Not sure whether or not it’s a local thing, but Verizon’s cell service seems to be especially lame lately — at least for me. Riding home to Santa Barbara yesterday on the Pacific Coast Highway, there seemed to be more than the usual dropouts. Here in the Omni Hotel in downtown Los Angeles (on Olive), I’m getting one bar on the Treo 700p, and the service is marginal at best. (Now, in another meeting room, it’s none. “No service” it says.) I’d say it was my phone, except that my EvDO service, which uses a card working as a phone in the laptop, is outright dead. It was dead in West Covina yesterday too. Just a red light and no connection at all. The guy next to me saw me looking at my dead phone. “Verizon?” he said. “Yeah,” I replied. He shook his head.
Meanwhile, the hotel has no room Internet, because something went down and they’re waiting for something else to be “flown in” or something. Between flaky WiFi in the conference spaces, no Internet of any kind in the rooms, and EvDO that doesn’t work, I’m not getting much done online. So if you’re expecting something, bear with me.
[Later…] On an upper floor of the Omni, facing Olive and the Disney Hall, I’m getting five bars and a green light on the EvDO card. Speed, 940kbps down, 118kbps up. Much better. Alas, I have to go to dinner and stuff, so I still won’t get anything done. But at least I’ll sleep tonight. Last night I drove to Santa Barbara and back this morning, and the total was about 5 hours on the road, flanking 3 hours of sleep.
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