Consumer Reports survey on Customer Service

karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> Cingular ranks low, and identical to JD Power rankings earlier this
> year, SprintPCS ranks lower.
>
> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...lphones05.html

It wasn't a customer service survey, it's their annual survey of carriers.

While it's not surprising that Verizon ranked first in 14 out of 20
areas, and second in the rest, I'm surprised that T-Mobile beat them in
three cities. No doubt T-Mobile's policy of discouraging new sign-ups
for people with no coverage at their home and work locations plays a
part in their good ratings. Alltel has always been a good carrier in the
cities that it serves, and it does well in roaming because it's CDMA.

As I predicted, Verizon did decline in their ratings over last year. In
last year's survey, Verizon was top-rated in 17 out of 18 metro areas,
this year it's only 14 out of 20, with a tie in a 15th area.

In some cities the differences are small, only one or two points
difference, but in many the differences were significant, i.e. Alltel
and Verizon were 14 points ahead of Cingular in Phoenix. Verizon
continues to be the best carrier in the San Francisco Bay Area by a wide
margin, with the three other carriers tied for 2nd through 4th, seven
points behind Verizon. This result echoes the experiences of all the
users I know personally, though some have chosen Cingular because they
want to roam internationally with their U.S. number.

It's pretty amusing that Consumer Reports joined the chorus in
criticizing Cingular's "fewest dropped calls" ads, since it's
demonstrably untrue, only Sprint had any cities with more dropped call
than Cingular, with Verizon and T-Mobile having the fewest dropped calls.

On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:00:50 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45761641$0$82536$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net wrote:
>> Cingular ranks low, and identical to JD Power rankings earlier this
>> year, SprintPCS ranks lower.
>>
>> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...lphones05.html
>
>It wasn't a customer service survey, it's their annual survey of carriers.
>
>While it's not surprising that Verizon ranked first in 14 out of 20
>areas, and second in the rest, I'm surprised that T-Mobile beat them in
>three cities. No doubt T-Mobile's policy of discouraging new sign-ups
>for people with no coverage at their home and work locations plays a
>part in their good ratings. Alltel has always been a good carrier in the
>cities that it serves, and it does well in roaming because it's CDMA.
>
>As I predicted, Verizon did decline in their ratings over last year. In
>last year's survey, Verizon was top-rated in 17 out of 18 metro areas,
>this year it's only 14 out of 20, with a tie in a 15th area.
>
>In some cities the differences are small, only one or two points
>difference, but in many the differences were significant, i.e. Alltel
>and Verizon were 14 points ahead of Cingular in Phoenix. Verizon
>continues to be the best carrier in the San Francisco Bay Area by a wide
>margin, with the three other carriers tied for 2nd through 4th, seven
>points behind Verizon. This result echoes the experiences of all the
>users I know personally, though some have chosen Cingular because they
>want to roam internationally with their U.S. number.

Cingular actually has excellent coverage in the Bay Area. Verizon is
demonstrably worse in a number of areas.

Stop trolling here. Take your Verizon advocacy to more appropriate
forums.

>It's pretty amusing that Consumer Reports joined the chorus in
>criticizing Cingular's "fewest dropped calls" ads, since it's
>demonstrably untrue, only Sprint had any cities with more dropped call
>than Cingular, with Verizon and T-Mobile having the fewest dropped calls.

The Cingular claim hasn't been challenged successfully.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote in
news:i16cn255bq40uk9gj37p4vsekflirk4i7l@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:00:50 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote in <45761641$0$82536$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>

>
>>It's pretty amusing that Consumer Reports joined the chorus in
>>criticizing Cingular's "fewest dropped calls" ads, since it's
>>demonstrably untrue, only Sprint had any cities with more dropped call
>>than Cingular, with Verizon and T-Mobile having the fewest dropped
>>calls.
>
> The Cingular claim hasn't been challenged successfully.
>

It would appear that the Consumer Reports report did just that, Novice.

At 05 Dec 2006 17:00:50 -0800 SMS wrote:

> While it's not surprising that Verizon ranked first in 14 out of 20
> areas, and second in the rest, I'm surprised that T-Mobile beat them in
> three cities. No doubt T-Mobile's policy of discouraging new sign-ups
> for
> people with no coverage at their home and work locations plays a part in
> their good ratings.


I think you're being a little unfair- T-Mo isn't the new kid on the
block anymore- they've matured and have built out an excellent network in
a number of cities. Like Sprint, they've focused on covering population
rather than geography, and have used roaming agreements to fill in the
gaps.

Here in southwest Denver, T-Mo (and Sprint) hit places Cingular (and
sometimes Verizon) don't.

T-Mo's been around for a good number of years now and have invested a lot
in their network. It's a little disingenuous to say that their rating
was based on discouraging customers that have no coverage at home or work!





--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:04:31 -0700, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
: At 05 Dec 2006 17:00:50 -0800 SMS wrote:
:
: > While it's not surprising that Verizon ranked first in 14 out of 20
: > areas, and second in the rest, I'm surprised that T-Mobile beat them in
: > three cities. No doubt T-Mobile's policy of discouraging new sign-ups
: > for people with no coverage at their home and work locations plays a
: > part in their good ratings.
:
:
: I think you're being a little unfair- T-Mo isn't the new kid on the
: block anymore- they've matured and have built out an excellent network in
: a number of cities. Like Sprint, they've focused on covering population
: rather than geography, and have used roaming agreements to fill in the
: gaps.
:
: Here in southwest Denver, T-Mo (and Sprint) hit places Cingular (and
: sometimes Verizon) don't.
:
: T-Mo's been around for a good number of years now and have invested a lot
: in their network. It's a little disingenuous to say that their rating
: was based on discouraging customers that have no coverage at home or work!

I guess I read SMS's comments a little differently. I thought he was pointing
out that T-Mobile was being honest about their coverage areas and trying to
avoid selling their service to customers who were sure to be dissatisfied and
drag down their ratings. To me that's a sound business practice that all
carriers should emulate.

Bob

Robert Coe wrote:

> I guess I read SMS's comments a little differently. I thought he was pointing
> out that T-Mobile was being honest about their coverage areas and trying to
> avoid selling their service to customers who were sure to be dissatisfied and
> drag down their ratings. To me that's a sound business practice that all
> carriers should emulate.

Yes, that's what I intended. However I should also point out that out in
the western region, T-Mobile is different than the old Voicestream that
people back east are used to. Originally, T-Mobile did a swap with
Cingular, where Cingular let T-Mobile use their 1900 MHz western
network, and T-Mobile let Cingular use their 1900 MHz NY network. The
1900 MHz GSM network out west was particularly bad (I had it for a
year), and it still isn't the greatest. When Cingular took over AT&T
Wireless, T-Mobile got the Cingular 1900 MHz network. Because Cingular,
formerly Pacific Bell Wireless was so late to the party, they had too
problems, first they couldn't put towers in all the prime locations that
AT&T and Verizon had towers, and second they were stuck at the less
desirable 1900 MHz, which is big disadvantage in terms of coverage.
Voicestream had a much longer history, and had good coverage in much of
the country.

I think that one reason why T-Mobile did so well in the CR survey, at
least in many regions, is that unlike Sprint and Cingular, who will sell
service to anyone with a pulse, T-Mobile actually checks to see if the
potential subscriber will have coverage, and if they don't, then they
discourage the potential subscriber from signing up. This policy results
in a lot fewer unhappy customers. With roaming on Cingular, in
non-T-Mobile areas, T-Mobile has pretty good nationwide coverage.

It's rather surprising how poorly Cingular fared, considering that their
network is much larger than T-Mobile's. I'm most familiar with the San
Francisco Bay Area, where Cingular has a lot less coverage than Verizon,
especially in non-urban areas, but T-Mobile also has a lot less coverage
than Verizon in the Bay Area, and was actually ranked the same as
Cingular, and far below Verizon.

"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:457779d3$0$82538$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> Robert Coe wrote:
>
>> I guess I read SMS's comments a little differently. I thought he was
>> pointing
>> out that T-Mobile was being honest about their coverage areas and trying
>> to
>> avoid selling their service to customers who were sure to be dissatisfied
>> and
>> drag down their ratings. To me that's a sound business practice that all
>> carriers should emulate.
>
> Yes, that's what I intended. However I should also point out that out in
> the western region, T-Mobile is different than the old Voicestream that
> people back east are used to. Originally, T-Mobile did a swap with
> Cingular, where Cingular let T-Mobile use their 1900 MHz western network,
> and T-Mobile let Cingular use their 1900 MHz NY network. The 1900 MHz GSM
> network out west was particularly bad (I had it for a year), and it still
> isn't the greatest. When Cingular took over AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile got
> the Cingular 1900 MHz network. Because Cingular, formerly Pacific Bell
> Wireless was so late to the party, they had too problems, first they
> couldn't put towers in all the prime locations that AT&T and Verizon had
> towers, and second they were stuck at the less desirable 1900 MHz, which
> is big disadvantage in terms of coverage. Voicestream had a much longer
> history, and had good coverage in much of the country.
>
> I think that one reason why T-Mobile did so well in the CR survey, at
> least in many regions, is that unlike Sprint and Cingular, who will sell
> service to anyone with a pulse, T-Mobile actually checks to see if the
> potential subscriber will have coverage, and if they don't, then they
> discourage the potential subscriber from signing up. This policy results
> in a lot fewer unhappy customers. With roaming on Cingular, in
> non-T-Mobile areas, T-Mobile has pretty good nationwide coverage.
>
> It's rather surprising how poorly Cingular fared, considering that their
> network is much larger than T-Mobile's. I'm most familiar with the San
> Francisco Bay Area, where Cingular has a lot less coverage than Verizon,
> especially in non-urban areas, but T-Mobile also has a lot less coverage
> than Verizon in the Bay Area, and was actually ranked the same as
> Cingular, and far below Verizon.

I live in NYC and was with T-Mobile since the days it was Omni Point and was
relatively happy with my service.
Granted the old Verizon service that my wife had at that time was better in
many respects than O-P/VoiceStream.
However for the past 2-3 years my T-Mobile service was in my opinion
excellent.

I just switched to Cingular 2 months ago and I am very happy with the
service. I have not had any dropped calls and only 2 calls going into voice
mail after one or two rings. I find the customer service just as good as
T-Mobile which I consider to be excellent.

The only reason I switched to Cingular was because I was very frustrated by
a lack of coverage in Virginia when I go to visit relatives that live there.
I loved the fact the T-Mobile always gave me the unlock code for any phone
that I owned so I could use local SIM cards when I traveled overseas which
was quite often.

So far after only 2 months I would rate Cingular a the equal to T-Mobile

Double Tap

Double Tap wrote:

> The only reason I switched to Cingular was because I was very frustrated by
> a lack of coverage in Virginia when I go to visit relatives that live there.
> I loved the fact the T-Mobile always gave me the unlock code for any phone
> that I owned so I could use local SIM cards when I traveled overseas which
> was quite often.
>
> So far after only 2 months I would rate Cingular a the equal to T-Mobile

AT&T Wireless had big capacity problems in NYC, which Cingular inherited
when they acquired them. Fortunately these problems seem to have been
solved. I was in NYC earlier this year, in Cingular was fine. I was also
in Washington DC where Verizon is still much, much better than Cingular,
with one of the major advantages being coverage in the metro.

I choose Sprint because it works for ME wherever i've ever wanted it to
for the past 7 years and they have the best wireless data of ANY
carrier in the nation.


On 2006-12-05 20:00:50 -0500, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> said:

> karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net wrote:
>> Cingular ranks low, and identical to JD Power rankings earlier this
>> year, SprintPCS ranks lower.
>>
>> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...lphones05.html
>
> It wasn't a customer service survey, it's their annual survey of carriers.
>
> While it's not surprising that Verizon ranked first in 14 out of 20
> areas, and second in the rest, I'm surprised that T-Mobile beat them in
> three cities. No doubt T-Mobile's policy of discouraging new sign-ups
> for people with no coverage at their home and work locations plays a
> part in their good ratings. Alltel has always been a good carrier in
> the cities that it serves, and it does well in roaming because it's
> CDMA.
>
> As I predicted, Verizon did decline in their ratings over last year. In
> last year's survey, Verizon was top-rated in 17 out of 18 metro areas,
> this year it's only 14 out of 20, with a tie in a 15th area.
>
> In some cities the differences are small, only one or two points
> difference, but in many the differences were significant, i.e. Alltel
> and Verizon were 14 points ahead of Cingular in Phoenix. Verizon
> continues to be the best carrier in the San Francisco Bay Area by a
> wide margin, with the three other carriers tied for 2nd through 4th,
> seven points behind Verizon. This result echoes the experiences of all
> the users I know personally, though some have chosen Cingular because
> they want to roam internationally with their U.S. number.
>
> It's pretty amusing that Consumer Reports joined the chorus in
> criticizing Cingular's "fewest dropped calls" ads, since it's
> demonstrably untrue, only Sprint had any cities with more dropped call
> than Cingular, with Verizon and T-Mobile having the fewest dropped
> calls.

whare are you and what plan and phone do you have iam trying sprint my self
and i get alot of conflicting info about sprint that makes makeing up my
mind to keep or change from sprint hard
thanks

--
AL'S COMPUTERS
"Der.Merovingian" <Der.Mero@NoSpam.com> wrote in message
news:2006120623513975249-DerMero@NoSpamcom...
> I choose Sprint because it works for ME wherever i've ever wanted it to
> for the past 7 years and they have the best wireless data of ANY
> carrier in the nation.
>
>
> On 2006-12-05 20:00:50 -0500, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> said:
>
> > karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> >> Cingular ranks low, and identical to JD Power rankings earlier this
> >> year, SprintPCS ranks lower.
> >>
> >> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...lphones05.html
> >
> > It wasn't a customer service survey, it's their annual survey of
carriers.
> >
> > While it's not surprising that Verizon ranked first in 14 out of 20
> > areas, and second in the rest, I'm surprised that T-Mobile beat them in
> > three cities. No doubt T-Mobile's policy of discouraging new sign-ups
> > for people with no coverage at their home and work locations plays a
> > part in their good ratings. Alltel has always been a good carrier in
> > the cities that it serves, and it does well in roaming because it's
> > CDMA.
> >
> > As I predicted, Verizon did decline in their ratings over last year. In
> > last year's survey, Verizon was top-rated in 17 out of 18 metro areas,
> > this year it's only 14 out of 20, with a tie in a 15th area.
> >
> > In some cities the differences are small, only one or two points
> > difference, but in many the differences were significant, i.e. Alltel
> > and Verizon were 14 points ahead of Cingular in Phoenix. Verizon
> > continues to be the best carrier in the San Francisco Bay Area by a
> > wide margin, with the three other carriers tied for 2nd through 4th,
> > seven points behind Verizon. This result echoes the experiences of all
> > the users I know personally, though some have chosen Cingular because
> > they want to roam internationally with their U.S. number.
> >
> > It's pretty amusing that Consumer Reports joined the chorus in
> > criticizing Cingular's "fewest dropped calls" ads, since it's
> > demonstrably untrue, only Sprint had any cities with more dropped call
> > than Cingular, with Verizon and T-Mobile having the fewest dropped
> > calls.
>
>