Alpine
Premium
join:2000-01-11
Atlanta, GA
| reply to pnh102
Re: Dumb...
183 megs over GPRS? That's a whole lot of slow-lane downloading! Hehe..
I wonder if any other consequences are forthcoming. Hard caps or something similar? I just bought a Cingular 2125 Smartphone and love it, especially with the $20/month SmartPhone Unlimited data plan. I personally don't use it constantly, but that's just 'cuz downloading at under 20k/sec is painful for anything other than normal surfing and email. But I know some people do have apps that are perpetually connected. Hopefully they don't get capped.
I think it's a little lame to deny "unprofitable" people deals on phone upgrades after contract-expiration, but we're only talking once every one/two years. At least they're letting those people out of their contracts for free.
Adam |
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bogey780
join:2004-03-19
Here | You cut deals for customers who bring you profit or who are loyal.
Bending over backwards to keep customers who bog the system down and you can't turn a profit on is bad business sense in every way. |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
 ·Comcast
| reply to Alpine
said by Alpine  :183 megs over GPRS? That's a whole lot of slow-lane downloading! Hehe.. Well... i guess you have to have some sort of fun on the road when you've seen all the scenery already. But the data service was actually quite good. I only had dropped connections in southern Texas in 3 spots along I-10.
said by Alpine :I wonder if any other consequences are forthcoming. Hard caps or something similar? I just bought a Cingular 2125 Smartphone and love it, especially with the $20/month SmartPhone Unlimited data plan. I also have a Smartphone. As for consequences, I really don't care. So they cancel my data plan or my contract, I am up $70 a month LOL.
said by Alpine :I personally don't use it constantly, but that's just 'cuz downloading at under 20k/sec is painful for anything other than normal surfing and email. But I know some people do have apps that are perpetually connected. Hopefully they don't get capped. I seriously doubt that low speed data users will be capped, as in the grand scheme of things, 183MB in a month really isn't that much data anymore. I am sure if you were leeching data using a 3G phone at full blast, they might say something as Verizon does.
said by Alpine :I think it's a little lame to deny "unprofitable" people deals on phone upgrades after contract-expiration, but we're only talking once every one/two years. At least they're letting those people out of their contracts for free. Well fortunately there is still some competition left in this industry. There's now nothing stopping people from simply taking their business elsewhere if they run into said predicament.
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Tancredo 2008! |
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whfsdude
Premium
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC | reply to Alpine
Probably EGPRS. |
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itguy05
join:2005-06-17
Camp Hill, PA | reply to Alpine
quote:
183 megs over GPRS? That's a whole lot of slow-lane downloading! Hehe..
I did close to that last month on my Treo on EDGE/GPRS. |
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Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL
| I saw from a google search that Cingular, VZW, and Sprint PCS settled with 32 Attorney Generals in 2004 regarding confusing roaming maps among other things.
Part of the settlement was that they would clearly let customers know where they were roaming and would thus incur extra fees.
Now Cingular doesn't have roaming fees anymore but it looks they are skating on thin ice by canceling accounts that roam too much since they aren't telling customers when they are roaming. |
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magusat999
join:2005-07-08
Oakland, CA
| reply to bogey780
Your supposed to design your system so that you don't INSULT or appear to DISCRIMINATE no matter what your real intention is. Everybody knows businesses number one priority is profit, that's not something a business should use as a reason to treat customers differently - even if it is true. |
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jimk
Premium
join:2006-04-15
Raleigh, NC
 ·AT&T Southeast
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to Zoder
Sprint and VZW have used a roaming banner and/or solid roaming indicator to indicate that roaming charges might apply (depending on your plan) for years. Then again, I don't know when the lawsuit was filed... it could have been before this.
Part of the problem with this is that Cingular has been showing the "Cingular" banner all the time, even when roaming off their network. They don't charge for it, but they don't want their customers to roam too much. However, they don't tell customers when they are roaming. They should just implement a banner similar to what Verizon or Sprint use, or just show the name of the carrier that the phone is registered on. That would prevent a lot of confusion. I understand that some people now get an "Off Network" banner, but I don't think it is widespread yet (or if it will be).
However, forgetting about all this for a minute, it is just wrong to run a customer off like this. Just because they don't spend as much money as you want doesn't make it right to just treat them like trash. |
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Guy Waters
join:2001-12-04
San Francisco, CA
|  reply to Zoder
Cingular does charge roaming fees, even when the phone banner reads "CINGULAR"! Cingular charged $1.99/min for calls placed from a cruise ship within the Puget Sound, while I could still see the Seattle skyline. The satellite system didn't work at all in the Pacific Ocean between Seattle and Alaska. However, no roaming charges were incurred to use Dobson's, Cellular One network in Alaska.
The other quirk with Cingular is calls made while roaming on AT&T Wireless network in Hawaii back to the US mainland were billed as INTERNATIONAL. |
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Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA | reply to magusat999
What planet do you live on? Business can choose not to serve customers that they can't even break even on. They should probably lay out their expectations before sending then to the chopping block, but that's there business. |
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