"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:45ad158d$0$69041$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> jeremy wrote:
>
>> Cingular seems to have deliberately cut back TDMA access, trying to twist
>> their customers' arms to re-up as new GSM customers. I don't think their
>> plan worked.
>
> Part of it is that they need the spectrum for GSM users, which represent
> over 95% of their customers, and even more of their total minutes.
>
> The arm-twisting was a calculated move. They knew that they'd lose some
> customers, but that others would sign up as GSM customers with new
> contracts at higher rates. The only way to force this to happen was to
> accept the fact that some customers would leave. It's not as if the
> customers that left found any cheaper rates elsewhere, the low AT&T
> Wireless rates are gone forever. I guess that Verizon and Sprint could
> also kick customers like me off the lower rate plans if they wanted to.


I'll tell you what really got my goat:

The fact that they played their little game and jeopardized their customers'
safety, and that they were so cold-hearted about it.

Remember, I continued to pay monthly charges for my service, and had they
offered me an upgrade to GSM that would not result in my having to pay new
setup charges, new handset charges, and 25% higher rates than I had been
getting, I'd have switched.

Instead they cheerfully took our money and quietly turned the response
down--to the point that we had to WAIT to log into towers to make calls, or
have our phones shut off for no apparent reason. And when we called for
service, they had a scripted response--"UPGRADE!"

The carrier that boasted of the lowest number of dropped calls was going out
of its way to repeatedly drop calls for a big segment of their
newly-acquired customer base. I have a high sense of principle about such
mean-spirited tactics, and I will never give them a single cent worth of my
future business. And, judging from some of the news articles I've read,
there are millions of other ex-customers who won't favor them with their
future business either.

Only in America can big companies throw away customers, as though they were
just trash! Cingular, literally, threw us away. And their senior
executives pat each others backs over it!

Sprint, on the other hand, was delightful to work with. Despite all the
negative comments I've seen about them, my experience was nothing but
positive. No unexplained dropped calls. No phone shut-downs. No billing
errors. No roaming charges. No charges for m2m. No service outages.
Courteous customer service reps. It's been a year now, and the difference
between the two carriers is striking.

AND, my Sprint phones hop over to Verizon when there is a "hole" in the
Sprint network. No roaming, either. And in areas served by only AMPS my
Sprint phone can make and receive calls, unlike most of Cingular, whose
phones don't work on AMPS.

I have gone from having been very frustrated and angry, to very satisfied,
and happy.