Tag: AT&T

How Times Have Changed

Last night, in the middle of the night, I plugged a cable from my new cellphone into my laptop. An experiment was underway.

Since the phone is on the Internet, it’s possible to tether it to my laptop and use the cell connection as an Internet connection. In essence, the Samsung Blackjack would be my modem.

It was very simple and it worked, but it was ploddingly slow. Though the phone works with AT&T’s high speed 3G network, there’s no 3G service here. I ran a speed test and found 76 kbps. My cable modem speed a moment ago was 7,275 kbps, nearly one hundred times as fast.

At least I know it works in case of an outage.

There’s something else I thought of at the same time. Back in the dial-up days, when modems were 28.8 kbps, I used to connect at 24.4 kbps.

As slow as last night’s experiment was, it was still three times faster than the Internet service I used to be happy with. Times have really changed.

What we have now for connection speed is only a stop, not the destination.

The New Phone

I’ve got a new phone. Helaine’s got a new phone. Stef’s got a phone, but it’s currently on a UPS truck somewhere between here and college.

I’m not sure this was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made, but it was pretty close. That’s ridiculous, because a cell phone decision should be easy… or at the very least, easier. I think the cell phone companies make sure it’s as difficult as possible to compare plans.

They’re willing to compete. They just don’t want to compete on price.

Yes, my new phone is a toy, but I wanted a PDA type phone. You know the type. It’s got a full QWERTY keyboard and 320×240 pixel screen. I have no business reason for getting one. I still wanted it.

Originally, I had my heart set on a Motorola Q9, a sharp new phone. It was supposed to be out in August, then September, then…. well, it’s not out yet. In the meantime, my Motorola RAZR died (though it has since mysteriously come back to life), rushing the process along.

I finally decided on a Samsung Blackjack. It’s bigger than today’s standard cellphones, but it still fits in my shirt pocket. It is a phone, camera, camcorder, audio recorder, computer. It’s probably got more going for it that I haven’t figure out yet.

More on the phone in a minute. First, the process of getting it.

As it stands now, there’s no way to buy a cell phone and know you’ve gotten the best deal. Seriously. I wanted to stick with AT&T, but they have different prices on the Internet, in their retail stores and from their independent online dealers. And, of course, few of those prices are obtainable.

One online retailer showed my Blackjack earning me $60, on a new contract. Yup, buy a phone and get $60 back.

Hey, that’s for me. My old AT&T contract expired in August. But when I called to get the price, I was told it wasn’t for me.

As a good AT&T customer, I wasn’t eligible for their best price. That was only for switchers. The price for me would be $250 more per phone! I will maintain a bad taste from that for a while and though it was the independent telling me… I’ll blame AT&T, the enabler.

On top of that, AT&T sells the exact same Internet access for a variety of prices. If you’ve got an iPhone, you really get jobbed. There’s also a different price for Blackberries, phones like my Blackjack and standard phones, like my old RAZR.

It’s all the same access. It’s all unlimited access. They’re just differently priced.

A blog reading friend, Pat (who once worked selling cell phones), was incredibly helpful, setting me up with Rob at the AT&T store in Meriden. Rob did what he could, but it still cost me $160 more per phone than that online teaser ad led me to believe.

Rob was the calming influence in all of this. Of all the people I dealt with, he’s the only one who could say the sky was blue without me being tempted to look up and make sure.

This is one very cool phone – though being a phone is only a small part of what it does. I’ve already been online, downloading programs to better web surf, deal with email and upload photos and video.

The video and still image quality is surprisingly good, considering the tiny lens. It’s not going to unseat “Clicky,” but I will be using this functionality. In fact, on our upcoming vacation, I’m planning on doing a little vlogging from the Blackjack.

The phone connects to the Internet on AT&T’s high speed 3G network (available here at work, but not at home). It’s still not like real broadband, but it’s not too bad. Of course the relatively small screen is not well suited for web browsing.

If you’ve never used one of these, you’ve probably looked and said, “those keys are awfully small.” They are. Still, I haven’t had any trouble with the keys. Where my big fingers do cause trouble is with the center navigation switch. For me, it’s very difficult to press it, without pressing what’s next to it.

Some of my trouble is caused by being left handed. There’s a navigation wheel located perfectly for right handed people, but not me. I will learn to use it with time, as lefties learn to use right handed computer mice.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes to start to realize the power this phone possesses. I understand even more why the phone companies are fighting network neutrality. This phone allows you to bypass the cell carriers on many things they want to sell.

For instance, there’s a service sold by some carriers for around $10 a month. It turns your phone into a pretty cool GPS receiver with live traffic reports. Google gives that functionality away for free! It’s tough to sell against free. As far as I can tell, I’m about $40 away from using Google and my phone as a GPS receiver.

I’m curious to hear Stef’s impressions when after she unpacks her phone. I hope she’s as pleased as I am… and I’ve only scratched the surface.

iPhone Hit Or Miss?

I can’t remember the last time a piece of high tech equipment got this kind of hype. Of course, I’m talking about Apple’s iPhone which goes on sale within the hour.

It’s pretty neat. As is normally the case with Apple, the software is elegantly simple and intuitive. The TV commercials are tantalizing. I haven’t seen it yet, but there’s surely one where it’s slicing bread!

Unfortunately, the iPhone also suffers from some designed-in weaknesses.

It seems pretty odd the phone won’t use AT&T’s fast G3 network and instead sticks with an older implementation. That’s huge, if web surfing is going to be a large part of the iPhone experience.

The iPhone also doesn’t record video nor will it operate properly with corporate email servers. That’s not good and there’s more. Its battery is not replaceable and its SIM card isn’t removable.

There’s also the question whether a non-tactile keyboard is a good idea. I’ve never seen a successful one before.

I have been considering a ‘smartphone.’ It probably won’t be an iPhone.

Right now the (as yet unreleased) Motorola Q9 looks likely. I’m not 100% it will be sold by AT&T, my cell carrier.

The Q9 operates on the higher speed G3 network, takes video, uses Windows Mobile 6 and has a real QWERTY keyboard. It looks like an updated, better performing “Q,”. A co-worker has that phone, which I like.

The online consensus is, I can buy a ‘smartphone’ like the Q9 or the Samsung Blackjack and a $19.99/month data plan from AT&T and be done with it. I’m not sure this is AT&T’s preferred combo, but people are consistently doing it and I sense AT&T isn’t sending their money away.

My guess is, the iPhone will not be the unmitigated success this level of hype implies. It’s possible. I’m not a mobile computing analyst with lots of background info and insight. This is a seat-of-the-pants call. There are just so many strikes against it.

Working against my prediction is Steve Jobs, who has a Svengali-like ability to mobilize the Apple faithful.

What the iPhone does do is increase the profile of mobile computing and the competition between carriers and between hardware manufacturers. I don’t see a downside to that… at least I don’t yet.

Calling France – Bonjour Farrell

How much does it cost to call France? Don’t answer yet.

Stef has an assignment for a journalism course. She has to compare media in the United States with media in another country. I know two people who’ve worked in media in Singapore. I suggested she choose that. Contacts are invaluable.

My friend Farrell, who now runs a TV network in Poland, used to run stations in Singapore. Usually we talk on the computer, using IM or email. To ask some questions for Stef, I figured I’d call.

It’s not that easy.

There’s a broadcasters’ convention currently underway in Cannes, France. Farrell is there.

He gave me his phone number, tapping it out on his Blackberry via IM and I called the hotel… but instead of getting it, I got a recording telling me my call couldn’t go through and I should check with my system administrator.

That’s me! I hate when that happens.

A quick call to my VOIP phone provider, Broadvoice (where tech support answered on the FIRST RING!!!) brought an equally quick answer. Buried two menus deep on their website was a checkbox allowing international calls on my account. The box was unchecked.

When you call a hotel in France, they answer in French. I don’t know enough to ask for a room, so I panicked and blurted out my request in English. The operator totally understood.

“Merci,” I said… though probably too late for her to hear. Farrell picked up a second later.

I have to say, the quality of this call was very impressive. Because I was typing notes, I had him on the speakerphone. Helaine commented he sounded better than if he were on my cellphone.

So, how much for the call? My plan, Broadvoice’s least expensive, is $9.95 per month for unlimited calls to Connecticut. International is extra.

Ready?

Each minute to France was 3&#162! That’s crazy.

I remember, in 1967, when AT&T totally overhauled its rate structure for domesticlong distance calls. Station-to-station, direct dial calls within the United States went down to 10&#162 per minute as long as the call was placed after 11:00 PM or on the weekend.

We live in amazing times for technology.

Why All The Money?

It’s a good week to be Mark Zuckerberg. First, it’s always good to be 22 years old (or so I remember). Second, it’s nice to have a little nest egg to fall back on. In his case that’s Facebook.

If you don’t know what Facebook is, don’t worry. You’re probably not a college student and here in the 21st Century, hipness is on a need to know basis.

Briefly, Facebook is a social networking site, like MySpace. Actually, it doesn’t make any difference. It gets a lot of traffic from people advertisers want to reach. Currently, traffic = revenue.

From The New York Times:

When Viacom offered $750 million for Facebook in January, he asked for $2 billion and was rebuffed, according to a person involved in the negotiations. Now, he remains undecided about the latest offer, made in the last few weeks by Yahoo.

That latest offer is for around $900,000,000 (the numbers seem to have more impact fully written out).

I don’t get it. As with the last Internet bubble, the numbers just don’t add up.

Let’s say the software, hardware, infrastructure for Facebook is $10,000,000. Oh, what the hell – make it $50,000,000. That’s got to be way high… really, really way high, but it doesn’t make any difference.

With $900,000,000 you could set up an online competitor to Facebook and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to promote it. Give away bags of money if you want – real bags of money. Buy the user’s allegiance away from Facebook.

How can that not be cheaper than buying Facebook outright&#185?

What is the sense of buying a business that will bill under $50,000,000 this year for close to a $1,000,000,000?

Back before the Internet burst the first time, loads of companies where sold for immense sums. Broadcast.com went to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion. Click on Broadcast.com today – you just get Yahoo!

From Wikipedia:

In April 1999, Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in stock and became Yahoo! Broadcast Solutions. Over the next few years Yahoo! split the services previously offered by Broadcast.com into separate services, Yahoo! Launchcast for music and Yahoo! Platinum for video entertainment. Yahoo! Platinum has since been discontinued, its functionality being offered as part of two pay services, AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet and Yahoo! Plus.

As of 2006, neither broadcast.com nor broadcast.yahoo.com are distinct web addresses; both simply redirect to yahoo.com.

The Broadcast.com sale wasn’t a total loss… at least it wasn’t for Mark Cuban, now owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet.

So, Yahoo!, bon chance on this one. They can’t all be overpriced bombs. Can they?

&#185 – This is by no means a rap on Facebook – a perfectly fine site. I’m kvetching about price, not content.

AT&T’s Answer

Here’s AT&T’s reply to my email. I wouldn’t have expected any less… actually, there isn’t an answer that would have been less:

Dear Geoff Fox,

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.

Based on the information provided in your request, we are unable to process the adjustment.

If this response does not address your concern, please reply directly to this email. To ensure a timely response, do not change the subject line of your reply.

Unreal.

First, A Word From Your Phone Company

I have about 1,000 photos from my Maine trip, and stories to tell. I will in the next day or so.

Meanwhile, a problem was simmering at home while I was gone. Crank, hang-up, phone calls. The caller ID was no help as the display read “Unknown.”

The problem is now fixed, but not without cost – and it really riles me. Here’s what I just sent to AT&T:

This week, while I was away, my wife began receiving calls which were listed on caller ID as “Unknown Name” “Unknown Number.” The caller hung up as soon as the phone was answered. These calls were very disturbing to my wife and me.

I have just signed on for your blocking feature. However, I am incensed to be forced to pay to stop these calls. I am upset that AT&T would charge such a large amount, $60 per year, for a service which costs you next to nothing and which is needed because of a crank caller – out of our control.

If you’re looking for reasons people are jumping to VOIP or cellular, this is one. I don’t want to be nickel and dimed to death by you, especially when the VOIP provider for my second phone (Broadvoice) offers this feature for free.

Under these circumstances I will consider moving my number to my VOIP unless AT&T waives the fee for this service. I have been your customer for 22 years in Connecticut, but you are surely driving me away.

Geoff Fox

OK – maybe the threat of moving my number, though a real threat, is over-the-top. This is a service that costs them nothing… or nearly nothing. Certainly, once it’s turned on there is no additional incremental cost to AT&T.

It should be noted that since we’ve been here, we’ve had SNET, SBC and now AT&T – all supplying the same line. With each corporate restructure, Connecticut in general and my phone in particular, has become a smaller more inconsequential piece of their puzzling business.

To add insult to injury, while on the phone with an AT&T rep, she tried to “upsell” me more services. Wasn’t this an inappropriate time to try and make a sale?

More On Net Neutrality

I was going to write about this a few days ago, but I’m wondering if it’s getting too politicized? I have this ‘no partisan politics’ policy here. My suspicion is, this is still on the right side of my line – but close.

I have written about Network Neutrality before. Network Neutrality refers to a defining principle of the Internet – all packets are created equal. Geofffox.com gets the same treatment as google.com as far as your ISP goes.

As is the case when phone companies act as phone companies, they are not looking at the content of what you’re receiving. Without Network Neutrality, packets could be sniffed to assign them a priority – and you probably will have no say in what that priority is and how it’s applied.

I like Network Neutrality. Make no mistake about it, it benefits me. But I also think it’s good for the Internet. New businesses and fresh business ideas are hatched online all the time. I’d like to see the cost of entry kept low. Should new businesses have to bid against EBay or Yahoo! to get to my house on time?

AT&T, Bell South and other carriers would like to charge extra for ‘enhanced’ carriage – a guarantee of expeditious delivery through network traffic. I read some remarks from a Bell South rep… and it made sense. He made analogies to charging more for a first class airline seat.

I understand what he’s saying, but I still don’t buy in.

On one side of this argument are the ISPs, like the Baby Bells. The other side are the Googles and Microsofts and geofffox.com. So far, in the first vote in Congress, the carriers won.

I read this on a site called savetheinternet.com:

OK, so the vote on the Markey amendment to protect the Internet has happened, and it was voted down, 34-22. That is a big deal. It

FCC Chief: AT&T Can Limit Net Bandwidth

FCC Chief Kevin Martin yesterday gave his support to AT&T and other telcos who want to be able to limit bandwidth to sites like Google, unless those sites pay fees. Martin made it clear in a speech yesterday that he supports such a a “tiered” Internet.

That last paragraph was pulled from Digg – though they added the word extortion before the word fees. Maybe, but that’s a little too incendiary for me to use.

If this story is true, I am very disappointed and worried about the future of the Internet.

This is a subject I’ve posted a number of times. I’ll continue to look for developments.

read more | digg story

AT&T Says: They Shouldn’t “Expect A Free Ride.”

I have written about this a few times already – but it doesn’t seem to want to go away. Internet service providers, like AT&T (until recently SBC) want to charge me for Internet service, as they should, and then charge those who provide the content too.

That’s a major change in the way the Internet has run. If I were AT&T, that’s what I’d want too. But is it fair or right? I don’t think so.

Let’s put it another way. I pick up my phone and call Sergio’s to order a pizza. Should AT&T be able to charge Sergio’s for telling me what’s on the menu, or is my paying for the call enough? It always has been.

Here’s what AT&T’s president Ed Whitaker has to say:

Excelsior You Fathead

I was on the sofa last night, playing poker and watching Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. The show was nearing its nightly end, the time it tends to be a little more off center. Keith turned to the camera and said, “Keep your knees loose.”

Holy s***! He was quoting a catch phrase from Jean Shepard.

Actually, I said the very same thing in public back in 1965. It was at the AT&T pavilion at the ’64-’65 New York World’s Fair. I was a participant in a picturephone demonstration. As a wise ass teen, “keep your knees loose” were my parting words. The AT&T employee running the show had no clue what I was talking about and looked mortified.

But Keith is on national TV.

When I was growing up, in the sixties, I listened to Jean Shepard every night from 10:15 to 11:00 PM on WOR. He was a monologist – he alone spoke for the entire 45 minutes. There is nothing on radio or TV like this today.

Shepard was willing to talk to his engineer or anyone who might be around (though they were never heard). Usually though, he just spoke directly to the audience, as if you were there in the studio with him.

He wasn’t political or particularly interested in most current events. His stories often went back to growing up in Hammond, Indiana and his friends, Flick and Schwartz. Sometimes he’d joke about his military career in a mess kit repair unit.

He was always irreverent. He always bit the hand that fed him. As a kid with a transistor radio under my pillow, he represented the adventure that awaited me. He was the cool part of being an adult.

I met Shep twice. Once was a personal appearance at a big and tall men’s clothing store on Long Island. I think I rode my bike, though it was quite far. I also saw him do his show at the Limelight in Greenwich Village&#185.

Even today, these are unforgettable moments. He meant that much to me.

I sent Keith Olbermann a note, letting him know that there was at least one person who understood what was going on. Though he made this arcane reference, he wrote back claiming radio allegiance to Bob and Ray.

I know lots of people who thought they were funny, but their humor aways evaded me. I am a fan of Bob’s son, Chris Elliot.

The most interesting part of Keith’s reply was his pointing out some of Shepard’s old airchecks are now on the Internet.

Wow, they are. I haven’t listened to much of the collection yet, but they’re on the Podcast site… dozens of airchecks. What I have heard so far holds up, even though it’s nearly 40 years old.

There’s more for real Shepard fans. Keith said Flicklives.com might end up being my new favorite site. Maybe that’s overdoing it a little, but it will demand a few hours of perusal.

Before he died, Jean Shepard turned into a mean spirited man who tried desperately to disassociate himself from the radio work I loved so much. That was a real shame, because his effect on me and many of my contemporaries was profound.

&#185 – I was taken to the Limelight by Bob Weiss, my friend from summer camp, and his parents. I have no idea what ever happened to Bob. If you run into him, please tell him Geoff says hi… and tell him to keep his knees loose.

Major Cellular News

Tonight, while at work, Steffie IM’ed me. That in and of itself is nearly startling. Surely she wanted something!

I was wrong. Steffie had IM’ed to let me know we suddenly have cellular service – and with a reasonably good signal.

I flipped my phone open and watched the signal strength as I drove up the hill and into our driveway. What had been non-existent was now just fine. The display on my phone read “Cingular Extend” meaning we were hitting an old AT&T site, as I had expected (just not as soon as I expected).

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will I leave my phone on 24/7? Will I carry it in the shirt pocket of my pajamas during the day, before work? Will our landline phone suddenly become lonely?

All I know now is it works. And hopefully that will continue.

My Internet Connection S-L-O-W-S to a Crawl

Sunday evening, playing poker on the laptop, I first noticed the problem. My Internet connection would stop for a few seconds – sometimes 10s of seconds – before resuming. The poker site I play at allows you to check the connection of the others at your table. They were fine, I was not.

Comcast has been very dependable. So, I did nothing, figuring all would be well on Monday morning. Guess again.

Helaine asked me what was going on. Her connection was slow. Steffie later chimed in with the same complaint. “The Internet is sketchy,” she said.

Between the three of us we spend an awful lot of time online and we’re spoiled with reasonably fast connections. This was totally unacceptable.

I decided to call Comcast when I came home from dinner. I worked my way through the phone tree (press 1, press 2, press 1 again). My hold time was somewhere around 10 wasted minutes.

On hold systems have two options:

1) Incessant announcements (which drive you nuts when you start hearing them the fifth, sixth, twentieth time).

2) No announcements, just a little light elevator music. That was Comcast’s choice and it’s really not much better.

While on hold I wondered if I was really in the queue? Maybe I’d be listening to these European studio musicians for the rest of my natural life!

A pleasant sounding woman, from Central Ontario it turned out, answered the call. She made me jump all the usual hoops – reboot, unplug, replug, etc. She could see there was a problem with packet loss and offered to send a service tech, but the system wouldn’t let her schedule one. Could I call back later?

After work, and on whisper mode with Helaine asleep in the next room, I dialed Comcast again. As I was waiting for a live person, I scooted over to DSLreports.com to see if anyone else had reported this trouble. The Comcast Connecticut thread was four pages long! I had plenty of company.

This time a Canadian guy (I didn’t ask if he was Canadian – but I worked in Buffalo, just across the Niagara River from Canada and know their regionalisms, eh) picked up. He started to do his dance and talk about sending a technician to the house, but I stopped him.

The problem isn’t here, in my house. It’s far away at some router. I even know the router’s address: 12.125.51.34. It’s owned by AT&T and probably serves as Comcast’s connection from Connecticut to the Internet in general.

If I know this, why doesn’t Comcast’s tech support guy? Why spend money and send technicians when there’s no problem they’ll fix? Why not tell me loads of others have reported problems, we’re working on it?

If I asked someone high up at Comcast whether they wanted this fixed right away and wanted their customers informed, I’m sure the answer would be yes. They want the best possible result spending the least amount of money. Yet their actions show there’s a disconnect between what would benefit them and their customers and what they’re delivering. And, they might not know this customer service problem even exists.

There is no one served by what went on tonight. Not me. Not Comcast. Their phone people were polite and pleasant but never even brought me one step closer to satisfaction.

I really don’t want to have to call back on this tomorrow.

CNET Reviews My Phone

I subscribe to CNET’s cell phone reviews. I’m not sure why. It was interesting reading them while I was shopping around. I should cancel it now.

Today, around three months after I got it, CNET reviewed my cell phone, the LG-G4010. It wasn’t mentioned in the review, but it should be noted that LG stands for Lucky Goldstar. I’m not sure how much confidence is built by having Lucky in your businesses name!

I have a love/hate relationship with this phone. It is as tiny as any phone I’ve ever had, and lightweight. It sits in my pocket most of the day at work. The vibration is strong enough that I seldom miss a call.

There are very few accessories for this phone. I’d like a clip to carry it on my belt. There is none. I’d like a data cable. There is none.

I’m afraid, though physically robust, the phone’s software is not. From time-to-time the phone forgets where my phonebook is stored. Is it on the SIM card? Is it in the native memory of the phone itself? Set it – it forgets it! The numbers aren’t gone, just lost. But, if you’re in the car, pressing a single speed dial number to reach someone and the phone says that entry is empty, you’ve been inconvenienced. It’s doubly true if you no longer know someone’s number, just their speed dial entry.

I’ve set the ringtone, only to have it revert to some other ring tone! This happened during my stay in Florida. I tried to use the least outlandish tone. What I got was the sampled sound of a bell from an old phone. I must have reset this feature a dozen times without success.

Astoundingly enough, the phone doesn’t have one feature that I though every cell phone had. There’s no way to have it wait while dialing. With all my previuous phones, voice mail meant pushing one button, waiting, pushing it again and hearing messages. Now, to get voice mail, I hit the first button, but must dial all the other codes myself – even while driving. That’s not right, since this seems like such a mature feature. Let’s call this ‘forgetware.’

The phone’s grayscale display features a wallpaper pattern. I’d rather not have it. Too bad. There’s no way to turn it off. It can be changed, but not turned off. Strange.

Last, but certainly not least is the manual. The manual is so beautifully designed and printed that when I originally had trouble following what it was saying, I though the problem was mine. This seems like a manual that might have been written in Korean and then poorly translated into English. Whatever the story, it’s a puzzle. I’m surprised Cingular let this get by since it increases their support costs.

All this being said, I still like the phone. I’ve learned to work around some of its weaknesses (like lack of external display) and enjoy its diminutive size. I had read some people complain of short battery life, but that’s not been a problem for me.

Of course there’s still no cell service at home. I am hoping Cingular is successful in its bid for AT&T and that it is AT&T’s cell site that I hear (but can’t use) from my house. That would be huge.

The Vegas term for this is ‘parlay’, a series of bets, each of which has to come true for you to get the payoff. Parlay players seldom win.

Cell Phone Deal – The Final Chapter

This is the (hopefully) last in a series of entries about my cell service. If you’d rather read the whole series from the beginning, click here.

Hold your calls, we’ve got a winner… or more succinctly, we’ve eliminated most of the losers. I re-signed yesterday with Cingular for National GSM service.

A couple of notes and observations are in order. This took an unbelievably long time. I’m not talking about yesterday at the store – which did take forever – but my decision making process. The cellular carriers make this maddeningly difficult.

First and foremost, you have to read each and every thing that you’re being offered and not offered. The cell companies know what they’re offering (well, sort of) but most of us don’t. While I was in the cell phone store yesterday, I watched customer after customer move up to the desk, like lambs to the slaughter. The salespeople offered and sold plans and conditions that weren’t understood by the customers. And, the customers, with little choice, signed on without much thought.

In my case, this is a $2,000 commitment – 2 years of service for the three of us – and I wanted to be sure everything was acceptable… or as acceptable as possible.

Most customers don’t know the difference between GSM or TDMA or CDMA, but these distinctions can be very important in deciding what you’re getting. The companies offer beautifully named national or regional networks, and then never disclose what these networks are… or are not. The maps I’ve seen continue to paint a nearly seamless blanket of coverage, which isn’t true.

The company that actually runs the Cingular store needs to reconsider the paper flow through the store. Forms had to be filled out by hand and multiple phone calls made to get my account set up. It’s 2003 – these forms should be computer generated and authorizations automated. I was in the store for nearly 2 hours. Some people, who waited in line while I was being taking care of, left.

As I wrote earlier, when a plan says no roaming fees, that still doesn’t mean you can use any signal your phone can hear. It used to be, if you were out of range of your plan, your phone would latch on to whatever it heard, and you’d pay for that privilege. But “no roaming” doesn’t necessarily mean that call is now free. It often means that call can no longer be made!

The best example is here at home. My phone shows a very, very strong signal (probably from T-Mobile or AT&T). If I try to make a call, the phone says “Emergency Only” and spits me back to the main menu.

As far as I can tell, I now have a comparable number of minutes, nights beginning at 7:00 PM, some sort of national coverage (though still no coverage here at home) and three new phones for a little less than I was paying. And, I extracted 3 free months of service, 2 of the 3 phones, and a waiver of the activation charge by getting on the phone with the Cingular company agent (thanks Kendrick Alexander) and asking for it (the folks in the Cingular store don’t really work for Cingular).

Helaine and I got LG G4010 phones. They are incredibly small with a stubby, fixed antenna. I have been pouring through the manual, looking for a way to use my company’s voicemail with this phone. That means adding a pause during the dialing sequence. As far as I can tell, you can’t do it. If that’s true, this would be the first cell phone I’ve ever seen that can’t perform this function.

If the manual wasn’t translated from some other language into English, the person who did write it should be ashamed. It is disorganized and confusing.

Steffie got a much fancier Samsung S307. It has a color display and more toys. I was proud because she wanted it and was willing to part with her own (hard earned) money to get it.

There was another company I had considered going with. Oh heck – it was Sprint. I didn’t go because of what I considered the very high cost of the phones and higher cost for monthly service. But really, the clincher was their move a few years ago (quickly rescinded) to charge for calls to customer service! To me, that showed a corporate culture that didn’t value the end user the way I want to be valued.

I would be 100% happy with Cingular but for one small problem. There’s no service here at home. Judging by the folks at their store, Cingular thinks it has coverage here. They recently put a cell site at Quinnipiac College, less than 2 miles away. But, it is blocked to me, and most of my neighbors because of Sleeping Giant Mountain. If they would have moved the site off campus, they could have killed two birds with one stone – putting coverage on campus and into this area and I’d be really smiling.