DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Douglas Scott Reuben) (10/22/90)
Once again, Metro Mobile, the "A"/Nonwireline Cellular provider in
Connecticut and Rhode Island, has proven to me that it has, in my
opinion, the stupidest and rudest customer service people in the
business.
To those not "blessed" enough to use their service, this is the
company that used to have a pretty flaky DMX to New York City, which
never worked well, and was always overloaded. (A DMX allows one to
roam into another area and still receive calls there, as well as, in
some cases, call-forwaring, and other custom calling features...).
After three letters to Metro, they finally managed to get it fixed in
April, and has worked pretty well ever since.
Good, right? Nope ... In May, for 3 days (a weekend plus Monday), they
managed to cross-connect all of their 977 prefix numbers to the U.S.
Sprint "950" access port. So not only could callers not get in touch
with me, but they got a nice Sprint tone, and then had to pay for the
calls since Sprint seems to return supervision on those calls. Great,
another long letter asking for a refund of all those calls, etc.
Last week, I get my bill, and it is *three* times what it normally is!
So I take a closer look, and guess what? They apparently decided to
start charging AIRTIME (not tolls/land charges, but airtime) for
call-forwarding, something they never had done in the past, and
something which I *specifically* asked about when I initially signed
up for service. AND, they just started charging on Sept 14th .. NO
notice, NO pamphlets in the mail, not even a phone call - On Sept
14th, suddenly, all call-forward calls have an airtime charge next to
them!
So I call up Metro Mobile, and ask:
Me> "Why am I being charged airtime for forwarded calls?"
Metro> "Oh, we always did that...".
Me> "Uh...so why do all my bills for the past two years fail to have such
charges?"
Metro> "You're probably just reading them wrong..." (!!!!!!)
Me> "Err ... yeah ... can I talk to your supervisor?"
Metro> "It's not HER [superivsor's] fault you read your bills improperly!"
(more !!!!!!!!)
....so I listen to dead air for a while, and then the superivsor, Sharon
Ballard, comes on:
Me> (repeat the whole thing about suddenly getting charged)
Sharon> "Oh, we were having a software problem, we've corrected it now..."
Me> "FOR TWO YEARS???!!!! - you've had this problem for two years and
you only managed to correct it now?" (which, after thinking about
it for a while, isn't all that implausible with Metro...! :-) )
Sharon> "Well, we charge it now, regardless..."
After this delightful conversation, I figure it is time to write them
yet another letter, explaining to them why I don't think I should pay
a MONTHLY charge for Call-Forwarding ($4), as well as AIRTIME for
forwarded calls.
I believe I've read from the numerous posts on this subject that both
systems in Chicago no longer charge airtime for call-forwarding, and
was wondering if there are any other areas in North America where this
is also the case. Metro's usual response to customer complaints is
"Oh, but all the other systems do the same thing...", which is the
answer I got when I asked what reason they had for charging DOUBLE
airtime for Call-Waiting and Three-way calling. (Basically, they want
to make some more money is what it came down to... - So much for
competition in the Cellular industry! Neat little duopoly...). It
would be nice if this time I could refute that argument by giving them
a list of systems which are a bit more enlightened, and do not charge
airtime for call-forwarding.
I'd really appreciate just a brief note letting me know the name of
the system and where it is located, if, as I said, there are any such
systems. I'll summarize if anyone is interested.
Thanks in advance for any/all help!
P.S. Favorite Metro Mobile Quote:
Me> "Hi, would you know the roam port number for Reno, Nevada?"
Metro> "No, I don't...." <click>
Favorite Quote #2:
Me> "I've notived on my bill a daily charge for using the Baltimore /
Washington D.C. system, when, as you can see from my bill, I was
in Westchester County, NY, at the time."
Metro> "Were you near water?"
Me> "Ummm...yeah...Long Island Sound...why?"
Metro> <very sure of herself> "Oh, well THAT explains it - those signals
travel VERY far over water...we get that all the time!"
Me> "But Baltimore is 200 miles away!!!!"
Metro> "But it's over *water*! - THAT'S what does it all the time!"
(Maybe I should sign up with British Telecom in the UK so I can get
service when I can afford to buy a boat, huh? I mean, the UK is only
3000 miles of "WATER" away!!! :-) )
(In all fairness, they have a technically superior system. It would be
nice if they were able to match the quality of the service of their
employees with the level of technical proficiency found in their
network ... It would also be nice if they weren't such a bunch of
cheap penny-pinchers who try to nickel and dime anything they can, and
make up ridiculous excuses for it later on!)
Doug
dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu
dreuben@wesleyan.bitnetjgo@mcgp1.uucp (John Opalko, N7KBT) (10/26/90)
In article <13891@accuvax.nwu.edu> DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Douglas Scott Reuben) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 753, Message 1 of 6 >It >would be nice if this time I could refute that argument by giving them >a list of systems which are a bit more enlightened, and do not charge >airtime for call-forwarding. All of our markets (McCaw Cellular One) charge a monthly fee for the feature. These markets do not charge anything extra for call forwarding: Alaska Denver Kansas City Las Vegas Madison Minneapolis Oklahoma City Seattle Tulsa These markets charge a flat fee per forwarded call (typically 10 cents): Fort Smith Fresno Santa Barbara Ventura These markets charge a per-minute rate for forwarded calls (typically 7 to 10 cents per minute): Portland Salinas/Monterey Salt Lake City These markets charge airtime for conditional forwarding but not immediate forwarding: Austin Bryan/College Station Corpus Christi San Antonio Temple/Killeen These markets charge airtime for all forwarded calls: Indiana Little Rock Pittsburgh Reno Sacramento Santa Rosa Spokane Stockton/Modesto The reason for a call-forwarding charge (I guess; I'm a Unix hacker, not a billing type) is that the forwarding is not established at the Telco, but rather at the cellular switch. When you forward a call, there are *two* trunks in use between the zone office and the cellular switch, instead of just one. Our switch stays in the loop (acting as a sort-of tandem) until the call is ended. Therefore, the Telco charges us twice the rate that it would normally ("x" number of Erlangs on two trunks instead of one). The reason some markets charge for conditional (busy/no answer) call forwarding and not immediate is the switch has to page your mobile and, if you're in the service area (and powered up) and not busy, set up a voice channel and initiate ringing to see if you answer. If the switch gets no page response or no answer, the call has to be torn down and rerouted to your forwarding number. For immediate forwarding, the switch just has to see that your feature flag is set and reroute the call without using any of the cell-site trunks or RF equipment, i.e., it's cheaper. Whether charging the full airtime rate is reasonable or not, well, I'm not going to get into that. :-) Hope this helps, John Opalko McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc. jgo@mcgp1.UUCP