I really appreciate that.

If you get an email or web address to which we can complain, let me know.

I hate those 800 numbers.  I like it in writing and I like to do it at my
convenience, not theirs.  And I sure don't care to sit and wait for 30
minutes to talk to someone in India.

There was a mixup in my domain names.  I called Network Solutions and had
a hell of a time understanding the lady.  Lots of static on the phone
line, and although she spoke perfect English, every now and then she would
use a phrase a little unusual.

Finally it dawned on me that I was talking on an overseas line to someone
in another country, so I asked her where she was.

The Philippines.

She was OK but still, it was not easy to hear her through all of the noise
on the line.

So if you can get an email or web site to which we can register
complains, please let me know.

CSSJR

In case your Alltel guy wants to throw off on your equipment, here is mine.

I have a Kyocera 650 PC card.  This is the card sold by Alltel for use
with their system.

I used it in my Thinkpad laptop for months and it worked very well.

Recently I purchased a Kyocera KR1 wireless router and use the same card
in it.

For a while, I worried that it might be the router; that it might be
defective, so I put the card back in the laptop and had the same problem.

I have a second laptop running windoze WK2.  Tested the card in it with
the same results.

I also note a big difference according to the time of day.

It runs much better in the morning hours.  Today from 8:00 AM until 2:00
PM, it did very well.  I think I had one drop.

I left the office and when I got back about 5:00 PM, it was one drop after
the other.  It is so bad tonight that all I got from the last connection
was your message and my reply.

I use this laptop in Guilford County, NC, in a suburb of Greensboro during
the day and in the very southern edge of Rockingham County at night.

Rockingham county actually has better service than GSO because they have
just updated it to the high speed.

So don't let your contact sneer at my location.

By the way, Charleston is my favorite town although I have not been there
for a while.

People that brag about the food in New Orleans don't know what they are
talking about.  The best seafood I have ever eaten was in Charleston.

The only place I have ever been that can compare is Boston, out on those
piers near the airport, if I recall correctly.

My favorite, if it is still there, is 82 Queen.  Can those people ever
prepare a dinner fit for the King.

We used to come down two or three times a year and did that for years, but
when I sold the plane, the drive turned me off.

CSSJR

If Alltel doesn't work out for you, you may want to try Sprint. Their customer
service started sucking a.s back in '05, but their network is supposed to be
quite good. I know that where they had coverage, it was good for me between
'01 and '05 when I was a customer.

I'm going to my local Alltel HQ here in Charleston, SC, with a

Larry:

Late last night, I found an email address that looked like it might be
good for service.  

This is the reply I got to my complaint:

please contact Data Support, 1-800-255-8351, Option 3(3x), to
  address this matter. WIth the data core migration in process and the
  developing Sprint data roaming agreement, your issue will require some
  further troubleshooting and investigation. Thank you.

At least, I got a reply by 8:15 this morning.  Most take days.

So I dialed it and waited and waited while I heard every kind of add for
every kind of cell service.

Pressing 3 made no difference.

I finally hung up.

I hope your personal visit gets better results.

If they can't get "3" to work.........?

CSSJR

belt

My first "mobile phone" was a Motorola 2-way UHF to an operator
at a phone answering service.  It was just a 2-way FM radio.  The
operator took your call, as if she were your personal secretary
to the caller, then called you on the radio and told you who was
calling.  If you didn't want to talk to them, she took a message
and relayed it back to you.  If you wanted the call, she
interconnected her radio system to the phone line and you PTT to
your party until finished.  She disconnected when you clicked
your mic 3 times.  

Then, came IMTS from Bell$outh of Dialpage.  152 Mhz, big, full-
duplex Motorola with a little duplexer in your trunk, antenna on
the roof.  4 channels on B$, 4 channels on Dialpage.  I could use
either.  Rotary dial and real telephone handset under the dash,
just like Peter Gunn had in his car on TV.  Car had its own
number and continuously monitored, with a transistor receiver but
a tube transmitter, 152.48 Mhz, the data channel, listening for
its tone set.  When it was triggered, it blew the car horn, if
you forgot to flip the switch to internal, making the guy in
front of you mad as hell as he thought you were blowing at him!  
The bell ran inside the car, you picked up the regular telephone
handset and talked full duplex, a real improvement over before.  
Dialing out was trouble.  You pressed one channel button after
another listening for a "dial tone" in the handset (or on the
speakerphone).  When you found one, that meant that channel
wasn't busy and you could call out.  Go offhook, wait for the
motor-generator in the trunk to get up to speed so you had high
voltage to feed the transmitter tubes for a few seconds, then go
on-the-air and start rotary dialing the number you wanted.  When
you started to wind up the dial, a tone went over the air and
alerted the equipment you were dialing, when you released it, the
tone was interrupted once for each number the dial passed,
telling the equipment how far up you wound the dial so it would
know what number that was.  When it had a full set, it made an
automatic interconnect....sometimes....usually....(c;  When you
hung up the handset, your powerful transmitter dropped, allowing
the overheated car generator to recharge the batteries.  GOD HELP
YOU IF YOU CALLED OUT WITHOUT THE ENGINE RUNNING!  Transmitting
only drew about 60A at 12V...(c;  Calls NEVER dropped, once made
because you had a SERIOUS tranmitter running SERIOUS power to a
SERIOUS antenna on a frequency ALL TO YOURSELF.

Then, Cellular One of Charleston, a franchise of Cellular One,
put up 2 towers on AMPS at 500'....nice beautiful tall self-
supporting towers full of panel antennas on 800 Mhz.  We were all
in love with "cellular".  I bought the 3rd carphone installed in
Charleston.  You took your car to the shop, sat in the plush
customer lounge drinking the free coffee or cokes while enjoying
the day's pastries or Krispy Kreems (mornings only) and watched
cable TV.....or made AMPS calls from the demo units on all the
tables, those fancy new $3200 cellphone brick portables that just
MADE US DROOL!  AMPS worked GREAT!...no more waiting for a
CHANNEL!  And, unlike IMTS, it was CHEEP!

The rest is history......and I'm proud to have been a customer to
it...(c;

I've been drooling ever since....(c;

Larry