Keep Your Head In The Clouds

I work for a Cloud Computing company.  Probably the biggest in the world.  We have competitors such as Amazon, Microsoft, and a variety of smaller "ma and pop" shops.  I recall, with fondness, a good friend that used to live down the street from me.  He was  key player in a company that was developing technology for what became cloud computing.

He was always excited about this new technology.  Currently he is at a different company now, but what he was starting has swept the world!

The idea of Cloud Computing is a wonderful thing!  Image a place where you can store all of your data, programs, music, photos, etc.  Imagine being able to retrieve this anywhere you are via a laptop computer or a smart phone.  Well we are kinda there right now.  My company provides a means for purchasing a server, whether this be Windows-based or Linux-based is no problem.  You can buy this server and set it up any way you like.  (The company has support people available to help you if you need it.)  You can host a website on these servers, back things up to these servers, or place any data you want on them.  You don't need to worry about a physical server, maintenance, or power outages.  You use the server and let the cloud company do the rest.  Convenient, YES!

This last week Amazon's Cloud had a few problems.  A few very high profile sites, such as Four Square and the popular video game blog, Giant Bomb, went away, gone, poof!

Amazon had some sort of critical failure which caused a cascading failure of many of their servers in data centers across the country.  This reminds me of a situation that occurred back in the day when I worked for a large computing company.  One of our engineers was creating a small program that would perform a specific function on a test server in our lab.  He ran the program, but didn't disconnect the server from the Internet.  A side effect of this program was that it would take down any server that it contacted.  By the time we realized what the program was doing, almost all of the servers in our world-wide company were down!  (Needless to say we created a fix that would make the servers protected against this type of attack.)

With this failure from Amazon, people and companies have become concerned about the fragility of The Cloud.  One quote is as follows:

"Clearly you're not in control of your data, your information," said Campbell McKellar, founder of Loosecubes, a Web site for finding temporary workspace that was not available Thursday.  "It's a major business interruption.  I'm getting business interruption insurance tomorrow, believe me, and maybe we get a different cloud provider as a backup."

A while back I used to work for a company that provided a vital service to over 5,000 clients through cloud computing.  Their selling point, you don't need to install any software, just run it through an Internet browser.  However, one Friday evening, the owner of this company's data center decided to test the fire suppression system.  This was a pressure-based system that basically put out a fire by depriving it of oxygen, thereby saving the computer equipment.  They ran the test, but had the pressure of the system set way too high.  They ended up destroying 5 hard drives in the system's disk array.  (Funny thing was that the disk array could loose up to 4 drives and survive...)  Luckily this was on a Friday, repairs were made on Saturday, backups restored on Sunday, and the service was back online by Monday morning.  The point being that there are so many things that may or many not be in the control of the hosting company.

I have to brag a little about my current company.  We have data centers in key parts of the USA and also the world.  We have yet to have any major failures, heck any failures at all.  We provide the ability for a user to take snapshots of their environments any time they choose.  In addition, we do backups with daily incremental backups.  For the most part, a safe environment for someone who doesn't want the responsibility of maintaining the physical server.

So for some customers that I know, cloud computing solutions are perfect for them.  I can contrast two doctors offices:  The first has their in-house computer and billing system.  They have to pay for system upkeep, maintenance, and down time.  Contrast this to the second doctor office that uses a cloud solution.  All you do is login each morning to the cloud and use your program.  All you do is pay a monthly service bill.

With the variety of services available in the cloud, including the amazing ability to backup your computer overnight, I would like to highly recommend it, but then, I just might be a little bit biased.

Till next time,
Bill

How To Totally Screw Up Your Life

I have had a good friend practically all of my life.  I wish this was a bad friend.  I really wish that I didn't have this friend at all since all it does is totally screw up my life!

This friend of mine in totally uncontrollable anger.  I can recall getting angry when the door to my darkroom (70's photography) became locked on me.  I ended up kicking a hole in the door with my steel-toed boots.  After I did that, I had that ominous hole in the door to remind me of what an idiot I had been.

I remember hearing about a friend who became really angry with his wife and ended up taking it out on the sink in his bathroom.  He pulled it out from the wall and crashed it down on the floor.  Basically, all I ask, what did that accomplish?

Anger causes you to hold grudges against people, mostly friends.  This can be extremely destructive behavior when something like this happens:  Your good friend borrows your wrench and forgets to return it.  This person calls up and asks to speak to you, however your wife answers the phone and lets you know who it is.  You respond, loudly, so your friend can hear over the phone, "Is it the WRENCH stealer ???"

Anger can cause problems when driving on the road.  You never want to let anyone merge in front of you, for that is a sin.  You never want to do anything nice for anyone else on the road.  You are always competing with the other drivers for some sort of sick contest that really has no winner.  When someone tailgates me, I used to like to slam on my brakes to drive them crazy.  What did it accomplish?  I got a few people to flip the bird in my general direction.  In worse case scenarios, and you read about them all the time in the news, people settle their road rage differences with guns or fights, or who knows what.  Luckily none of my road rage incidents have gone this far.

However, there was one time where I was freaked out.  A good friend of mine happened to be behind me and thought it would be funny to tailgate me home.  I became freaked out and did all my usual tricks including driving all over the place because I didn't want this weirdo following me home.  Boy did my neighbor have a hoot over my behavior.  Boy did I hate him for doing that to me.  I have to tell you that this neighbor has played some mighty fine jokes on me over the years, but I got him back royal just one time, and one time is all it took.

So we went to a neighborhood party.  Lots of good food and a softball game to boot.  My neighbor's wife conveniently left her car keys in the cup holder of a chair and went off talking.  I saw the keys and "borrowed" them.  The rest of the evening my neighbors car's alarm kept going off.  I would push the fob's panic button, my neighbor would run to the car to to stop the alarm.  As soon as he came back to the party, the alarm would go off again.  It was a lot of fun until the party was over and I, being a nice guy, gave him his keys back.  Boy was he pissed when he realized it was me setting off his alarm!

Back to anger.  It is not worth it.  Any kind of anger just wastes time.  Anger between spouses.  Anger between parents and children.  Anger between brothers and sisters.  Anger on the road.  Anger at work.  Anger anytime!

I have to admit I have visited with a shrink about my anger problems.  He has been extremely helpful.  One mechanism I use to combat anger is: when I realize I am getting angry, I count to three and try to imagine what the results of getting angry would be.  Guaranteed not good at all, in every case!  Problem is, anger is like a firecracker.  Once you light the fuse it is very difficult to put it out before it explodes.

If there was no anger in the world, it would be a much better place to live.  Personally, I am going to do all that I can to keep anger out of my life, because in the end whom does it hurt the most, ME!

Till next time,
Bill

Will We Ever See Spring?

This morning I woke up, looked outside, and saw that it was overcast.  It is almost the end of April and I could have sworn that it was the end of March.  In the time that it took for the kids to get ready for school and leave, it started to snow!  Snow at the end of April!  About a half hour later it stopped snowing, clearing up such that I could see blue sky.

However, the crafty weathermen, using their hi-tech forecasting equipment guaranteed me, last night, that there was a pretty good chance of Meatballs, I mean snow all day today.

So I am at work now.  No snow on the roads, nor to be seen for the time being.  I am sitting here thinking about the upcoming Presidential election.  The big one of 2012.  On the Republican side of things, who will stand up?  Who will have ALL of the solutions to the Nations problems?  Who will be the next one to offer the Queen of England an iPod?

Presidential candidates get judged like nobody else.  They are scrutinized over their whole lives.  Some candidates have had smoking pot in college brought to the limelight.  Others, drunk driving and other stints in prison.  Some are scrutinized because of close family members actions.  And yet if all these areas are clean, then possibly the candidates religion is challenged.  So, I ask, what could be a defining standard to evaluate a man for the Presidency of the United States? 

Should it be a requirement to have the Secret Service perform an all inclusive background check on all declared candidates for President?  Would this definitively solve problems like was President Obama really born in the USA?  Donald Trump doesn't seem to think so, however, do we want someone like Trump running the country who has had problems with debit and bankruptcy? Or would this experience be good for a country that is $14 trillion in debt?  Does it really matter if Mitt Romney is a Mormon, when his experience in business is second to none with his saving of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics and his work as Governor of Massachusetts?

There needs to be some sort of mechanism to ascertain the honesty of a Presidential Candidate.  Apparently a  person who echoes change everywhere they go is a good thing, by political standards.

However, with the 2012 elections headed our way in about a year and a half, I'm afraid that everyone in this country voting age and over will have to vote the old fashioned way, that is, listen to what the candidates have to say, form your opinions, and then vote accordingly.

I have always dreamed about owning a TV station.  If I owned one, I would have no advertising.  I would show all the great series and movies, but have no advertising.  That is my dream.

I also have a dream about Presidential candidates, that they would be required to submit to extremely thorough background checks, with all this information being made public by the entity doing the background check.

Like the TV stations dream, having a Presidential candidate air all of their dirty laundry, whether willingly or not, is not going to happen.  TV stations will always have advertising to support the station (or fund raising) and Presidential candidates will always have portions of their lives that they are not proud of and want to stay hidden.

Here is one more poster on change, I like it.

I could speak volumes on this, but it will have to wait.
Till Next time,
Bill

The Human Crash

I have had a laptop computer for roughly four years.  It has been a good computer, but it came with Windows Vista as the operating system.  Vista (IMHO) is a stop-gap release for Microsoft between the solid and successful XP and the current Windows 7.  In the four years that I have had this laptop, the Vista operating system has crashed, and crashed so hard that after the "blue screen of death" was displayed, and I had rebooted the laptop, the resulting bootup was corrupt requiring me to either restore the original Vista image to the laptop, or try and rebuild my laptop from the corrupted point it was currently at.

This week I had had enough when this happened for the fourth time.  I went and had Windows 7 installed on my laptop -- something I should have done a very long time ago. 

So why do I bring this up?  In looking at my laptop and its frequent crashes, I compare that to my life.  I have noted that several things make a well-balanced person (now a shrink may or may not agree with me on this):

• Support of a good wife or companion
• Support of good kids
• Support of friends and extended family members
• Religion
• Someone to talk to when all the above fail you

Life is tough!  I don't need to tell anyone that.  I used to have a poster in my bedroom when I was growing up.  It was a picture of several lemons falling into a juicer and lemon juice coming out.  It said, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"

Ok so this wasn't like my poster, but I like it!  There are days when I really need to talk to someone and for reasons only the universe knows, all the above support cast in my life fail me, so I have to resort to making lemonade.  Most of the time this works.

Last evening I watched the relatively new movie 127 Hours.  I had read the story about Aaron Ralston, how he had been trapped in a slot canyon and had to cut his arm off in order to escape.

The movie did not disappoint and provided me with adequate lemonade for the evening.  (I would recommend the movie to anyone who would enjoy a life-thriller type movie.)

Till next time,
Bill

The Garden

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for gardening.  When I was growing up my parents always had a garden.  Sometimes it was in my back yard.  Other times it was larger on property that friends owned.  I remember one time gardening on some property, with lots of neighbors, on property that eventually contained my church.

I have fond memories of my Grandfather who also loved to garden.  When a neighbor, who had a large apple orchard, decided to clear out the old trees and replant, my Grandfather was able to garden in between these new apple trees.  He had one of the largest gardens that I have ever been a part of!  I remember several times getting up with my Father to go and help water this garden.  We would get water shares from a canal that passed along the property line.  At the designed time, we would divert the water into the garden and use shovels to direct the water where we wanted it to go.  The watering times would come at all hours.  I especially enjoyed getting the water at midnight and having to use flashlights to see what we were doing.

But what rewards we would get from the hours of labor that was put into a garden.  The fresh vegetables had a taste that no grocery store could ever match.  There is no other situation, other than a personal garden, where you can pick a tomato when it is truly ripe, from the vine.  The sweetness in unreal!

Eventually I got married.  I soon discovered that my wife had the same love for gardening that I did.  We started out in a small condo where we had a small garden in the back yard.  It was a lot of fun.  I especially enjoyed the BLT sandwiches with garden-ripe tomatoes on it.  Pure heaven!

My wife and I have lived in several homes.  Each has had a garden in the back yard.  Each garden has become progressively larger.  Our current home has a rather large garden, almost a quarter acre!  We have grow boxes for our vegetables,  an area for raspberries and strawberries, and an area for melons and squash.  We also have a rather large area for corn, as corn on the cob is a favorite of mine.

Last year I had made some changes to my employment which required me to travel farther to and from work than I had originally had to do.  As a result, I was unable to spend time in my garden after work, as it was typically dark by the time I arrived home.  I did spend as much time on Saturdays as I could, getting the corn planted (45 rows), the vegetables planted, the berries weeded, etc.  The garden was already to go.  A few weeks later the corn started to poke up through the ground.

Then I was informed that I would need to be involved in some software releases at work that would occur Friday nights and Saturday.  Needless to say, my gardening time had been effectively snatched away from me!  When the corn starts to poke up out of the ground, it is followed by tons and tons of weeds.  It is important to get the weeds removed so that the corn can thrive.  I asked my wife and kids to weed the corn, since I would be unable to due to work.  On the following Sunday, I went to look at my garden and the corn was riddled with weeds.  I asked my wife and kids a second time to help.  This repeated for several weeks as the weed overtook the garden eventually reducing any hope of crop for the season.  The weeds choked out the berries, the tomatoes overgrew and didn't produce well, and the corn, my prized corn, choked out by weeds, didn't produce a single ear!

So, today, April 2011, my garden sits as a former shell of itself.  My wife has asked me to help her do a garden this year, but the pain of last year is too great.  I don't know if there is enough trust to make a garden work this year.  I know that I should support this, but maybe I won't be able to.

Till next time,
Bill

Freedom of Speech and Phone Numbers

I just finished up a wonderful Spring Break where we went on an excellent week-long vacation to one of America's highest and accommodating Inns.  The air was clear, the sky blue (for the most part) and the food, oh the food, was soooo good!

 

Now, I am back in the office doing what I do so well to earn money to pay the bills.  This year, my Accountant (whom I have had for many years), presented me with the horrible news that I owed on my taxes.  Not just a little bit either, a lot!  So bye bye savings account...

Well, actually, I have paid the taxes and the pain is somewhat gone, except for my depleted bank account.

I remember back when I was teen, at our local parish, our youth group had to meet with the Priest.  He was all upset over the most recent phone bill.  (You see, we have this phone that was mounted on the wall, right next to the Priests office.  It was free for anyone to use.)  This particular bill was about $700.00 more than the average monthly bill.  Also, there was a "900" number that had been called over and over.  Turns out that this number was for a "free sex" company.  If you recall 900 numbers, when called, charge you phone bill by the minute.  As I recall, this particular 900 number charged a lot!

So the Priest did find out who was doing the calling, and put an end to it.  Why do I tell you this story?  Well, have you ever mistyped a very popular website name only to end up on a website that you would not have normally gone to, one that is a little bit pornographic?  I don't know if you ever typed in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov.  Several years ago, that kind of mistake would take you to some very, well, unexpected results.  Luckily, today, if you mistype whitehouse.gov with .com, you get some sort of advertising website.

I recall a particularly embarrassing situation at my first employer out of college.  I was surfing the web looking for something or other Java related, when all of a sudden my 17-inch high resolution monitor was covered with the most explicit sexual content.  Now this was in a training room and not my office.  I did the quickest thing I could think of and unplugged my computer.  It worked, the offending images were instantly gone.  I cautiously looked around the room and nobody appeared to have seen what I had seen.  I was relieved.

We all know that the pornography industry is one of the most profitable in the world if not the most profitable.  It just isn't talked about much in casual conversation.  So there is this company that has been buying 800 numbers, the numbers that larger companies provide for tech support, and such.  The article is on Yahoo News here.  Apparently this company is buying up as many 800 numbers as they can and have been doing this for the past 13 years.  Once this company buys an 800 number it is redirected to a second company's services, which happen to be dial-a-porn.  This company has computer technology that can search the national 800 number database, and anytime a number is returned, can purchase it, taking 95 milliseconds to do so.  Other phone companies that provide 800 numbers as a service are having a hard time getting easy to remember or requested digits, etc. for clients because they are not available.

Some of the numbers this company has acquired include, 1-800-Metallica, 1-800-Cadillac, 1-800-Minolta, 1-800-Cameras, 1-800-Worship, 1-800-Whirlpool, and 1-800-Beatles.  All of these numbers get redirected to erotic chat lines.  There have been situations where 800 numbers have not been renewed due to a mistake with a phone company, user, or both.  If you call 1-800-Chicago, you won't get tourism information about the city of Chicago, rather you will will be presented with an opportunity to have a one-on-one talk with a nasty girl for only $2.99 per minute.  The same happened to a car dealer who had people walking around wearing tee shirts with the company name and number on them. It has happened to prisons, counseling lines, fire departments and even the Republican National Committee.  They are even buying 800 numbers that are 1 to 2 digits off of very popular numbers.  That way they can get you with "fat fingering" or miss-dialings.

Wow!  is all that I can say.  Basically you just have to be really careful in both phone and Internet usage.

Till next time,
Bill

Throttling Your Internet Like A Flooded Engine

Spring must almost be here as I haven't seen snow falling for at least half a day!  Well, I'm looking to the positive here.  And I tell my friends, you won't catch me complaining once this summer about the temperature.  Especially after the very, very, very, cold winter we have gone through.  I would even take a bet...

So I previously blogged about being very excited to get an iPhone on Verizon.  Yes, an iPhone is nice, it is especially nice when you are connected to a WiFi network, as browsing and Internet interaction is very snappy. 

But what typically happens when you are not in the vicinity of a WiFi network?  The first time I tried this, when attached to Verizon's 3G network, I received an error that applications over 20mb cannot be downloaded over Verizon's network.  Hmmmm.  All I was trying to do was update an existing application. 
Lucky for me there are WiFi networks almost everywhere.  I go to my neighbors, church, or work and my iPhone automatically starts using the appropriate WiFi network.  However, there are many situations where my iPhone can "see" a WiFi network, but the owner is not willing to share it with me.  In those cases I am forced to use the Verizon network.  And in a lot of those cases, the network is unbelievably slow.

If I do minimal Internet activities, like checking the weather, that happens rather quickly, but updating applications, checking scores on ESPN, etc. will be quite slow.

In networking, a group of computers are connected together through a device called a hub or a router.  Then the router connects to the Internet, which is really a very large world-encapsulating router, well series of routers.  The hub that your PC immediately connects to, usually your ISP, has a limited bandwidth.  Lets say this is hypothetically 2mb.  If I am the only one connected to this hub, then I get all of the 2mb.  I can stream video at 384kb/sec, surf the web, and listen to Internet radio at 110kb/sec.  There is plenty of bandwidth left over!

Now, lets say my two neighbors also use the same ISP and they are streaming their favorite movies, in HD, at 784kb/sec.  Now roughly all 2mb of the bandwidth is being used.  The a third neighbor wants to play Wizards of Warcraft with his brother in England and there you have it.  You hub has exceeded the maximum bandwidth.

So what happens is the ISP's line of defense.  The ISP can let the bandwidth choke, becoming congested.  The quality of my browsing will become very slow, the video will degrade in quality, or skip, or pause, and the on-line game will have lengthy pauses.  The other option of the ISP is to throttle the Internet connection of a user who is using too much bandwidth to be able to let other customers have a good Internet experience.  I have seen both with my ISP.

The same is true with the cell phone industry.  You have cell towers that act as hubs on the cell phone provider's Internet system.  If you are the only one on that hub, you get all the bandwidth.  (In tests Verizon 3G has given 1.9mbps, which is pretty good.)  But what happens when you have 100 or 1000 or even 10,000 people using that same hub?  All of those users get to share the 1.9mbps, and if a significant portion of them are using the Internet, things can slow down really quickly!

One things that the Cell Phone companies can do is throttle your Internet connection if you consistently use more bandwidth than they think you should.  They do this by tracking the amount of data you use over a given time period, usually a month.  When the iPhone was initially offered, Verizon gave an unlimited data plan.  Hence, basically, you can use all the data you want, per month, but you have to deal with the performance you get with what all the other people on your hub are doing.  The other option that some cell phone companies are using is this idea of slowing down or throttling the Internet connections of high usage customers.  This could be checked in a couple of ways.  Let's assume that you cell phone company has an "unlimited" data plan, which really translates to 5GB a month.  And lets say you use that 5GB in two days.  Then the cell phone company effectively slows down (shuts off) your data access until next month.  The other option is that your cell phone company monitors your data usage during "peak" times and if your usage is "excessively" high, throttles your connection down to say 12kbs or less.

Since I am not a very heavy data user (I check my cell phone bill, only 30-50mb a month) the slowness I see must be from the congestion at the hub or cell tower.  It will be interesting to see what Verizon and other cell phone companies do to resolve these problems in the future.  Maybe the adoption of 4G will help -- maybe it will provide a bigger data pipe to the individual cell phone users.  Only time will tell.

Till next time,
Bill

Big Numbers

This past week the National Government averted a government shutdown.  Having read a bit about what is affected and what is not, I recall back to the previous one in the 90's.  Seems to me the biggest newsgetter was the shutdown of the National Parks.  (I realize that foreign visitors typically visit National Parks, and to have them come over to America for a vacation and find all the National Parks closed is a bad thing.)

So the government shutdown was averted, and today, Monday, is business a usual.  Usual?  The United States of America currently is in debt.  Not new news you say, yes, but have you taken a few moments, or even hours to reflect on how much the national debt is?  There is a cool website that provides this information and a lot more.  Go here to see it.  The US debt is currently over 14 trillion dollars.  Does that large of a number really mean anything to anyone?  If you take out an auto loan for, say, $30,000, that means something to me since I know that I have a monthly payment of $329 and if I don't pay that monthly payment, eventually the bank that loaned me the money will come and take the car.  Somehow I don't think somebody can come and take the USA, but what are the consequences of debt.

I couldn't find a national debt graph that goes right up to 2011, but this is good enough.  You can see that our national debt has increased almost exponentially from roughly 1990 until right now.  (A better question to ask, is why, in 1940, did our country see the need to borrow money?)

Now, all of you know that you can't borrow money for free, unless you have a good friend or an understanding Parent.  Last year (2010) the national government paid over 400 billion dollars in interest.  That is a very big number too, but is a little more manageable.  For instance, you could buy every household in America two big state of the art HD televisions.  Also, you could roughly pay half of all Americans health insurance costs.  Since I am having troubles understanding the national debt, let's let someone we all know explain it:

Elmo is discussing the quarterly changes in the amount each and every American is responsible for.  Basically, every quarter it just gets bigger.  Elmo also wants to show you something else:

  

Elmo is now discussing the idea that if we average all the money that all Americans make in a given year, the national debt is still a lot more per person.  If the National Government were to mandate that each and every American pay their share in a given year, and we were to pay everything that we made that year, we would only be able to pay half our share.  In a bigger scope, if all of America did this, we would only pay down the national debt by roughly half.

So the government did not shut down.  Two of the next big financial problems facing the nation are, will we have enough money for the 2011-2012 budget, and if not, will we raise the national debt ceiling to fix this.  Currently, the national debt ceiling is 14.25 trillion.  (If you look at the national debt clock, you will see we are fast approaching the ceiling.)

From what I have been told, if the government doesn't raise the debt ceiling, bad things will happen to the nation.

Lastly, I still don't relate very well to 14 trillion dollars.  I am happy that the government didn't shut down, but have to wonder about the ramifications of this 14 trillion dollars.

Till next time,

Bill

Why I Stuck With Verizon or Cellphone Wars!

I didn't think that I was going to blog today, as March ended like LION big time and now we are in April and it appears that the weather can't make up its mind to shift into consistent Spring weather.  This morning when I left to go to work, I couldn't tell for sure if it was going to rain, snow, blow, or just be overcast. 

Weathermen, it is funny how they only seem to get it right the day of a particular weather event.  You watch the news and the weatherman comes on and says, "100% chance of snow right now," and you look out the window and it is snowing.  However, trying to predict what will happen in 5 to 7 days is not so much a science and a guess, at least from what I have seen.  But I am getting off subject now,  Back to what I titled this about.

I worked for a leading, large, high tech company for over ten years.  They provided a mobile phone for me and paid all the costs of that phone, which was great!  However, I didn't have the choice of picking the carrier that I wanted to use.  So AT&T it was.  Back in the day it was CellularOne or Cingular, but AT&T bought them out.
 
There are several stories I can tell about coverage and dropped calls, but I will only belabor you with two.  One time I took my family up to the mountains to spend a few nights at a cabin.  I tried my cell phone from the cabin, but had no signal strength bars on my phone.  I tried making a call, but got the infamous "no service" message.

I went to the rental store and asked the attendant if he was able to get cell service up here.  He said, yes, no problem.  I asked him who his carrier was and he told me Verizon.

A second situation happened when I flew to upsate New York on company business.  Upon arriving at my hotel, I checked into my room and tried to make a cell phone call.  I received the "No Service" message.  I went to the hotel's front desk and asked them about cell coverage.  They told me to go out the back door and climb up a hill and make my call there.  I did.  At the top of the hill I was able to get one bar on my phone and make/receive a call.  When done, I went back to the hotel front desk and asked if the attendant had a cell phone.  Yes, she said.  I asked her if it worked in the hotel, and she said yes.  I asked he who her carrier was, she said Verizon.

I had several of these experiences while working for my company, but hey, my cell phone way paid for by the company.  When I left this company in favor of a new opportunity, I switched my cell phone provider to Verizon.  I have to be honest, that everywhere I have gone, with very few exceptions, I get signal.  And I can't remember the last time I had a dropped call.

So I always wanted an iPhone, ever since the first version was revealed in 2007.  The main thing that was keeping me from getting one was that is was only available with AT&T.  So, I envisioned what it would be like if Verizon was able to sell the iPhone.

Roughly mid 2010 I started hearing and reading rumors that Verizon was going to start offering an iPhone.  I "held" my breath.  My two-year Verizon new phone time period came and went.  (I didn't upgrade my current phone.)  Finally on February 3rd, 2011 Verizon made an iPhone available.  I was hooked, upgrading to one ASAP.

I was curious to see how Verizon was doing with both iPhone sales and with dropped calls vs AT&T.  I found some good information here, which I will paraphrase.

A company called Changewave has released information on surveys they've performed since the release of the Verizon iPhone 4.  Changewave's survey found that new Verizon iPhone users are indeed experiencing fewer dropped calls than their AT&T counterparts:

This second graph analyzes which iPhone retailer a person would buy their phone (and service contract) from:

From the past 90 days, it appears that future iPhone buyers seem to be planning on buying from Verizon over AT&T.

Till Next Time,
Bill