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Cellular Phone Forum / Providers / ATT Wireless / February 2004No service at my house; what to do?
Hi all, I've written here before about all my problems with getting a couple of phones and service online. And I've said how they arrived after almost a month's wait. I also wrote about travail with Customer Service and how, finally, I found someone helpful, who at least credited me with several weeks of free service (since I didn't have the phones). Okay, but there is still no service here at my house. A mile down the road, yes -- but not here. The service rep talked about work on three towers that serve this area, but what do all of you think? And I know I am starting something here. Please, don't just rant about how much you hate AT&T. What I'm wanting is constructive advice on where to go from here. I signed up for a two-year contract and got terrific phones -- NEC 515 and fancy 525 -- and I love the telephones. But .... Is there a way to find out whether any other company offers coverage in my "dead spot?" Incidentally, I recently talked to someone who uses Verizon, and she said: "Oh, I *know* where you live! Every time I'm on the phone in the car and go by that area, I lose my connection." So, am I just screwed or what? As I say, helpful advice will be appreciated. Marshall > So, am I just screwed or what? As I say, helpful advice will be > appreciated. The common law principle "Fit for purpose" applies. If you can not use the cell phones where you live then the phones you bought are useless to you, and AT&T Wireless needs to let you out of your contract. If they refuse write to your state's Attorney General, with a Certfied copy to AT&T Wireless HQ in Bothell, WA. > The common law principle "Fit for purpose" applies. If you can not use > the cell phones where you live then the phones you bought are useless to > you, and AT&T Wireless needs to let you out of your contract. If they > refuse write to your state's Attorney General, with a Certfied copy to > AT&T Wireless HQ in Bothell, WA. Of course, if there was NEVER service at his home and he didn't excercise his ability to cancel within the initially allotted time (between 14 and 30 days, depending upon the method of purchase I suppose), then it certainly will not apply and he will have to ride out his contract or pay the ETF. - -- Thomas T. Veldhouse Please. All carriers have buyer's remorse periods, not to mention these are MOBILE phones. Finding a phone to work at one's house is a luxury many times. Some people simply live in a horrible coverage area, maybe due to terrain. The best bet is to find someone to take over the contract, or drop each phone to the $19.99 plan and put the phones in a drawer somewhere if there is another carrier that works at his home. > > So, am I just screwed or what? As I say, helpful advice will be > > appreciated. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > refuse write to your state's Attorney General, with a Certfied copy to > AT&T Wireless HQ in Bothell, WA. On the contrary.. if you think about this, when you get brand new service through ATT you normally sign a two year contract to get all the deals and perks they offer.. so therefore.. if you move your plan to $19.95 and multiply that by 48 you get $959.52 plus taxes and all other fees they stick in there so up that to $1959.52 for the service when you can pay just one low payment of $175 and be done with it.. GOD DAMN IT WHAT WOULD YOU DO??? > Please. All carriers have buyer's remorse periods, not to mention these are > MOBILE phones. Finding a phone to work at one's house is a luxury many > times. Some people simply live in a horrible coverage area, maybe due to > terrain. The best bet is to find someone to take over the contract, or drop > each phone to the $19.99 plan and put the phones in a drawer somewhere if > there is another carrier that works at his home. <snip I would have been sure to get out of my contract in the return period so I wasn't stuck with it. Not to mention I'd never sign with anyone that wanted a 2 year commitment. Fuhgettaboutit. > On the contrary.. if you think about this, when you get brand new service > through ATT you normally sign a two year contract to get all the deals and [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > there is another carrier that works at his home. > <snip > Please. All carriers have buyer's remorse periods, not to mention these are > MOBILE phones. Finding a phone to work at one's house is a luxury many [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > refuse write to your state's Attorney General, with a Certfied copy to > > AT&T Wireless HQ in Bothell, WA. PLEASE: Most contracts are carriers' wish lists none of which they can make standup in court. Many times service changes or people move and there is no court that will make you pay when you dont have service. Get out of your contract - Its easy. > Okay, but there is still no service here at my house. A mile down the > road, yes -- but not here. The service rep talked about work on three [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Is there a way to find out whether any other company offers coverage > in my "dead spot?" Assuming that you're within the first 30 days of your contract, just return the phones and be done with it. What difference does it make whether you "love the phones" if they don't work for you? (And if you're NOT within 30 days, then I don't know why you're just awakening to this problem now. If so, you've made an expensive mistake. 30 days should be plenty of time to figure out whether or not the service meets your needs.) I know of no reliable way to find out whether other companies work except to try them. Make sure that they have a trial period in which you can cancel, and then exercise their service. Don't ever believe anything they tell you about service that is "coming". Stories about new towers and so on are just stories. One thing you might try: Your GSM phone probably has a function buried in its service menu that will let you manually select the system to which it connects. If you explore that, you should be able to see which companies (if any) have a GSM signal at your location. However, that won't tell you anything about other technologies. AT&T has a pretty poor signal here at my house, but I still use their phone - mostly because Cingular and T-Mobile have even worse signal here. And I'm not interested in technologies other than GSM/GPRS. Finally, you might consider whether or not you NEED service at your home. For some users, the phone gets turned off as soon as they get home, so poor coverage there isn't really much of an issue. >Don't ever believe anything they tell you about service that is >"coming". Stories about new towers and so on are just stories. The sales people seldom know what the engineering staff is doing when it comes to system growth and system tuning. Although things are most likely "coming", don't ever base a buying decision on what is coming. -- John S. e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net > >Don't ever believe anything they tell you about service that is > >"coming". Stories about new towers and so on are just stories. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Although things are most likely "coming", don't ever base a buying decision on > what is coming. On my Nokia 3650,I have loaded a program called celltrack. The program gives me lots of information about the cell site that my phone has connected to. By using this program I was able to figure out that my phone switch's from three or four ATTWS cell sites at home. I took the ID number's and cross referenced them with the FCC's tower information database and was able to plot the tower locations via Microsoft Streets and Trips. Here is a link to a tower location database webpage that is easy to use: http://www.berkana.com/tower.php3 type in your city, click on 'show table' or 'show map' and choose how many results per page. Under company you can leave it blank for all towers, or type in AT&T or another name. This will give you some idea of the placement of towers in your city. As other's have said, the only way to know if one company has service at your specific location is to setup up service and try out that company. One thought is that if you were to get a unlocked GSM phone from ebay - you could try t-mobile, cingular and ATTWS on a pre-pay basis. Or maybe you could get the phone's you have unlocked - just a thought that if you do live in a marginal signal area, you would not be out the costs and time associated with setting up accounts, returning phones, ect. - Good look with your research. >Good look with your research. What research? I was responding to someone about "coming" sites. I have addresses and coordinates of AT&T WS sites in many cities around the country so don't need to do "research". -- John S. e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net Ok, AT&T and a total of ONE tower in Orange County????? Just how accurate is this site? Who does AT&T contract with for towers? SBC has 8 sites in Orange County so its no wonder Cingular hes better signal. > > >Don't ever believe anything they tell you about service that is > > >"coming". Stories about new towers and so on are just stories. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > area, you would not be out the costs and time associated with setting > up accounts, returning phones, ect. - Good look with your research. DUMP THEM ASAP.......ATTWorthless sh.t wont get any better, wait till Cingular takes them over.....Eddie > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > Marshall >DUMP THEM ASAP.......ATTWorthless sh.t wont get any better, wait till >Cingular takes them over.....Eddie Hey Bum, how long have you had AT&T Wireless? What is your experienc to make such statements? -- John S. e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net John... I had AT&T Worthless for 1 and one half years. In that time I owned a Nokia 5165, a Motorola V-60 and a Nokia 6360. I got nothing but worthless promises from ATTWS.From pretending to give a crap about dead spots, to worthless promises of new cell sites going in *MY* area in 2 weeks. I'm NOT stupid John. Checking with the FCC ALWAYS resulted in NO CONSTRUCTION PERMIT filed anywhere near where ATTWS claimed the new site was going to go. ATTWS tells you whatever they think will keep you hooked. ATTWS renews your contract if you buy ANYTHING thats subsidized, without telling you they are going to do it. As ATTWorthless oversold the system in Southern Calif, along with taking channel capacity for thier poor experiment in GSM thier TDMA system is on it's knees. WAY too many users for the equipment in service. When you call and complain your told your handset is a peice of sh.t, you dont know what your doing, the handset needs to be turned off for 15 minutes and you can call back (and stay on hold for another hour). When you report a dead area (or CITY) your complaint is ALWAYS the very first time they EVER had a complaint *THERE*. It's a never ending game with AT&TWorthless. It's no wonder why they are on the bottom of the list of carriers in performance AND customer service. AT&TWorthless is nothing but sh.t, and following in the footsteps of MCI-Worldcom..another winner. AT&TWorthless is ARROGANT about their stand on things too! "Baghdad Bob" should be the AT&TWorthless spokesperson. Further more John...I have owned a Nextel(1 year) a verizon VX-6000, a Sprint datacard (15 days) and a cingular (1 year). In southern California the Verizon outperforms ATT,NEXTEL,Sprint and Cingular hands down....Eddie > >DUMP THEM ASAP.......ATTWorthless sh.t wont get any better, wait till > >Cingular takes them over.....Eddie [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > John S. > e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net > Checking with the FCC ALWAYS resulted in NO CONSTRUCTION PERMIT filed >anywhere near where ATTWS claimed the new site was going to go. Keep in mind, other than towers that have to have FAA approval, cell companies don't file on individual sites within a service area. They have a area wide authority. So you wouldn't see CP's for new sites. -- John S. e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net Quit holding back, tell us what you really think. > John... > I had AT&T Worthless for 1 and one half years. In that time I owned a Nokia [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > John S. > > e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > Marshall If you do indeed need and/or want to use your cell phone at home (for free long distance or whatever), your first step is to take a phone to each window in your house to see if there is a useable signal there. If there is no signal, your best bet may be to see if you can cancel. And if canceling is still an option, invite friends with cell phones from different providers to your house to see if they get a useable signal. If there is a weak signal, you might be able to use an external antenna from somebody like this: http://cellantenna.com/. I've never used them, but their site has lots of impressive goodies. Unless you're in a real "black hole", there is probably some type of antenna that will do the trick, if you are willing to spend enough and mount it high enough. If you do have a useable signal near at least one window, you might be able to cradle your phone there and (if necessary) still use it elsewhere in the house by means of something like this: http://www.cellsocket.com. But I don't think they have a model for your phone, and in fact their current models support only Motorola phones as I recall. I have a CellSocket for my Nokia 6360, and I think it's a pretty nifty gadget. I had this happen years ago. Basically, you have the recision period (3 business days) to test the service. If the service offers a longer cancellation period, you have that time to do it. Of course, either time period onsets when you being to be able to do the testing. I.E when your phones arrived. Document everything. > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > Marshall > Okay, but there is still no service here at my house. A mile down the > road, yes -- but not here. The service rep talked about work on three > towers that serve this area, but what do all of you think? It appears from your other posts that you're definitely within the 30 day return period, so I'll reiterate what someone else here said -- cancel your service as soon as possible and return the phones. Of course, the question is how important is it that the phone works in your house. I just replaced my wife's AT&T service with Verizon because she could not get a good signal in our house and I wanted her to use her phone for all long distance calls (we're paying for the cell phone, we might as well get use out of it). I kept my AT&T service because I generally just use my phone in my car, and service is ok (plus I'm on a cheap plan). As for which carrier to try next, you could find a local cell phone store and ask them who has a good signal. You might even be able to find a store willing to loan you a phone for a day or two. I actually had a T-Mobile store in my area willing to let me take a phone. And you can always sign up and try another carrier and then go back and cancel. Obviously this will be easier if you buy from a local merchant. Bill I also had an NEC 515 phone and also received little if any service at my home. I got my wife a Motorola phone and was supposed that her phone would get between 3 and 5 bars in our house, with the phones sitting right next to each other. I since found that my wife's phone got significantly better service anywhere we went so I have deducted that the NEC 515 phone is trash. Perhaps it is due to the internal antenna. I since purchased a Motorola phone and have excellent service in my home. I also have a friend that uses ATTWS with a Samsung phone and also gets excellent reception so I would look at your current phone. > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > Marshall Thanks. I may do that. And thanks to all the others who have replied. Marshall >I also had an NEC 515 phone and also received little if any service at my >home. I got my wife a Motorola phone and was supposed that her phone would [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] >> >> Marshall |
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