Re: PCS cell phones (was renters insurance)

From: Jack Greenbaum (spamfilt@greenbaum.us.com-DeleteThis)
Date: Fri Jun 06 1997 - 08:54:21 PDT


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To: wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis
Subject: Re: PCS cell phones (was renters insurance)
References: <9706041607.AA12152@mail.infoscape.com-DeleteThis>
From: Jack Greenbaum <spamfilt@greenbaum.us.com-DeleteThis>
Date: 06 Jun 1997 08:54:21 -0700
In-Reply-To: Justin Gordon's message of Wed, 4 Jun 1997 09:20:15 -0700
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I hope this is really of interest and not too off topic for this
group. But Justin asked ...

Justin Gordon <justin@infoscape.com-DeleteThis> writes:
> Any recommendations for the best cell phone deal these days? Has
> anybody tried PCS?

I jumped at Pac Bell's $19.95 a month PCS deal. 200 minutes free calling
to home, free first minute on incoming calls, caller ID so you don't
have to answer if you don't want to, numeric paging, voice mail all
included (except for airtime to access voice mail). Inexpensive quality
phones. Looks great.

Three caveats. First, as Ed observed, the coverage ain't great. Doesn't
work inside the building my place of employment, works in some stores,
marginal in others, drops off rapidly in outlying areas. Pac Bell says
they'll start installing new cell sites before the end of the
year. Their coverage map claims coverage over water on the bay, and I
wouldn't doubt it given the good signal at 3rd and Coyote, but I've not
taken my phone out on the water to check :-)

Second, the $19.95 deal is really $23.95 after taxes. %25 higher than
what they advertise is a big deal, and they are trained not to tell you
about it when you sign up. I made them credit me for the first month
since they never notified me about the charges and I'm sending a letter
to the California Public Utilities Commision. That's called
fraud.

Third, their customer service lines are swamped. I've never waited less
than 20 minutes to talk to a human, and it took TWO calls to get
activated because they screwed up the first time, and another call to
get my free minutes to home because again they screwed up.

On the plus side a predictable $23.95 a month for two way mobile
communication is a deal. Every other provider will charge you for every
minute, or only provides signifcant free airtime when you don't need
it. 50% of my demand is to call home, the other 50% is for home to be
able to reach me. This is a deal for my type of use. And the sound
quality is excellent. Our $99 cordless phone at home is much worse. As
soon as they have text messaging (160 char) connect to the 'net I'll pay
the extra $10 for that and send Ken's wind reports to it when I'm
heading out to sail.

-- 
Jack Greenbaum -- jack@greenbaum.us.com-DeleteThis



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