why, oh why do you taunt me sprint?
jackie offered to help me unpack my kitchen after she gets off work tomorrow. in exchange i’m going to get her digital camera and computer working together. (i also need to work a trip to raleigh into that deal to find one of those sprintpcs stores.)
for the past 4 days my voice has been breaking up on everyone’s phones, no matter where i am. when i called sprint to demonstrate, the effect was hilarious:
“my phone’s been getting bad reception”
“excuse me, i can’t hear you sir”
“umm, my phone, it’s been getting bad reception”
“hello… sir… are you there, i can’t hear you”
…and on it went. when i finally got some words through, the customer service rep immediately said two things, “you need to go to a sprint store and update your phone’s software and for your trouble your anytime minutes will now begin at 8pm instead of 9.”
which makes me think they did something to their network and were completely expecting a slew of complaining customers. it also makes me think it would be hella easier for me (and cheaper for them!) if i could have downloaded some firmware and upgraded my own phone rather than hauling myself getting jackie to haul me out to cary.
jackie’s offer to help unpack my kitchen is mostly philanthropy. i would have helped fix her computer regardless, but my kitchen needs a lot more TLC than i’m giving it. as patrick said best when he came by for some mountain biking,
“wasn’t your microwave sitting on your stove when i was over here a few weeks ago?”
The cellular phone infrastructure in the US sucks. Due to their capitalistic system, they started having cell phones here in the US a long time ago starting with an analog infrastructure. Now that technology has advanced, they are trying to migrate into a digital infrastructure, however the cost of switching from analog to digital is to large for the companies to handdle. So who pays for that price? Us the customers. In europe they never had an analog infrastructure and they went straight into digital. The phones, the receptions and the plans are amazing. I mean here you have to pay extra for everything, where as in Europe everything is included in your plan (3way calling, texting, internet, email etc.) I have Sprint and they suck big time. We recently moved to a new apartment in Boston and I have absolutely NO reception on my phone. I literally have to leave my apartment, walk 2 blocks just so I can get 2 reception bars on my phone. When I called Sprint to complain their answer was “Since we don’t guarantee reception inside buildings, there is not much we can do for you”. Now why don’t the sales reps tell you that when you go to a Sprint store to purchase a phone and a plan? Bad for business right? But it is mentioned in the plan contract. Yes that paperweight thing that no one reads? SPRINT SUCKS AND SO DO ALL THE CELLULAR COMPANIES IN THE US. Unfortunately they have us all by the balls, cause we live in times where everyone needs a cell phone and they need us the customers to pay for their infrastructure switch from analog to digital. By the way if they tell you that everything is digital it’s a LIE. Nothing is 100% digital yet in the US!!!