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Why Everyone Should Hate Cellphone Carriers

Posted by Zonk on from the penalty-for-wanting-to-talk-to-your-wife dept.

The Byelorrusian Spamtrap writes "Wired Magazine's made its position clear on the state of play in America's cellular industry, delivering a long, satisfying screed on why all of us should stop complaining and do something about it. 'They own politicians - Sure, it's just phones. In a world where worse things happen all the time amid the muck and despair of human existence, having to pay for premium text is hardly worth worrying about, is it? You can (and should) opt out, and not sign on the dotted line to begin with. But today's cell towers might be tomorrow's Pony Express: they're TV stations, internet access, emergency 911 and news networks all rolled into one. WWAN could well end up supplanting copper sooner than anyone expects: do you want these companies in charge of it?'"

12 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. How about the source of the problem... by saleenS281 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let me get this straight... polticians are corrupt, so we shouldn't buy cellphones? Am I reading that correctly? Politicians are corrupt... so in response... we punish ourselves by not using a very convenient technology. Are we really that apathetic? Is that what this country has come to?

    HOW ABOUT PUNISH THE POLITCIANS!? I'm so sick of people repeatedly voting in incumbents, then whining about how things never change, and they're just all so corrupt. Vote for an independent, hell, write in yourself, but don't whine that you'd just be *wasting a vote*, and continue to support people who are not serving you! Then tell people they should live the life of a hermit to *stick it to the man*. It is NOT the corporations fault that they attempt to maximize profits. That is the job of a public company. Our government allowing them to do so through shady practices is a problem with the GOVERNMENT!

    1. Re:How about the source of the problem... by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "I'm so sick of people repeatedly voting in incumbents, then whining about how things never change, and they're just all so corrupt."

      Incumbents don't lose. 93% of House elections (and something like 96% of state legislative elections) were decided shortly after the 2000 census. Voting doesn't matter, with the possible exception of the party primaries (since the parties function as kingmakers).

      "Vote for an independent,"

      Also doesn't work.

      "write in yourself,"

      Even if you did live in a state that allowed write-in candidates and you filed the necessary paperwork (and paid the necessary fees) to be counted as a write-in candidate, we still have a plurality voting system. If every person who normally didn't vote went in next year to vote for themselves, the results would not be different.

      "but don't whine that you'd just be *wasting a vote*"

      "Whine?" It's essentially a mathetmatical certainty. Rhetoric doesn't trump political science demonstrated by centuries of practical examples.

      "Our government allowing them to do so through shady practices is a problem with the GOVERNMENT!"

      Yeah, OK, go start the revolution, then. We'll be right behind you.

    2. Re:How about the source of the problem... by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In fact, I would argue that by knowingly supporting a company involved in corruption while chastising others for not punishing corruption in government would make someone a hypocrite.

      There's no false dichotomy there, at least not in the real world. Many people who choose to live in society, and have a job, may require wireless telephone service. This means they'll have to support a company involved in corruption, because there's no other choice (all the companies in this cartel are corrupt, after all). The only organization that can do anything about it is the government, which is also corrupt, but is under control (theoretically) of the voters, if they would bother to vote intelligently. The only alternative is to simply not use cellular service, which may cause much worse problems socially for any individual who tries this approach.

    3. Re:How about the source of the problem... by KillerCow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the absolute worst companies I've ever had to deal with were cellphone companies.


      Scam Industries:

      1) Telecom
      2) Health-Care
      3) Personal Banking

      feel free to add to the list.
    4. Re:How about the source of the problem... by vimh42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem with realists is they admit the democracy is dead in America. The problem with idealists is they believe the system works. The problem with America is that...never mind, my TV show is on.

    5. Re:How about the source of the problem... by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't be such an idiot.

      In the "real world" people get along just fine without cell phones.

      Many people have jobs which require them to be on call. What would you say to them? Quit? I guess you don't really want medical care, right?

      In the "real world" people make ethical decisions for their company every single day even when the "real world" makes that supposedly impossible.

      What does this have to do with anything? I never advocated making unethical decisions while on the job.

      However, lots of companies make unethical decisions all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it.

      In the "real world" people get the companies they pay for and the government they deserve.

      Maybe so, at the societal level, but at the individual level, there's nothing you can do about what everyone else does. You can become a hermit if you wish.

      In the "real world" not everyone waffles on their principles because they are afraid or because someone waives a dollar under their nose.

      Right, those are the hermits. Everyone else has to compromise because they have to live in a society with other people, who don't abide by the same principles. Do you buy services from any large, evil company like Comcast, Cox, Verizon, etc.? After all, you're here on Slashdot, so I presume you have an internet service provider. Well, you just compromised on principles by buying from a company with poor ethics. Do you grow your own food? If not, you're probably buying from some large agribusiness with poor ethics. I can cite lots of other examples.

      And in the "real world" claiming something is unavoidable and not in our control (especially when we're funding it!) is just a way to apologize for our own hypocrisy.

      So you think you're not a hypocrite? How do you explain your post here? You're using the products and services of large companies which have committed ethical transgressions in the interest of profit. It sounds like you're the hypocrite.

    6. Re:How about the source of the problem... by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I'm so sick of people repeatedly voting in incumbents, then whining about how things never change, and they're just all so corrupt."

      Incumbents don't lose. 93% of House elections (and something like 96% of state legislative elections) were decided shortly after the 2000 census. Voting doesn't matter, with the possible exception of the party primaries (since the parties function as kingmakers).
      The problem is that too many people vote for the familiar when they don't know anything about either candidate. If people would follow a simple rule, "Vote the ins, out," it would change things immensely. If you don't have an overwhelmingly compelling reason to vote for the incumbent, you should vote against him/her, even if you think the other guy is a bad choice. You can always vote him out next election. He won't have the chance to do much harm in one term. The longer a person is in the legislature the more harm he/she can do.
      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  2. A Scary Monopoly by lmnfrs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I doubt carriers could suddenly gain control over all of these things, but it is something that needs to be avoided, however it may happen. The real reasons that would be a problem lie in their customer relations practices.
    A billing error that can't be fixed at local stores, and the subscriber is forced to lead resolution of the issue while waiting on hold for 10 minutes every time an attempt is made, then arguing with customer "service" to convince them a problem exists. (AT&T)
    Quality of tech support is laughable - I was told by a tech supervisor that data transfer on my phone was very expensive because the screen was large. Not just physically, but it had a high resolution too. (Cingular)
    Salespeople lying directly to customers about plan availability when a similar plan with higher commission is available. (T-Mobile)

  3. Article failed in one minor, but disappointing way by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously... how can you have a segment on "They have annoying commercials", and not even mention ATT/Cingular's "idk my bff [name]" commercials? They have the dubious honor of being some of the only commercials (Axe being the other one, for the curious) to make me feel like my iq was lowered just by watching it.

    --
    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
  4. out-innovated? by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The first reason out of the given 10/15/whatever... was amusingly self-defeating.

    To witness Sprint's $5bn investment in WiMax is to witness a future planned so far in advance no-one should be comfortable with it.

    Such futures can't be relied upon if innovation is permitted So, no company should invest heavily in innovation because that stifles progress. Check.

    The remaining [author couldn't be bothered to count] reasons are similarly kvetching and dripping with angst.
  5. Voicemail Airtime Gouging by kozmonaut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Has anyone considered that the excessively long voicemail introductions used by almost every cell carrier amount to conspired gouging? We pay airtime when we are leaving a voicemail, right? When you get voicemail on my cell you get my brief away message, followed by the phone company's useless 20-second blather. For example:

    ring... ring... ring... (me):"Hello, I'm not here right now, please leave a message" (sprint): "To leave a voice message press 1, or just wait for the tone. To send a numeric page press 2 now. At the tone please leave a voice message. When you are finished recording, you may hang up, or press pound for more options"

    Several gripes here.
    1) 20 seconds of instructions doesn't sound like that much on its own. But if that pushes your phone call to roll one minute longer it's a minute of possible airtime charge the phone company gets. You start paying the minute the call is answered, even leaving voicemail.

    2) A typical voicemail message is probably 2 minutes or less. The phone company's instructional message here is taking up a significant portion of that airtime.

    3) These instructions are ridiculous and seem to be there only to draw out the duration of the call. They couldn't be phrased more verbosely. Oh, I can hang up when the message is done? I didn't know that. I can press pound for more options? How about you tell me about those AFTER I've left a message.

    4) The features are really ridiculous, too, and I suspect some 1% even use them. Send a numeric page? Why the hell should I do that? Cellphones have caller ID already. Send a FAX?? Please Slashdotters tell me who has sent a FAX over a cellphone. Do you have to make the modem sounds with your voice? If anyone DOES use these features they probably don't need the help message to remember what button to press to initiate their cellphone fax.

    5) There is no option to turn these messages off. They probably also require you to add your own greeting. Resulting in a totally redundant 30-second prelude to leaving any voicemail.

    6) Every mobile company I know of has these messages, some worse than others. Is this an unspoken or conspired arrangement between the mobile carriers? Sprint doesn't necessarily make money when someone has to listen to their God-awful pre-message, but they might. They certainly will make money when my Sprint phone is waiting on Verizon's equally obnoxious introduction, or T-mobile's, etc...

    7) The worst part of this, in my perspective, isn't that I might pay, if I totally screw up, 50c or 5 bucks some month because a few extra minutes were incurred waiting to leave my friends voicemail - or dropping coffee on the bus trying to press 1 to bypass the spiel. The worst part is I leave a moderate amount of voicemail messages, and this amounts to Minutes, Hours, or God knows, even Days of my life eventually wasted listening to a robot tell me how to leave a voicemail and that it's ok to hang up. It's robbery, I tell you!

  6. Re:Article suggests unrealistic alternative by fm6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No shit. The author seems totally disconnected from simple logic. On the one hand he's all bent out of shape because of the monopolistic abuses of the cell phone companies. On the other hand, he claims that we can do without their services. Hello? If people don't really need their services, how did they become monopolies?

    The submitter refers to the story as a "long satisfying screed". In other words, it feels good to read it and yell "right on! you go!" That's the problem with current political discourse: it's designed to make you feel good, not to actually accomplish anything.