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Cell Phone Service Degenerates Further
An anonymous reader writes "Almost everyone I know has been complaining about their cell phone service lately. These companies continue to add more subscribers, overloading their networks to the breaking point. They hold you hostage by not allowing you to switch providers and won't invest in new infrastructure. Customer service ratings are dismal for all the major providers. Doesn't look like it's going to improve any time soon."
Does anyone else find it slightly odd that cell phone companies are allowed to make cell phones that only work with their network? For instance, I can't ditch Sprint and use my Sprint PCS Samsung phone with Verizon service. Why is this allowed? I mean, what if Verizon required you to have a special type of phone for your local (land line) service. If you wanted to switch to a different provider, would you have to buy a new home phone? Most people would freak about that.
Thoughts?
Mike
-- bearclaw
That said everyone I know complains about Sprint's coverage and has sworn them off, something I couldn't figure out. Then this summer a bunch of use started to do a phone comparison. And you know what, almost everywhere I had a few bars while they were dropping to roaming.
Then we realize that my older (and slightly larger) Samsung must have a more powerful antenna. All my friends super cool $300 migit phones made a signal strength vs. size tradoff.
So don't complain if you cant get signal in doors. You should have bought a larger phone....
And in Europe... and in India. But when I get to the US there is a marked drop off. To the stage where I have often used two phones, one tri-band and one CDMA/analogue.
I can "roam" onto competitors networks outside of my home country, but not at home. Hence my tri-band phone often gets a signal as it has 3 or so networks to chose from, while the Sprint phone gets nothing because I'm in a Sprint zone.
Basic solutions would be for better roaming agreements between providers and one standard for phones.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I would avoid any PCS service. The high frequencies of PCS (1900MHz) don't penetrate walls as well as cellular (800MHz). Verizon is mostly cellular except for a few states.
Also, I've heard from some network engineers who claim that the cellular carriers have better tower placement, in bigger cities, because they came well before PCS.
It will improve soon. We had a similar situation a few years ago in Europe.. you usually subscribe for a year and after that, you can cancel at any moment. And since you usually get a new phone with a new subscription, a lot of people switch after their subscription expires. Well, the tech savvy ones do anyway.
Of course here in the Netherlands (a little larger than Delaware, 16 million people) you can choose between 5 providers and there's a regulation where they must provide you with the option of keeping the same cell number. If there's less competition where you live, you might be screwed.
I went to a community meeting last summer about how to keep a 60-foot cellphone tower out of our little "historic neighborhood" and noticed I was the only person sitting around the conference table who wasn't packing a cellphone. Everyone wants to complain about their cellphone service, but no one wants a tower in their line of vision. Actually, we tried to steer them to a couple of churches who could have used help with their crumbling steeples. A lot of people were surprised to learn that the tower would benefit only those who were using Cricket phones, not wireless communication in general, and that there is no limit to how many companies can build towers within the same area. There was also some grumbling about Cricket, with its short range, being the choice of "hookers and drug dealers." As it turned out, Leap Wireless, hardly has enough money to keep their NASDAQ listing, much less fight a bunch of pitchfork-wielding homeowners, so they never built the tower.
The fact that there is huge tracts of underutilized spectrum is why the government needs to get out of the auction buziness.
Do you really believe that the free market would have done better than the FCC has? If there were no FCC, there would be no radio astronomy. Your TV signal would get interference from the cell-phone bearing people walking down the sidewalk.
The Iridium satellites' frequency band was closely examined and approved by the FCC. When they launched however, it was found that they were broadcasting in a sideband well outside of that permitted band, rendering radio telescopes useless (like shining a flashlight down an optical telescope) so the FCC decreed that the Iridium transmitters had to be turned off as they passed over certain geographical regions.
Tell me how the free market would have solved that one. Ruled in favor of science or dollars? Free market favors the majority when a conflict arises. The government also keeps the needs of the minority in mind.
Further reading: Wired article