First of all, realize that blogs such as the one above are written to be just a little controversial in the first place. So I’m glad it gets people impassioned.

Secondly, I AM in fact writing about what I know. I have written each of the above examples from the viewpoint of someone who HAS had these experiences. I’ve had AT&T, Cingular, T-Mobile, and Verizon, so believe me I write what I know. But these things all happened to me under Cingular! I’ve actually WRITTEN the CEO’s office, and they then had a case worker assigned to me. I’ve actually been TOLD by customer service to switch off my phone while they “reprogram” it over the air. Etcetera.

You don’t really warrant my waste of time, but all I will say is this: 1) If you don’t believe Wikipedia, then LOOK UP Telephia (the research company Cingular quotes in it’s “least dropped calls” ad campaign). 2) If the GSM phone is unlockable, then Cingular reps should be willing to help you do it so un-technical people don’t have to go scour the net for those instructions. 3) You pretty much explain away all these short-comings by saying that EVERY cell phone company is like that (to quote my friend Ramit, you’ve got lots of good hand-wavy excuses). On a side note, they are all (except for T-Mobile) offspring of the Bell system! And they are buying each other back up again! But just because all of your competitors are offering a shit service, that’s not an excuse to offer ANOTHER shit service. The phone companies have long been this way, and my frustration is with the whole corrupt, unethical industry, but again I write from my experience.

The future is called Client Service. It’s called Offer Your Customers Something Fucking Awesome and THEN, only then will you EARN their loyalty and maybe they WILL come back over and over to buy more shit from you. Don’t charge them to fix the shitty product you sold them. Don’t weasel out of contracts. Forget planned obsolescence. EXPLAIN something to your client if he doesn’t understand it. Make EVERY interaction with the customer UNFORGETTABLE in a good way! THAT’s good business.

Now go back and enjoy your “research” about how all the cell phone companies offer the same crappy product and that’s how it is.

First of all, realize that blogs such as the one above are written to be just a little controversial in the first place. So I’m glad it gets people impassioned.

Secondly, I AM in fact writing about what I know. I have written each of the above examples from the viewpoint of someone who HAS had these experiences. I’ve had AT&T, Cingular, T-Mobile, and Verizon, so believe me I write what I know. But these things all happened to me under Cingular! I’ve actually WRITTEN the CEO’s office, and they then had a case worker assigned to me. I’ve actually been TOLD by customer service to switch off my phone while they “reprogram” it over the air. Etcetera.

You don’t really warrant my waste of time, but all I will say is this: 1) If you don’t believe Wikipedia, then LOOK UP Telephia (the research company Cingular quotes in it’s “least dropped calls” ad campaign). 2) If the GSM phone is unlockable, then Cingular reps should be willing to help you do it so un-technical people don’t have to go scour the net for those instructions. 3) You pretty much explain away all these short-comings by saying that EVERY cell phone company is like that (to quote my friend Ramit, you’ve got lots of good hand-wavy excuses). On a side note, they are all (except for T-Mobile) offspring of the Bell system! And they are buying each other back up again! But just because all of your competitors are offering a shit service, that’s not an excuse to offer ANOTHER shit service. The phone companies have long been this way, and my frustration is with the whole corrupt, unethical industry, but again I write from my experience.

The future is called Client Service. It’s called Offer Your Customers Something Fucking Awesome and THEN, only then will you EARN their loyalty and maybe they WILL come back over and over to buy more shit from you. Don’t charge them to fix the shitty product you sold them. Don’t weasel out of contracts. Forget planned obsolescence. EXPLAIN something to your client if he doesn’t understand it. Make EVERY interaction with the customer UNFORGETTABLE in a good way! THAT’s good business.

Now go back and enjoy your “research” about how all the cell phone companies offer the same crappy product and that’s how it is.

1.If any other wireless company had a similar merger, the exact same thing would have happened. To keep up with global technology, Cingular switched to a GSM network, which eventually made it expensive for them to keep all of their old AT&T customers who were currently on TDMA technology. Not only that, but they offered financial incentives for anyone switching to GSM.
2.Welcome to capitalism. Every company will try to sell you things. Cough up the dough or say no and get on with your life.
3.Again, name a cell phone company that doesn’t have an annoying call queue. Sprint just doesn’t answer, and T-Mobile’s voice recognition is even worse than cingular’s. Cingular employees usually take down your account info, etc. and give it to the rep they are transferring you to, so you don’t have to repeat it (I know for a fact that is how they are trained).
4.Once again, exactly the same with EVERY cell phone company. Trust me, I’ve had them all. In America, we sign our lives away with contracts to get cheap phones. That’s how EVERY cell phone carrier works here. Stop making stupid accusations.
5.I shouldn’t even respond to this as the reliability of that article should be questioned, but please tell me what is so shocking about a corporation not offering DISCOUNTS on an account that is NOT PROFITABLE. Think about it.
6.Cingular has no reason to give you a new phone when yours is 3 years old because you are eligible for an upgrade anyway. The global standard for cell phone technology is GSM. T-Mobile didn’t have to switch to it because they are a European company and started off with it. Verizon and Sprint are stubborn and must wallow in the filth that is US-proprietary CDMA technology. Cingular’s technology change was not meant to make your 3-year old (which is pretty old for a phone nowadays) handset obsolete, it was to be competitive and actually be able to utilize new technologies when they come out. I guarantee you if CDMA is phased out, Sprint and Verizon are gonna piss off A LOT of ppl when they switch over. Technology changes happen. They have to. Get an upgrade and get over it.
7.I don’t have any experience with the emergency hotline, so I can’t respond to that, but I would pose the question: which wireless company has real 7 day tech support? I don’t know of one.
8.I don’t know where you’re getting this, but the CEO really doesn’t have anything to do with who handles your account.
9.Welcome to cell phone companies. Don’t try to convince everyone Cingular is the only company that does this. Every cell-phone company has one-sided contracts; that’s how it works. Not to mention, Cingular’s early termination fee is the cheapest of the bunch.
10.Again, welcome to capitalism.
11.All I will say is check your sources, and keep in mind that wikipedia is just as likely to be edited/added to by ignorant joe schmo’s like you than by people who actually know what they’re talking about. I’ve seen plenty of information on wikipedia that was entirely inaccurate.

Let me correct something for you. ONLY GSM phones are unlockable and compatible for other networks. Sprint phones and Verizon phones will NEVER be compatible for any other network. Cingular’s phones are GSM technology, meaning, if you would simply do a little research, you could find out how to unlock it yourself and use it on another GSM carrier, instead of whining about how it doesn’t work and trying to convince us your Verizon phone is unlockable. And by the way, Cingular phones are not “reprogrammed over the air”, the SIM card is the only thing that is programmed. You can do whatever you want with the phone.

PLEASE do your research before you make stupid blogs and ridiculous accusations, because unfortunately, people do believe what they read on the internet.

Recently however, I had a good experience at the hands of a Cingular employee… I got a new phone without a contract, AND it was a tip from them. I feel like going back and giving the guy a $20 tip. When I presented my dead Motorola V551, to him, which was just over a year old and as such, out of warranty, at first he said, all you can do is sign a new contract…but when he saw my crestfallen appearance, he leaned over the counter and in a low voice said, “You didn’t hear this from me..but go to eBay, buy an unlocked, Cingular branded phone for $60, take the SIM card out of your old one, put it in the new one , you are good to go with a new phone and NO contract!”

Here’s a nice guy giving me a tip when he could have easily just talked me into signing a contract, and giving himself a commission. But, no chose to help to free me, a Cingular slave, instead. Rock on.

It worked!!!! Freedom! The thought of enslaving myself to the Cingular cell phone mafioso for another two years was more than I could bear. I’ll never sign another contract if I don’t have to. It always seemed like such a blasted racket to me. Plus, is it me, or lately, have they made phones just plain harder to get without contracts?

All this did get me wondering why the companies seem to control the phones as well as the service. Reading your link to the ‘bundling’ explanation was very enlightening. Something about that is so wrong. Yes, they need to get busted up with an anti-trust lawsuit. That stuff’s gotta stop.

By the way I have friends in Europe who read my blog rants and if it makes us feel any better, cell phone companies over there are just as bad as here. It’s a global phenomenon. It seems the cell phone companies worldwide have been so used to ripping us off for so long and getting away with providing bad service that they don’t have any motivation to do better.

We haven’t got much choice here on the Big Island (coverage issues due to two 14K mountains) so from where I sit, I may be stuck with Cingular for quite a while. But let it be on MY terms (i.e., no contract)

Aloha!

If you get a phone when you need to email, then do you buy a camera when you need to make calls and a laptop when you need to take pictures?? LOL