between 2G and 3G. AT&T 2G coverage is as good as Verizon's.

I have no issues when I am in Washington, DC with AT&T, I love my iPhone and 3G speeds are good. Although I do have the occasional dropped call, overall the service has been getting better and better. My biggest issue is in my home office, my 3G signal is lousy and I have to manually switch to 2G. After talking to friends who have seen results of carrier network performance tests, they are convinced there are two major issues with the iPhone. First the chip set that Apple uses is just not very good and the AT&T base station configurations do not handle data bursts very well. The base stations are designed to provide high quality real time voice processing; data packets seem to arrive in burst and overload the base stations causing dropped calls. The bottom line is that there is plenty of blame to go around between Apple and AT&T. The iPhone issues are not AT&T's alone as many pundits claim, the problem are shared between Apple and AT&T; that is clear to me when my iPhone does not switch between 3G and 2G in my house. Apple controls the network programming on the iPhone and AT&T controls the network. Both have to work well together to provide a good user experience.

What is great about the MIFI 2200 is that I can use it with my iPhone on Verizon's 3G network even if I am in an AT&T 2G EDGE area.

The Verizon MIFI 2200 unit on my dashboard.

The Verizon MIFI speed test result via a WIFI connection on the iPhone in South Carolina.

A speed test result on AT&T EDGE network in the same Hilton Head Island, South Carolina area.

The bottom line; if you need 3G outside of major metropolitan areas then Verizon is currently the way to go, and for iPhone users a MiFi 2200 may be an excellent option. If you need only occasional 3G access Verizon has a day pass for $15; however you do have to purchase the MiFi at the full price of $269.99 vs. $79.99 with a 2 year commitment with a minimum $39.99 per month plan.

Today's Rant - Microsoft Drops Office Accounting

Actually this has been a weekend rant since I received the email on Friday evening stating that MS was discontinuing Office Accounting. As an independent consultant this is a very easy piece of software to use and the integration with Outlook Business Contact Manager is excellent. I can turn calendar events and tasks into timecard entries making invoicing a breeze. This event really added insult to injury, as I was in the process of converting MS Money to Quicken (another defunct product) this weekend. Earlier this week I had to get rid of MS OneCare as I migrated two of my machines to Windows 7, although on that front MS did provide a replacement Anti-Virus application (Microsoft Security Essentials).

This year seems to be a banner year for cutting consumer and small business applications. I know these were not top selling applications but they provided excellent functionality. At some level it feels like MS is abandoning the consumer and small business application market. This move may drive more independents to Apple and it makes me wonder what's next on the chopping block?

With my interest in smartphone technology, it is interesting that OEM manufacturers and cellular carriers have been hedging their bets with Android against Windows Mobile. With the many missteps made by the Windows Mobile team could they be next on the chopping block? I know Steve Ballmer is touting Windows Mobile 7 but if it is a flop, I think MS will run away from it as fast as possible.

-- Post From My iPhone