Thanks for the interest in my story, but it was actually pretty
boring. Cellphones receive on a couple of different frequencies
[digital], plus analog. Depending on what your phone has got, and
what the cell-tower has got (however the phone company has adjusted
it), you may or may not get the service you're paying for.
In my case, the cell-tower was "adjusted" by a bolt of lightning, and
my cellphone--though thoroughly digital--is very old. The cellphone
will have to be fixed or replaced, since the phone company is happy
with the tower in its present condition. (The new phones will
receive in the areas where I need service--I checked with another
subscriber to verify the reception. The company, incidentally, is
Sprint, which we'll probably stick with, because we have a month-to-
month plan; i.e. no two-year contracts with hefty penalty clauses.)
It took numerous trips to the Web and phone calls to find all this
out. You know the drill: call, wade through several layers of
automatic telephone crap ("If you need your bill adjusted, say 'Bill
adjustment.' If you have another problem, say 'Other problem.'").
Then you get another person who doesn't have a clue. Then you do it
again. And again. I was just lucky to get the guy in the Silver
Spring repair facility who sounds as though he knows what he's
talking about.
Moral of the story, of POSSIBLE GENERAL INTEREST to this list: there
are websites which register consumers' reports on cellphone companies
in this area [Washington, DC, and environs], along with complaints of
lack of reception in different places. If anyone is considering
signing up for cellphone service or any kind of wireless service,
it's probably a good idea to google "Sprint reception" or "DC
cellphone reception" or the like. Especially since (another common
complaint) it's nearly impossible to get out of a contract, even if
you don't get any reception at all.
Now, if you want stories: a more interesting story is the highway
traffic management project I'm trying to get changed, the project
that's so hazardous that there were three accidents the first day it
was put in place. After what seemed like years in phonemail hell and
the labyrinth of the Web, I finally got through to the right contact
person, who promised to get back to me and of course didn't, so I
marched into the fire station with a report on the project, only to
find that the firemen agreed with me, so I decided to....but that is
a story for another day.
--Constance Warner
On Jul 9, 2007, at 6:28 PM, Tom Piwowar wrote:
EXAMPLE: I've spent many, many hours on websites and the phone
lately,
trying to track down, among other things, the answer to why my
cellphone
suddenly stopped working in critical parts of town.
What to share what sounds like a very interesting story?
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