the smedley log - suburban scrawl

Cell phone coverage maps, greener grass, etc.

Dan Gillmor notes the new T-Mobile coverage maps. You just put in your address (or the address of where you’d like to check their coverage), and see what comes up.

I’d have to commend this type of street-level mapping, especially because it doesn’t really give such a glowing report on my specific location. And I was really considering a cell phone migration this year, if I could find the right deal. T-Mobile was in the running, but now, I’m not so sure. Still, this is a pretty interesting development for a cellular industry which, up to this point, is generally evasive about giving such detailed information to its customers.

This is a note of curiosity: It’s not that I’m so unhappy with my current carrier, and I realize I could be playing with fire, but I’d love to hear what other folks in the Philadelphia area think of their cell carriers, just in case…

[evil] verizon’s service is top notch. i’ve never hit a dead spot outside of a basement or inside an elevator that i can remember in my year here.

He’s right. Much as I hate admitting (their getting my money for local long distance and dsl too) verizon’s pretty good. Not that I’ve used any other service over the past five years.

I agree with you—it’s interesting to see a company put a tool out there that could effectively decrease their business.

Like you, my first instinct is to think that companies use such tools to make their products and services look better than they are…that’s why I’m always suspicious of the speedtest that Verizon DSL tech support people ask me to run when I have a problem with the service…