Posted by: Billy Hollis on Thursday, January 08, 2009 Telecommunications is a strange area of our economy. It's not part of the public sector, but it's so heavily regulated that it's not really a free and open market either. Plus there is rapid technological change, driven partially by advances in other industries, so business models for some parts of the telecom sector evolve rapidly. Right now that means internet access and wireless service. I don't know very many folks who are entirely happy with their wireless service. The business model doesn't really promote satisfaction, because the industry is currently an oligopoly. The providers are mostly interested in tying down their customers to make it expensive to switch. That way, they can skimp on reliability of phones, support, and service, and customers will mostly put up with it because (1) it's expensive and inconvenient to switch, and (2) there is no obviously better alternative anyway. This leads to much suckage from the standpoint of the consumer. I've been experiencing my ration of suckage for the last couple of months. If you want to hear me rant about it, read on. If you're not in the mood, I understand completely, so go over to xkcd.com for a cartoon, or maybe peruse FailBlog for some laughs. Anyway, here's a quick timeline: August 29: Acquired a new phone for my son, after the previous one failed in less than a year.* November 20: New phone stopped working. Local phone store, which used to be AT&T but is now Random Company X or some such, looks at it and says "Yep, it's not working. Probably the battery." They gave me a number for warranty service. November 21: Called warranty service. Went through the usual script. The heavily-accented tech support person says, yep, it's probably the battery. But they don't have any in stock. They tell me to go to a genuine AT&T store. November 24: I go to a genuine AT&T store. They don't have batteries for that phone either. They tell me to call the warranty folks again for guidance. November 25: I talk to warranty service again. They say they can't do anything until they get in a battery. "No, sir, we can't pre-order it. I can't really explain why. You need to keep calling back until we get one in. No, I don't know exactly when that will be. We might get some in next week." November 28: I go to the AT&T store again to appeal for resolution. The result is the worst treatment I've ever experienced in any retail establishment. The fish-faced jacka$$ at the store (Cool Springs location, Franklin, Tennessee) is singularly uninterested in resolving my problem. He admits that he has 20 phones just like the one I brought in, but I can't have any of them. Or a battery. Or anything. Just go away. I understand this person was operating in some management capacity, which is a distressing sign that the company he works for was pretty stupid for hiring him and putting him in that position. I exit the store cursing loudly. November 30: Call to warranty service. No battery available. Still. Month of December: I have better things to do during the holidays than keep calling the warranty line. However, I have at least two incidents where the lack of a phone for my son causes wasted time and effort. Jan 2: Warranty people say they have a battery. They send it. Jan 6: Battery arrives. Phone still dead even after charging. Jan 8: Call warranty service again. They go through the whole dreary script again, and reluctantly agree that they owe me a phone. But not a new one, oh no! Despite the fact that this phone functioned less than two months, I'm to receive a "refurbished" phone. That brings us up to the present on that phone. But that's not all. My own phone, a Cingular 3125, is less than a year old, and decided in November to start spontaneously rebooting itself. Several times a day, in fact, including once yesterday in the middle of a call attempt. It also seems to get weary of using its ringer, and just stops ringing. Turning it off and turning it back on will restore the ringing for a period ranging from a couple of hours to a day or so. Oh, and it likes to get in a poopy mood where it generates feedback into the ear speaker so bad I can't hear what the caller is saying. That's another "reboot and it will work for a while" problem. So I guess it's replacement time for that phone. But that means I need a Windows Mobile SmartPhone (since I write software for my phone and also need it to transparently integrate with Outlook), and all current SmartPhone devices are clunky things that look like miniature computers. I hate them all. I'd get an iPhone, which is supposed to be pretty reliable and easy to use, but I generally don't join cults. So I really don't know what to do. I look forward to a time when a lot of this stuff becomes decoupled. There's really no technological reason phones are tied to service providers, and in fact one can buy phones outside the carrier networks today. However, that market is still immature, and seems dominated by fly-by-night outfits with names like "Mobile Stuff Now!" Sometime next week, I'll get the refurbished phone for my son. Based on whether the suckage continues, I'll then decide whether I'm ready to jettison AT&T for someone else and replace all of our phones. Of course, I don't necessarily expect other options to be much better, but that fish-faced idiot at Cool Springs really sticks in my craw, so I'm willing to change just to spite him. I'm open to suggestions and comments about other options. How are you Verizon and Sprint customers doing these days? (*) The new phone for my son is a Sony-Erickson W350, if anyone is interested. AT&T is heavily promoting them right now as their "free phone for new customers" option, probably since they have to give the pieces of junk away just to get rid of them. I broke my own rule about buying anything from Sony, since my last four Sony purchases have been bad experiences. **Update 7:35 CST** And, of course, Google ads comes through with this:  "Great phones at AT&T". Heh. I wish. |
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