Well I had to use Bart yesterday to get to my doctors office near Union Square on Sutter st. I took the sub from SFO to Powell st, I had both Sprint and At&T phones with me, and to my surprise Sprint did really well. Here were my experiences as follows, San Bruno-No service (both) South San Fran-Sprint had service, Roamed on Cingular Colma-Sprint (Very Strong) No service with At&T or Cingular Daily city-Sprint (Good) At&T (excellent) Glen Park-Sprint (excellent) had coverage almost to 24th st and mission, At&T (good) 24th st & Mission-No service (both) 16th st & Mission-No service (both) Civic Center-Sprint (So So Very weak,) Roamed of Cingular also very weak. Powell st station-Sprint was in analog roam until I got to the top floor, At&T (very weak) Now this is coverage just at the platforms, I think overall Sprint did very well. There was no sign of Verizon on any platform (except Powell st) and I noticed that with At&T I roamed a lot off Cingular.
Yep Sprint has really improved in the Bay area. They've focused more on California than any other markets.
There's a lot of tunnels on BART too, as well as the LA Metro Subways, but neither ones have good cell coverage right now.
Well, what ever it is, its more than NYC subways have. Except for that one spot in the tunnel that my phone worked while stopped. That was fun.
Good thing it worked while stopped in the tunnel! ere you stopped long? I have been on BART in SF, Los Angeles Metro and METRO in DC, haven't had them stop on me in a tunnel or anything yet.
The train was only stopped for about 3 minutes, i guess we had to wait for another train to pull out. We stopped at a VERY good point though, because i recieved a very important voicemail about a connecting train from a friend, and was actually able to listen to it.
I like the new subway cars a lot. The new trains seem to be following me. On the Long Island Rail Road, there are 2 new types of cars, single (M7) and double decker. I love these new trains. The automated voice for the stations is great. Whats even more amazing are the new double deckers. Since the east river tunnels are low, they must be the same height as the single level trains, and they did it! As for the NYC subways, the new trains (on the #2 line i think) are nice, but small. Once again, new improvments are the LCDs with the next station and the automated voice, but there is something else new. Each car has a few maps that when you get to that station on the line, they light up. This is a major improvment to the old "damn, wheres that system map on the wall, oh, its behind that guy"
I'll add to this that getting a GSM signal is virtually impossible at both 16th St & Mission as well as 24th St & Mission since those two stations are pretty deep underground. I will add though that when I took BART from Lake Merritt to Embarcadero in the City last summer, there was service on the Lake Merritt Platform but nothing in the Transbay Tube or at Embarcadero on Cingular.
Well, for me personally I don't think having service in those tunnels is as important as having service at the platforms. I mean in all honesty you really can't hear anything while the train is in motion, it's so loud, and you’d have to scream into the phone just so someone could hear you and vise versa. Checking e-mails would be cool, or just surfing the web until you get to your stop, but I couldn’t justify spending all that money to put service in those tunnel, I just don't think it's worth it. Now I strongly think that all carriers should have coverage at the platforms or stations, that’s when I would tend make my calls.
BART is the acronym for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District: BART Site BART is the San Francisco Bay Area's subway and runs through most of the Bay Area.
Yes, and the last thing I need on BART is everyone around me screaming on their phone. Some woman was doing exactly that on some of the overhead parts of that stretch (around Daly City) and everyone thought she was nuts.
They sound pretty awesome Yankees! I love the Los Angeles Metro, they have a lot of the stuff you described, they really did a good job when they built them. Chef, sometimes people just talk loud, my dad does, and it isn't meant to be rude or cause a problem, they just talks loud, and sometimes people are talking to somebody that is hard of hearing, my dad had to really yell when talking to his mom in recent years because her hearing was so bad, even with hearing aids. Just a FYI to let you know not all the people talking loud on the phone are doing so out of a lack of respect
Yep that's the same thing I was thinking... I have a bart experience myself, every year at my high school the senior class would repaint the football bleachers with the school mascot. I convinced my class to paint Bart Simpson dressed up as a cavalier....pretty funny we were the talk of the town the rest of the year. Even made the local news a time or two with the local folks complaining about our bad image....nothing could have been sweeter.
Lovely, I hate it when some people have to be so loud on their cell phone for the whole world to hear. I work at my university's library and we constantly kick people out who try to use their phones right by our circulation desk since there is a quiet study area there.
In this particular case I'm fairly sure this woman was being rude, rather than hard of hearing, just by her manner (her kids were also on the car with her and she yelled at them too). Anyway, what i was mostly trying to say is that 100 people in each car talking on their phone is not something I would be looking forward to.
I actually enjoy watching people being rude on their cell phones, don't get me wrong I don't approve of their actions, but I kind of enjoy watching folks talk as loud as possible in restuarants....it makes it much easier to listen in on their silly conversations. I made it a point a long time ago to only make fun of people doing things that they can change and these folks just become easy targets.
Yeah, I would bet she was just being rude too by the way you describe her. Some people just go through life obvlivious to other's and their needs and wants, sad but true. All they can see is their narrow view of what they need, and to heck with all others. Those stupid Nextel phones are the worst, thankfully, we don't have Nextel service here, but Verizon does have their PTT up here, though I have yet to see or hear anyone using it around.
With a GSM handset, maybe... CDMA handsets, on the other hand, are really good about filtering out background noise. I don't think using a cell on a train is rude. I've visited Tokyo a couple of times, and people talk quietly on their "keitai" all the time on trains without distracting others (anyone who has been there knows that trains are the primary means of getting around). Of course, CDMA is the dominant technology there, and people don't have to shout to be heard above the background noise. Since we have a couple of train enthusiasts here, I've ridden on the JR, Keisei, and Odakyu lines in the greater Tokyo area. Keisei names some of their stations the same as JR Line (in particular, I had a problem with Koiwa), and they can be miles apart from one another. When someone uses a train station for reference, be sure you ask which line to take!
