10 Reasons To Hate Cellphone Carriers . Huh?

**Chris Leckness** · 11-01-07, 12:54 AM

Rob Beschizza over at Wired.com wrote a nice piece on how we hate the Cell Carriers... here is the list w/o comments, you'll have to click over to the article for the dialog supporting each bullet item. I have taken exception to a couple and quote those. I would take some of his rants with a grain of salt guys.

They stifle progress
They're a cartel
They're going to make you pay for Tetris
They just can't behave themselves
They illegally spy on you
They have annoying commercials
They hate you
Their contracts are nonsense
They charge crazy fees (for services you didn't ask for)
They lock handsets
They cripple their products
They charge double for data
They own politicians
Their products suck

Read on for my opinions...

The Cellphone company contracts can't be easy to follow if you can't count. I see 14 reasons here, not 10.

"Policies, practices and, of course, prices, are startlingly uniform across the board. By owning the framework of wireless telecommunications, the major carriers can deny market access to potential competitors, and few laws exist to effectively limit collaboration and trust."

If you want to start a cell phone company, go for it. All you will need it money for a switch. Money to pay the local telco to run data circuits to your cell tower. Money for a tower or money to lease space on a tower. There was a law put in place in 1996 I believe that opened the doors for entrepuneurs to get their feet in to compete legally. 90% of these companies have been bankrupt.

They have annoying commercials
"First, we have Verizon's creepy, intense "Can you hear me now?" spokesman and the Giant instruction manual for his clone army. The best line? "Test Man will come across folks from various ethnicities in order to evoke VZWs sense of and respect for diversity."
Then there's Sprint's lineup of sneering suits who love to make a show of sitting down next to people to show off their ultra-fast EVDO cards.
Finally, we have Alltel's smug boy-next-door,"Chad," contrasted against the ugly troglodytes with which the firm represents its competitors. Why do we need to see someone pleasuring himself with a vibrating phone, Alltel? Why do you think that sells phones? It doesn't. "

I don't hate Verizon for those commercials; nor Alltel.

"If it isn't clear from everything else here, the carriers loathe their own customers. This is a completely reasonable out-flowering of their business model. By subsidizing handsets and locking customers into lengthy contracts, cellular providers are, in effect, offering a kind of loan. Their relationship with you is the same as that of a payday shark or drug dealer: after the initial transaction, the only thing that matters is the fact that you owe something to them, a debt backed by obligation. Does a debt collector give you tech support? Of course not. So why should a company that gave you an expensive gadget at a huge discount? "

Where is your little link to a source here. All major companies are guilty of poor customer support at times. I am sure the writer of this article is aware of that. Offering a $500 phone for $199 in exchange for a contract is not unreasonable at all. Many people can't afford a $500 phone and this affords them the chance to get that phone.

And if you don't want an upgrade? Sometimes, they'll try and charge you extra to continue using an "old" phone on its network, on pain of having your service quality ruined. Talk about true love.

Mr. Beschizza, you are reaching here. Did you actually read any of what you linked? Yes, that charge kind of sucked, but it was put in place to pay for the additional maintence required to leave a legacy technology in place even though it was 2 generations old. Since that fiasco, support for this technology has been stopped.

"They're serious about that "you owe us" mindset: all of the major carriers except Verizon assess un-prorated early termination fees if you leave at any point before the end of the agreement. Verizon pledged a few weeks ago to start pro-rating ETFs. "

AT&T prorates as of 2-3 weeks ago as well.

"They charge double for data
You'll notice that while your smartphone can access the internet just fine, if you want to hook up that access with your laptop or home computer, you'll have to pay extra for the privilege. This is often sold as a modem plan or broadband access plan. Even though the data is "already there" and there is no technical overhead - clever users can often figure out how to trick phones into providing it without further ado - the carriers are happy to eat their cake and have it too. "

I'll have to agree on this, but you have to understand where they are coming from. Carriers run several data circuits to each tower to cover handheld broadband data. Handheld data requires quite a bit less overhead than streaming Porn or Youtube videos on your laptop. The infrastructure is not in place to handle "full browser" data support. Yes, it works, but you are using up more bandwidth than a typical handset. I understand both sides of the story here.

Their products suck
Yeah, you heard me. All of them. Even that one. Steve Jobs played Beck's "Cellphone's Dead" when demonstrating the iPod Touch, and you know what? He was damn right.

This guy seems to be that guy that would tell me that the sky is actually indigo blue with shades of baby blue after I told him that the sky is blue. I don't know him, so it's hard to say, but his negative attitude extends past the cell industry. I spent/wasted more than an hour of my evening (sick and should be in bed) reading this guys work.

Just like Mr. Beschizza, some of my facts are bound to be wrong too, if so... I am sorry.

Source: Gadget Lab from Wired.com

View Original Blog Post

**Chris Leckness** · 11-01-07, 08:33 AM

What do you think?

**hyedipin** · 11-01-07, 08:51 AM

Originally Posted by Chris Leckness

What do you think?

What do I think? Personally, I think it is rant that may only apply to Verizon or Sprint (maybe), otherwise NON of the above apply to my previous carrier T-Mobile, other than locking their products, which can easily be unlocked with a phone call.

I have been in many forums, debating each one of the above points, and everyone has ways of agreeing or disagreeing with what carriers do. Again, I saw no reason to be angry at my carrier (T-Mobile) during my stay with them for just about 7 years. Only if they had the product I wanted a month earlier! Either Rob is very mad at Verizon and came up with these things, stereotyping carriers, or he hasn't tried different carriers. Come on, double for data? T-Mo charges $9.99 for unlimited corporate or POP e-mail..

dellguy85 · 11-01-07, 10:30 AM

google is supposed to make it a little easier and transform the cell phone market. here is an interesting article i caught today:

Is Google outsmarting everyone? | The Digital Home - Don Reisinger blogs about the tech closest to home - CNET Blogs

**hyedipin** · 11-01-07, 10:38 AM

Can't teach and old dog new tricks. Google is trying to do that. It is like 50 years ago, Yellow Book trying to provide Telephone Service. Just do what you do best. Buying 700Mhz spectrum? Who are they to get monopoly over a frequency, and even if they do here in the US, they will probably sell only to some kids who doesn't care what he's got, besides it looking good. They will lose rest of the worlds market, where quality cellular phones fly in and out of market.

AKAJohnDoe · 11-01-07, 12:33 PM

Who needs reasons?

Seriously, the USA is so far behind much of the rest of the world in cellular competition and innovation.

Xtremegene · 11-02-07, 12:07 AM

(I didn't read the original article but looked at the points.)

I would honestly have to wonder though, as much as I dislike how the cell phone industry in the USA is set up, I think that they're pretty much just using the same business practices that other major corporations that provide mass-market services do and are also following in the tradition of their wired telecomm predecessors.

Yes, once major players in essentially any industry are established, they will fight to keep all the money and control as much as they can. So I don't particularly hate cell phone companies for doing this because it seems to be widespread elsewhere already anyways. What I do think all this new-found angst over them though just highlights how important and widespread cell phones have become in our society.

Google- they just deal with information, period. Honestly, I wonder if the CIA hasn't infiltrated them already! :hide: Seriously though, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, they will bring to the table...because controlling a portion of spectrum will just give them their own preferred way of accessing everything else they already have (INFO!).

My main pet peeves with my carrier (and other carriers in general): all their 'plans' are priced so that they can make as much money as possible (obviously), not so they're tailored to a customer's desires. For a hypothetical example: $30 for 40 MB of a Phone-as-Modem Plan, or $50 for Unlimited PAM! ...where is the linear or even exponential scaling there? :P Same with $0.01/KB of Phone Data Usage, or $15 for Unlimited Usage! They already figured out staggered 'plans' for minute and to a lesser extent, messaging, so why not data as well? Yeah, nothing is perfect and can satisfy everyone, but a gripe is still a gripe.
:rolling:

**hyedipin** · 11-02-07, 12:27 AM

Honestly, I don't understand what is the big deal about data charges, as long as they allow you to tether (phone as modem), unlimited.
How much does everyone pay for their DSL / Cable access? I am paying $20 or $25 per month to Verizon, and all I am getting is lousy ~750kbit/sec. I would very much like to pay $50 per month for unlimited 3G or any other high speed wireless connection that can take me up to double speed. Plus, I can access web anywhere I want.. When you think about it, it is not that bad.

If I could rely on my phone connection, I wouldn't even keep my home phone service or DSL service, but it is just not as reliable. That's the issue.