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Consumer Reports: Cingular, Sprint Bad Performers
dcgirl20006 writes "It's that time again, Consumer Reports is out with the annual cell phone review. And Verizon has risen to the top. And, Cingular, with the most subscribers (post AT&T mega merger), claims it is the company with the "least dropped calls" but consumers say otherwise. What can be done? Provide risk-free 30 day trial period; realistic coverage maps, upfront price disclosure, and end early termination fees."
In spite of their mathematically challenged service reps, Verizon has always been a pretty good company for me. In Atlanta, the coverage is excellent and their prices and plans are fantastic.
I originally switched primarily because Verizon was one of a very, very few companies that refused to participate in and spoke out against the cell phone directory telemarketer's dream scheme a while back. It was pretty heavily covered by our consumer rights media guru here, Clark Howard (second entry). It also helps that most of my family is on Verizon and I can now call them for free.
And, for what it's worth, they did finally concede that $.002 is different from .002. :-)
Unless things change pretty dramatically, I'll probably stick with them for a long time to come.
I'm not sure about any reports that categorize what is basically a nation-wide business that really exists in terms of local regions, in this case, cell towers. I've used T-Mobile since Voicestream was the originator (actually, since day one of Voicestream) and I've been ecstatic about their coverage in the regions I travel in. For me, this is all that matters. I hear about horror stories with T-Mobile from others -- but their regions are different. For me to use a national consumer report for a company that exists for me mostly on a local level is really short-sighted.
I do like Consumer Reports and I think they do carry weight in their expertise in terms of national products on a national level -- cars, consumer equipment, home equipment, etc. I won't buy a car or a washer or a TV without at least reviewing what CR has to say. But if CR was to try to shoehorn local service into a nation-wide review, I don't think I would consider it trustworthy. For that, I'd contact people in the region and see what they use.
My father recently switched from T-Mobile to Cingular and he is actually happier -- better coverage in HIS region (objective), conversation quality seems better (subjective), and he hasn't had one dropped call versus T-Mobile dropping about 5% of the calls in HIS region. But in my area, Cingular is terrible.
Sure, the report (for subscribers) offers some city-wide ratings, but again it is too generic to really understand or use as a relevant way to pick a carrier. Also, it is important to realize that while "nationwide" can be broken down in multiple ways, it is still an overall general region. The Chicago area that I live in totals about 30 regions from urban to suburban to exurban to rural -- and all of them are rarely used by the same user. For a cell phone user, talking to me (in the burbs) means little if they live in farmland, so why would they care what the overall national service quality is when what matters most is what others in their region use and are happy with?
I am a fan of CR and other free market regulators (they offer opinions, you are free to choose based on that variety of opinion out there), but in this case I think they fall short of need. I do like them in terms of rating customer service, which is definitely NOT region-based or specific to one local market, but produces a reliable review of the company as a whole. I think that is where CR shines: in terms of letting us know about specific problems with their customer service center or with their contracts or with their pricing schemes. But in terms of overall reliability, I think this is more aggregation where aggregation is not appropriate or even considered valid.
I won't ever switch to Cingular myself because of two reasons:
1. I've had friends who have had terrible luck with their call center for help.
2. Bad contracts as compared to other cell phone manufacturers.
T-Mobile has the best customer retention department imaginable, and they seem to care because of the follow-up calls I've received. I also love their handset replacement plan as well as their optional insurance plan which I've used twice in 5 years. T-Mobile has made sure I am never without a working phone, and when I have had problems, they've worked to fix it. For me, that is still secondary to knowing what works in what markets/regions that I use, and CR just isn't appropriate for that purpose.
Sidenotes:
Early termination fees are VERY important when you're getting a $200-$300 handset "for free." Just returning the handset does not cover the commission paid to the dealer.
Upfront price disclosure is important, but it really should be up to the buyer-side of the transaction to understand what they're getting into. If you're not sure, ask a friend to help you.
Realstic coverage maps: What is realistic? I've never seen a coverage map that is consistently right -- things change, and conditions can be effected by new construction or even weather conditions. They can al
As much as I'd love to read the article, and as informative and helpful as I'm sure it is, I can't help but wonder if an article that requires that you pay for it (not even a free registration option) has any place on Slashdot.
(Cue "Slashdotters don't RTFA" jokes now)
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What the best nation-wide wireless provider is. You might get different favorites, but most will say sprint sucks.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
You see, what happened was that Cingular advertised they had a dropped call rate of .10%. They ran the numbers, which were 5 dropped calls per 50, divided 5 by 50, came up with .10, and congratulated themselves on a job well done!
I use Cingular, and it's good enough for me. I've had it for six months and haven't had any dropped calls or low signals. The only thing I've experienced with them is during two severe thunderstorms in the area this past summer, I'd recieve calls from a number that couldn't be dialed back. Unless it was some clever prankster, I could only explain it as recieving weird signals or something from the towers because of the storm.
The Wireless corps are typing there best, i think its the way the system is setup why they are losing so many calls, i say its better then nothing at all, if you think you can get a better price and service be my guest and change your carrier
WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
Any call over 25 minutes with my Cingular phone, and I get dropped. Almost like clockwork.
Plus, when I purchased a new phone earlier this year, I couldn't get a new one locally, or get one online, because I moved to another county (in the same state) with a different area code, and my zip code wasn't within their allowable area. I sure as hell wasn't going to drive 100 miles to get a new phone!
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Why, exactly, would the slashdot editors post an article that links to a PAY website, where you can't actually, you know, RTFA without forking over cash. I mean, they post some shitty non-articles around here, but at least we can READ them.
Provide risk-free 30 day trial period; realistic coverage maps, upfront price disclosure, and end early termination fees."
Yes, yes, yes, and maybe not.
Remember that the cost of the phone is included in a contract, and that's why you get the termination fee if you cancel early. Even if you explicitly banned early termination fees, they would introduce fees for paying off the phone if you cancel the contract early that would be eerily similar to the termination fee. I guess it would be more explicit to the user though. Worse could be they keep the contract fees the same, but you have to pay in addition for your phone.
The 30-day trial period should be enough to find out about service issues that you wouldn't know about until you had the contact otherwise.
Then again, I'm not in America, but a couple of the same issues occur in England.
I had Sprint in 2000 in OH - when they had 500 min. for $50. I had a StarTac and was near the OSU campus - someplace you might figure would be covered by cell. At one point, nine out of ten calls I made (and well over half) were dropped - I could receive but couldn't call. Between being put on endless loops to try and get help and having a website that would only load if you enabled all cookies on (and wouldn't allow access otherwise), I was told that I was in a "medium-coverage" area and that some drops would be expected. When I bought a Samsung phone, the drops went away, but their customer service was still abysmal. When my contract was up, I dropped the phone until I met my wife and needed another one - then I got Verizon, which despite their landline rep, has been good to me.
As a side note, cellular providers can't get away with dropping termination fees - otherwise they would have to charge up front for the phone (and people would expect to be able to use it with other providers) and they would have to compete with one another on price rather than offering periodic savings which lock in a portion of their market for two years.
As a somewhat happy Verizon user, I can't deny that their COVERAGE is simply fantastic.
That being said, I feel that their disabling of their phones is ridiculous. The Motorola E815 that I purchased has numerous features that have either been disabled or crippled. Sure I can hack it, but that's not the point. It's one of the few reasons I have considered switching to someone with a more open policy regarding usage. Also, I pay significantly more than my friends/family that use Cingular/Sprint.
I like having extra minutes when I need them. T-mobile and Sprint aren't an option because there is no service outside of the main town here in my county (i live in rural southern indiana). Cingular has blanket coverage which is pretty good considering how hilly it is here. Verizon is getting there but there is still a ton of dead spots.
My normal travel route is west across the state and north to chicago. Not a single dead sport with Cingular. That can't be said of the other networks.
Gone!
>>And, for what it's worth, they did finally concede that $.002 is different from .002 [blogspot.com]. :-)
Well, then you conveniently forgot there now more and more people are reporting the same fraud? How much are they paying you, dude?
Most CDMA providers, Alltel, Verizon, Sprint, and the like all have roaming agreements. I have sold all three of those services and reps from Alltel told me that they have agreements with Verizon and Sprint for cities, because Alltel is primarily rural. They all share towers and the networks are then pretty much the same. The biggest difference between the services is the location of their primary towers in respect to you. If an Alltel tower is closer to you than a Sprint tower, a Alltel user will have better reception than the Sprint user, but if a Verizon tower is no where to be seen a Verizon user may use the Sprint tower or the Alltel tower and your phone will say "Extended Network" On an Alltel phone you will get a flashing triangle while roaming freely, and on a Sprint phone will simply say roaming, though you pay nothing more. Each provider has their pro's and con's and the most important factor in deciding a provider is who has towers located where YOU are. In my area Sprint is amazing, I get better reception then all of my friends with US Cellular, I have a cooler phone, and more choices for mobile data packs. My friends with Verizon are at par, I would say, but they have their bad spots too. I really don't like Consumer Report because of things like this. I sell Cingular and Sprint in Madison WI. They work very very well. Now people will tell me, someone who is trained on cellular services and technology, that the services I provide are bad because they spent 5 minutes reading a Consumer Report which told them so.
I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather pay a one time 200$ fee for my cellphone, have it unlocked, and be able to take it with me to whichever carrier, than to have an early termination fee. Heck, I already do this anyways, WITH the early termination fee. The early termination fee is not to recoup costs on the phone, it's the wireless providers way of making you stick with them, and it's sad. Make me pay retail for the phone straight from the phone companies and provide me service as it should be. Can you imagine if we had to buy our televisions from Comcast and it only worked on their cable network!??? Am I the only one who sees how ridiculous the whole thing is?
If I'm going on vacation, guess what? I'm going to get a new cell phone, use it on my vacation, then return it (for some minimal fee) after 3 weeks.
Any "trial period" is going to get misused.
I know women who will buy a dress, wear it once to some big fancy party, then return it... same general idea.
Who's stopping you from buying an unlocked phone?
If you don't feel like spending any extra money, call up Verizon and tell them you are going to be traveling internationally and they will give you the unlock code for your phone.
If you don't feel like waiting on hold for a customer service representative, you can probably find the unlock on a website someplace.
/whisper/ Thanks for the candy!
I hate cell phones. I won't belabor the pros and cons of having one, no one ever convinced me it was worth it, but I did end up getting one for me and one for my wife. Virgin Mobile pre-paid. Costs about $7/month, and no complaint with service.
Beat that!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
This is huge deal. In the city all providers are about the same and which one is slightly better is for people who have nothing better to argue about. In the rural areas there's enormous differences. All of them will show you coverage maps but they mean different things. For example a T-mobile coverage map means, empricially, it's possible you might be able to make a call from this location some of time, but that will vary by the hour. Whereas Verizon's maps seem to mean you have a good expectation to making a call from this location nearly all of the time.
I'd like to say something positive about T-mobile so I'll say this. When you call they are really good about trying to fix you problem and actually send out people in the field to check the addresses and actually go up to the towers and check. Verizon's tech support is populated by people who seem to be intent on wasting your time till you give up.
But at the end of the day what it comes down to is, "Can I reasonably expect to receive calls when I give out my phone number", and T-mobile gets a big ding for exagerating theoir coverage.
I don't have a problem with companies that have less coverage because they also charge less than verizon or offer other perks. What I do have a problme with is people who lie about their coverage. It's a big deal because you have to sign these freakin' 1 or 2 year contracts to get any sort of decent rates and it sucks going in blind. They won't let you out cause they lied, and even if you had a court case it's not going to be worth your effort to sue them over it.
So we need some sort of rating for "coverage claims are true" in the consumer reports.
So boo-hoo about your dropped calls. At least you can connect and get calls all the time.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Why, exactly, would the slashdot editors post an article that links to a PAY website, where you can't actually, you know, RTFA without forking over cash. I mean, they post some shitty non-articles around here, but at least we can READ them.
/.ers would support because of the service that they provide. remember, CR (by which both the website and the magazine) have NO advertising, whatsoever, which allows them to be truly impartial in their judgment of products. they never have to worry about pissing off sponsors, so they never pull any punches.
the most obvious answer, i think, is because that's where the article is.
but, to answer the real question - why link to a paid article, period, instead of just not running the story at all? the reason, i think, is that CR is a website that i think many typical
my pet machine
I have been a Cingular subscriber for 6 years.
This year is the worst this network has been.
Cingular The Most Dropped Calls.
Take Care
Sue
When it's time
It's time,
And it may be sooner then you think
Verizon is still primarily a Northeast provider, and I have them in NYC. When I went to Las Vegas last year their coverage was pretty good as well as their coverage in Seattle. When we drove from Vegas to the Grand Canyon, though, the network dropped to nothing. I kind of expected that, however, as their maps pretty much showed that to be a roaming area.
The one complaint I will have about Verizon (a bit of a tangent) is that their EVDO network coverage isn't fantastic yet. The problem is that on my phone it's really hard to override searching for an EVDO network so if I'm at my parents house I get good voice coverage but the battery dies quickly as it's looking for the EVDO network as well. It's just random pockets though.
Ask your local real estate agent. Someone commented asking a trucker for coverage, but usually highways are very well covered, even by the worst providers because it is easier to towers very near highways. Your local real estate agent will have traveled all over your area, and probably would even be able to tell you which service doesn't work in what particular neighborhood.
Will the War in Iraq get better or worse in 2007? Vote here
Sorry doesn't work like that, Only quadband GSM phones will work internationally. Verizon is CDMA. Anyways FCC enforces that all phones are programed for their providers if sold inside the US. Be pissed at the FCC not Verizon or your carrier.
I agree with the chap who said they have the best customer retention dept... One year ago, I was going to leave (I had no contract) and they convinced me to stay by giving me 1500 day minutes, ul night/weekend, nationwide roaming, etc. for $49 a month -- no contract! I was going to switch to Cingular anyway a few months later, but ended up staying because 1) T-Mobile significantly improved coverage around Dallas-Fort Worth and 2) switching to Cingular, for a plan with similar minutes and text messages, would cost me at least $20 more each month AND that would be with a 2 year contract! I recently called T-Mobile about upgrading to a Blackberry... not only were they willing to give me a good deal on the phone (I told them I wanted no contract -- not having a contract gives you a HUGE bargaining chip), but they said I could keep my sweet minutes deal and get the unlimited data plan for only $15 more a month -- again, way better than Cingular. If I wanted to be an ass, I imagine I could call T-Mobile every few months and threaten to cancel and they'd probably comp my account $50 each time for staying. They're really working hard to keep their subscribers happy. I have no plans to switch to anyone else now.
When every cell network has independent cell towers, this creates a less reliable, more costly, perhaps less competitive market.
There is only one set of phone lines hanging on the poles. The cell towers should work the same way; they should be shared by all companies.
What if many phone companies were each allowed hang their own phones wires. Each company would claim that they have the best quality wires or the largest network of wires. Each company uses a slightly different standard so they can create an artificial monopoly for their phones.
The result: Incompatible phones. Smaller network.
Well this is the result of the current cell system in the US. You can't use one phone on another network. You possibly can't use your phone if your are standing next to the wrong tower.
The cell towers should work like the phone lines: controlled/owned by the government and available in a fair and competitive way to all interested companies, all using open standards.
I've been unhappy with verizon. I get poor reception at my house, but my roommates with Tmobile and Cingular get far better reception. Might be my phone, who knows, but I can't use it there as it either won't connect to start with or drops calls like crazy. It rarely rings when people call me, but somehow it's able to tell me when I have a voicemail and I can listen to voicemails fine, just not talk to people.
When I got a phone for my mom, they created two phone numbers for it, on different accounts, and one of these accounts was registered at my mom's address instead of mine, which is really strange because I don't rmember giving them her address. As no one knew this existed, I didn't pay the bills for this phantom account, though I did pay the bills for the account we all knew about for the same phone. Then my mom opened one of the enveloped in my name at her address one day and foud a delinquency notice for the phantom account which had no phone associated with it. Somehow in two months time it had gone up to over US$300 in bills from a $40/month plan. I have no idea what kind of voodoo math they used to do that. Plus the reps had difficulty figuring out what happened, and when they did they also had difficulty cleaning up the mess, apparently needing permission from some higher-up people to credit the phantom account which should never have existed.
I also accuse them of bank fraud. I accidentally switched checks in my bills last June, cable TV check went in the Verizon envelope and the verizon check went in the cable TV envelope. Cable company sent the verizon check back and I of course had to pay them again, somehoe it all happened in time that I wasn't late. But Verizon cashed the wrong check, which was clearly written out as payable to the cable company. The Verizon rep made it sound like they do this pretty often, cashing car loan payments, mortgage payments, and everything they get, because they have a computer scanning the checks instead of people. But their electronic transaction on my bank statement (no copy of check returned to the bank, but I do have my carbons) got the amount I owed the cable company exactly correct from the check, and also scanned the check number properly, do I don't understand why it can't be told to look if it's actually payable to Verizon or not. They won't answer my requests for an explanation as to why they feel they have the right to cash someone else's check, and I feel some peoploe are getting screwed big-time if they do this and don't have enough cash left to write a new check to the mortgage company on time while they wait 4 to 6 weeks for a refund from Verizon.If that's not bank fraud, then repalce the term with whatever the correct term is, but whatever it's truely called it's pretty shady IMHO.
Their reps also try to change me from a 1 year to a 2 year contract every time I ask any question at all. They don't ask me if I want to switch, they just assume and I have to call back and get it fixed again later. Damn it, I said one year, please stop trying to trick me into being trapped for 2 years. I'm glad I took the shorter term, as after going through all this crap with them I want out as soon as possible.
When it does this I have to hang up and call back.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Verizon is a CDMA not a GSM network. You can unlock your phone but it's not much use except in the non-Verizon parts of the world that have CDMA (S Korea?). They have a international plan that can accomodate a GSM phone overseas but if youre going to be calling locally overseas it's just cheaper to buy a prepaid GSM phone from some random place in the destination country.
There are lots of hacks floating around for cracking OBEX. It seems to be faily trivial if you have the right cabling.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I kept getting free phone offers from "the new" Cingular, and I figured out why as soon as I found out from a rep that getting a new phone meant I had to sign a contract.
See- I never signed any contract with AT&T. I can cancel at any time. Not only that- I have a regional plan (which Cingular no longer offers) and I pay about $25/mo before taxes and such (add in extra for 8MB of data, something I've been meaning to can as I never use it.)
Bop over to Cingular's site and notice that the CHEAPEST plan is over $40. They literally DOUBLED the minimum "plan". Sure, you get twice as many minutes- but I almost never use the minutes I have now...something like 250.
Wanna see something interesting? Compare per-minute charges from the 90's to per-minute charges today. Despite "competition" between Verizon, T-mobile, Cingular, etc- they haven't changed much. Once you go over your minutes, it still costs you almost half a dollar a minute.
Please help metamoderate.
A lot of times I see people bemoan one cell phone company or another for coverage when the issue at least partially lies with the phone. It's a two-dimensional equation and far too often it's not being treated that way. I know my Cingular coverage used to stink until I switched phones and then all of a sudden the dropped calls and poor coverage I got magically went away. I'm now pretty happy with Cingular after I got rid of my old phone. I do realize that there are plenty of examples where the fault lies squarely on the provider's shoulders but it's important to at least keep in mind that the fault could lie in the phone. I don't know if this partiular study takes that into account (I won't pay for the article) but I've never seen one that does take that into consideration.
The only reason I'm keeping Cingular (in the short term) is because of the Rollover minutes and pretty much everyone I call is on Cingular. Hence, no charge to call those people.
I can relate to the problems on I-65. I drive from southern Indiana into Louisville, KY and just north of the Kennedy bridge the signal drops probably 95% of the time. When I get on I-64 and head East, the signal drops 100% of the time after passing through the tunnel. Strange that it doesn't drop in the tunnel, it fails about a mile or so past the tunnel. I know Verizon and Sprint don't have that problem around here. I had Nextel previously, and aside from the extreme expense (and inability to get my bill correct just once in two years) in owning a Nextel phone, I had few service problems.
I couldn't help but laugh when Cingular started the "fewest dropped calls" bovine excrement, because I've never had more dropped calls will all my previous carriers combined. Cingular is by far the worst when it comes to dropped calls.
Frankly, Consumer Reports really doesn't know what they're talking about here. Since all national carriers require contracts, they have an aproximately equal lock-in on their subscribers. So, subscribers have an equal chance to leave any of the carriers. Who are they leaving? Well, they're leaving Cingular at 1.5% (post-pay) per month. They're leaving Sprint at 2.4% (post-pay) per month. They're leaving T-Mobile at 2.3% (post-pay) per month. And they're leaving Verizon at 0.95% (direct retail post-pay) per month. Verizon's numbers are better because they're not including indirect customers who tend to churn at a higher rate - but they're still somewhere between 1% and 1.24% (their total churn). Suffice it to say, it's easy to see who customers stay with. Is Consumer Reports talking out of their butt? Absolutely Yes! If you get results that are inconsistant with churn numbers, you either have to come up with an argument why churn isn't a good indicator of customer satisfaction or there's something wrong with your methodology. Frankly, the percentage of customers that leave each month is a really great way to see how many are dissatisfied.
Essentially, Consumer Reports methodology is inaccurate - almost to the point that random chance would have provided as good a result. For example, if I claim Cingular and Sprint are good and Verizon and T-Mobile are bad, I'm pretty much as accurate as their report saying that customers like Verizon and T-Mobile. Customers like Verizon, followed by Cingular, followed by T-Mobile, followed by Sprint. That's accurate and I have REAL data over a sample of MILLIONS to back that up.
Information is a passive entity, it doesn't want anything (obviously).
Information is completely in the control of the person who has access to it.
Therefore, the only way to control information is to control other people.
Controlling other people tends to piss them off, and is the opposite of freedom.
So it isn't information that wants to be free, its people who want to be free. IMO, giving someone access to something but trying to control what they do with it is not only unlikely to succeed but also morally wrong.
But none of this is new.
I started out with Verizon about 8 years ago, and I'm still with them as I come to the end of my 4th contract. I'll stay with them. Their customer service and rates may not be the best, and they lock features of their phones (which is why I specifically bought a phone I can hack), but at least for me and in the areas I live (rural central Indiana) and travel in, their coverage is *by far* the best. At the end of the day, and especially since I'm one of those people that dropped my landline years ago and depend on my cellphone, cheaper rates, better customer service, and open phone features don't matter diddly-squat if you can't make a phone call.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Well, they have been the buyer, not the buyee in their one deal since then and their price structure hasn't really changed (they don't really compete on price or minutes). The best to hope for was that Nextel's service would rub off on Sprint, but they could also have gone with the Dell plan (business and individual tiers of service). Based on the review, despite having merged with Nextel who was supposed to have good but expensive service, they haven't really changed. If there had been a time between 2000 and 2006 that they didn't suck, your argument would have more validity, but they have been fairly consistent in sucking, and so it doesn't.
Their unwillingness to serve their customers has been fairly consistent, and if they have held to that position for so long in a changing market there is no reason to assume they will treat their current customers any better. If you buddy is a liar now, and you find out that he was a liar in HS as well, it is less likely that his dishonesty is a consequence of the situation (and perhaps temporary) and more that it is a part of what he is.
You've got three different nework types and some half a dozen different frequencies. Having an unlocked phone just means that you could jump between two or three of the eight or so carriers. What we really need is everyone on the same damned network and frequency.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The reason I'm dropping Verizon and switching to Cingular is phone features. I bought a Razr for the bluetooth functionality and neat little toys. However, Verizon cripples all of their phones, and of course, does not mention this in any adds or on any packaging. The $100 Motorola-to-PC software is useless because Verizon has crippled the phone so image/ringtone transfers are non-functional. Verizon also uses a hacked bluetooth protocol. Using my PDA, I can connect to a bluetooth phone and dial out using my address book, but my Verizon Razr will not accept a connection from my palm. All of this is crippled so you have to use their "GetItNow" service. No Thanks.
I switched to singular after 7 years with Verizon in my area. Over the past 3 year my verizon service had continually degraded. Dropouts, calls that never rang, noisy connections, phones that just wouldn't work you name it I had it. (central NC)
I switched to cingular and have better than land line service!!! You might say towers, but both companies have towers with 1 mile of my home.
While I never had to use tech support for verizon, I did have some problems with my blackberry setup and the cingular tech support there was great.
Overall, I now have better service over a wider area than I ever had with verizon.
jd
Based on most internet fourms, I thought all the wireless carriers were tied for last.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Consumer Report's review (yes, I have a web subscription and read the entire thing) only covers the major contract-based cell phone providers. They don't discuss pre-pay or by-the-minute services of those providers, or discuss the pre-pay only providers at all.
I'm sure there are others here that prefer to remain disconnected from the world when not at my work desk, and only carry a cell phone for wife/family/emergency use. I just changed providers this week and have my own (very brief) review of the pre-pay providers.
I had been using Cingular's Pay-As-You-Go service, with by-the-minute pay rather than the monthly charge. (Actually, I had been using AT&T's pre-paid service until the merger.) I was on Cingular's CDMA network, which they are shutting down April 1. Cingular offered a choice of two new GSM phones for free for me to use to remain with them, but both phones were featureless and looked similar to the now-clunky Nokia phones of the early part of the decade. (That probably speaks more to Nokia's stagnant development, but Cingular still chose to buy and offer that product.)
I chose not to stay with Cingular in part because I was offended at the offer they made me, and in part because of my past service.
- While I have few to no problems with dropped calls, my wife says that she often has to dial 2-3 times before the call will go through. (The other times, it goes straight to voice mail without ringing.) This likely has to do in part with my phone (one of those ugly Nokia models) and part to do with the network (Cingular hasn't invested in their CDMA network in years, instead investing in GSM).
- I was more concerned with the expiration dates for their pre-paid minutes. AT&T offered 635 minutes with a year of expiration for $100, which is about 15 cents a minute. Cingular's $100 offer was 400 minutes, with only 180 day expiration. Given that I talk about 30 minutes a month, the loss of minutes was not so bad, but the expiration made the product useless. Instead I bought $25 for 100 minutes @ 90 day expiration, and had to buy another one each quarter. (They also shorted me a day every time I refreshed.) I think Cingular just changed the $100 card back to a year expiration, but it was too little too late.
Looking at other providers, I considered both major carriers that offer pre-paid plans, and the pre-paid only providers.
- Verizon's pre-paid plans cost, at minimum, $1 a day for service. The Verizon salesman at a Dallas Circuit City, to his credit, recommended that I not go with them as it would be too expensive for my needs.
- The Verizon rep instead pointed me to Amp'D mobile, which he said used the Verizon network. This would have allowed me to get a major-model phone (like a Motorola Razor). I didn't chose Amp'D because I don't want a phone with a camera (I attend 2-3 movie festivals each year, including one this past weekend, and I would have to surrender my phone if it had a camera), and I didn't really need a phone that still costs $200 or more for my pre-paid service. They also charge $0.25 cents a minute, and (from their brochures) would require quarterly fill-ups to avoid expiration.
- Cricket wireless has been advertising their pre-paid service in my area. They offer service here in Austin, but don't serve Dallas/Fort Worth where my family lives and my wife and I travel each holiday.
I chose Virgin Mobile, as they seemed like the best service for me:
- They offered nice-looking phones at reasonable prices. I got a Vox 8610, a nice flip phone without a camera, for about $25 from their website. The reviews I read about this phone before I ordered it were generally positive.
- They use Sprint's network. Despite the Consumer Reports publication, in 3-4 days of use I have yet to miss or drop a call. I am even able to receive calls and text messages while the phone's antenna is down, the phone is in my pocket, and I'm sitting down, which is an improvement. (Yes, the p
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I had AT&T because a) best coverage in my area if you had a GSM+analog phone b) best service plan for the money at my usage rate and c) inexpensive handsets. My coverage was excellent both in the city, country and along the interstates other than one particular area near my parents' house in a "shadow" of a ridge. I used that phone without fail across a big chunk of the eastern US with no troubles.
Then came cingular. My service became irregular as they decommissioned the analog towers before new GSM towers were up and running. They kept pressing me to "upgrade" my phone and used vaguely worded scare tactics that old phones were the devil (I loved my multiband Siemens S46). They "lost" the ability to unlock AT&T phones, something AT&T would do if you planned on traveling internationally. They discontinued my plan in favor of a "better" one that had more mintues but a later "unlimited" period. They refused to apply my company's employee discount unless I renewed my contract. The last straw came when they started mucking with the billing system and I got overage charges despite being well within my monthly limits.
I'd avoided Sprint b/c at the time I went with AT&T their phones were crap, IMO. The data service was new and the phones were high on glam features but with horrible battery life or form factors. This time I went with a Treo 650 with the unlimited data plan. Service is pretty good, though at times in the rural areas it doesn't match AT&T. Data speeds are surprisingly good, in the 128kbit range, which may be limited by the Treo's ability to process the data.
My boss got a Cingular Treo 650 at the same time. His was a nightmare. Data connection to the towers was great for software updates (I saw close to 220kbit when I downloaded service patches for him) so the Treo GPRS was pretty good but Cingular's internet connection was crap. It took upwards of 5 minutes for his Treo to synch email from our corporate mail server; mine would do it on Sprint in ~15 seconds. The Cingular add-on software kept trying to take over his phone functionality and if the unit reset or the battery went dead it would re-default to the Cingular-specific apps instead of the standard (and much superior) Palm programs.
Sprint CS is kinda spotty when it comes to the technical questions but nothing compared to Cingular, who were basically unable to comprehend that data != voice service and went to great pains to avoid transferring me to an engineer or data tech. When I did get to the Cingular engineering group for my boss it took several minutes to explain that "I can't get to a particular server using the domain name but I can using the IP" means their DNS is borked. Even then they never, ever, never called back when they said they would and "open" complaints would mysteriously becomes "closed" after 3 days.
Nope, I hate Cingular. Sprint is okay once you accept that most of the "free" phones are crap but that goes for Cingular too.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
I have Cingular because I'm on a family plan and I don't pay the bill. If I had to choose a provider though I would not go with them. My reception sucks in a lot of places. I live in Los Angeles in a densely populated area. I have problems with reception while on major freeways. I don't get reception in my condo but it drops the call every freakin' time! I live in a huge complex. The user base is large enough to necessitate a tower nearby but Cingular doesn't care. Worse then that though it their customer service. If you need to call them you need to block out an hour from your life. 30 minutes is to sit on hold and 30 minutes is to explain to them what you need. I hate this company and would never recommend it to anybody.
It annoys me that Verizon cripples Bluetooth on almost all the phones within my price range. Add to that, refusing to include a USB cable and forcing me to pay $$$ to download pictures from my phone. bah.
Yes, I can order a USB cable (and did). Yes, I can find a tarball out there that will allow me to hack my phone to re-enable bluetooth. But in the end, I'm a consumer who just wants his damn phone to work without having to hack yet another item.
When my friend's Cingular Bluetooth phone immediately was able to mount on his Mac and drag & drop files to/from the phone, I looked at my Verizon phone and just wanted to throw it in the trash.
When my Verizon plan is up this spring, I plan on switching to Cingular.
Bonus that any upcoming Apple iPhone will likely be Cingular-friendly.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Does the article mention that Verizon cripples the hell out of their phones? For example, the girlfriend and I both have Razr phones. I'm on T-Mobile, she is on Verizon. I can bluetooth images, sounds, etc on and off my phone. Her phone doesn't support file transfers because Verizon wants to you pay them $$ to do this through their services.
Had Verizon for 5 years here in Denver area; didn't work at office at all, very poor at home.
:-), in my narrow experience, Cingular is far superior. And the entry Samsung phone has more features and MUCH better sound quality (even with low signal) that the entry LG phone at Verizon.
Switched to Cingular, works OK both locations, no dropped calls to speak of in any location in Denver so far. With the caveat that all mobile phones/services inherently suck without exception
They don't mention that, but... and you're going to get all mad at me for saying this...
Adults don't play with ringtones and pictures and cute little games. That's primarily a teenage/young 20-something thing to do. Once you hit 30's, your interest is in (a) how much does it cost (b) how well does it work (c) is the company honest.
Worrying about OBEX proviles to move ringtones is so....young-ish.
I live in the Buffalo area, and even in areas with strong reception the voice quality is terrible. However, it might just be my phone. Even so, I've been wanting to move to another carrier; Too bad that I have a Sprint family plan with two phones, and the early termination fee is $400 PER PHONE. I'm just going to suffer through the rest of the contract, I can't afford a lump sum that large.
Some days I feel like the goatse man.
Love sees no species.
They just let us know that they are going to raise our rates ahead of cancelling our plan and shutting off the TDMA network we've been using until now. I'm a bit annoyed- we actually get better reception than almost anyone in our neighborhood and I can't replace the plan. It was a "totally unlimited calls for $60/mo" deal that I've never seen anywhere since. TDMA phones are tanks too- we've had exactly two in the past five years and they've taken a huge beating without breaking. (We replaced the first since buying a Nokia 3560 off of eBay was cheaper than replacing the failing battery.)
Ah, progress. I'm going to get to pay more for crappier reception.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Then, I turned on the Blackberry and actually tried to use it for a phone call. What was I thinking??? It sounds like cr*p
I was always disappointed by voice quality issues on GSM--particularly when I'm outside and it's windy.
It's my understanding that CDMA has algorithims built into the protocol for squelching certain types of background noises like wind.
dollars.cents
Everything to the left of the decimal point is 'dollars', and everything to the right 'cents'. Thus "$.10' can be read as 'ten cents', or 'point one oh cents' by the CSR. I'm afraid that when you try to explain this to the general public, you'll get a 'No Coke, Pepsi!' kind of response.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
As a former wireless sales representative, I can pretty much tell you this:
None of you really care all that much about the service. It's the phone you are interested in.
First of all, according to market research, nearly all of you are in complete and total denial. The internal company documents that I saw pointed to "Handset Dissatisfaction" as the number one reason for churn (the % of subscirbers lost in a given quarter). People care about the phone they get. They care about it as a fashion accessory and as a social interaction machine.
Here's my favorite part: no one ever admits it.
In fact, if this get enough mod points for people to read it, I can almost guarantee that there's going to be a slew of "Well, that's not why I bought the phone..." posts behind it. No one was honest about it. Being a fan of psychology, I'd often see how much I could make the customers squirm with this issue. I'd show them the phones, we had a bricky Nokia and a black Motorola clamshell (it's a clamshell phone, not a flip; it doesn't flip. it doesn't even half-flip, it opens... like a clam). I would tell the customer that the Nokia had better reception (it does, proven by internal company memos I saw), was more durable (it was, we rarely had any in the return bins, and I had a whole folders' worth of anecdotes about Nokias surviving), and was the phone I recommended to anyone who cared about features and substance over style (it was and still is).
Needless to say, everyone bought the Moto. It was notorious for breaking, had awful signal (a good 2-3 bars worse than the Nokia), a screen that cracked under the slightest pressure (it got SO bad and SO prevalent that the company actually had to begin covering cracked LCDs UNDER WARRANTY for this particular model, if that tells you anything). I couldn't give the Nokia away, and believe me, I WAS. Both phones were allowed to be sold for free (if it was required to close the deal, and it usually was), but I could poise the Nokia as a free phone, and the Moto as costing $50, because of the flip, and people would still pay for it. Even after I told them that I recommend the Nokia for reception and durability.
People gots ta have that flip shorty!
So my point is, while you try and tell us that what you want from your cellular service provider is good coverage, you don't. Not really. Bad wireless coverage is something we've all come to expect, we hardly even notice it anymore, or get bothered because it happens. What really drives customers into the store ISN'T the company, it ISN'T the service, and it damn sure isn't the cost. No, you, the customer, came to see me because I held the key to what you really wanted: a mobile phone that, like your Lexus, told everyone how big your penis really is.
You'll apologize for my overly cynical attitude, but quite frankly if you're a wireless customer that has gone into a retail store, I'm certain you're one of the people I learned to despise so easily while working there. Oh yeah, one more thing while I'm here, hey NUMBNUTS, the phone's not REALLY free! We subsidize the cost. We don't walk out back and pick one off the tree. They cost money. So when you destroy yours within 2 weeks of purchase, maybe the question you ought to ask isn't "Why did I get this for free two weeks ago and have to pay a hundred bucks now?" but rather "Why do I persist in owning things when it's clear that I'm not going to exercise any responsiblity during the course of my ownership?"
God I hate the wireless industry. Go ahead, feed the greed. Go get your RAZR or Chocolate or whatever schlock marketing scheme that you're busy NOT falling for. Trust me, the wireless companies have your number, and they are routinely screwing you in the ass and laughing about it, because you know what? You can't hear them. You're too busy talking on your Treo/RAZR/Chocolate/Blackberry/Sidekick/SLVR.
Whatever. There's not point to this post. There's no way to fix the system, and there's no way to get people to
I had pretty good luck with Cingular here in Alaska. The coverage is pretty good (all things considered) and I was paying about $15 less per month than any of the local offerings. Unfortunately, Cingular doesn't actually offer local service up here so I had to claim I lived at my father's house in California to get them to send me a phone (never mind that I gave them Alaska billing and shipping addresses). Eventually they figured out that 100% of my calls were roaming and they politely ordered me to quit using their service. On the other hand, they didn't charge me a cancellation fee or ask for the phone back. Now I'm on Cellular One (the real owner of the network) paying $15 more a month for fewer features and fewer minutes. Blast!
...but did they ever fix their four day delay on voice mails? I had that problem for nearly two years, finally ditched them for AT&T. Talked to some friends a few years later and they STILL had the problem. AT&T was great until the infamous CRM upgrade they attempted.
There are a couple factors I took into account when I switched from T-Mobile to Cingular:
-Coverage: I used to live in Hawaii, and T-Mobile was the only carrier that actually had towers in my valley. Despite other carriers having towers only a mile or two away, a nice big mountain kills cellphones good. There are less impediments to cell coverage in the LA basin, where I live now.
-Price: I was switching plans anyways, and Cingular had the best price for what I wanted.
-Mobile-to-Mobile: I was putting my brother on my plan, and since most cell companies offer free unlimited calls within the network, I had him interview his friends as to their networks.
-Rollover: The extra minutes might never get used and expire after a year, but that's way better than having them all poof at the end of the month.
However, Cingular customer service is, um, less than good. As in terrible. It takes hours to get anything done over the support line, and sometimes after those hours thing gets done at all. For some reason, my phone cannot connect to the internet. I can send and receive text messages, but not picture messages, and I can't go visit those nifty cellphone websites or anything. My phone is perfectly capable of it, and my brother's identical phone does it all just fine, so since they can't figure it out they just bump me from department to department for hours. I even took it into a brick-and-morter Cingular Store and exchanged the phone, but that didn't help. It's broken and they have no damn clue how to fix it. Although that may be a mixed blessing- now I'm not tempted to pay their exorbitant per-KB charges.
They aren't all two year contracts...Centennial Wireless is pushing 30 month contracts. Screw that! I've been contract free since 2003 and it feels sooooooooo good!
Okay, this is getting ludicrous. But as someone who has done some long (2000+ mile) treks and several more multi-state (~500 mile) bike trips, you get a pretty strong sense of coverage, particularly because if you're in the middle of nowhere and your phone doesn't work, this could be a Bad Thing. My Sprint service was good in Cali, non-existent throughout Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota, good in Iowa and Illinois, bad in rural Michigan but fine in the cities.
Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
Been with Verizon for over four years, and they have never, not once, resolved a problem without me having to complain to my state's Attorney General's Dept. of Consumer Affairs. The AG writes, and then, magically, somebody actually deals with the problem. The quickest I got anything resolved with them was six months, and multiple phone calls, letters, and harangues. The slowest was a year, with even more multiple calls, letters, yada, yada, yada. I've had three billing problems in four years, and the last time, when it took a year, they owed me $300. To say these bastards suck is being too kind. Obviously, once my indentured phonitude is up, that's the last they'll see of me. After that, it's voip all the way.
I won't do business with Verizon anymore, period. They might have the best service area, but at least I don't feel like I'm supporting a company that actively wants to screw me.
This represents my feelings exactly. I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile a few years ago (and just got out by the skin of my teeth, too; Verizon tried to play the bogus cancellation-fee game with me) and have never looked back.
Verizon does have a good coverage area, but every time I did business with them I felt like I needed to check to see if they'd lifted my wallet when I wasn't looking. They're downright sleazy and take every possible opportunity to screw you. Their product just isn't worth that; T-Mobile isn't perfect, but it was a refreshing breath of fresh air.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
What? They've got great service! I'm texting this in from my Noki..sssshsshshhshhsssshhh...ith flawless connectiv...shhshssssshshssshsshshshshshs...
P226
LOL! I guarantee almost everything you said about consumers carries across all industries. You just happened to be in wireless. You should probably generalize your observations a little further, and then promise yourself you will never work in retail (especially technology) again. In all fairness though, for some people other factors do come into play of which 'teh hotness' is only one. :D
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
My girlfriend recently decided that she wanted a Treo, and I recommended that she get the 700wx with Windows Mobile. I have had, well, crap experiences with PalmOS-based devices, but that's another story altogether. As another aside, I will say I'm disappointed with the lower resolution screen on the 700wx.
Anyway, Sprint had the Treo 700wx on special for $399, after $100 instant and $150 mail-in rebate. She's been a customer with Sprint for eight years and never cashed in on a replacement rebate. In fact, the only replacement she had she bought out-right when her old Samsung finally bit the dust.
Fine print: this is only for new customers. After eight years of loyal service, and even convincing her entire family to switch to Sprint PCS, they offered her $75 off the phone. While she was working her way through a few supervisors, and let me also mention that the first two people with whome she spoke had accents so thick that even the local Sprint store rep could not understand them, I called Verizon and asked them about their replacement policies. The phone is $299, and they do not care if you are current or new, and current customers qualify for upgrade pricing at 18 months.
She stuck with Sprint as they gave her the PCS Vision Data unlimited plan for $25 per month, and bought the phone elsewhere. And FYI, here in Tallahassee, Sprint PCS Vision is not very much faster than my Cingular EDGE, so phooey on the commercials.
Now, I have had some bumps with Cingular (I think I have them in my journal,) but they have ALWAYS taken care of me when I called them on the problem (two that I can think of.) The only phone I ever bought from them was the Sony Ericsson T60d way back in 2002 when I first got my service. Since then I have bought the T62u, T637, and now my K790a, mostly because they did not offer the phone I wanted, especially this K790a (I'm getting giddy writing about it.) So I really cannot speak for Cingular's replacement/upgrade policies.
But I digress. The only problem I have with Cingular disconnects is when I travel through areas which are known for bad coverage, like the 2.5 miles between my neighborhood and the city limits. Their data support has always been helpful and (gasp!) knowledgeable. I emailed data support about EDGE/GPRS IPs not having proper DNS resolutions and that was fixed within a couple of weeks! I am told that they are working on provisioning which would also allow me to use EDGE/GPRS data while I am talking on the phone.
I do have one gripe, and I am not really sure to whom it should be aimed. Whenever I call a couple of customer who use a Sprint local exchange competitor's T1 for phone, if no incoming lines are available my call simply disconnects without error or notification. THAT'S annoying, but I suspect it is the terminal switch causing that.
One major issue I do have with Cingular, and supposedly they are looking into placing a mobile cell unit, what they call a "COW", to cover this, is FSU home games. Forget about getting online, making a call, or text messaging while at Doak Campbell Stadium -- doing so is a crap-shoot at best.
So, other than a couple of large flub-ups over the past five years, I have found Cingular to be responsive and satisfying. I do not think I will be "churn" for some time.
The whole reason T-Mobile lost me as a customer is they couldn't/wouldn't sell me a Treo.
So, I went to Verizon, who was happy to give me a Treo 650 about a year ago for $200.
I know Verizon is CDMA, I was just responding that the parent could get an unlocked phone or unlock his current phone. I wasn't arguing that it would do any good or that it made any sense.
/whisper/ Thanks for the candy!
I only found out because I was leaving their service and was trying to chase down the deposit, then discovering that not only did I not have a deposit, they had my money "on another account".
Which, by the way, I still haven't seen but now they claim to have paid it.
To top it all off, the phone I did buy from them back in the day began failing conveniently 1 week after my warranty ended (but a year before I could get a new phone) and was almost certainly software-related as I've sold the phone and the buyer (a friend) has reported no problems since changing it over to her provider.
Anecdotal evidence, certainly, but if I was going with Verizon I'd sign up for the minimum contract.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I hated my company-provided Sprint service until I lost my Samsung phone. I replaced it with a brick-shaped Sanyo (RL-4920), and suddenly Sprint seemed like a great provider. It's just my own anecdote, but if you're locked into a contract it's worth comparing against a friend's Sanyo phone before paying the fee.
I had a non flip phone and it kept getting buttons pressed even when it was in lock mode and even almost managed to dial 911 -- it would have if the talk button had been hit! WHILE SUPPOSEDLY KEYPAD LOCKED!
THAT is why I now use a flip phone. I can shove it in my pocket and never have to worry, because the closed display keeps it from starting to dial.
The phone I chose also fits very nicely in the change pocket of my jeans which means it won't be bumping up against my car keys and getting damaged by the sharp eges.
It also has predictive typing for SMS sending which is very useful for the hearing-impaired like myself who use SMS to communicate often rather than try to hear and understand a caller. And the Bluetooth is fully functional so I can use BluePhoneElite to send and receive those messages if I want to plus I get incoming call alerts on my screen if someone calls me and I don't hear the ringer. (MP3 ringtones help too because I can make a recording of something I hear well in my frequency range rather than the preloaded junk I might not be able to hear so well).
It looks nice, too, but that's just a bonus. Being easy to carry and not accidentally dialing 911 are good things. (and yes, I do care about the service, but I haven't had a lot of dropped-call issues, not enough to bother me, because I don't talk on the phone THAT much).
i am a soviet space shuttle
Partially it was my phone-- It worked but I guess had taken too many falls or something.
But even with my new phone there are lots of dead areas where the call just suddenly goes away.
I've been sitting stationary and seen it briefly drop to zero bars, drop the call, then go back up to five bars.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
What I like is the simplicity. Buy a phone for less than $100, pay $100 for 1000 minutes guaranteed for a year, and you're good to go. If for some reason, I don't like it, I can just quit. Period. Maybe $100 lost, probably less though I haven't found it necessary to do that.
... has been fairly positive. The only place I have coverage issues is northern Texas.
Cingular may have the fewest dropped calls, but that's because you have to complete a call in order to drop a call. Cingular seems to have issues in West Los Angeles with tower crowding. Sometimes it's next to impossible to make a phone call.
Most carriers already do provide trial periods were the consumer and get out w/o early termination fees, as contract lock-in to lousy service has been an issue for years and lawmakers have already acted on it. The length of time varies between carriers, though.
- As a downside, the phone has a Virgin Mobile logo on the front. :( I don't think 30s engineer is their target demographic, so their company image doesn't exactly match what I'm trying to express all the time.
:-) I'm not an engineer, but I am technically-minded and in my 30s. Virgin Mobile has continued to be an easy choice for me for a few reasons, including...
... that with my particular phone's ability to assign specific ringtones to specific incoming phone numbers (provided there is callerID information), I could store the phone numbers of the fax machines that were calling me under a special group, say, "SILENCED MORONS", and then assign the silent ringtone to each one of them. At that point, if they ever call me again, sure the phone will light up and display the incoming call and phone number, but the phone will play the special ringtone -- COMPLETE SILENCE! That's about as good a blacklist as anyone could ask for.
:-)
I had to post a reply after reading that.
1. Near-perfect anonymity. You don't even have to give Virgin Mobile a name when you activate your phone. Buy the phone with cash at a physical store, complete the activation of the new cell phone using another phone and their automated system (use a payphone and dial Virgin Mobile's 800 number to do that for a paranoia level of anonymity), and you're as close to being a completely anonymous cellphone owner as is possible today. Continue buying "top-up" cards with cash at physical stores, and you'll maintain that anonymity.
2. Awesome service reps. Let's face it, few places are perfect, but I've had the best luck with VM's call centers amongst those I call with any regularity. The staff are typically a younger bunch, but they're the bright kind of younger, you know?
3. They actually understand local number portability, and how to make it happen for their customers. I transferred my land line number (so long, Verizon bastards!) to a second VM cell phone. The transfer was completed in less than a week, and it worked flawlessly. The service rep (see above) I spoke with when arranging the transfer was absolutely on the ball.
4. Some of their phones have an easy hack for blacklisting incoming callers. Here's the cool part: if your VM phone can download ringtones, you may be able to set up a blacklist...
After I started receiving faxes from a pool of about 20 different phone numbers at all hours of the night, I phoned VM's customer service and asked if either the VM service itself or my phone supported blacklisting (i.e. block the fax machines that were calling me). The rep was apologetic and told me that no, unfortunately, neither the phone nor the service had that capability. So I asked him if my particular phone supported downloadable ringtones. A bit confused by the sudden change in topic, the rep said that yes, it indeed supported that. And so I asked if by any chance -- amongst the collection of thousands of ringtones VM outlines on their website -- if they happened to have one that played complete silence. The rep immediately got where I was going (see my comments above about bright service reps)
Anyway, the representative immediately got what I was trying to do, thought it was a pretty damn cool approach, and then proceeded to take about 15 minutes hunting through VM's massive database of ringtones. And guess what? He found one -- a ringtone consisting of pure silence. The rep pointed out that the only downside was that, like all their basic ringtones, it would cost $2.00 to download. I told the guy that was the best deal for some silence I'd ever been offered! Now I have my blacklist.
Seriously. Virgin Mobile is awesome. I don't normally go out of my way to offer much praise for any corporation, but I've been so impressed by what I get for the money I spend with them, that even the occasional glitch I experience (rare) just
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
My current (and first ever) call phone is the LG VX-9800 aka "The V". I got it because, of the phones available for Verizon at the time, it had the highest camera resolution, and an mp3 player. I didn't care about the fold-out qwerty keyboard because I didn't plan to use texting at all. I haven't understood why it exists (unless your deaf when it seems to make sense), and even went so far as to have text service blocked when I had to pay for a single wrong-number text.
Guess what, I __HATE__ this phone. It's a terribel camera. Sure, we expect cell phone cameras to not be as good as a dedicated digital camera, but this is unacceptably bad even for casual use where quality isn't particularly important. It's also not a super mp3 player, as the battery can't hold a charge for more than a day sitting in my pocket not doing anythign at all, actually having it doing stuff kills it even faster. And as a phone, well, it's not very good at it's primary function either. I can't even use it at my house because of the poor signal reception. And it's freakin huge. Even more freakin huge with the super-capacity battery. Unacceptably huge.
So I've learned the error of my ways. I now have an ipod for mp3s, I have a good digital camera, and my next phone will be bought because it's a good phone, not because of any fancy features that end up unacceptably not as good compared to dedicated products. I've regretted getting this phone since the first week I had it. I do have complaints abotu Verizon's policies, customer service, etc. but I won't deny that I do also have a bad phone in addition to those other problems, and I hope not to make that mistake if/when I replace this POS. Replacing it will most likely be with a phone from another provider, as I'll probably be too cheap to buy a new phone for continuing with Verizon, even if it would be a huge improvement.
I lot of truth to what you say, but lately I have seen signs of change. Many I have spoken to are becomming more concerned with performance and are taking the advice towards more robust handsets. As for churn, I was a longtime Verizon customer who recently switched to Sprint due to a much better deal to switch than stay. I was never even sent to any such "retention" person, just "you want to go, ok." Actually I am very happy, the coverage is better, the clarity is MUCH better (could be the phone, although Verizon has the same unit), and I have a better plan including unlimited data. I even have coverage at my house, which to get with Verizon I had to fire up a WJ repeater with a Yagi pointed at the city.
With that said, I found brick phones to be a huge pain in the ass. I hated that I had to lock the keypad if I didn't want my phone to dial out while in my pocket. I hated the size and shape of the phones themselves. I hated the stubby little antenna that ripped a hole in my jeans. And guess what - these are all convenience things. With an entire market built around convenience, why would I settle for a brick phone that pisses me off and is inconvenient to me? The fact that my phone drops a call every so often or the phone breaks if I drop it (which is basically my own fault) is just not as important as the convenience of not having to carry around a heavy brick that pokes my jeans and dials random numbers. If your market surveys asked people why they own a mobile phone in general, you'd find convenience (and I guess maybe safety) would be at the top of those lists. It's at the top of mine, anyway, and that's why I have my (in your words) unreliable, flaky Motorola clamshell.
Go bugger yourself. I picked a phone and service provider about four years ago due to RF reports, right before it was discontinued, and the only reason I'm replacing it is that the second battery I'm on is dying rapidly -- and even "new" batteries have probably been deteriorating for at least two years of self-discharge sitting in boxes.
Studied three providers, looked at their coverage maps, noticed that only one of them even purports to have coverage in areas where I spend a lot of time, and picked the reported best-RF AMPS-capable phone for it.
I have a bloody laptop with which to check e-mail. If I didn't bring it, and I didn't go to a computer, then maybe I don't -want- to be reachable via e-mail.
I don't give a damn about camera phones, because I have a camera with which I could likely smash (both literally and figuratively) just about any phone, and I'm willing to carry it where I'm willing to stop and take pictures.
And I don't give a damn whether it runs Java. It's a specialized tool, not a computer. It's there for a short, quite possibly curse-laden conversation. Not SMS. Not images. Not video. Not Tetris. And not impressing other people, or for throwing at people who piss me off.
I also have a "candy bar" phone, and I hate it. My next phone will be the cheapest available flip phone, just so that I don't accidentally pocket dial people when I forget to turn on key lock.
My current phone is a Sony Ericsson T290a. Worst. Phone. Ever.
This probably explains the preference for the shitty moto phone vs. the nokia.
...and you've convinced me. As soon as my Sprint contract expires in March, I'll be an ex-Sprint customer.
Thanks for the tip!
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
People gots ta have that flip shorty!
Dear Moron;
I didn't buy a flip phone. I have a good, old brick. Why? Because it has the features I need, and none of the crap I don't use.
Nice Try.
I agree that most people care more about the phone than its service, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. At least in the situation in the US, where all of the service providers seem equally mediocre.
Right now, I actively hate my phone for its horrifically clunky software and inability to sync with my computer's address book. It does have very nice battery life, excellent coverage, and has never dropped a call, but I still loathe the thing. I got it, (my first cell phone ever, a year and a half ago) because I wanted the least hideous phone I could find. But the service was almost irrelevant to my choice of phone; I ended up just getting a slightly less ugly than average model for the provider that most of my family and friends had. (I did listen to the sales rep who cautioned that one particular model was flimsy, but it was so ugly I wouldn't have bought it anyway. And if it had actually looked good, I would have ignored his advice and just been careful with the thing.)
In the past year I've pretty much given up on ever finding a decent-looking phone, but I've become adamant about finding decent software. Right now I'm desperately hoping that the latest iPhone rumors turn out to be true; at this point I'd pay a lot of money for a phone that just worked. I still would prefer a clamshell (I like having the main screen and keys protected) and it absolutely must fit in my pocket, but other than that I'll put up with anything. But it's still all about the phone itself for me; spotty coverage or poor customer service I'm ok with, but this evil abomination of a phone I'm not. The bad coverage and customer service I don't have to deal with everyday, but the phone I do.
I haven't understood why it exists (unless your deaf when it seems to make sense)
Well, I'm deaf (hearing-impaired, really; I can talk on the phone but usually don't) but sometimes it's useful for firing off a message to Dad that says "I'm on my way now" before I leave work to go to the weekly family dinner, so he knows to leave HIS work so we get there around the same time. It's easier to send a short text message for something like that than it is to call him. The 160-character limit accomodates things like that quite well. My current and previous phones also have/hadhad a list of pre-written messages to send out that include things like "I'm in a meeting right now" or "I'm driving, I'll call you back" that are easy to fire off without having to concentrate, but let callers know that you're aware that they tried to reach you.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Nokia builds a misfeature into their candy bar phones. While locked, if you hit zero, then eight, then Send, you're calling 911.
I have yet to find this documented anywhere, but it's been there on all the Nokia candy bar phones I've had.
When I have my cell phone (T-mobile, so GSM) near a set of speakers, I periodically get a stuttering interference for a second or two, most consistently after turning the phone on. I knew it had to be related to polling the base station, but I couldn't figure out why an 800+ MHz phone would cause interference in analog speakers. It was not limited to radios, and any aliasing would certainly be too low power to move a speaker coil.
However, based on the sound and knowing that a middle C is 440 Hz, 217 Hz is probably about what the interference is. I'm guessing capacitors for the antenna power charging and discharging or something like that is the root cause.
I suppose the stuttering is the power switching off as it switches between send and receive.
First off, you misspelled "clerk". Second, I can pretty much tell you this: every review I read said that your despised RAZR had the best reception of any phone available in my area. Given that my wife routinely drives between cities through sparsely-populated cattle country, that's the most critical feature we looked for. Therefore, we bought the phone that best fit our needs: the RAZR. I don't care how fetishistically retrocool your little brick is. I wanted (and got) one that did what we wanted.
Jackasses like you are why I hate corporate stores. There are few things worse than having an elitist snotnose tell me my decisions are wrong. Frankly, if I were interested in your opinion, I would have asked. The sound of me not asking was the sound of me not caring.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Same here.
Nokia brick phone. It works. Its tough. Its battery life is decent. All of which are because it is a phone, not a phone + pda + camera + mp3 player + game system + whatever else marketing thinks a 12 year old wants in a phone.
While I am looking for a replacement for Sprint, the phone and quality of service have absolutely 0 to do with it -- Sprint's bililng deparment screwed up every single bill through the 2 year contract I had with them. Because of the monthly headache, I'm going elsewhere, and will be looking for another similar no-frills Nokia brick phone.
I have Sprint's Nextel service and it isn't bad. Their customer service is excellent and I don't have dropped calls. It seems to do alright. Now I came from Cingular and Cingular definitely is poor. The service was so bad that I willingly paid the early termination fee just to go back to Nextel. I never should have left Nextel. For the equivalent package, I pay 15.00 less per month and when your cell bill gets to 60 some dollars a month, any saving is significant.
I haven't tried them, but Resellular.com seems like it has a good idea. Note that they can't spell; the title says "Droping Calls?" instead of "Dropping Calls".
You can buy a cell phone contract near the end of its life, or sell yours. So, you get contract prices without any obligation.
Just my .002 cents...
I have a Verizon phone through work and a Cingular phone for personal use. I live in MI and both my phones seem to be fine. One is a RAZR and the other is an LG. It seems that the coverage lines are blurring and that one choice is not necessarily better than the other. If you live near any sort of city the coverage is pretty good. You are going to get dropped calls (reason may vary) but that area of no coverage is shrinking quickly. I am pretty sure most problems with cell phones these days are caused by the user and not the service.
But when has a good human ever realized that something is it's own fault... let the finger pointing continue...
I'm posting this anonymously as I worked for one of the companies in question here as a contractor. I was working on a GIS related application which plotted cellular towers, coverage, and store locations for usage by customer service representatives to aid customers in dropped calls etc. The coverage maps we utilized were processed data at three different dBm levels and were fairly blocky. Much of the coverage we utilized was "smoothed" to give a softer image to work with. The maps were much more simplified and "blobularized" (best word I can use to describe voroni polygons). These marketing maps indicate the boundary of the lowest signal you could possibly have and still have "coverage". Trust me when I say that these companys are out to **** YOU! They just want your rear end subscribed so they can charge the monthly fees. A landmark case in California (pardon the fact that I don't fully remember the specifics of the case) indicated that a user had coverage, required they use their cellular phone, which according to the coverage map indicated they had coverage, and were unable to make a call.
.02 yen on the subject.
The maps we as engineers had access to were much more accurate and would make a sales weasel cringe.
Just my
People like to trash one particular service or another, but the phone that they use makes a huge difference. Case in point: I use Cingular, my girlfriend uses T-Mobile. She gets horrid reception in her apartment; I get full service. One day she had to make an important and lengthy call. I swapped out my SIM card and inserted hers. Full reception, and the phone registered to a T-Mobile station, not Cingular (although they do share stations, the phone claimed "T-Mobile" and not "Cingular"). I use a Motorola MPx220, and she uses some entry-level Samsung. I'm not impressed by many of these service reviews.
Cingular's customer service is absolute garbage, though - I can tell you that from plentiful experience. Their service, in both the Los Angeles and New York areas, are quite nice however. But check your phone.
I absolutely hate Cingular's service. The call quality is ok... but if you have a problem their people are inept and their systems for managing your requests suck. I've had billing issues for 4 of last 9 months.
They charge you for incoming text messages... so you better hope someone doesn't spam your cingular email address and run up a several hundred dollar phone bill.
I got a razr for the very reason that a bunch of other people did - it doesn't call people when it's in my pocket. The bluetooth and MP3 playback is nice, too - I can make ringtones out of my cd collection.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
... and they can not possibly have the least amount of dropped calls when they are using technology that doesn't have the notion of soft-handoff between cell stations. CDMA, the technology that Sprint and Verizon uses supports this, so if anyone can brag about least amount of dropped phone calls is probably Verizon or Sprint. Cingular still runs on older technology like TDMA, analog and GSM.
Of course, most people could give a shit less or don't know any better about what the underlying technology is, so they buy into the TV propaganda about Cingular's 'least dropped calls'.
To Cingular's advantage, they did implement an overlapped GSM/GPRS network in most of the areas they cover, however, GPRS is like a hopped up GSM network, or for better analogy, like putting lipstick on a pig, whereas CDMA would be slapping the lipstick on Giselle..... CDMA is the next gen technology, they all know it, but aren't converting to it probably because it'll cost them too much in licensing fees.
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
1) BARS DO NOT MEAN SERVICE STRENGTH: Every carrier uses a different algorythm to determine signal strength. I can have no bars and make a perfect call, yet have full bars, and fail a call. This came right out of a Sprint Corperate. 2) T-MOBILE PRICING: To those who dont know, T-Mobile (atleast in the LA/Pac Bell regions) are using Cingulars old 32-bit towers (Cingular is currently in the upgrade process to eliminate TDMA service and switch everyone over to the new 64-bit UMTS/GSM Towers). 3) CIGNULAR SERVICE: Read above, they are in the middle of massive upgrades. Give them some time, and things will get better. 4) CDMA CARRIERS: Sprint will always have the best coverage area. SPrint lets you roam on other networks for free (including Verizon), where as Verizon only lets you use their network. Think about it.
Try to tell that to me and my TDMA Nokia 6360. It's not that I don't care about the phones, it's just that until recently Cingular's GSM network on the West Coast has pretty much sucked. For their part, the current phones have merely reinforced my preference for the 6360. The new interfaces are horrible, the phone are flimsy, and I'm worried I may not be able to de-provision "features" like text messaging, various online stores, and ridiculously overpriced "mobile web" services that either result in me being IM spammed, or are designed to cost me money when I stumble in to them while I'm trying to do something else -- like figure out how to make the damned address work. So I'm sticking with the 6360 on the TDMA network until I'm confident the GSM network is up to snuff, or I'm kicked off the service, and I can find an unlocked phone with a simple elegant interface (which I realize is asking a great deal).
I'm confident that my next phone will NOT be a Motorola. I'm stunned by just how poorly thought out are most aspects of these phones.
Getting your stuff RIGHT with Verizon is very hard. Billing problems, account setting issues other hassles are painful. Once you've got the service you wanted and you're actually paying the right amount for it, however, it is fantastic in terms of reliability and pretty good in terms of clarity.
FWIW I use them for cell phone, family cell phones, and have two EVDO PC cards for DSL-esque cellular networking.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Sounds like my story... I bought a Motorola V400 over whatever Nokia models were out at the time, for the PC data connectivity (that I ended up using for a month or two and dropping) and cool factor. The earpiece got weaker and weaker. I disassembled the phone, cleaned the earpiece contacts, and put a shim on the earpiece to ensure good contact, which worked for a few months. It started acting up again, and I bought a Nokia 3010 as a replacement. I bought a grey-market Motorola V3i when they first came out, and recently turned it into a brick trying to upgrade the firmware on it, so I'm using the Nokia 3010 again. It just works. Only thing I really hate about it is the powder-blue factory faceplate.
The only phone that can or will tempt me is an Apple iPhone.
Sent from my iPhone
Edit: My durable Nokia with the powder-blue faceplate is a 3120, not a 3010.
Sent from my iPhone
I was a subscriber to Verizon, but switched, because Cingular had better phones, and the fact that they used Sim cards. Why? Cause I have like 3 older phones and I love the fact that I can swap out my sim card to use in a cheaper phone if mine breaks, or if I'm going somewhere that could cause damage. That sole fact was the reason I left Verizon. I HATE paying $200 for a phone only to be locked into one carrier. It's ridiculous.. At least now if I ever leave Cingular for another GSM Carrier, I can easily unlock my phone
at least in south Florida (Boynton Beach / Boca Raton area). I rarely get dropped calls (if by rare you accept one a week...)
Of course, what they don't tell you is, they don't drop calls... aaaand... they don't let you make them to begin with! See?? That's not dropping a call... that's blocking a call... totally different :D
In my case, almost every single day when I get off of work I attempt to call family members and I either get a "all circuits are busy" message (seriously) or sometimes the computer generated voice gets lazy and I get an odd beep beep from my phone and nothing happens. This is regardless of my signal, and to be honest, my signal isn't exactly rock solid either. It comes and goes in waves... quite interesting.
Yeah I know. Lots of bad reviews, everyone says stay away blah blah blah. I looked into it though. Almost every bad review of suncom is from a former ATT customer who got handed off to suncom in what was arguably one of the most fucked up merger moves in history. Because cingular was not allowed to have all of ATT, some of their customers were transfered to suncom. The problem was, at the time, suncom had no national plans to speak of. They were entirely regional plans. So you had customers go from 1000 minute a month nationwide plans to 200 minute / month regional plans, of course it was going to suck for them. By contrast, anyone I know who has joined suncom voluntarily and knowing what they were getting has been nothing but pleased. Personaly, I rarely lose calls, and usualy only when I'm going somewhere without signal anyway. It costs me $65 a month even (no taxes no fees, yay for "Truth in Wireless" or whatever suncom calls it now) for 2 lines, 600 minutes, nights and weekends, mobile to mobile, and nationwide calling. No other provider in the area could come close at the time (and I even got a discount with cingular). My one and only incident with having to call customer service was right after I first signed up. I had used a mall kiosk to sign up, and the clerk messed up the order and had not included the second line in the extra features, so the second line was only registered to the 600 minutes. Needless to say I was in for quite a shock when I recieved a $600+ phone bill. One call to customer service and about 5 minutes later, all the charges were reversed no fuss, no argument. Oh and did I mention they don't disable their phones like verizon. I can actualy use the bluetooth as it was meant to be used.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Wow, at last, I have met my soul mate. Except you're a guy!
I got rid of my Nokia 2160 -- which is about 5 inches across, 2.5 inches deep and 8 inches tall -- to upgrade to a Nokia 6160 (TDMA). Then I got a 6160i to take advantage of mobile-originate SMS (I was also using it to control computers). The 6160i lasted a few years, then when it died I switched to the 6190 (same chassis and UI board, GSM network). The 6190 lasted a few more. Then I went with the 7190, as I had a couple of spares at work and the 6190 had gotten nearly inaudible. So far, I have phones with good battery life, excellent durability, good+consistent UI, which place calls, send/receive text messages, and that's IT. The 7190 actually had a WAP browser, but it was never configured for the network I used the phone on.
Then, a couple of years ago, I wanted a portable ssh machine. I got a Treo 600. Hated the phone, glad I kept the 7190. Then I got a Treo 650. Disliked the phone, glad I kept the 7190. Now I occasionally carry two phones -- a Nokia for making calls and Treo 650 for ssh (and m.gmail.com -- slashdot broke when the new CSS came out last year). Yes, two complete phones, with separate SIMs and call packages. Different form factor for different usage pattern.
Now I have this Nokia 3120 phone I got from a co-worker for free... still no camera, MP3 player, shoulder massager, prostate checker or kitchen sink, but it actually has a few features I really like compared to the phones I've been carrying for the last decade:
- 850 MHz radio lets it work better in the mall where I shop (previous GSM phones were 1900 only)
- Auto key-lock
- No antenna to snap off (I've gone through about 30)
- Easy to disassemble
- INCREDIBLE battery life. Really, as good as a 7190 with the HUGE battery.
- Built-in silent ringer
- small (1.75 x 6 x 0.75 inches)
- STILL works with my Nokia car charger for the 61xx phones (the 2160 had a different plug).. which can be bought locally at the dollar store
- Takes a lickin' -- keeps on tickin'
Features I don't like:
- menu 1-2-3-4 type of commands no longer works, even though the shortcuts are still written at the top of the screen
- Does not use the traditional m-bus + f-bus plug, so my desk kits don't work
- Does not have an external antenna jack, so my external antennas don't work
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
fewest customers. They don't have enough customers to have the most dropped calls.
sometimes, nothing.
If you don't like it then take your business elsewhere.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I've been a Sprint Customer for 6 years, starting with a very basic plan (40 minutes per month: 20 nights/weekends + 20 anytime) to what I've got now (more on that later).
I live in NYC so my main usage is here. I've traveled with my phone to Houston, Philly, different areas of Upstate NY, Cleveland, Long Island, Pokonos, etc, and it has worked great everywhere - although I have to point out that a key to getting great service is having a great phone. The Sanyo 4920 does the job, although the second line, an LG-350 is nice too.
Why do I love Sprint?
1. They're the most affordable, right off the bat. This makes a huge difference. If the bill is say $20 per month lower, that's $240 a year right there. A thousand bucks saved every 4 years, not bad!
2. The above is right off the bat, and it gets much better. Sprint actually takes care of their good customers. I have a ton of extra 'gift' features that I've acquired through the years. I will list them here to make everyone drool:
2 Lines
750 Anytime Minutes
Free PCS-to-PCS
Unlimited nights and Weekends
Nights start at 7pm
500 text messages per month (not sure if per line or total)
50 included roaming minutes (never gets used!)
Free Vision (internet) on one line.
How much for all that? My bill is usually $47 AFTER taxes. Some of the savings (5%) is due to a volume discount via my job. The rest is amazing deals I've been rewarded with over the years.
3. Customer Support. I admit, there're occasional reps that are TRULLY silly, but most of the time they're good enough. The best thing, they're very liberal with giving you a credit or an extra feature when you're having a problem. Customer satisfaction seems to be an inportant goal. This is the opposite to Verizon (both my ex and the current GF have Verizon, and they both say that the reps are competent but their attitude seems to be "our network kicks ass so we don't have to be nice".) It's impossible to get any concession out of them even if something is clearly Verizon's fault. They're also somehow screwing my GF on her contract now, making it out like one of the lines on her account is supposed to have a longer contract than the main line (wtf?) She's switching as soon as the contract is over.
4. They capped my fee! One day I was using Vision to transfer pictures from one of the phones (the one that doesn't have Vision included). I figured, how expensive could it be? Well, turns out that at 0.03 DOLLARS per KB, transfering 30 megs (the phone's capacity) is about... $900. But my bill for the xfer was $150. Sprint actually STOPPED charging me after that sum. (can you imagine what it might be like recieving $947 bill when you expect $47?). Still, the extra $150 was a shock too. I called Sprint in shock and the rep immediately waved 25% of that $150, and then gave me another $15 credit on top of that. Even though I definately did do the xfer and incurred those charges. Still, it was a very nice thing to do.
So the bottom line here, Sprint is a good enough a deal financially that it would have been worth putting up with ocasionally spotty coverage - but that's BS. Sprint has good coverage in all the areas I've used my phone, the service is perfect. The ONLY time I ever have problems is during events where EVERYONE is using their phone. The first 45 minutes of 2006, I couldn't dial out because I guess everyone was on their phones. The signal is there but the call doesn't go through. This happens rarely enough but it's something I have to mention for full disclosure.
Mock Tech Interviews & Free Resume Review
As my father said, all these companies suckith. Basically, just use the company that pisses you off the least.
sarcasm on
I can see how happy you all are with the results of this free capitalistic system we inhabit. You all get super service, great prices and complete flexibility. You have all the information you need to make informed choices, and if you don't like a vendor it's easy to switch. You only get the level of service you need and you don't have to pay for things you don't want.
sarcasm off
In real American corporate culture, the only competition is to see which gigantic company does a better job of ripping you off while bribing elected officials with campaign contributions. In telecommunications, we have the worst of both worlds: monopolistic providers that have no meaningful regulation because the pretend "free market" is supposed to keep them in check.
It's a Republican corporate corruption sex fantasy: eliminate as many laws as possible, and then appoint regulators that ignore the rest. Although imperfect, we used to have a system where the government at least tried to act as a neutral party to enforce honest behavior. Now the crooks are making the laws. Just remember, if you think that the Bush screw ups are only during Katrina or in Iraq, you are as stupid as Bush thinks you are.
Location, location, location.
It's about who works best in your area.
Sprint tends to be a favorite, but depending on the phone you use, coverage can tend to suck or be good.
Same applies for cingular, however, if you ask me, the cingular guys are friendlier. The sprint guys give us tons of shit if we have sold more of cingular than their phones, and even threaten to fire us (and he's just a rep..) if we dont do better, or if we sell 5 phones a day, they get pissed and asks "why not 20?!" (which, is impossible, 1 out of 10 customers come in for a cell phone, we're damned lucky if they'll buy more than one phone, the market's too oversaturated as well..)
Why dont I mention t-mobile? they're really just cingular's old network. the only good thing about them imho is their prepaid. otherwise, if you're going for them for plans and coverage, use cingular. T-mobile also defaults to cingular when you're out of coverage area.
Verizon, well, they're hit or miss. But yeah, they're the biggest competition we have, we used to carry them in our stores, but we stopped because, IIRC they broke the relationship because we signed a deal with sprint or cingular. I forget which one. but they went apeshit and broke ties quickly, plus, after they grew to a certain size, they didnt need us anymore. I know I could sell more if we still carried them, at least when it comes to people who dont live immediately near our store, which make up the majority of customers. Our area has more sprint and cingular towers.
I feel dirty by selling the services, but then again, ANY cell provider would leave me feeling dirty after selling them and lying about how great they are. plus the fact I hate cell phones in general. portable pains in the asses are what I call them. They have a long way to go until they replace landlines. looking forward to WiMAX VOIP phones more than cell phones.
Just a quick comment here. I don't want to get involved in the entire technology discussion involving which codec, etc. is the best here. However, it is worth noting that the science of predicting coverage (particularly coverage in densely populated urban areas featuring closely knit buildings) is particulary difficult. In the middle 90's, there were quite a few government sponsored initiatives to assist in cellular phone tracking (prior to the invasion of widespread and cheap GPS) designed to assist in cellphone tracking and locating 911 calls). I'm sure that anti-terrorism was also involved in the government sponsorship.
These methods mostly fell by the wayside with GPS availability; tracing cell phone location is dicey in multi-path (urban) environments. This underscores, however, the problem of simply predicting cell phone coverage. Add to this the complexity different methods of transmission, different cell phone models (often, the carrier is blamed for inefficent antennas on a particular cell phone models).
In summary, I'd simply say that if person X says "Cingular (or Verizon or Sprint, etc.) SUCKS!", you really don't have a good idea of WHY their coverage sucks. Maybe their building is shadowed from reception. Perhaps their cell phone (the popular model sold by Company X) sucks due to design flaws. Perhaps they dropped their cell phone and the antenna is broken.
Why can't cell phone companies produce good coverage maps? At least in urban areas, because this is dependent upon multiple factors, some of which are largely dependent on the individual.
The solution? Try before you buy. 30 day trial periods. Nothing else is liable to be workable.
Chances are, they were comparing it to previous Motorola products and not other manufacturer's phones.
All I have to say is...
The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side!
Nuff said.
I'm an ex-Virgin Mobile customer (Why? Family plan with Cingular lets us split the bill and pay less per month), and I've found my service satisfactory. My only issue (and it bugged me, believe me) was that my voice mail box broke twice (once on initialization and once just prior to my switch). The calls were expensive because I didn't talk a lot (25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes, then 10 cents per minute for the remainder of the day), but text messages were a dime to send and free to receive. Like the parent, I got a calendar, calculator and all sorts of other trivial utilities. A data cable was also in the cards, but Kyocera (my phone manufacturer) sold it for $40, and the cable wasn't popular enough to be sold in any number of retailers.
Not sure if it's a Virgin Mobile issue or a Cingular issue, but I couldn't get my old VM number transferred to my new service. Also, whenever I did any set up through VM's system on my phone (voice mail box comes to mind), it seemed like the system was trying its best to make sure I burned time on it.
I still have my old cell phone, but I accidentally fell off my bike a month or so ago and cracked the screen (it's a slide phone, so the screen is on the outside), and I haven't sent it off to get recycled because I'm waiting to get data off of it.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
My wife needs a phone, I'll take the Nokia. In fact, I took a Nokia, but it does flip open and have a cheap camera. I bought it because it wasn't an LG and because it had a great run time. Of course, I wasn't told the run time was good because the volume was so low. It's an ok phone though and I'm going on a year with it. We went to get my wife's mother a phone on the family plan with a used one that decided not to work when we got there, but the sales person found a used one for us that works better than mine. It was a non-flip Nokia. One thing I do know is that Cingular has better coverage away from the highway and even on the highway in Arkansas than Sprint. The Sprint phone was nearly useless on the way to Tulsa or St. Louis. The Cingular phone has free roaming and the Altel network is pretty good in this state. I'm planning on getting a phone for my wife for Christmas. Any suggestions on the best phone because I do want a quality phone for a good price?
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
idiots...
I have switched from Verizon to Sprint, have much less in the way of dropped calls (the only time I've had a dropped call, it's pretty much assumed it was the Verizon individual - her phone always drops calls, and even to ground lines, so we know it's her). Actually, the Verizon people I know have a lot of dropped calls... And those were to a ground line.
Add to that the insanely rude and arrogant customer service people at Verizon. Screw them. Sprint is much greater than Verizon.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
I would have to say that MOST consumers THINK they should be able to get both 'teh hottness' and durability/longevity/etc..., and the truth of it is they COULD. There are no technical limitations preventing the phone manufactures from building a really nice('teh hottness'), high quality, very durable phone.
The problem in phone/headset quality is that planned obsolescence and quarterly results drive design, not consumer interest. Consumers DO NOT hold companies accountable for the quality of their products anymore. This problem you sum up very well. Your viewpoint of consumer shallowness regarding phone design choices cannot be argued, but I think there is a definate argument to be made for the average consumers ability to comprehend the significances of differences with regard to SOME of the technologies involved.
GSM vs. CDMA vs. IS-95 (2G) vs. UMTS, SIM Cards, OBEX, etc... it IS quite confusing to the average consumer. So, their recourse, their ONLY recourse, is to spend weeks of their time attempting to comprehend it all, OR TRUST that the "wireless sales representatives", who supposedly know about all this 'stuff', are going to be honest with them, and explain WHY they really shouldn't choose that RAZR phone.
SOME "wireless sales representatives", such as yourself, go out of their way to help joe six-pack get it, while most just give the customer what he/she THINKS they want. And OTOH, SOME consumers go out of their way to be ignorant of the issues surrounding their choices and choose to live in LaLa land.
I certainly understand your frustrations, but I would ask that you re-evaluate your attitude regarding consumers, its not ALL their fault. the world has become complex quite quickly, and while you and I may "get it", many do not. Whether you feel that makes sense or not is really not for you, or I, to judge. All we can do is to TRY and effect positive change.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
I live in a small city with limited selection. The RAZR really is the best phone we've ever owned in this area. In places where my wife used to lose signal altogether with her old phone, the RAZR still gets three bars and can place calls without dropping them. The point being that we actually did the research and bought what worked well for us. I couldn't care less if some teenage sells clerk thinks less of me for getting something that happens to be trendy.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
A few years back, I switched from Sprint to Verizon because I was sick of the dropped calls, calls that failed to complete, and the abysmal customer service from nitwits such as yourself. My parting conversation with the Sprint "customer retention specialist" could be paraphrased thusly (the actual call lasted about 45 minutes):
I don't know where the wireless carriers find people like you, but as a public service message to all the residents of Virginia and Vermont, let me help you and your kind out. VA is Virginia. VT is Vermont. Oh, and also: Hopefully you can understand the customer's total lack of trust in your knowledge of cellphones. Look at it from our point of view. We've been dealing with wireless carriers' representatives for years now and we know what caliber of people we're dealing with. If you tried to tell me what day it was, I'd still verify the information by looking at my watch. That's how much I trust your knowledge.Can you blame us? The Sprint guy lied right to my face by stating as fact that Sprint had the best coverage (or any coverage for that matter) in the state of Vermont. We've all had experiences like that. That's why we don't listen to you. If you were to recommend a phone to me, I'd just assume you're getting a bonus for selling that phone and disregard your recommendation. It's not materialism. It's just the fact that you would lie to my face in order to get a $3.29 commission.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I've been a VZW customer ever since and would never even consider Sprint. But had Sprint given me a new phone, I probably would have stayed with them since a new phone probably would have solved my network issues. When I called to cancel, they did offer me a new phone; but by the time I called, my mind was made up.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
For extra credit, if your sign also said that m&m's cost $.002 each (not per bag), I bet some of them would read that as "point oh oh two cents". This is why I never liked the game show Family Feud, where it doesn't matter if an answer is right or not, only whether it's popular. The survey says that people think the stuff on the right of the decimal point is 'cents'.
I misunderstand nothing. To repeat my point, the mathematically challenged see a money figure that includes a decimal point, and refer to the portion to the left of that decimal as 'dollars', and that to the right as 'cents'. If you listen to the conversation, that is exactly what the Verizon people did. They started with '.002 cents per kb', multiplied by the number of kb, and came up with a figure that had digits on both sides of the decimal point, which they then called 'dollars' and 'cents' respectively.For what I hope is the last time, I do not believe this is correct. It is, however, far more common in the general population than in Slashdot readers. It may even be more common in judges, more's the pity.
From time to time, I'll see a pricetag in a store that says something like ".79c", and I always cringe when I see that, because I know that it's wrong. But if I tried to purchase the item in question for a fraction of a penny, when the clerk insisted that ".79c" is "seventy-nine cents", if I called up the Attorney General's office and said it was deceptive advertising, I'd probably not get anywhere.
The reason, of course, is that "everyone knows what they mean" by ".79c". In the case of Verizon, precisely because the customer normally pays even less than $.00002/kb, that argument holds no water. We computer geeks are used to communicating with a machine that takes what we say literally. John Q. Public expects humans to be smarter than that.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
The subject says it all and this is why I love Sprint more than anything. I got a Treo 700p and was able to upgrade my old $10 unlimited data plan to unlimited EVDO for the same price. Normally it's $15-20 more a month, but even at that price it's a lot cheaper than most everybody else.
Customer support is good enough, but the best thing is the great price for high-speed data. I've clocked downloads at over 1 Mbps which is amazing to me for a phone. Who needs 802.11 WiFi when you've got unlimited EVDO?
Sprint all the way!
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Stop making phone calls while you're driving: problem solved.
Unlocked phones are really a GSM-ism. On CDMA, it doesn't really matter. Where are you going to go? The new carrier needs to program the phone anyway, since you can't just change SIM's.
Unlocking his current phone, if Verizon even does that, would probably have no effect.
I live in Suburban Maryland.
I've had Sprint for five years now, and although the coverage was spotty when I first signed-on (like every network), they have really improved the network. I can't remember the last time I got a dropped call - even with 2 bars I can talk while moving without dropping-out, and there are very few places outdoors where I only get one bar.
Through all of the Washington / Baltimore area, the phone gets great reception. I've taken the phone out to the middle of the the Chesapeake - still got two bars. The phone has worked fine through VA/MD/PA/NJ/NY, although I got a little spotty coverage in northern NJ.
The "no roaming" long-distance works great too. I was able to make calls from southern California last time I was there wwithout issue. I even got good signals when I went to Puerto Rico (the only exceptions being the island of Culebra, and the rainforest).
Of course, I have the benefit of using an older phone (TP 1100) with good reception. I'm hesitant to upgrade because I've heard such bad things about newer phones and reception.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Hah. Device designed for too many purposes implements unacceptable tradeoffs, does its many jobs poorly. Film at 11. Are you really surprised by this?
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I also have a 3120 (see my post in the same thread) and like it. The menu 1-2-3-4 commands still work, just not in the way that you're used to. You press the number of the menu you want then wait a second or two without pressing anything, and it enters the menu. I suppose that was the design trade-off they chose when they went to having more than ten menus.
It's not as customizable as the Motorolas, but not as fragile, either. I've noticed that my battery stays at seven bars for a day or two, then decreases by one to two bars each day after that. I like having more battery bars--Motorola has only three, and it's harder to judge when they need to be charged.
Sent from my iPhone