Research: Sprint Nextel has the fewest dropped calls

By Kelly Hill
Story posted: February 21, 2007 - 12:58 pm EDT


Corporate wireless management company mindWireless has stepped into the fierce debate over which carrier truly has the fewest dropped calls, offering up its own data that shows Sprint Nextel Corp.’s CDMA network usually is the most reliable.

MindWireless said it used a sample of more than 80 million calls placed and received between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2006, as the basis for its conclusions. The company defined a dropped or “duplicate” call as “a call from a cellular device to another wireless device or landline placed within two minutes of a prior call to the same destination, with no call between.” The company excluded calls to voicemail and Sprint Nextel push-to-talk calls.

“We are constantly bombarded with advertising from wireless carriers claiming to offer the fewest dropped calls, making it hard to decipher the truth,” said David Wise, managing director of mindWireless. “Because we manage over 130,000 wireless lines for our clients, with access to detailed call data, we have a very accurate view into actual calling patterns—and the results surprised us.”

The company, which called itself “an independent services provider with no carrier alliances,” found that Sprint Nextel’s CDMA network had the lowest average rate of duplicate calls, with 5.4 percent over the six-month period. Sprint Nextel was followed closely by Cingular Wireless L.L.C.’s legacy AT&T Wireless Services Inc. network, with an average duplicate call rate of 5.7 percent. Verizon Wireless, which touts its network as the most reliable in its advertising, came in third with an average duplicate call rate of 8 percent.

Cingular’s own network—the one it operated before it acquired AWS—averaged a duplicate call rate of 11.3 percent, while T-Mobile USA Inc. came in with 13.8 percent. Sprint Nextel’s iDEN network placed last with an average duplicate call rate of 14.6 percent over the first six months of 2006.

The findings are notable as Sprint Nextel routinely rates at the low end of many such network studies.

Research: Sprint Nextel has the fewest dropped calls :: RCR Wireless News

That list is the exact opposite of most of the other ones I have seen....I really don't trust any of these surveys. It would be nice to know for real, but that will never happen. Looks like Sprint proved well for mindWireless

Well thats what the last sentence points out in agreement with you. Sprint always ranks last, but I think alot of that has to do with nextel and the burden it carries. Sprint consistently ranks high in Chicago-land yet they still remain unpopular. I truly believe Sprint will be one of the few carriers left standing.

in the central US sprint does have the fewest dropped calls i would constantly drop calls with tmobile and cingular. but with sprint i can't honestly say when i had my last dropped call

nice read. thanks!

Now see, in the Northwest I have fewer dropped calls with T-Mobile, than I did with Sprint or Verizon.

There are so many things that can vary to cause a call to drop. Location, time of day, device, etc. These claims often just annoying me.

I absolutely agree and they are unscientific at best....still they are interesting to read and worth posting if only for discussion!

i agree with you too matt.

location location location is the biggest one to me.


Nino

That's a VERY POOR way of judging what is a dropped call and what is not. As is mentioned in the post above, 2 calls in 2 minutes doesn't mean the call dropped... it just means you talked to the receiver 2 times in 2 minutes! Also, I know that usually when my calls drop (which is fairly rare), I usually don't call back... I let the OTHER person call me! :p

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I hardly ever get dropped calls. On the other hand, almost everyone I know with Cingular always complains about it. Verizon seems to not get any complaints here either... so yeah, I guess it is about location.

I think all the carriers are full of it with all of their dropped call nonsense. Whether or not you are going to be able to hold a call is dependent on a number of factors including signal quality and network congestion.

I've had Sprint service now for a little over two years and I have only had three dropped calls. Pretty good rate. Killer network.

I would have to agree with you. I have mine set to "Sprint only", and I've only had to force it to roam once when I was in the middle of nowhere...

I think the whole idea of calculating dropped calls is pretty stupid these days. With the way they define it, it could really be a number of things. Let's say I call my Mom and tell her I'm dropping by. One minute and 20 seconds later, I call her again to see if she needs me to pick up anything on my way, like milk or a lotto ticket. According to this numbskull survey, that's a dropped call.

*I* consider a dropped call one that falls off the face of the network for no apparent reason. If you've suddenly driven into a low, wooded area and lose your signal as a result, I don't consider that a dropped call. I consider that how cellular phone coverage works. Just because you start a call in a service area doesn't mean it's going to hang in there if you go trapsing around in Middle Earth. That's just common sense.

To me, a dropped call is one that just disappears for no apparent reason. Around these parts, Cingular wears that crown.