on the way to jp's i made a collect call from a pay phone. the 3 minute call cost $19.80!!! $3.30 for the actual call. $7.00 for the operator fee. $9.50 for the OWNER of the pay phone. what a racket!!! so i call ZERO PLUS DIALING which turns out to be the billing co. then i get the info for LEGACY LD INTL INC. turns out they are the long distance provider. so i asked "who owns the phone"? " due to our privacy agreement we cannot provide than info". rude people and i wasn't in the mood. the customer service people that work for those 2 co's have the worst jobs in the world. dealing with VERY PISSED off people for 8 hours a day. oh, after the numerous taxes were tacked on, the total was $22.14. i was one angry guy yest am. "did you ask the operater how much it would cost before you called?", "no, how much would that of cost me?", "$7.00".

kevin

Kevin,

I feel for you.

My wife and I canceled AT&T as our ling distance carrier last year. A coupe of months ago, we received a call while we were out. My wife checked caller ID and called the number to see who if was. It was AT&T calling for some unknown reason.

After several months a bill arrived from AT&T in the amount of $10 and some odd cents. It was for the call my wife made to them. Cost of the call was 22 cents. The additional $10 was for fees and taxes. When my wife called their customer service number, no matter what number she entered on the cumputerized system, she could not get a human. After trying for over a half hour she gave up.

She called our local phone service and spoke to someone there. She was informed that theway AT&T is set up, you will never speak to a real person. She was told to call AT&T and this time just enter 10 random numbers when asked to enter your phone number. She did this and a real person came on line since the bogus number was not in the data banks. After all this, she was able to have that bill reduced to just over a buck.

Out attitude to AT&T and all the other non-caring, money grabbing, million $$ CEO bonus paying corporations:

i'm going to mortage my house and purchase some pay phones. the recorded message while you are on hold is interesting. they always round up on the time and a host of other "features" to screw the poor fool that just wants/ needs to call home. why did i call collect? i didn't have 14 quarters in my pocket and the phone didn't take dollars. i spoke with a rep from quest, he said he's seen worse. the fcc sets the rates so no foul on LEGACY. i remembered a local news story about the huge bills people get from a collect call from incarcerated individuals. you own the tools, you make the rules. the c.s. person from zero plus asked me why i did'nt use 1-800-collect <_< .

kevin

hey geeze, get a cell phone!

you can get a pay-as-you-go one if you don't plan on using it all the time. You won't spend as much as that one collect call and you'll have a phone in the car in case of emergency.

i don't need a cell phone with pay as you go features. i just don't like getting ripped off for a fucking 3 minute call. while you're on how about nailing that b-fast thread for me? none of you guys seemed to get around to it last time . cal get together threads get nailed all the time .

kevin

I'm glad the phone company I work for isn't in Washington...yet

seriously, get a tracphone(or whatever they are called there)... prepaid cellular... cheap and effective! pay-phones and ATMs (not owned by a bank) are a huge racket!

Hey, I would have only charged your $5 to use my cell phone Kevin. Or you could have traded me a sticker!:[

Geoff

seriously, that sucks kevin, I was just trying to get your goat. I would be incredibly pissed off myself. Phone companies are really the scum of the earth, and all the cell phone sales haven't helped, now it seems like they are doing just about whatever they can to pick your wallet. I would call your local news "Call for Help" producer. This sounds like it's good for a whole weeks worth of expose's. Seriously.

Some, if not all, pay-as-you-go cell phone companies charge you a daily fee whether or not you use the phone. I believe MetroPCS here in the bay area charges $.49 a day for what I hear is lousy coverage and rude customer service (sorry, I know "rude customer service" is redundant).

My cell phone comes in handy maybe once a month on average. Otherwise it's just another bill I don't need. My wife, on the other hand, loves hers so much I usually get to pay double each month for the extra minutes

Mine sits on the kitchen counter most of it's life. I only use it when I'm going to be out all day long, heading across country or the state. My wife on the other hand...

They are all privately owned and have to pay for the system that is now rarely used due to cell phones.

Cell phones aren't that much better...AT&T is getting out of the business and the service in my area sucks....went to another one and they suck as well. Have to go outside to get and recieve calls at home....

I went with the new GSM service at AT&T and its ok with my Ericsson T616 phone. With Monique's Motorola phone its a joke!!!! Cuts out, no service etc. and AT&T's Customer Service is awful.
I am thinking of going to Cingular, anyone using them. How are they?

Geoff

I work for Motorola. I head up a department that installs the cellular networks for some major operators (ALLTEL, Sprint, Verizon) and when it comes to coverage there are a TON of factors for why coverage is good or bad in certain areas.

One of the biggest factors are the local governments and citizen action groups that don't want that "ugly big tower" near their homes. I understand that, I don't either BUT these are the same people that complain that there cellular service sucks (not saying MikeZ doesn't have a vaild complaint).

Not to bore you with all the technical BS but a digital cellsite only has a footprint of about 3 miles on flat land. Add houses, trees, tall buildings, lakes it all affects the coverage area (aka footprint) and as more people are using that site the more noise is produced on the signal the digital coverage shrinks to produce more power to cover and area. Now ad in the factor that you are moving (walking,driving)
well you get the picture. I am not saying that there needs to be a tower every 100 feet but there is A LOT of factors in cellular coverage.

I only use my cellphone when I am out of my office (I work from home) so I don't use it much. Coverage in my house sucks and a Verizon tower is only 1 mile away. But looking at it I can tell that the antennas are tilted to cover the Indaian toll road whick makes
sense since there is a lot more people on the road using their phones then people sitting at home with it.

Sorry for the long boring post.

- Garold

one word...verizon

This is deregulation at work. Pay phones were much better when only the telephone company owned them.

I'd recommend carrying a calling card number with you if you don't have a cell phone.

I've reduced my long distance to almost zero. I will usually use the cell phone (paid by work) or my 2.9 cents per minute calling card I got from Costco.

I agree....AT&T as sucky as they were had a cell site down the hill from my house,,,that's the only reason I got reception there. But it was spotty in other areas in town.

Team Mobile my new provider is not so spotty in town but lousy at my house....

Our local elected officials and city government, long may they suck and blow diseased cocks in hell, have put a moratorium on building cell sites.

Geoff,

GSM is a Euro standard for celluar that started (for Motorola) in Sweden back in Sept of 92. I worked on that project for 3 yrs Chances are Monique's
Motorola phone is not a GSM. What is she using?

Chances are that Cingular shares tower space with you current provider. They can do this because of the different Frequency bans. There used to be only two frequency bans back in the 80's & early 90's A&B.
Now the FCC has opened bans C, D, F ect that is why
in a lot of major cities now have 5 or 6 cellular providers now. Cingular might have better coverage by you. Can you see a tower near you? is there one small building or two at the base? can you see a set of antennas one above another? if so chances are they are sharing a tower.

- Garold

I quit AT$T and now have no long distance provider at home. I mostly use the cell for long distance. I bought an MCI prepaid calling card from Costco ($20 for 600+minutes). Costs nothing until I use it, at home or anywhere, and only 2.9 cents per minute. Everytime I use it the voice tells me how many minutes I have left. Gotta dial some extra numbers but sure is ecomonical. Carry one in your wallet Kevin.

That's a good idea until you can't find

1) a pay phone
2) one that works
3) one that works and is not in area where you won't be knifed.....

Motorola flip phone you get for free when we signed up. I tried to talk her into a better phone but no....
I can get great reception with mine and hers is shit. Finally, AT&T send a replacement Motorola phone that works about the same, POS. She is sooo mad we are going to switch and they can try to take us to court for the sign up fees.
We have been trying to solve this starting in the 30 day grace period, now they want the $175 to cancel, screw them.

I still like my Ericsson T616 phone although Sean hates the pics it takes, haha works fine when I don't have a camera.

AT&T


Geoff

Cell phones arent perfect. A friend and I are no a family plan from cingular (its a lot cheaper) and one day our phones were both turned off. So he called their service and after a 20 minute conversation (that were taken from his minutes, of course), he found out he owed money that he already paid. They had either lost one of his statements or something because he had the cingular transaction AND the bank transaction showing he paid the money and they wouldnt accept it. They didnt have the numbers in their records and such, but he had a hard copy in his HANDS. He had to pay what they had lost (some 150 bucks) out of his pocket for them to continue the service and wait for a refund from them...

Hmmmmmmm.....
All this info. makes me appreciate my Nextel

My old beater Motorola StarTac and At&T work just fine.

Because it just sit on the counter!

Or do this.. Cancel your home phone landline and just use your cell phone.

That is what I have been doing since August of last year. I have never had a problem with the service. I am using Verizon.

The BEST part about it is that apparently telemarketers are prohibited from calling cell phones because I get ZERO unsolicited calls... SCHWING!

I use AT&T for Cell, works fine! and the company I work for just bought them...

I work for SBC (LD) and cingular has bought AT&T... so everyone's reception will get better... around here at least... that's the theory anyway!

[/QUOTE]Cancel your home phone landline and just use your cell phone[QUOTE]

That has been the plan for cellular since I started back in 1985. I still remember the meetings on
how this great plan was going to be in place by 1990 . Well so it took almost 20yrs but its
happening. If Iridium wasn't such a cluster you
would be able make & receive calls all over the word.
Give us 10yrs to get all the BS worked out.

- Garold

I think people are saying cancel the hardline and go to cell because everyone has bad experiences with the phone company. You are bound to have a problem or two in your lifetime, but since cell phones are newer people havent had a chance to get screwed yet. Rest assured, they are the same phone companies doing the same crap to everyone.

since we are sooooo totally off topic here I'll continue down that road.

I'm looking for a cell company that can offer me:
1. Unlimited Long Distance (I am an MCI neighborhood customer)
2. No Roaming
3. Unlimited Nationwide Direct-Connect
4. Free Incoming Calls
5. Free Nights & Weekends
6. 700-1000 minutes

I want all that for $50-85 / month. If I could get that I would drop the hard line (I think).

I would need all that plus DSL before I would drop my hardline...

I get unlimited long distance, a full package of all the bells and whistles I never use and DSL for $50 a month (but I get a sweet deal b/c I work here)

Verizon called me about a year ago, said "we can switch you to our local network, give you unlimited LD for only $99/month" I said I can do better already... they said "HOW?!" ... "I'm a manager at SBC" ... "thank you, have a nice day"

never got a call again

I can't do that yet because in comparision to a land line talking on a cell phone sucks. Talking on a cell is still more like using a walkie talky than a real phone.

there are a number of cell towers in my area. i must be in a 100' band where the coverage doesn't overlap. i hear about 1/3 of most cell phone calls to my house. i had a friend call me and i could hear less than the 1/3, told him to call me from a land line. 30 seconds later he rang the door bell. he was calling from my driveway. they can hear me fine, i can't hear them. that collect call i made was the first one in at least 10 years.

kevin

bet its the last one too!