How Verizon Wireless really tests its coverage (and a bit of telecoms trivia)

[Via Slashdot:]

Instead of a guy constantly repeating "Can you hear me now?" over the phone, Verizon tests its network using a fleet of specially-equipped Ford Taurus wagons. Because it's driving around anyway, it also tests its competitors' networks.

Jon Gales of MobileTracker went on a ride-along with a Verizon Wireless network tester in Florida and wrote up this report, with photos.

I use one of Verizon Wireless's competitors. I'm pretty satisfied with my wireless phone service, but I can never be sure that my phone will work inside buildings. My calls sometimes drop when I'm indoors, especially at the fringes of a wireless cell or in buildings with a lot of steel, concrete, or stone (for example, in downtown Denver).

Not even Verizon Wireless's would want to promise perfect indoor service, though, and Jon Gales's article demonstrates that Verizon Wireless's testing program is focused on outdoor reception.

Telecommunications industry trivia: Verizon Wireless (VAW) LLC is a separate organization from Verizon Communications, Inc. The latter company is most well-known as the incumbent regional Bell operating carrier in the northeastern United States, though it also has three other divisions. Verizon Wireless is jointly owned by Verizon and Vodafone Group Plc. Vodafone is a British wireless carrier, spun off from Racal Electronics, that went on an acquisition spree in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There was a minor controversy in 2000 over whether the FCC should allow a company with significant foreign ownership to acquire U.S. radio licenses. Discussion of the issue tapered off, and we now have both Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile. (Deutsche Telekom AG owns T-Mobile.)

I've only dealt with Verizon Wireless once. The people I talked to in the Court Orders & Subpoenas division of their legal department were courteous and efficient, but they're not the people that most customers have to deal with (one hopes!).