Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:15 am
In January I got my Droid with a local company called Bluegrass Cellular. I knew from friends and family that I could get 3G data at my house. In fact, my friend (who does IT for a college) did a test and found that the 3G at my house was faster than at his house in the city.
I have an annoyance where Bluegrass ends their coverage when I get a few miles from my girlfriend's house in the state capital. My phone switches to roaming, and I only get 50MB of roaming data, so I have to budget my data (and look for open WiFi).
In mid-October I quit having any phone-Internet at home.
I called the company and they said they made a change to my account and asked me to reboot my phone. I did, and it worked. I got email.
Well, I noticed that the Internet was slow. Then I noticed that most of my calls were going straight to voicemail.
The problem is, there is no beep or warning. All I get is a green blinking light, so it can be hours before I see the missed call.
I'm self employed, so this lead to some missed working opportunities.
I talked to an operator and she insisted that calls always went straight to voicemail if the phone was using data when they called.
I told her it was not true.
Eventually she discovered that my phone did allow that, but she didn't know why it was working.
They had me take my phone in and exchange it (temporarily) for another phone. At the store the people asked if I had a "1X" when I had data, which I had. They said that this meant I was no longer using 3G, so I was essentially making a phone call every time my phone used data. Hence, incoming calls went to voicemail.
When I took the new phone home it lacked data.
My father-in-law couldn't get data there.
My friend (the IT guy) couldn't get data there.
After many phone calls and several "oh we found a problem, please restart you phone" routines they finally said that my area was not listed being in their 3G coverage zone.
As long as I was able to get service they considered their contract fulfilled and I was out of luck.
So basically, I signed up for a 2 year contract with unlimited data ($30 more a month for unlimited data), it worked great for 10 months, then "Sorry, you're out of luck."
They would not let me cancel the contract without charging a $250 cancellation fee (I pay $90 per month). I mean, nobody else has data coverage here but at least if I went with another company I could have data pretty much everywhere else.
Anyway, they considered the case closed.
So I sent a complaint to the FCC.
Last night I got a call from Bluegrass that they wanted to send a technician over to test service at my house.
He has been sitting in his car in front of my house for TWO HOURS now.
Oddly enough, today I have 3G today.
What a coincidence.
I went out there an hour and a half ago and told him I had 3G and he just sort of shrugged and went back to whatever it was he was doing on his phone.
I don't know what he's still doing out there.
My guess is that he's playing Words With Friends.
Anyway... I'll be curious to see having 3G now has anything to do with the weather (a winter storm is ready to hit) or if it's a permanent change.
I need to go shopping, but I don't want to leave the house until this guy is done, as he might have something to tell me.
I have an annoyance where Bluegrass ends their coverage when I get a few miles from my girlfriend's house in the state capital. My phone switches to roaming, and I only get 50MB of roaming data, so I have to budget my data (and look for open WiFi).
In mid-October I quit having any phone-Internet at home.
I called the company and they said they made a change to my account and asked me to reboot my phone. I did, and it worked. I got email.
Well, I noticed that the Internet was slow. Then I noticed that most of my calls were going straight to voicemail.
The problem is, there is no beep or warning. All I get is a green blinking light, so it can be hours before I see the missed call.
I'm self employed, so this lead to some missed working opportunities.
I talked to an operator and she insisted that calls always went straight to voicemail if the phone was using data when they called.
I told her it was not true.
Eventually she discovered that my phone did allow that, but she didn't know why it was working.
They had me take my phone in and exchange it (temporarily) for another phone. At the store the people asked if I had a "1X" when I had data, which I had. They said that this meant I was no longer using 3G, so I was essentially making a phone call every time my phone used data. Hence, incoming calls went to voicemail.
When I took the new phone home it lacked data.
My father-in-law couldn't get data there.
My friend (the IT guy) couldn't get data there.
After many phone calls and several "oh we found a problem, please restart you phone" routines they finally said that my area was not listed being in their 3G coverage zone.
As long as I was able to get service they considered their contract fulfilled and I was out of luck.
So basically, I signed up for a 2 year contract with unlimited data ($30 more a month for unlimited data), it worked great for 10 months, then "Sorry, you're out of luck."
They would not let me cancel the contract without charging a $250 cancellation fee (I pay $90 per month). I mean, nobody else has data coverage here but at least if I went with another company I could have data pretty much everywhere else.
Anyway, they considered the case closed.
So I sent a complaint to the FCC.
Last night I got a call from Bluegrass that they wanted to send a technician over to test service at my house.
He has been sitting in his car in front of my house for TWO HOURS now.
Oddly enough, today I have 3G today.
What a coincidence.
I went out there an hour and a half ago and told him I had 3G and he just sort of shrugged and went back to whatever it was he was doing on his phone.
I don't know what he's still doing out there.
My guess is that he's playing Words With Friends.
Anyway... I'll be curious to see having 3G now has anything to do with the weather (a winter storm is ready to hit) or if it's a permanent change.
I need to go shopping, but I don't want to leave the house until this guy is done, as he might have something to tell me.