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  • From: rjweeks70 AT comcast.net
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Re: Cell Phone
  • Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 02:05:47 +0000

In my previous life I worked in IT support for many years. At various jobs
the support of cell phones and pagers came under my responsibility.

Northern California is a very challenging place for cell phone carriers. We
have a LOT of hills in the Coastal and Mayacamas mountain ranges. Coverage
of the major metropolitan areas, like most other places in the country, is
pretty darn good, but when you get out into the sticks, especially towards
the ocean, cellular coverage is universally horrible.

Steve over in Napa County is kind of fortunate because the Napa Valley is
long and narrow, and with well-placed towers on the east and west, you can
cover the whole valley. Sonoma County is not nearly as well-covered due to
the reasons I list above.

Over the years, I've had cell phones from Nextel, GTE Wireless (now Verizon),
AT&T Wireless, Sprint and Pacific Bell Wireless (now Cingular).

My opinion? All of them have horrible customer service, and it hasn't
improved in the 15 years I've had cell phones. If you choose a carrier based
on their customer service you'll never pick one.

Rate plans are pretty competitive now, because the cell carriers are
competing directly for business with the land-line phone companies, and they
know it, so their prices have to be comparable.

In order to choose a rate plan, though, you need to really know how much you
use the phone on a daily basis, and more importantly, WHEN you use the phone.
If you can keep most of your calls restricted to the evening and weekends,
you can pick a super cheap plan from almost any carrier, which will run you
$29-39, that gives you some amount of "anytime" minutes and a whole lot of
night and weekend minutes.

Really, if you live in the country - like most of us probably do - the main
thing you'll need to find out is what the cell coverage is like in your area.
Talk to people with phones and find out what kind of signal they get. When
you go shopping for phones, ask about getting a demo or loaner phone for a
day so you can see if the coverage is good in areas where you'll need the
phone to work.

In my case, I've found that Nextel, T-Mobile and the older AT&T TDMA phones
simply don't work in large portions of our county - although if you needed
marine coverage on the ocean, AT&T TDMA works along the whole north coast at
least 2 miles out from shore. Spring and Verizon CDMA phones have marginal
signal in most areas. The AT&T and Cingular GSM networks seem to now have
the best coverage in our area - and in fact friends with AT&T GSM phones
report that their phone says "Cingular" most of the time now.

Good luck. The mobile phone world is interesting, to say the least.

Roger Weeks

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 07:23:34 -0700
From: "Steve Sando" <steve AT mrlucky.com>
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Cell Phone
To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>

I had Cingular for years and I think they are awful. They made many mistakes
and it was a hassle to monitoe them. the final blow was when they changed
their cuustomer service menu when you call them. you had to hear all the
choices THREE TIMES before you heard the correct extension to talk to a live
person. When I finally got an operator, and asked about it, she said most
phone calls can be handled online or automatically. They've sinces changes
it but it's indicative of their mindset. Also they won't let you check your
messages from a land land, you have to use your cell phone (and minutes),

for "secutiry reasons".

I've switched to Verizon and so far, so good.

Rancho Gordo
New World Specialty Food
www.ranchogordo.com




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