i agree. we used to have cable modem in my previous residence. when we moved to the boonies, cable tv wasn't even available, so we went satellite. we don't think we can go back to cable now. so if we want cable modem, we will have to pay extra for not having cable tv service. :mad: and a dsl line is still not available here. our choices are satellite (direcway) some local wireless company, but i haven't heard too many good things abut them.

I ditched my land line since 1999. I made a mistake of going back to it last year and those annoying calls kept coming in around 7-8 PM. I killed the land line and I am back in the airwaves.

have you guys seen those signal boosters for cell phones? you can plug your cell phone up to these cradle units and then attach faxes, landline phones, landline wireless phones, modems, etc without frying your brain. it's constantly connected to a powersource so your phone is always charging when you use it. people with unlimited minutes and free longdistance would benefit from it the most :D.

No way - never even heard of that! That is cool - I'll have to check into it.

Cellsocket?
 

We have something like that. It's called CellSocket. You plug a cell phone into it, and a phone connector into it too. Then when the cell phone rings, it makes your house phones ring, so it's just like a 'real' phone. You can dial out from any phone in the house too, just add a # after the number. Pretty cool.

Stevebsy
landlineless for about a year now and happy

www.cellsocket.com is their address I'm pretty sure. Only works with a few phones though, so it probably won't work on every system out there...

Awh hell - doesnt work with sprint :mad:

Not my experience. I started with Sprint back when I worked at Circuit City. At the time, Sprint was widely known as the best thing going around here. They own most of the Ellis-Niagara Array (insider name for the NE network), so it was no surprise that they could offer the best service. Their only real competitor was Nextel, who at the time was offering plans at twice the price of Sprint. So I got setup on the employee plan (unlimited everything for $15 a month). That was nice. Then I quit Circuit City, so I had to give up the plan. When I was switched to a regular plan ($30/month) they never had me sign a contract, and of course I wasn't going to say anything about it. Three months later I cancelled the plan and switched to a better deal. They charged me a new activation and a cancellation fee ($150) on the old plan. Oops. So I called their customer service to point out their mistake (since I wasn't in a contract there can be no cancellation fee and they can't charge me activation cause i'm not technically being activated). They immediately acknowledged the mistake, refunded both fees and I got the next month of service, along with wireless web (on-phone internet access) for one year, absolutely free. Now I say that's pretty damn good customer service.

How about this one. Just one of my many bad experiences.

I am driving back home in downtown Chicago along Lake shore drive. Sprint has their towers all over Chicago and signal is pretty good most of the times. I was working at Motorola at the time and I used the Vader phone (yepp the one about the size of 2 sticks of gum). I got the employee discount on the phone and I personally flashed the phone for sprint with the latest firmware at Motorola.

This was sometimes back in 2000. Anyways, I was driving. I saw a drunk idiot. I called 911. It rang and nothing. I switched off the phone and switch it back on. I called 911 again. This time no ring but the counter kept going. I hung up and called again. Nothing. Now I am pissed. I took the next exist (which was my exit) and pulled in the garage. I went upstairs (23rd floor) and drank a glass of water. I called customer service. It went through. I asked for a manager and the girl asked if she can help. I told her I need to talk to a customer service manager who can understand the technical structures behind the cell towers and e911 system and I will stay on the line. After about 2 minutes of wait, someone came on. He told me that he is a "manager" and that he can help.

So the discussion starts. We established in the next 10-15 minutes that we know what cell towers are and how the E911 system works. Somewhere in there, I made a 3 way call to my nextel phone and I took the sprint phone off for testing. So he tried to test it, read back the firmware numbers and such and discovered that the phone is ok. (duh!) Now my question starts and it was a very simple question "How come I can not dial 911 a couple of minutes ago?" His answer was that my cellphone must be out of range from the previous tower while I was driving and it has not negotiated to the next tower in the hand over stage. I started laughing. I asked another simple question. "Is sprint running full 1900 PCS service in Chicago, particularly along lake shore drive?" He confirmed that sprint is indeed a full PCS system in Chicago. Then tower hand overs should not be an issue at all. PCS is made to handle that perfectly well. Hell I personally know the coders who made those codes at the towers and I personally know the coders that did the phone software. I was the usher for the guy who designed the keypad and the battery connectors on the phone. He said he had no explanation. The deal was that they turned off the 911 incoming system (or rather put it in the low priority mode).

It got better. According to E911 requirements, it was supposed to be fully implemented by August 1998 and the version at the time was setup in such a way that any towers who can receive the phone signal was to drop 5 calls to let that 911 call go through. Now it can even pinpoint your location using agps. But did sprint towers do that? No. After about an hour talk, we established that e911 system was not fully implemented in Chicago for sprint. (delayed by 2 years? :eek: ) Now he is blaming it on my phone (which he oked at the start of our conversation) and that there could be something wrong with my phone.

I politely informed him that I worked for Motorola and I personally tested the phone a couple of days ago (yes I had nothing to do and I was bored) and that sprint is violating the FCC regulations on the E911 system and that I have to report this incident to the proper authorities. He blew up and started calling me names and that it would be ok -- in fact he insists that I no longer use sprint since he or sprint can not solve my 911 call issues.

When a customer service manager call you names and tells me to go find another service provider, I take things seriously. I went back to work and sent this message to the PCS division manager and sent a long message to the FCC. I am not sure if the moron still works at sprint but when a customer service calls you names, you have issues.

I personally thinks that he mainly got pissed because I knew the system better than he does and I was teaching him things he did not know. But calling me ****** was out of line.

ME TOO!!!!

(also using sprint service, I have a samsung N400)

That's some cool info, thanks Lwin... I totally agree about the Sprint service thing... They have alright service till I get on base then I have nearly nothing!!! I drop calls like it's cool with sprint!!! Nextel is the only one on base that offers Unbeatable service all over base and Beaufort... I am also hoping that since they are in the whole NASCAR crap that they will make more money and expand thier coverage area...

This is a big quote, sorry... But I really feel ya Lwin... I have had to call back many times to explain that I am "going on deployment and need my phone to go into an idle plan" The stupid kunt I was talking to proceedes to authorize me for another year contract!!!! So I have been STUCK with sprint for over a year longer than I planned!!! And they never fixed it!!! That's ok though I'm done with them come the end of next week!!!!

i have verizon, and personally i am happy with their service. it all depends on the area you live and the amount of towers that the phone service provider has up in your area

Kelli

I've had Nextel for about 2 years and have no major complaints. I travel extensively throughout the country and have never been without coverage, but then I am usually in metropolitan areas. No coverage at all though in Puerto Rico.
And the Nationwide walkie talkie feature is awesome.
My wife inherited my old US Cellular account and I believe their Nationwide coverage is second to none. We have even received a call while getting a Kodak moment at the low point marker in Death Valley.

Hey..

Nextel SUCKS!!!!
well the services works as that is what I/we use for work
need the "walkie talkie feature for connects when doing "car chases" and or surveillance. Expensive also

The phones sucks though real crappy. always have battery issues and not many options ie... neat stuff on the phone

My personal phone is with ATT and they are good all the way around, happy with em.

Sprint was good but they screwed me over about a bill so I lost faith in em.

T-mobile hated them for some reason the bill would get bigger and bigger with a lot of dropped calls.

my humble Opinion!
:)

When a customer approaches you and tries to assert that he knows more that you do about the product YOU REPRESENT, that's a situation that would anger anyone. Even you, my friend. Nothing pissed me off more than that when I worked at Circuit City and the car dealers. My thought was, if you know more than I do about the car i'm selling, how come I work here and you don't? Or better yet, why are you even talking to me because i'm obviously of no use to such a genius.

My point is I would have reacted the exact same way if you treated me like you treated that man. If you knew so much about it, why not just fix it yourself?

I bet you have problems with alot of customer service departments, don't you?

Next time, just try playing the regular Joe when you are trying to get help. I guarantee you'll have a better time.