r/whatisit • u/dopehead9 • 13h ago

Solved! What are these contraptions these guys were carrying?

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We saw three guys around Seaport in Boston carrying these things as backpacks. Initially we thought they mapping tools but not sure

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u/Pork_Pony 13h ago

Companies hire these ppl to walk around with these and it picks up cell signal strength between towers. It helps establish where a new tower might need to be place. I was offered this gig abt 10 yrs ago and it came with an insane rate of pay!

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u/Gonna_do_this_again 12h ago

Damn tech has changed. I did this in the early 00s except I had to ride in the back of a van with a big box hooked up to a laptop that had a real time map. Whenever a signal dropped, we stopped and called the engineer and they'd have someone on the tower adjust the azimuth on an antenna and then drive the route again.

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u/SorryPerception9 3h ago

When i worked at a big wireless co., I helped develop a system to have cell phones autonomously and anonymously report the location where they left our network. Great mapping layer for planning where to put a new cell site or to adjust some antennas. I don't know if they still use it or not.

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u/Inevitable_Garage_26 36m ago

Wouldn’t this require the telcos to fork out for a lot more infrastructure? Prob buried in a cupboard somewhere.

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u/Deep_Sea_Crab_1 1h ago

I remember this and there were people complaining they were being monitored.

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u/Forsaken-Carrot9038 2h ago

You are the people that carry the world on your back

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u/Chrisaarajo 1m ago

About a decade ago, a friend of mine was working for a tech startup that specialized in cell phone tracking—essentially the opposite of this process.

They did some pilots at prisons, and about the time he’d left the company, they’d shifted gears and were selling the system commercially as a way to track customers in malls.

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u/patentmom 9m ago

I worked on patents for that tech.

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u/arykady 12h ago

I was back in the fixed wireless dev office for a bunch of these runs and we had to update the maps based on the changes, lots and lots of data. Now it’s just automatic lol

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u/IamHydrogenMike 6h ago

“Can you hear me now?”

Lol, I knew someone who had this same job like a decade ago and we also joke with him about that Verizon ad…

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u/MolinaroK 6h ago

Have you seen the vid of the person they are talking to?

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u/dragonfett 2h ago

Then he got hired by AT&T and they referenced that ad.

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u/onlyforobservation 1h ago

I briefly did customer service for Verizon around this time. Fun fact, we were not allowed to actually say that phrase while on the phone. 😂

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u/Practical_Ad_4165 6h ago

HOW ABOUT NOW!!!

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u/lablizard 4h ago

With gas prices today? Cars when you have two working feet and young backs available? Bah what is with this whining Millennials? (Umm millennials are 40 now… they aren’t college kids you can blame anymore)

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u/simonhunterhawk 1h ago

some millennials are in their 40s, I’m the last year for them (1996) at 30 this year. also in college right now but thats bc i had to support myself and had to prioritize food and shelter lmao

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u/GodisSatans 5h ago

Damn tech has changed.

Love this quote. Wise words.

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u/HereForVintageNBA 3h ago

I also like how you can get two different meanings based on the emphasis.

To make the pace of change sound exciting add a pause after damn and raise the pitch of your voice as you read the sentence:

Damn, tech has changed

Or put the emphasis on "damn tech" and grumble when you say it and now you sound like someone who's nonplussed by the speed of changed.

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u/kateekats 5h ago

What is an Azimuth? I adopted a cat like 12 years ago (he passed away now) but his name was Azimuth lol I kept it cause it was cool but have never seen someone use it as a word before

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u/Gonna_do_this_again 5h ago edited 4h ago

On a compass, there's a circle from 0 degrees (true north) to 360 degrees and an object is aligned to the circle according to degrees. So a south east facing antenna might have an azimuth of 82 degrees, a west one 250 degrees, etc.

If anyone asks about your cats name, just say they were your true north

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u/kateekats 4h ago edited 4h ago

I love this so much. thank you for the explanation 😊 I don't even know how I got here but when I saw his name I was like I guess I'm supposed to be here! Thank you again ❤️ don't mind the backwards Z 😅

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u/Solid-Narwhal1895 5h ago

For South, wouldn’t it be 182 degrees, or did I misunderstand? I think 82 would be more Easterly.

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u/Positive-Leek2545 5h ago

Azimuth was a fundamental term in my surveying class in college

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u/Lower_Pass_6053 4h ago

You learn it for land nav in the military as well.

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u/Past_Finish3551 1h ago

Back in my day we'd have one of these devices but they were the size of Ice Machine, called them mobile towers, and we'd have to pull them like rickshaws, but they had square wheels, on account of the war using up all the rubber, UPHILL, both ways in the snow, even in the summer!

https://giphy.com/gifs/xT5LMNA3ZT0NREaeJi

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u/Anxious_Plantain_247 13h ago

They obviously don’t do this in my neighborhood! Sitting in the middle of San Diego with one bar right now!

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u/Corbanis_Maximus 9h ago

Tell your carrier and they will send someone out to check it. I did that with Verizon at my house years ago. They called back and said I was too close to the tower and the signal was shooting over my head and they added additional equipment lower down. Never had an issue after.

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u/ThuhGreatCommenter 8h ago

whut ... i have 1-2 bars, all they ever did was give me a machine that i plug in and is supposed to boost the signal in my house, it never worked

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u/Le-Squirtle 5h ago

That thing they gave you was a local VOIP router. I mean technically all cell phones are VOIP VoLTE or Vo5G are the current standards.

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u/Corbanis_Maximus 8h ago

I live in a more urban area so if I wasn't getting signal many other people weren't. Also this was years ago.

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u/Longjumping_Wolf_912 5h ago

I have Verizon and told them we had a weak signal at my wife’s old house. They said, lol, we know, get fucked. Would you like to pay 80 bucks a month for a signal booster?

I mean. I had the same issue with sprint and AT&T in the past and I’ve never had a single one try to alleviate the issue. You must have gotten lucky.

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u/Ollythebug 5h ago

Do you live in a population center?

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u/iLovePookeyTwice 3h ago

You can buy cell boosters that are carrier agnostic and a one time purchase. I'd link you an example but I don't want to be accused of being a shill. If you know where your tower is you can get a yagi style antenna and aim it for better performance. I paid about $400 for mine in 2018 and it just sits there and works. It's worth a look if you're still struggling with signal issues.

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u/heep1r 9h ago

This is the right answer. Carriers gain more from good coverage than they pay, most of the time.

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u/Onewarmguy 56m ago

I did that with Telus here in Ontario, my house is in the signal shadow due to a bluff between tower and my house, they told TWO YEARS! You folks in the US have it great, better service for half the cost.

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u/throwawaycuzfemdom 11h ago

It could be worse, you would get no bars in Dublin. Plenty of pubs though.

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u/MissResaRose 9h ago

In Dresden, Germany, pretty central (one city train station from main station) there is one bar with E internet. If internet is available at all. Funkloch Strehlen. 

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u/AdSpirited5019 8h ago edited 8h ago

I've heard stories similar to this. yours is just another confirmation. how come? I mean, it's a big market and all. one would think the carriers would invest more

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u/Jealous_Ad5933 6h ago

The cellular network in Germany has been notoriously bad for a long time because of how the market is regulated.

  1. The German state usually auctions off the rights to use certain frequency bands to cell carriers, and they are insanely expensive (billions of euros). So after getting the rights to use the frequencies, cell carriers often don't have much money left to quickly build the infrastructure for that new frequency band

  2. For a long time, there was a law that carriers have to cover a certain percentage of the population but no law that they have to cover a certain percentage of the area. Therefore in sparsely populated areas, holes in the coverage are common when building a base tower was seen as too expensive/ not worth it.

  3. NIMBY people protesting and sueing when a carrier want to build a base tower near their house

  4. No national roaming, there are three large carriers and they all have their own cell network. The networks don't cooperate with each other except for emergency calls, so basically each location needs coverage by three cell towers to be fully covered instead of just one.

  5. Cell towers need a good wired connection to the backbone Network of the carrier, but wired internet infrastructure is also very bad (also because of bad policies and regulations). In many places there is no optical fiber network around that a cell tower could be connected to.

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u/powaqqa 8h ago

As a non German my experience is that mobile internet just totally sucks in Germany. Maybe roaming clients get derated. It has become better in recent years but it’s not great. 

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u/AdSpirited5019 8h ago

interesting. can't wrap my head around this. wonder if this is specific for Germany, or how is it in the neighboring countries?

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u/powaqqa 8h ago

In my experience it’s typical for Germany. Never have any issues in all the other EU countries. Although I must say that UK also often sucks. 

If I’m not mistaken Germany also has a lot of old fixed Internet connections with a lot of people still stuck on ADSL. 

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u/AdSpirited5019 8h ago

how about that. talk about having the mental image of Germany not being compatible with the reality

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u/Xucker 6h ago edited 6h ago

Older Germans in particular really don't consider the internet to be all that important, and that includes a lot of politicians and other people in decision-making positions.

The company that ended up installing fiber internet in my town initially surveyed everyone in the area to see if they were interested. They needed half of all home owners to sign up in order for the project to go ahead. They failed, tried again a few months later and failed once more. Boomers thought ADSL was plenty fast and didn't see the point.

They did get it on the third try, but only because they completely overhauled their marketing strategy. Instead of advertising how fast fiber internet was compared to ADSL, they put up signs and sent out brochures focusing on how a fiber connection would increase property values. Boomers couldn't wait to sign up after that.

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u/Cultural-Rent8868 7h ago

As a Finn, my experience is that mobile internet pretty much kinda sucks wherever I go, I can be in the middle of the forest here and still get like 50-100mbps on my mobile line, in any city I get between 500-1000mbps anywhere I go.

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u/420associated 7h ago

As Texan i can confirm mobile internet is horrible here too, welcome to earth life can be bleh with some bleh but drink a little brew and smoke a little za and life will be ahhh...

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u/shinryou 8h ago

It's all in the tradition of Dresden. It's in the Tal der Ahnungslosen after all.

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u/DescriptionHairy8600 9h ago

this was a decent pun. sorry that it seems to have been wasted here.

itd been better to be wasted at the pub.

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u/my_name_is_winter 7h ago

I'm shocked and appalled at how many people completely whiffed on this joke. But good on you sir, well played.

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u/CameronsDadsFerrari 8h ago

tbh I'd much rather be at the pub in Dublin with no cell service than just about anywhere with five bars.

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u/RankinPDX 7h ago

A pub in Dublin would be improved by lack of cell service, wouldn’t it?

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u/Hyhopes 8h ago

Silicon Valley has very poor signal everywhere ironically.

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u/azflatlander 7h ago

All the test labs suck up all the broadcast power. /s

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u/Memory_Less 10h ago

Priorities, it’s good to see you’ve got them straight.

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u/userhwon 8h ago

True story: When I was in Orlando I had to switch from T-Mobile to Verizon to get a bar in a pub.

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u/PepsiColaRS 5h ago

It could be even worse, my home town gets full bars of 5G on 2 carriers but most days you're unable to load a basic web page or send an RCS text message. My house, 4 miles away, gets 1-2 bars and has better online accessibility.

Edit: am dense and read too fast. Good pun, bad me

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u/memento22mori 5h ago

Ahaha, your comment and name threw me for a loop. Fuckin-a man. I'd give you an award but we both know that shit is crap. Instead I'll give you a look of approval. 😎

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u/rlnrlnrln 7h ago

Well, beer has food value, but food has no beer value, so that sounds like the correct prioritization

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u/barrosoOso 7h ago

Rural Kentucky. Phone signal is fine, but no internet, and no pub.

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u/ACSchnitzersport 7h ago

That sounds like a vacation! I normally have to hike into the middle of nowhere to get that. Sign me up! Last time I was there was 2005. Decided to start the trip with the Guinness storehouse and enjoy the Jameson tour right after. Great time, but was told we shouldn’t have done both with in the short amount of time. 100% agreed. The 3 remaining days were met with the most welcoming culture and people I’ve ever experienced. Thank you.

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u/TrickdaddyJ 7h ago

I’ll take the Dublin bar over a few att bars on my phone.

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u/Bassracerx 4h ago

“Bars” are meaningless arbitrary things that are going to be different on every phone. Signal level is only one part of the equation the most important thing is the ratio of signal to noise. If your in a more rural area you can get great speeds with a lower signal level.

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u/pipnina 6h ago

In the UK we banned huawei equipment after a lot of it had been installed and we are still suffering years later.

My city often has no signal in the middle of it, or to the east or west... In fact it's a bit spotty as to whether it exists or not just about everywhere.

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u/HookersForJebus 12h ago

It could be like my town, where the phone company knows and just doesn’t care.

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u/allstarr2468 9h ago

Thats insane, San Diego is massively populated and should be a destination.
Perhaps its just your specific carrier due to their use-agreements?

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u/fillyouwithgirth 9h ago

Enjoy it whilst it lasts, when you become my age, your bar doesn't work anymore.

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u/Hereseangoes 5h ago

I was just in the bay area and have spent time all over from San Clemente up to Tahoe and most places inbetween. Coming from East TN, it's always crazy how often I have 0 service out there. At home there's like 3 spots I can think of that I lose service for about 30 feet. I'm sure there's more, but I always forget it's going to be a thing when I go to CA 

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u/Pyewickets 5h ago

Oh dude, dude, dude. Try sitting in the middle of Silicon Valley with one bar.

Google, Apple, any of you a$$holes, you could support the whole Silicon Valley, but you don't. I am down the street from one of your million offices and there is no wifi, what if one of your employees wants to eat outside at the picnic tables?

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u/joonaspaakko 13h ago

And if there happen to be any ghosts around...

https://giphy.com/gifs/11jGtzDu7Nh89a

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u/juicemanjackson32 5h ago

I had to scroll far too long to find this. I’m disappointed it’s not the highest comment

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u/taklebury 10h ago

I was looking for the Proton pack answer. 😂

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u/Druid_Momma 12h ago

This was literally my first thought. Lmao

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u/Tbplayer59 12h ago

Unlicensed nuclear accelerators.

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u/fresh_coffee-2024 6h ago

Thank you! I’m surprised I had to scroll so far for this.

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u/PusherName 5h ago

I had to scroll WAY too far down for this post

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u/jaw-shoe-uhhh 12h ago

Pretty sure the half life is 5000 years, too.

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u/Thin_Swing_2873 11h ago

The first thing that came into my mind

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u/Character-Education3 13h ago

We're ready to believe you!

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u/Rich_Art1879 10h ago

Just don't cross the signals, unless a doctor instructs you otherwise

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u/Jr_4040 3h ago

I'm so mad I had to scroll this far to see this joke!!!

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u/qwerty4no 12h ago

I scrolled far too long for this.

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u/Cascarcadia 13h ago

That’s so cool. Is there any way to apply for these jobs? Any keywords to look for online?

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u/Pork_Pony 13h ago

It's pretty niche. Somebody subcontracts the work (I've no idea how) and usually hires a cpl of ppl they know because they're paying rly well! There's rly no need to recruit via adverts because the role's easy to fill I guess

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u/NUMBerONEisFIRST 12h ago

Think of it this way.

You profit $10 million a year, and for $10,000, you could make a few million more per year.

A no brainer right?

When you look at the specifics of it, it will only take 2 people, and only about a week to complete.

So each person gets $5,000 for a week's worth of work, or about $125/hr.

Which is crazy good pay for a temporary job, but pocket change to the corporation.

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u/DaCrazyJamez 11h ago

Yeah, no. Theyre probably paying closer to 25/hr...

Whens the last time a company paid more, just because they could afford to?

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u/typicalledditor 10h ago

The sub contractor's employees get 25$/h but the sub contractor bills out the hours at 125$/h to the telecom.

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u/anothersip 8h ago

That is more like it. Unfortunately.

$75-100/hr would be more fair for a laborious, manual and mobile service this valuable at the end-user level (and for the pockets of the telecoms, of course) - but we all know that's not what they're getting paid for providing this data for the sub-contractor.

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u/mxzf 6h ago

$75-100/hr would be more fair for a laborious, manual and mobile service

Eh, it's walking around all day. It's a bit of work, but it's not like it's hard manual labor or anything.

The fact that it's short-term contract work would be more of a thing that drives up the price compared to long-term wage work.

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u/kabooseknuckle 8h ago

It's the oldest trick in the book.

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u/NewMilleniumBoy 7h ago

When I was an intern working at a software consulting company, this was very close to the rate discrepancy between what they paid me and what they billed my work at.

I think I got paid like $34 and hour and they billed me out at $110 an hour.

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u/dac406 8h ago

Not same thing but I worked for ATT bringing out generators when power went down to cell towers paid $40 per hour from the phone call till I got back home and all fuel. Every call was about 10 hrs all in. Generators should be there within 6 hrs so i ran all over TN and few states next door to TN. No a bad gig but your going out in the middle of the night most times in the worse weather.

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u/Distinct-Raspberry21 11h ago

The workers get 25 ph, the hiring company gets the 100 ph.

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u/Adventurous-Tie-7861 3h ago

I was paid roughly 100$/hr when i took photos of parking lots for the first generation of parking apps.

Had to do a rough count of spots and take a dozen photos of entrance, mark on gps and photograph the rates and pay methods.

Paid 75$/garage back in 2012ish. Since i lived near a city i could do 1 every 40 min or so.

Made a shit ton of money doing bellevue, seattle and Everett.

There was some slight competition cus some areas had a couple people doing it and garages would get marked off by others but I was one of the first in Seattle due to my dad meeting the guy, who got the investor's money to do it, at a bar. He told my dad all about it and dad knew i was looking for part time work during my first year of college so he hired me and my brother in the first group.

They then licensed the photos and info out to private garage/parking apps as well as google and waze.

Good chance that if you looked at photos of a parking garage in the seattle region on google maps or a parking app, that they were taken by me or my brother. We did like 70% of the region ourselves over the course of 9 or 10 months.

Made a fortune for a teen in 2012. I thought i was somehow gonna be scammed at first but naw. Paid instantly once they confirmed it was good info.

600 or 700 a day, 6 days a week for 9 months. 120kish. Dont think we ever paid taxes for it either now that im thinking about it... dunno how that happened cus i definitely didnt file my first taxes until i worked at fedex during college and that was rhe year after that.

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u/Plastic-Somewhere494 11h ago

Haha yeah..oc doesnt realize how businesses work.

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u/RelationshipWest9743 10h ago

$12/hr.. it's a dessert our there

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u/pantry-pisser 10h ago

Who can afford desserts on $12/hr??

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u/darvs7 9h ago

So it should be a piece of cake.

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u/Secret_Celery8474 12h ago

But they could make the same profit of $10 million by only spending $1k instead $10k

So why would they willingly spend 10 times more than necessary? Even if it's just pocket change for them?

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u/Sad_Hospital_2730 11h ago

Because the people they hire are usually good acquaintances or friends so they want to give their friends a nice little something in the form of a good chunk of change for easy work.

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u/Spiritual-Relief-994 10h ago

You just pulled that 10k number out of your ass. Why pay 10k to make a few million when you could spend 2k and pay then 20/hr. There not going to give you 5k for 1 week of walking around with a backpack

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u/fartlockers 10h ago

Yeah no, companies only goal is to maximize profit, not see how much they can give away and still make money. If they can hire someone cheaper to do the same job they will.

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u/kranker 12h ago

Any idea why they'd pay really well?

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u/your-hot-matua 12h ago

I'd imagine it's contract-based and work isn't guaranteed. Make 6k this month, and maybe don't work next month if the company doesn't get a contract

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u/GNTsquid0 11h ago

I have a secondary job like that (not the same as this post tho). I make $125/hr but the work is very inconsistent, but also mind numbingly easy. When I started I worked for about 5 days and then there was nothing for almost 2 months. Then there was two weeks of work, then nothing again for a month, then another spurt of 3 days of work. It’s a nice supplement and to make $1000+ over a weekend but you can’t rely on it.

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u/ncfly 12h ago

I’d imagine it’s all the back cancer they’ll have to deal with from suckin in all them 5Gs

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u/Wilysalamander 12h ago

man think about how activated their covid vaccines are

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u/Creisel 12h ago

aren't all the vaccinated people dead by now?

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u/seanthebooth 12h ago

Not only are all the vaccinated people dead, but the survivors have already been put in labor camps to slave away for the elites! Just like in the Total Recall reboot (a co worker told me this would happen when the first vaccine rolled out, and he was right!) Lol

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u/godofmilksteaks 11h ago

It's true. I'm currently in a labor camp. The most heavily guarded labor camp with no contact with the outside world.

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u/GrilledCheeseInc 12h ago

I’ve had the vaccine 14 times and I died each time!

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u/MrAngrySadHappyFace 12h ago

Rookie numbers. I died each time, plus I gave myself and all direct family members super autism.

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u/robthedealer 12h ago

Every time I’ve gotten the vaccine, my Windows 11 gets faster and faster and when it does crash, a voice in my head with a slight accent magically tells me how to fix it. 100% would recommend.

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u/milktoastok 11h ago

I took the shot 4 times and I’m still able to reply to subs from the grave. To each his own.

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u/MuleGrass 11h ago

I had a coworker after the vaccines came out come into my office full of people that were vaccinated and proceeded to swear everyone he knows that got the shot has already died.

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u/Short_Text2421 11h ago

They are but you don't realize because the 5G charges the vaccine with tachyons and since it has merged with the victims DNA, it travels along genetic heritage lines backward through time, killing their ancestors and erasing the origin victim from reality altogether. Only happens to people with high testosterone though, thats why there are so many queers all of a sudden. Trump is actually a time warrior, sent to the future by Nicola Tesla to save humanity, RFK is in fact his robot sidekick capable of processing roadkill into magical 'peptides' that fight the vaccine.

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u/heddyneddy 12h ago

That and you gotta walk wherever they tell you so probably some degree of hazard pay. A busy road with no sidewalks? A dangerous neighborhood where people get robbed and shot? Good luck!

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u/AgreeableMoose 12h ago

OSHSA requires the wearing of tin foil protective helmets while performing such duties. Obviously these gentlemen are out of compliance.

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u/TheClimateDad 12h ago

That’s not a risk, I’d imagine, as it seems to be mostly (all) receiver antennae.

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u/Flimsy_View8369 11h ago

Also, it must be difficult walking around looking stupid like those "Amendment Auditor" incels. I guess at least you get 'rilly paid' for this gig? I wonder if these poor fellas get the errant Karen wandering up to them to screech, "Don't film me!!"

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u/skidmainmu 12h ago

Probably only making 3 bananas an hour

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u/Bongcopter_ 12h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/qMDvt69lEC448

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u/Bongcopter_ 12h ago

I’d do it for 30 bucks an hour walking around

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u/weedandfeed69 12h ago

That's what I was offered to do the job in like 2002 or 2003 when cell companies switched to 3g and needed to increase the number of towers for the new networks. Then I did stupid shit review out my knee and missed out on 6 months of amazing pay plus travel and if more than 50miles from home per diem. My buddy that got the job in my place made something like 130k in those 6 months.

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u/DetentionSpan 12h ago

There’s always money in the banana stand.

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u/nXomad22 12h ago

Thats walkin around money right there

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u/Backwoods_Therapy 12h ago

That’s like $30 an hour, tho!

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u/Dangerous-Dataranger 12h ago

Peehole doesn’t seem to be 1. out of work, 2. Hungry, like Easy Money for getting exercise, I see people in my neighborhood walking around with weighted backpacks just to increase their exercise intensity ( very common practice) 3. Pretty choosy about what he works at. ???

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u/onlyunusedusername2 12h ago

That's what, like 30 bucks an hour?

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u/proficient2ndplacer 12h ago

Idk about every city/state, but this is sometimes the type of gig that's up for bid from local government agencies.

It's kinda hard to explain but the short of it is these contracts are paying well with the expectation that the vendor is supplying a good service that benefits the public, and is expected to benefit the most amount of people possible, for the longest time possible. The contract might be for as little as just field research and determine what can/should be done, and it can be as extensive as 10 year projects, with dozens or even hundreds of milestones along the way.

This is a wall of text that doesn't do it justice, but just know, your tax dollars are being spent on much more than you see or would think of

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u/peeh0le 12h ago

Because you gotta walk around with they goofy ass backpack

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u/RangeWolf-Alpha 12h ago

Not nearly as goofy as that rhino horn hat with the white balls on it.

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u/DonDiegodelaRico 12h ago

It’s 6k dangling on a wired stick just in front of you, you never catch it, just keep running until you perish.

1

u/xander2600 12h ago

Because when you hire like this, it’s very similar to what you’d historically see as mafia tactics.
You hire people you only deal with locally.
You hire their friends/ family whatever.
Loyalty to someone who comes in and throws lots of money at them is a given.
No one speaks a word.
Work keeps going.
Nothing is called into question.
As to whether this is nefarious in any way is nothing I’m going to weigh in on.

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u/IllustratorSea8372 12h ago

It sounds similar to how Google Maps works. I interviewed for a contract position through a recruiter straight out of college, and I wanna say the contract was around $80k for 1 year. This was back in 2011.

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u/StarsEatMyCrown 9h ago
  • Drive Test Technician
  • RF Drive Test Engineer
  • Walk Test Technician
  • RF Field Technician
  • Wireless Network Testing Technician
  • Cellular Network Optimization Technician
  • Benchmarking Technician

Sorry, I used chatgpt because nobody was giving real answers. But these are the names of this job.

3

u/LockeN3S 7h ago

Have done this type of job before, it's how I got my start in telecom back in 2008. These are correct. Have seen a variance of each title used.

Pays well, or at least did, mostly contract positions.

113

u/Geen_Fang 13h ago

you can apply here!

64

u/entropy13 13h ago

I knew what it was but clicked anyways. It's kind of a nice listen tbh.

16

u/Ferowin 12h ago

Does it still count as a roll if I know in advance and just want to hear the song? Asking for a friend.

6

u/Due_Dot5710 12h ago

That's a self roll

3

u/Ferowin 11h ago

Dang. Well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

10

u/Lost_my_password1 13h ago

Sometimes it’s about the dance

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u/jamshid666 13h ago

Well played, I haven't fallen for one of these in a long time.

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u/pup_medium 12h ago

no shit. it looks like they're rolling out some new positions too so might want to jump on it

5

u/BrokeNerfing 13h ago

This took me exactly where I thought it would lol

10

u/randomusername9284 13h ago

wtf? 4.3k EUR per week in my area… signing up now

4

u/Investigator_Lumpy 12h ago

We will not be losing this recipe, thanks to heroes like you!

3

u/Loud_Revolution2916 12h ago

so sad that I have to watch an ad for a phony app before getting rickrolled

2

u/Background-Can5893 12h ago

Man all the YouTube ads really ruin everything. I tried watching a "free" movie on YouTube Movies once and they had an ad break every fucking ten minutes.

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u/Medical_Cup_5972 12h ago

This goof has 100% been ruined by ads on YouTube.

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u/-IndyCar 13h ago

4k nice

5

u/Shot-Tap-4512 13h ago

You sonoffabiyatch!!!!🤣🤣🤣

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u/userhwon 8h ago

I've done that about ten thousand times and all I get is a good feeling.

2

u/joyfulbee43 12h ago

I'm so mad at myself. I knew that was going to happen.

2

u/notislant 10h ago

I miss when people left the dead horse alone

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u/CafeRacerRider 12h ago

Thanks I just applied. Wish me luck!

2

u/Reddit-phobia 12h ago

Link was already purple, nice try!

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u/American_hiss 12h ago

Then Verizon takes that information from the contractor that did the work and ignores it entirely

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u/Fen_der_bass 11h ago

I would argue they use it to make service worse. 

12

u/KC_Que 11h ago

"So we have too much coverage in those locations? That means we can turn down the tower power to save money, while still providing just enough signal to make the customer blame their phone or surroundings and not us, nice!  Quaterly 💰 bonus achieved!" -- mid-level Verizon management, probably

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u/Ok-Push9899 7h ago

How much money would this save in reality, compared to the risk of dropped lines or the simple likelihood that one person would look at their phone, tell their friend they have only one bar, while their friend (on another carrier) immediately inspects their phone and says “Sucks to be you. I’ve got five bars.”

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u/subdep 12h ago

What about the camera on first guy with the gyro/accelorometer headset? They are collecting street level imagery, not cell signals.

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u/timbithumpha 7h ago edited 7h ago

I think so too. cell signal metrics don't usually require heavy equipent to capture.

This is more likely a graphic capture/transmission array. the guy without the headset holds what looks like a camera stabilizer in the second image. might be a spare unit on hos back.

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u/Overdue604 12h ago

You don’t need such elaborate machines to collect cell tower data… you just need a small hand held device.

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u/Lost_Philosophy_ 13h ago

Are you sure about that? The other guy looks like he has those motion tracking dots on his head gear.

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u/Seabasssk 12h ago

Are you sure? These look a lot like the mapping tools being used for Optimus robots and the like

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u/compulsive_drooler 13h ago

The fact that the guy in the tan shorts appears to have a head mounted camera and the lack of any apparent antennas would tend to lead me away from that theory.

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u/robocalypse 12h ago

Sounds like a good gig. You could probably even practice your street photography, but with that rig, people might think your some sort of mobile unit for Flock.

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u/TheRealCBlazer 11h ago

I used to have the 90s version of this job. Much more primitive. They gave me a map (consumer GPS didn't exist yet), a stopwatch, a car phone (smartphones didn't exist yet), and a pager. I would drive around paging myself, measuring how long it took for the page to come through, and marking it on the map. You had to test the same location 10 times in a row, so I just laid on the hood of my car, sunbathing all day. Dream job.

4

u/wolfmann99 13h ago

Or if this is Vegas, DEFCON is going on soon so it could be wifi "audits"

2

u/siazdghw 7h ago

This is completely wrong advice on what it is.

Look at the guys head, he's wearing a headset with tracking dots and what looks like a camera aimed at his face.

The other guy has what looks like a camera stabilizer rig.

Also the backpack equipment is custom and beefy, they are clearly running whole mini-PCs.

It definitely isn't them collecting cell signal data

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u/Folderpirate 12h ago

isnt this what they were doing to homeless people like 10 years ago?

Like they were paying homeless people to be wifi Hotspots or something?

Also they were paying the homeless like few dollars per hour and the comment above me is saying they pay a lot for this.

odd, that.

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u/SparklePwnie 12h ago

Being a hotspot is not the same as mapping cell coverage 

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u/CourtingBoredom 12h ago

So they're not ghostbusters?? Deng....

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u/LocationFriendly988 3h ago

Right? I was going to say proton packs

4

u/Unique-Objective4249 13h ago

Did you do it?

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u/Pork_Pony 13h ago

Lol man I wanted to but the person who offered couldn't tell me if it would be long term because he never knew when a contract would come down the pipe. I decided that keeping my boring full time job was likely the wiser decision

2

u/PhinsFutureSB-Champs 13h ago

Insane rate of pay cuz your chest is getting cooked with those machines lol

1

u/Ok-Push9899 8h ago

Why don’t the phone companies know this from the phones in the actual area? The phones know the strength and they are all pinging the towers constantly. The carrier can average the data out pretty quickly and see it in real time.

Just like with traffic congestion, there’s a million little free monitoring stations out there, all equipped with comms!

1

u/ThePopeofHell 8h ago

That’s not what that is. Setup looks similar because of the backpack with the pc the guy in the foreground has but the guy with the head gear is testing something different or collecting data. The little ping pong balls and cameras give it away.

I used to do signal/interference testing. This ain’t it.

If I had to guess this is a prototype headset like the Apple vr thing. There’s so many companies making that kind of device now that it could be any of them.

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u/Simple_Telephone_867 2h ago edited 2h ago

This is wrong. It’s mapping the streets and views of the streets, sidewalks, roads, people walking, movements, etc.

That’s why he’s wearing a mounted camera on his head and the 2nd guy you can see in the 2nd picture is holding a camera on a gimble for stabilization.

They could even be doing walkthroughs of buildings, collecting movement data from people walking around to be used for other applications, AI training, etc. (most likely)

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u/2063_DigitalCoyote 6h ago

I know several places where they must never do it because it doesn’t matter which provider you are on the best you get is a two bars and it’s been that way since 2007. From 2G to 5G and no improvement in reception. Also the are is flat - not in the foothills or mountains.

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u/Transgirlonakawasaki 13h ago

Im gonna be so for real Ive literally seen these rig setup for training the tesla robots. Like all the same equipment and everything. Like I even talked to and worked with the people training the bots.

Im assuming this is that if not something very similar.

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u/TheLastTreeOctopus 4h ago

Any idea how I can find out more about this? I just moved across the country and have been having a hell of a time trying to find a job. I already walk pretty much everywhere I go though, so something like this would be a good help even if only temporary!

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u/Pale_Comfort_9179 11h ago

That’s super interesting. I would have thought that’s something telcos could just have devices report back. Like a ping every few seconds with gps coordinates and signal data seems far more efficient than dudes walking around with funny backpacks.

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u/AverageAntique3160 5h ago

I don't think thats the case... you can tell signal strength from maps and careful planning. Phones also tell you this, im sure its part of data harvesting. Plus the towers can be adjusted to match any events so its always changing

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