To assert its position as "America's most reliable wireless network provider" and corroborate the claim the Verizon guy on the T.V. commercial makes ("Can you hear me now? Good.") that his connection is never lost, Verizon wireless performs a routine checkup to actually confirm that its customers actually get good reception around the country.
The process starts with Verizon hiring thousands of men and women as actual test people. Also, customers and other advisors and consultants can take place in the project. Although it would seem that the people hired for Verizon would be biased, it is safe to assume that they would not be for the experiment is carried out only to benefit the company and improve the quality of their wireless service. There are no qualifications to become a tester for the company. The hired workers are there primarily to serve as Test Men and Women. The testers are all chosen randomly from different parts of the nation.
The testers set out, like the man in the ad does, in specially equipped vans and almost constantly make and receive calls and check if the connection gets lost or not. The variables the testers check include the presence of reception or not in a certain area, the quality of receptions, the number of dropped or lost calls, and signal strengths.
As stated above, there do not seem to be any biases. Also, although there is no blindness, the experiment seems to be sound as it is done only to checkup on the quality of the company's service. There is no need and is impossible for there to be any type of blindness in this type of experiment.
A van, on average, travels about 3000 miles and travels across many states during that period. The experiment lasts about 30 day and spans the entire nation.
Verizon, at the end of each experiment, claims to have the best network in the U.S., supports it with the results, which tell the number of calls which were lost, the total number of calls made, and where reception is good and where it is not, and of course, churns out a new television advertisement.
Although information of other network providers carrying out experiments is not disclosed on the net, it is very likely that these other companies also do perform these routine tests only to improve their standards and satisfy their customers.
This seems to one of the easy ways to carry out this experiment. Other ways to get more research and/or carry out the experiment would be to send surveys to customers all over the nation and to inquire them on how they feel about their wireless providers. Also companies can call their customers and get feedback about their service. However, this could be risky for it would be a biased approach, because the companies would only know the reactions of their customers and not of other people. Therefore, the companies would not accurately know how they rank among other service providers.
This experiment seems to be very interesting and the fact that Verizon wireless carries out these tests shows that the company actually does care to improve and make better changes for its customers. This experiment also shows how statistics is applied outside in the real world and not just in the classroom!
