Can You Hear Me Now?

We've all seen those Verizon Wireless commercials with the guy on a cell phone asking "Can you hear me now?" He's an actor, but there are real "can you hear me now" people. The News On 6's Rick Wells reports the real ones are not walking around with one phone, they drive around with lots of them.

That "can you hear me now" guy, is not a real Verizon baseline engineer, he just plays one on TV.

Ken Lee is the real deal. He's a little older and much better looking.

"There are 90 guys and girls, too, just like me that drive all over the United States," said Lee.

Lee and two others cover most of a four state area including Oklahoma, one of them comes through Tulsa every three months.

"We cover about 15,000 miles every quarter," said Lee.

Each one drives a van loaded with cell phones and computers, when he turns the system on, the cell phones start making calls.

"There's Verizon, US Cellular, AT&T, Sprint T-Mobile and Nextel," said Lee.

The computers monitor the calls and monitor how many go through, how many get dropped, how strong the signal is and lots more, not only for Verizon, but its competitors, too.

"If you have interference that's called ec-override," said Lee.

Come on, they don't call him the high-tech redneck for nothing. It's a high tech partnership. He does the driving; the computers do the heavy lifting.

Phones make calls, the computers collect the data, the data is transferred to his laptops and then is ultimately analyzed by the experts.

The other essential piece of equipment is the company gas card.

"We use it a lot," said Lee.

That's about it, except for one thing. Why does the Verizon baseline engineer wear red suspenders?

"To keep their pants up, that's pretty much it," said Lee.