Cell Phones

Geez...this explains a lot.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/816517.asp?pne=msn#BODY


America’s worst phone service

Telecoms hit with slow growth, numerous fraud probes

By Jane Spencer
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Oct. 3 — For flailing phone companies, luring new customers has become a game of seduction: MCI gives out DVD coupons and T-Mobile (the former VoiceStream) offers up a glossy-lipped Catherine Zeta Jones inviting you to “get more.” One discount provider, Working Assets, even promises a year’s supply of free ice cream.

BUT THE PARTY ENDS quickly. As the industry crumbles under slowing growth, criminal-fraud probes and the largest bankruptcy in history, consumers are feeling the aftershocks. The Federal Communications Commission received 10,182 complaints from consumers frustrated with wireless and long-distance service in the first quarter of this year alone. And as industrywide layoffs approach the half-million mark, companies from wireless carrier Sprint PCS to AllTel have shut down some customer-service call centers.
Are there any good options? We did a wide-ranging analysis of major nationwide phone services, including 10 long-distance carriers and eight wireless companies. The assessment began by examining a year’s worth of complaint data from the FCC and matching it up with Public Utility Commission data from more than a dozen states. We also looked at so-called churn rates, the number of times customers move from carrier to carrier, to see which ones people tend to dump most frequently.
From there, we evaluated plan offerings and rates that vary as much as 8.2 cents a minute on average at T-Mobile to 14.8 cents a minute at Verizon Wireless, according to research firm Yankee Group. And we did our own testing of services around the country, including everything from the ease of getting credit for a wrong number to whether you can check online to see how many minutes are left in your cellphone plan.
The results weren’t particularly encouraging, as many consumers know firsthand. Ivan Goldstein, a retired accountant from Springfield, N.J., spends a good chunk of his life trying to untangle his phone service. When he switched his residential service to MCI last year, the first bill came to $680. (They were billing him for other people’s numbers.) Then Sprint PCS recently convinced him he could save money with a $79 family-share plan. He switched, and the first bill came to $400.

Mr. Goldstein thinks incompetence is part of the industry’s business plan. “Today you talk to Jane, tomorrow you talk to Mary, the next day you talk to Harry,” he says. “You get caught in this maze and it’s just too time consuming to fight it, so you just eat it and walk way.”
Our analysis found that, when it comes to choosing a long-distance company, smaller is often better. That’s because customer service isn’t anything to call home about at almost any long-distance company. So you may as well go for the small discount carriers rather than the big-brand names.
In our survey, the better options for long-distance service were two discount carriers many people have never heard of: VarTec Telecom and IDT Corp. — both of which offer cheap rates and tolerable customer service. There are literally hundreds of discount carriers that offer long-distance service at cut-rate prices. Consumers can track them down through Web sites, like TollChaser.com. But the worst options were the big carriers, particularly MCI.
On the other hand, when it comes to wireless, you generally don’t want to go for the cheapest carrier. The reason: When you pay more, you are often getting more. Verizon Wireless, one of the two better options in our survey, is by some estimates the most expensive cellphone carrier. But they also have the strongest nationwide network — a key factor in avoiding dropped calls — and the strongest customer service of anyone in our tests. The other wireless option that ranked high on our list was Cingular, a joint venture of SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp., which also has a strong network and lets customers on some plans bank minutes from one month to the next.
At the bottom of our wireless ratings: T-Mobile, Sprint PCS and Qwest. VoiceStream, for example, offers the cheapest prices of any carrier — but has one of the worst complaint records in the industry. The FCC has received nearly 1,443 complaints about the company, which amounts to one for every 5,500 subscribers. A key problem is that the company has a notoriously weak network.

 

Most carriers are going to GSM antenna technology. My personal preference is Cingular over Verizon...the service is comparable and Cingular is priced better IMO.