Cell phone follies

For a number of personal and business-related reasons, I wanted to get a cell phone. So I researched phones and services, but it was near-impossible to get information on cell phones in Western Massachusetts (I live near Amherst, for perspective.) What I really wanted was a posting or a bulletin board by somebody saying “This phone worked great” or “The service from this company was awful” but Google searches turned up nothing but cellphone outlets. So this posting is a retelling of my cell phone tale, strictly for information purposes, and (probably) of little interest to anyone beyond Western Massachusetts.

To start out, what I really wanted was a phone strictly for emergencies and/or for business travel since I couldn’t see myself talking for more than an hour a month. I was lured to the siren call of the prepaid phones since I wouldn’t have to be tied down to an annual contract. The Virgin Mobile phones seemed like a good bet for a number of reasons: 1.) Virgin piggybacks its service on the Sprint PCS network, 2.) You only have to purchase $20 of service every 90 days and the minutes don’t expire and 3.) there were some neat features with both the phone and service. When they went on sale at Best Buy, I picked up a Kyocera “Super Model” phone and activated it over the Internet.

One small problem: this phone couldn’t pick up a signal worth a damn.

I don’t know if it was the phone or the Virgin service – I don’t care. I work in Connecticut and commute down I-91, driving past Bradley International Airport. This phone would barely pick up a signal at certain spots, never showing more than one-bar on the signal strength, even driving past the airport and through the middle of Hartford. The weekend after I bought it, we drove down to Pennsylvania and it picked up no signal while driving past Newark International Airport. It was utterly useless.

To their credit, when I returned the phone to Best Buy, they promptly refunded my money. (Side note: the woman in front of me in line was also returning a Virgin phone – draw your own conclusions.) I sent an E-mail to Virgin telling them I ditched the phone and to cancel my account. Then these damn limeys told me I had to call them and that I couldn’t just stop service with an E-mail. WTF? So I called, got put on hold for several minutes, and hung up.

Now, at no point did I ever give Virgin my credit card information (although they asked for it several times during the application process, for “automatic account replenishments”) so what were they going to do if I didn’t call? Nothing. After a couple of months they’ll note that I’ve never used or purchased any minutes and cancel the account anyway.

There were a couple other pre-paid plans, but they were just as restrictive and expensive as contracted plans. For example, T-Mobile has an “Easy Speak” phone that allows you to add minutes with cards, but the minutes have to be used within a certain time period. The Verizon network map didn’t seem to extend into Western Massachusetts – I guess you can’t “hear me now” there. The Tracfone service seemed shaky to me and I wasn’t crazy about their time plans either. The AT&T Wireless “Go” phone was laughable: you weren’t required to sign up for an annual contract, but you did have to sign up for a monthly contract. In other words, it’s not exactly “pay-as-you-go” and the AT&T Wireless coverage in W.Mass isn’t impressive.

So if I wanted quality, I needed a quality phone and a quality service. I was drawn to the Sprint system, but the whole Virgin experience spooked me away. Verizon and AT&T were out because of shaky coverage. This left T-Mobile and Cingular, so I started to scope out phones that worked on these services.

There are many many phones out there and typically they’ll work on a certain frequency band and transmission technology (e.g. CDMA, TDMA, and GSM). Right away, I was powerfully drawn to the multi-network (GAIT) phones because they operate on two or more different services for the widest coverage. Since Nokia phones have a good reputation, I settled on the Nokia 6340i that operates with both TDMA and GSM, serviced by Cingular.

As I mentioned, I live in Western Massachusetts but work in Connecticut, so during my lunch hour I headed over to the Staples to pick up my new cellphone. To be frank, I probably could have picked a better time than high noon the week that all the kids are going back to school. To compound problems, I got a guy who was a trainee flying solo because the regular guy called out. Long story short, this guy was trying hard but just couldn’t get it together; I took over his computer and started typing in my information because he just couldn’t do it while on the phone with the home office asking for instructions. I’m assigned a new cellphone number but it’s in the 860 area code and not my MA area code of 413. “Oh, it’s easy to change over. You just have to call Cingular customer service,” he assures me and hands me a business card with the service number.

This is stone-cold wrong. Warning: do NOT purchase a phone outside the area from where you live.

I tried to call Cingular, got put on hold for five minutes, and then got disconnected (by Cingular). I called back, got put on hold for ten minutes, explained my situation and was told to return the phone. That was their answer: return the phone in Connecticut and buy one in Massachusetts. Unreal.

Back to the CT Staples, where a different wireless salesman called the mysterious all-knowing home office to see if he could straighten things out. I’m absolutely convinced that these wireless companies assign 95% of their energy to signing up customers and 5% to helping them. After nearly an hour (on top of the hour the previous day) I’m told that all I have to do is find a Cingular store in Massachusetts and get a new “SIM” card and I’ll be able to get a 413 number. Fine.

I get off at Exit 15 on I-91 at the Holyoke Mall exit and head to the Cingular store on the corner. After waiting another 15 minutes, I explain my long story to the guy behind the counter.

Let me interject at this point to say: “Tom C. at Cingular outside the Holyoke Mall – you rock!”

Tom took pity on my tortured soul and straightened everything out, even though it still took another 20 minutes on the horn to Cingular. He complimented me on my phone choice and noted that the Nokia GAIT phones were back-ordered for 90,000 units. He apologized for my experience on behalf of Cingular and was thoroughly professional – he must have been in the 5% training class.

Anyway, the phone is great. It always gets a strong signal and I’ve been able to experiment with the text messaging and E-mail. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it but it’s comforting to know that if my family needs help, they’ll be able to reach me.

That’s my little public service announcement. Hopefully this anecdote will be instructive to anybody heading off to the Happy Valley this week to start a college education or anybody else thinking about getting a cell phone in Western Massachusetts. Good luck.