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July 14, 206. Cingular Pre-paid Still Disappoints Us. We have vented on this page several times
as to the many disadvantages of using our
Cingular Pay As You Go prepaid account, and,
in some cases, Cingular in general. This
week, as we tried to use up what few Cingular
prepaid minutes we have left, we encountered
one more reason to avoid this service. Making
a call earlier this week, I was forced to
listen to an announcement about "your
Cingular Pay As you Go account is about to
expire…" and went into lengthy detail
about how you can refill your account, etc.
and at the end of this message, "if
you want to ignore this…press #" Then,
"you will be now connected to your call…"
However, the party called did not answer,
so after a cautionary maximum of 30 seconds
of ringing (Cingular says they will charge
you for ringing beyond 60 seconds), I hung
up, and was then notified that call WAS charged
for one minute of time! So, I was charged
for listening to Cingular's announcement,
and the 30 seconds of ringing a call that
was not answered! This announcement appears
once per day during your "need to refill"
period.
Let's review all the things that have happened
in the almost 2 years of using this Cingular
Prepaid account, for myself, and other contributors
to this web site:
1) Being charged for listening to their "refill"
announcements,
2) When using more than 6 minutes of prepaid
time, often being charged a different, and
larger amount than the actual number of minutes
used.
3) Being charged for people accessing our
voice mail and each minute they use in leaving
a message (totally out of your control, unless
you have the insight to disable your voice
mail).
4) When changing your phone number, especially
across different "billing" markets,
you lose your previous calling plan.
5) Having to purchase a new SIM when changing
your phone number.
6) Customer service that has rarely been
knowledgeable or helpful.
When these issues have been brought to the
attention of Customer Service, technical
agents, and the marketing department, only
once was there a resolution explained and
a credit offered. All other requests have
been met with either indifference or stone
cold silence. This latest 1-minute charge is so small,
yet so big. Should we take the time to call
and ask for a credit? No, it isn't worth
out time and more important, shouldn't be
necessary. All these problems reflect an
obvious bias against the customer. For those of you who have Cingular as the
best or only signal available, we recommend
any of the Cingular re-sellers, instead.
Most of them will credit your account immediately
should there be a problem, and most of them
do NOT deduct minutes for callers accessing
your voice mail.
Then there's the customer service issue.
Cingular's agents often had no clue as to
why things happened to our accounts, where
the re-sellers will take YOUR side of the
issue, and would effectively go to bat against
Cingular for you. Cingular would never credit
the account…it was always OUR fault (we just
don't understand). Re-sellers would usually
give us the benefit of the doubt, however,
with them, there was no need.
We would have hoped things would have improved
once Cingular recovered from the AT&T
takeover, but, in our experience, it has
remained the worst of all companies, even
below those who re-sell Cingular service.
We receive emails from Cingular users and
suppliers who, after reading anything positive
we might say about Cingular, counter our
words with their headaches and horror stories
about Cingular. We are not Cingular bashers,
they have much to offer and sometimes superior
to other carriers.
We asked Cingular for their comments about
the issues raised in this article. Of the
five people we contacted at Cingular, all
five responded immediately telling us they
are forwarding our email to the person able
to comment about prepaid. He, however, has
chosen not to respond after 7 days. Often,
silence speaks volumes.
July 7, 2006. Storm Clouds Over Cingular. It was almost like someone dictated our
thoughts about Cingular after the AT&T
takeover, and drew up the latest class
action
suit. After losing a case in a California
Appeals Court, Cingular has received
yet
another class action suit, this time in U.S District Court in Seattle.
It's the same list of grievances: charges
to change handsets, transfer fees to
change
plans, degradation in service, and
a general
disregard for ex-AT&T customers.
The list goes on, but so much has already
been brought up here, especially those
that
affect coverage. We really didn't mind
the
conversion of inferior TDMA technology
to
GSM, but Cingular's approach to AT&T
customers was horribly brash, with
an arrogant
'take it or leave it' posture. We won't
repeat
ourselves, but this most recent lawsuit
seems
to intelligently address everything
that
is bad about how Cingular treated,
and still
treats, ex-AT&T customers.
The biggest fiasco was AT&T's very misguided
decision to 'upgrade' their customers
from
a relatively good network, generally
based
on 850 MHz, to one that was far inferior,
entirely based on 1900 MHz, and in
some markets,
built only on the existing 850 MHz
sites,
which were spaced much too far apart
to work
well at the higher frequency. Cingular
could
have played the role of white knight,
and
rode to the rescue of these poor AT&T
customers. Instead, they encouraged
these
hapless victims to further buy into
the "upgrade"
AT&T foisted on us, but now with
upgrade
charges, threats of Early Termination
Fees,
and to add insult to injury, a reduction
in coverage.
Of course, millions of customers bought into
this 'upgrade', and for some, life
went on
as before. To this day, I work with
people
who describe their flashy new Cingular
phone
as "really cool...oh yes, there
is a
dead spot right in front of the office,
but
look at this phone, it's really cool."
But for far too many others, coverage
got
worse, and costs went up. It must have
been
trying for those poor Customer Service
agents
who had to deal with these people with
only
the tools the higher-ups gave them:
disconnect
fees, upgrade fees, and new, 2-year
obligations.
Coincidentally, we were working on another
Cingular story, and found that everyone
we
contacted was out 'on vacation'. That
is,
until we read about this latest lawsuit.
Now I think they're just hiding under
their
desks. We don't want to be known as
'Cingular-bashers',
but we do want to be included among
that
group of users who felt that Cingular
treated
AT&T customers as unwanted scum.
And
I hope I'm not sounding cruel here,
but we
still haven't seen a single improvement
locally
since Cingular finally upgraded the
AT&T
GSM network to 850 MHz. That was right
before
they started to disconnect parts of
the TDMA
network, and the screams began to rise
from
those unjustly severed from their wireless
service. Anyone see any white knights
around?
June 30, 2006. More Good News. Yesterday, Verizon Wireless announced they
will begin pro-rating their Early Termination
Fees. Since their churn rate is so low, they
figure they won't have much to lose, and
may gain lots of goodwill...and even more
customers. Verizon, you might remember, was
the first major carrier to embrace Wireless
Number Portability, and quickly became a
great beneficiary of the process.We think this will be copied by the other
carriers, thus, it's no small deal.
Earlier in the week, Cingular announced some
dramatic additions of cell sites in Utah
and Idaho. These are states that we have
been criticizing Cingular for ignoring after
AT&T's abandonment of these markets.
However, if the timing of expansion in Arizona
and Colorado are a comparison, it could be
a year before any of these sites are functioning.
At least we can applaud the fact that they
no longer appear to be ignoring the Rocky
Mountain states.
Cingular has also leapt ahead in one area
of consumer friendliness. Last year we rated
each carrier for the level of detail and
usability of their coverage maps. T-Mobile
was unquestionably the best, and Cingular
was definitely the worst. Cingular has reversed
direction and is now tied for first. I have
some question as to the accuracy of their
Coverage Locator, but for the most part, it is a giant leap
forward for a company that seemed to be thumbing
its nose at providing such information. I
hope this resource is permanent and becomes
widely available to customers, but we cannot
find links to it from normal Cingular channels.
If it suddenly disappears, we apologize,
and would appreciate knowing that it has
disappeared. If it stays, kudos to Cingular!
June 23, 2006. Positive Thoughts About the Carriers. We have been a bit negative when things
go wrong, and they do wrong. But what happens
when they go right? We try to give credit
where credit is due. And recently, the carriers
we use, through their customer service, have
actually been helpful. I came up with a few
"problems", some real and some
not.
Pretty much, each company did their best
to help. In most cases, we were looking for
a few extra minutes, or minute credits for
situations that we didn't feel were our fault.
Some carriers were very helpful. Each tried
to fix the "problem' before giving away
any credits. Verizon, who is usually the
most helpful and generous, helped us with
just a few minutes extra to get me through
the next 2 days. If I hadn't taken some extra
time to ask a few extra questions, the agent
wouldn't have looked closely at my account.
After several minutes of getting nowhere,
the agent changed his demeanor and started
reading lines like, "since you've been
a loyal customer..." and " since
your bill is always paid on time..."
only then were the few extra minutes forthcoming.
Another Verizon call was even less generous.
This time I made some calls just over the
roaming border on a Local plan. Actually,
I used the same tower an inside-the-area
call would have used. However, there was
absolutely no credits offered for these calls.
Actually, the agent spent the time arguing
about the true boundaries of this plan (it
includes 3 more states than he claimed),
and admonishing me that if I don't want any
roaming charges I should switch from my amazingly-generous
Local plan to an America's Choice plan. No
way.
The other carriers came through without argument.
In all cases, we were looking for less than
$10 worth of credits. This time, Cingular,
T-Mobile and Sprint all did their best to
fix things, and, barring that, actually gave
a few minutes back. Even Zatar, the administration
service for 7-Eleven's SpeakOut prepaid service,
credited the entire amount used to work through
a bunch of problems setting up voice mail.
Not one extra minute mind you, but having
all the minutes returned after the voice
mail was set up was a net gain.
The moral of the story? Always give them
a chance to make things right. While I've
had less than perfect success, I do want
to share that sometimes they care. Unless,
of course, the agent is having a bad day.
Now there's a topic for another day.
June 9, 2006. Cingular Keeps Digging the Hole. Cingular is new in our part of the country
and our hopes sprung high when they absorbed
the noticeably inferior AT&T Wireless
network here. However, years have passed
and nothing has improved, although now there
is the promise of new cell sites. But no
improvement in coverage will offset the erratic
billing suffered by Cingular customers.
Regular readers know of our problems last
year with our Cingular prepaid account (the
stories are in Previous Articles). Once those got straightened out you would
think that a Pay As You Go account would
be as straightforward and simple as they
come. Alas, Cingular continues to prove otherwise.
A few weeks ago, a contributor in New England
noted that his Cingular prepaid calls over
a 6 or more minute threshold were charged
at an increasingly greater rate. I checked
my own Cingular prepaid account online, and
lo and behold, I too, was being charged as
much as a dollar extra on 25 minute and longer
calls. A family member borrowed my Cingular
prepaid phone and made several long calls.
Cingular's customer service had to consult
with others in their department and agreed
that their computation was correct over time.
My challenge to them was that my starting
point was as much as $10 greater than theirs,
but they admitted that they had no idea where
the starting point was after my previous
refill. They had a 'spreadsheet' and all,
but there were the extra charged minutes,
right on their account web page, that could
not be explained away. I gave them 3 tries
to figure it out.
My next step was to contact our media representative
at Cingular, who promised she would have
their technical department "look into
it." After a few days with no response,
it occurred to me that there is no way they
could admit overcharging their customers.
To do so would open a can of worms they could
never close. Refunds, lawsuits, ill will,
and even red faces. So, it is an inquiry
to which we expect no response. And if there
is, I'm sure the blame will fall on us or
some isolated "billing error."
I was able to supply multiple customers'
phone numbers with similar experiences. I'm
sure we would be told we have defective accounts
with problems that no one else has experienced.
This certainly isn't worth the time to pursue,
but those of us who use Cingular just to
share our experience with the internet, will
now consider a different way to do it. There
are several MVNO's (Cingular re-sellers)
that are more reliable, and, in most cases,
cheaper.
There are other problems with our Cingular
prepaid accounts that, until now, we chose
to overlook. The most irritating is the charge
made when someone calls and reaches your
Cingular prepaid voice mail. The call is
charged as a "Forwarded" call,
because it is forwarded to your voice mail.
This has the potential of a caller completely
draining your prepaid account of value without
you even turning on your phone. Even Cingular's
own customer service says this is incorrect,
but has no idea what to do about it (credit
my account? Nah). So the charges go on unless
you have the knowledge to have them de-activate
your voice mail. The Cingular re-sellers
in our area no longer charge for these unanswered
voice mail calls.
Then it occurs to us that these charges might
not be a mistake, that they're all intentional
charges Cingular wants to make. Intentional
or not, we must vote with our feet. About
a year ago we asked Cingular if they wanted
to supply us a demo phone for a few months
for these reports, and was denied. I'm sure
glad we got such an eye-opening view of Cingular
by doing it on our own. They're digging themselves
a hole, and, instead of a phone, have loaned
us a shovel to help them.
June 2, 2006. Be Careful What You Wish For. The primary function of this web site is
our opinionated reviews of the wireless carriers. We try to keep
the reviews impartial and accurate. So, when
we are told we need to update certain parts
of our reviews by representatives of the
carriers themselves, we look at their 'complaints'
with a suspicious eye. We need to provide
a balance between accuracy and fairness,
while maintaining our honest opinion of a
carrier's performance.
We got 2 emails recently, coincidentally
on the same day, from people who claim to
work for small rural carriers, that shall
remain nameless, challenging our reviews
of their company. They mentioned several
items that have changed since we last either
visited their service area or their web site.
I spent some time visiting their web sites
and found indeed, our information was lacking.
But, while the offerings of these carriers
had changed, either their web sites were
sorely lacking in information, or they revealed
some rather questionable policies. Like a
year ago when we discovered a carrier using
another carrier's trademark, we found that
while we did need to change some of the information
in our reviews, it was, in part, necessary
because the review of those carriers had
actually gotten worse.
I think this a good time to reveal that some
time ago, one carrier wanted to buy advertising
on the Mountain Wireless site. We agreed to provide some links and
some space to tell their story, but what
they wanted was to re-word our review! It
sure was hard to decline cash for our low-income
operation, but it certainly stepped outside
the bounds of journalistic integrity. Of
course, on the other hand, does anyone visiting
this site really care? No matter, it was
our chance to do the right thing.
So, I hope this doesn't keep readers, either
in or out of the industry, from challenging
us to stay accurate. We try to at least visit
the web site of each carrier at least once
a year and periodically re-write our reviews
at least that often. Or, we might dispatch
one of our contributors on the road to observe
the networks in person. But we really appreciate
hearing from the carriers themselves, it
sets us off down a path of investigation
and wonder, and gives us the joy of either
finding something new or interesting, or
finding they didn't sweep all of the dirt
under the rug.
May 26,2006. Do We Care About the Preferred Roaming List
Any Longer? One of the routine Mountain Wireless projects
is to keep abreast of the latest roaming
lists for various carriers. With TDMA disappearing
and GSM using network-based roaming roaming
instructions, only CDMA roaming lists seems
to be useful today. As recent as a year ago,
when a new CDMA Preferred Roaming List (PRL)
was issued, visits to our web site skyrocketed
for a few days. Today, there is little notice,
at least on our PRL Page.
We still get a lot of daily hits there, but
the 'spike' that occurred when a new PRL
was issued has disappeared. To me, that's
an indicator that we have accepted whatever
PRL comes at us, that whatever service we're
now getting is good enough. There's no longer
a need to determine if an old PRL or a new
one will benefit our roaming capabilities
or charges.
We have Verizon phones with both old and
new PRL's, and I'm finding less need for
the older, "wide-open" PRL, and
that the newer PRL's actually find more systems
to roam on. More recent PRL's favor wideband
services on certain data-capable phones,
so there is a whole new complexity to the
List. Also, attrition has retired many phones
that may have had PRL's that may have included
certain carriers. Verizon phones that roamed
on Sprint PCS come to mind. Judging from
how Verizon has periodically removed various
Sprint systems from their roaming list, there
must have been a certain amount of regret
to initially include the entire Sprint network.
Lately, it has been T-Mobile that has been
adding drips and dribbles of roaming to their
phones, and customers have only been grateful
for each addition. They have no desire to
look this gift horse in the mouth.
I guess we have come to expect free roaming
as part of our wireless expectations. Remember
what a big deal free Long Distance was. And
there was the end of the extra charges for
Voice Mail, caller ID, Call Forwarding, and
so many of the other services we take for
granted, and now demand for free. So now
it's not just buffalo that roam.
May 19, 2006. What Makes a Carrier Go to the Other Side? Nokia bragged recently about landing the
contract to convert an entire wireless system
from CDMA to GSM. While it isn't all that
unusual, it is a pricey project, especially
when the carrier is as small as Chinook Wireless.
Chinook is made up of two small PCS systems
in Montana, Blackfoot and 3 Rivers. Business
hasn't been booming for wireless companies
of this size, so the move begs the question,
"why?"
Rebecca Morgan, Chinook's Director of Marketing,
was kind enough to fill us in. It seems that
Blackfoot and 3 Rivers assembled their systems
on a shoestring and tried to make a go of
it. Outsiders saw an opportunity to improve
on their plans, and bought the systems. However,
they need serious upgrading to even hope
to compete with the big boys, Verizon and
Alltel. Morgan implied it would be as cheap
to install an entirely new system from scratch
as it would to just upgrade, so cost wasn't
a deciding issue.
Blackfoot and 3 Rivers made use of many repeaters
in their system. While they work, they severely
limit expansion of the network. So, Chinook
decided to also upgrade every repeater to
a full-blown cell site...hence even more
new equipment. But why GSM? With all the
other carriers in the state using CDMA, Chinook
saw this as an opportunity to set themselves
apart from the rest, offering phones and
devices that no one else could. Additionally,
while there were a number of GSM users in
the state, mostly roaming on Alltel's co-located
GSM fill-in transmitters, coverage was barely
acceptable...especially considering Montana's
wide open spaces.
There were other considerations favoring
GSM. Rebecca claims GSM carriers "play
nicer together", meaning the GSM brotherhood
should look more kindly on their newest member,
and prefer Chinook for GSM roaming in Montana,
and reciprocate for Chinook's customers outside
the state. After all, what does Alltel know
about GSM, right? With the help of carriers
like Cingular or T-Mobile, Chinook customers
should have great service across the whole
country. So these factors all helped push
the decision toward GSM.
But the devil's in the details. Chinook's
customers could be a fragile group. After
all, most of them were brought into the fold
with a loyalty toward Blackfoot and 3 Rivers,
who were also local phone co-ops and run
by local people. OK, as long as things work
as expected, no problem. But Ms. Morgan told
us Chinook's CDMA to GSM conversion was to
happen very quickly, with little or no overlapping
service. Do they expect all their customers
to bring in their old phone and get a new
one the same day? Or are they going to let
you pick up a new GSM phone at your leisure,
and on the appointed day, start using the
new phone ("where did I put that dang thing?")
and toss the old? And what kind of 'deal'
are they going to make for new GSM phones?
Morgan says a good chunk of money has been
set aside to provide new handsets, but customers
report there's no free lunch. If you bought
a $200 phone last month with a 2-year contract,
and brought it in on "G-Day", you
could get an equally-nice phone, for an equally-high
price of $200. Of course, there would be
free phones, but if you wanted a better phone,
you gotta pay. oooo, I can hear them licking
their chops over at the Alltel store..."Free
Phones", "use your same number",
and "we're big, we're (semi-) national."
If you call Chinook's stores, they imply
there's some wiggle room on the price.
Chinook plans over 120 new or upgraded sites,
and that may do well to improve the network,
but they need to made the transition easy
to swallow. The stores are expecting the
switch to be thrown on July 1st. That's pretty
ambitious. Qwest Wireless took almost a year
to transition their customers from one network
to another. Chinook thinks it can be done
quicker...overnight, maybe?
Skepticism aside, we applaud Chinook's plans.
Any carrier willing to pay out the bucks
to improve service, especially coverage,
deserves high praise, especially in an area
as underserved as Montana. If Chinook can
introduce new service in a few nooks and
crannies the other carriers have overlooked,
they could gain loyal customers for life.
We are not concerned with Chinook's motives.
Whether they hope to improve the network
to make it more attractive for customers...or
suitors, the result should be the same, more
coverage. And you know how much we love more coverage.
May 15, 2006. Avoiding Those Pesky Overages. When briefly talking cellular with colleagues
and friends, I can't believe how many of
them go over their monthly allotment in cellular
minutes. It seems so easy to me to just call
your carrier's Customer Service and have
them up you to the next plan. Hey, I'm a
busy guy, but it really burns me to have
to pay one penny...OK, maybe one dollar...more
than necessary. Especially when the answer
is so easy.
But people have their reasons. They have
a really good plan that they can get any
more, they don't trust the carriers, they
think it's cheaper in the long run to just
leave it alone, they think a call to Customer
Service may take more time than they have
available, they're getting free data or whatever,
and don't want to call attention to their
'mistake', and on, and on... But when it
comes to paying more than necessary, it could
be so easy to fix. A good time to call Customer
Service is while you're driving. It's a free
call, although you might have to call more
than once to get through before you get to
your destination. But there are other options.
The handful of us who have a 'spare' phone,
usually in the glove box, can usually spare
a hundred minutes or so each year on it.
In some cases, it's a great idea to exercise
that phone. I can't tell you how many times
I have used the extra phone, only to find
something wrong with the phone, or the account.
But there's an even better answer. Call the
carrier and ask for a few extra minutes.
Yes, each year I go over at least once. Sometimes
I just eat it, it's only a few bucks. Both
others, when the total goes into 2-digit
dollar figures, I call right away asking
for forgiveness. I've only had to do this
with 2 carriers, but each time it was more
than worth it. The results have been as simple
as an extra 50 minutes applied back to the
beginning of the billing period, or, once,
an offer of an extra 100 minutes per month
for just re-upping for another year. Other
users have received even better deals, usually
based on their monthly expenditure and payment history.
Of course, this too, requires a call to Customer
Service which seems to be the hurdle so many
of you find impossible to cross. It could
also be done online, but for me, that's too
slow. And the carriers have made it a little
more costly to switch to the next higher
plan. In some cases, the next level is an
additional $20 per month. It does beg the
question, will you really be saving $240
a year? Even a $10 plan change involves $120
a year. Maybe those occasional overages aren't
so bad after all. But the chronic surcharges
are usually worth eliminating.
Sprint has another option that has been working
very well...for them, The Fair & Flexible plan. If you go over your plan minutes by
one minute, they automatically bump you up
to the next level. While it seems like a
good idea on the surface, that simple minute
over your allotment is going to be $10, not
the customary .30 to .40. And since they
have a plan that addresses your transgressions,
don't expect leniency from their customer service. Cingular's Rollover is another method to keep you from going
slightly over the top, but if you're under-using
your minutes enough to make a difference,
you may also be a candidate fro a plan change...downward.
Oh no, not another call to Customer Service.
Hey, if it weren't for 611, I wouldn't have
many numbers to call on my way home.
May 5, 2006. More Wireless Consolidation Ahead? I was recently directed to an online Businessweek
article where a reporter gazes into his crystal
ball and sees more consolidation among wireless
carriers as inevitable. If not soon, at least
next year. While we agree that more consolidation
is possible, the reasoning this reporter
follows is a bit faulty. Just because Sprint,
Alltel and Verizon Wireless utilize CDMA
technology, he says they would "make
a good fit." This has already been refuted
with the combination of Sprint and Nextel,
utilizing two very different technologies,
CDMA and iDEN.
But I'm not going to pick apart this article,
although it is full of questionable "facts."
What I do want to touch on is how inevitable
consolidation may be in the U.S. It's true
that consolidation has allowed cellular service
to become available universally across the
country without excessive roaming charges.
But the other feature that has revolutionized
the industry is the roaming agreement. They
are now quite reasonable and allow us to
operate across several networks, often transparently.
Alas, this may not be enough to prevent the
big fish in wireless from consuming all the
little fish, but it does provide a pressure
regulator helping reduce the need to just
buy the intervening networks.
But from the consumer standpoint, should
we start wringing our hands about the possibility
of fewer carriers resulting in higher prices?
Maybe not. As predicted on this very page,
the first mainstream Cellular/Wi-Fi telephones
have been released. While we may be eventually
dealing with fewer mainstream carriers, we
may also be paying less to them and more
to the new competition: ourselves! Think of it, no more lousy coverage at
home. As you approach your house, the phone
automatically drops the cellular connection
and logs on your own wi-fi connection, which
completes the call, virtually free.
With the wider availability of broadband
connections and wireless boxes sitting next
to your computer (or just the router), zap,
you're in the wireless bidness! And with
lots of other wi-fi connections available
across the country, we could see the pendulum
swing the other way. We'll have just two
or three cellular carriers, but just for
the spaces where there's no wi-fi. Of course
someone will try to capitalize on your home
'cell site', but won't it be nice to deduct
your house as a telecommunications business.
That is, as long as we have the time and
space left over while we're creating our
own bio-diesel from leftover salad dressing.
Oh yes, it's our next commodity shortage:
raspberry vinaigrette.
April 27, 2006, Coverage: Does It Affect Your Travel? I shouldn't have been surprised, but I hadn't
thought about our destination: a scenic picnic
spot along a lazy river. It was a warm spring
day and as we began our decent into this
deep river valley, each phone began to drop from full bars to
none. Wow, how long has it been since that
happened...on every phone? It's been a while.
My wife was taken back to her younger days
when she and her friends would come down
to this river and go tubing. Her father would
go fishing and her mother would grill a few
hot dogs. What pleasant memories. I was reminded
of the beauty of this deep canyon and the
placid waters...and then the realization
set in. We are completely out of cellular
range! How can this be? We're less than an
hour from the Big City, not even 30 miles
away. A valley, 20 miles long with no cellular
service, and, if I recall, not even ham radio
repeater coverage!
No, it wasn't traumatic, but after we chased
a few paper boats down the river, drowned
a few flies, and downed a few sandwiches,
it made me think about the good old days.
You know, when your old wireless carrier
still had a few cities they didn't serve,
or where the roaming fees were just too high.
For me, it was the small, historic towns
of northern New Mexico. That was the year
we used Sprint PCS, and roaming was either
impossible, or way too expensive on 360 Cellular.
It was also the year we found ourselves staying
in hotels in Santa Fe more than the charming
bed and breakfasts up the Rio Grande valley.
I'm certain our lodging choice was made based
on where cellular worked...at least at a
reasonable cost.
Yep, it was soon after that when we switched
to a carrier that covers most of the northern
New Mexico area, and suddenly we weren't
giving coverage or roaming a second thought...it
was all good. After a couple years, not having
a wireline phone in your room wasn't a big
deal, you could plug your laptop into your
cellular phone. Life was good. As long as
we have coverage, we haven't felt any need
to restrict our travels. Gee, even every campsite we've visited has
some service.
Every carrier has its coverage limitations.
And every wireless customer has their range
of travel. Some people never stray beyond
coverage from multiple carriers, and others
know exactly where the line is for the end
of cellular coverage. Does it`affect where you go? You probably have no qualms about which
airport you might fly into, but have you
ever thought twice about the service at your
hotel? We stayed in the Black Hills one weekend
and the motel was just beyond Verizon digital
service. Fearing the phone would not last
the day in analog, we forwarded our calls
to the AT&T TDMA phone which received
perfect service in digital from Cellular
One (West). I don't know if we would stayed
a second night if there was no service.
Then there was the San Juan Inn in Utah,
which was just north of Monument Valley,
one of the most scenic places on earth. Half
way down into the San Juan River canyon,
there's no hope of cellular service, and
while the room had a phone, the computer
wouldn't connect at any speed higher than
10k. While the Inn was rather modest, the
area is more than worth the sacrifice.
Service has become widespread enough that
occasionally straying beyond wireless coverage
isn't as big a deal as it was a few years
ago. Unless of course you're trying to stay
in touch with your business, or your co-dependant
family.
Sprint still hasn't come to northern
New
Mexico, but they do have plans that
include
free roaming there, so our choices
are much
greater, even as the number of cellular
carriers
keeps shrinking. Life is good...uh,
except
down by the river.
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