American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Report Evaluates ConsumerSatisfaction with Wireless Carriers. T-Mobile and Verizon top ratings, Cingularand Sprint tied at the bottom.

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> The Cingular test was so bogus that even the company that they paid to
> do the test had to issue a statement that disputed Cingular's claims. I
> don't ever recall something like that happening before. Of course,
> technically Cingular never claimed to have the best coverage, they just
> claimed to have the fewest dropped calls, and those are unrelated
> metrics. Remember Sprint's ads claiming the largest all-digital network
> (well yeah, the only all-digital competitor is T-Mobile).
>

I didn't see anything that disputed the claims. What I saw was that they do
not claim to know how Cingular arrived at their conclusions. They are not
saying the conclusions are invalid, just that they don't know how they arrived
at that conclusion. Granted, it looks a little fishy to me, but I am just
commenting on what I have read.

>> If Verizon's reputation were such that it was in contrast to what they claim,
>> then I would consider their results to be problematic, but that is not the
>> case. Their claims are backed up by the fact that customers simply like them
>> the best [at the expense of cash in their wallets].
>
> Everyone agrees that Verizon has already won the debate over who has the
> best network service. Analysts say that Sprint and Cingular should find
> "other, more distinct messages to send to consumers," noting the JD
> Power and Consumer Reports surveys that clearly show Verizon to have the
> best coverage.

I agree. And I don't believe they are reporting on native coverage, but
rather the ability to make a call or use specific features.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

---

› See More: American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Report Evaluates ConsumerSatisfaction with Wireless Carriers. T-Mobile and Verizon top ratings, Cingularand Sprint tied at the bottom.

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

> I am sure you do. So, you discredit most surveys and polls? From a personal
> perspective, I know more people happy with Verizon than the rest.

Yes, and all the unbiased polls and surveys back up you experience.
We're not talking about polls and surveys paid for by the carrier
either, but surveys with a very large sample size, excellent
methodology, and a reputation for honesty. The Consumer Reports poll was
especially well done, with large numbers of responses for each carrier
in each region.

Most people discount surveys that are done by, or paid for by the entity
that does the best in the survey, except when there is independent
corroboration.

> Sprint PCS
> has a few more holes in the system, probably to be expected on PCS (requires a
> denser tower distribution).

In an urban setting it's not an issue, though out in the 'burbs it's
definitely a problem both for T-Mobile and Sprint PCS. I'm always amused
when these carriers show up at a planning commission meeting in my city,
and have to explain why they need towers in areas that the other
carriers don't need them. They have to be careful not to say too much,
because they don't want to let on that the 800 Mhz carriers have much
better coverage, but at the same time they have to state the real
reasons. I wouldn't pay too much attention to it, except that a friend
of mine has been fighting a tower behind his house for years (first it
was a Cingular tower, now it's a T-Mobile tower).

> The GSM carriers tend to have more trouble with
> cutting out and dropped calls, again, this is my experience from people I have
> personally dealt with.

It's inherent in GSM technology to drop calls if the cell you're moving
into has no more capacity. With CDMA, the quality will decrease as the
compression increases. However, at least where I am, the GSM capacity
issues have been solved for at least the last two years. There are still
a lot of coverage issues with GSM in the San Francisco Bay Area, which
is one reason why Cingular has always done so poorly in all the surveys.
I have a Cingular phone on an MVNO, and it's useless in many parts of
the Bay Area that are on the outskirts of cities.

> Verizon offers CDMA, which makes better use of
> available bandwidth, they cover both 800MHz and some 1900MHz as well as own a
> huge base of licensed spectrum (or they have agreements in place), and couple
> that with proper tower saturation and excellent customer support and I have a
> hard time believing that anybody will beat them on quality and satisfaction
> alone.

The bandwidth issue with GSM isn't as bad as it once was, due to CoDecs
that do more compression (at the expense of voice quality).

> The big disclaimer I see with Verizon is cost ... they are notoriously
> expensive, but now I see Cingular has headed in that direction as well.

They are not any more expensive than Cingular or Sprint for most plans.
For me, not only was the base rate the lowest at the time, but there are
many discounts. Also, I have 8:01 p.m. nights, which saves money on
Intra-LATA calls, and that hour is a big help as I can call people back
east at 11:00 p.m. but midnight is a bit late. Up until recently,
Verizon also had holiday off-peak, they were the last carrier to drop
holidays as off-peak hours.

Besides the surveys, look at what has happened to stores that stopped
selling Verizon. Radio Shack's recent problems were directly caused by
the switch from Cingular to Verizon, and the tremendous drop in wireless
sales that resulted. Clearly there are a lot more wireless customers
that understand the difference in quality of service than Radio Shack
banked on.

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
>> If Verizon's reputation were such that it was in contrast to what they claim,
>> then I would consider their results to be problematic, but that is not the
>> case. Their claims are backed up by the fact that customers simply like them
>> the best [at the expense of cash in their wallets].
>
> I think that the portrayal of Verizon as the most expensive network is
> not accurate. First, they have the second lowest ARPU (they had the
> lowest until recently, but Cingular's ARPU is falling faster than
> Verizon's). Second, they have a lot more discount programs. I'm getting
> 20% off my bill, my wife gets 18% off (all the discounts may be one
> reason that their ARPU is so low). Third, if you want prepaid, Verizon's
> MVNO, PagePlus has the best rates and coverage of any prepaid provider.
>

It is accurate in this way. I priced the features I use with all four large
carriers; Verizon, Sprint PCS, Cingular and T-Mobile. Guess who is most
expensive! I have tried reconfiguring to *make it work* and I always come up
with the highest cost from Verizon. Sorry. That is a personal, one man
(family actually) statistic. I challenge others to perform the same exercise
and to do it honestly with no preconcieved outcome.

> If you want gobs or peak minutes, on a poor network, you can use
> T-Mobile, but the pricing for Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint is pretty
> close.

Consider options with teenagers and their ability to suddenly smack you with
large usage ... and you might find that Sprint's F&F plans will be the best
in the business With other carriers, your only option is to pick a plan
and overpay with the trust in your child that you don't get build hundreds of
overage dollars Alright ... I just cited a single example, but I find it a
compelling argument in the price wars.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>>
>>> I don't trust auto-pay and never have, because the
>>> responsibility of paying the proper amount is on the biller and not the payer,
>>> and that to me is a signficant vulnerbility to a system failure or criminal
>>> activity ... or just plain mistakes.
>> You should never do autopay from a checking account of course, but from
>> a credit card you do have enough protection, and it's very convenient.
>
> You *usually* have enough protection. It depends completely on the company.
> Often you are responsible for the first x number of dollars ... or you are not
> responsible for anything after the reported date ... yada yada.

Yes, that's true. And on some of my bills, I don't even bother to open
them. Still, for satellite, and wireless, I use auto-pay, and I haven't
had a problem yet.

> My point though is that they can have a glitch, or a billing error and bill
> you for FAR more than you owe. If you are on auto-pay, that money is taken
> from you and you fight to get it back, usually with a significant wait that
> amounts to a credit on your next bill.

No, the credit card company credits you immediately while they are
investigating. However if you're wrong, you pay interest on the charge
when it's confirmed.

If they make such an error and you get
> a paper bill, then you are not out anything and you can call and get the bill
> fixed BEFORE you pay it.

I'm so honest that when SBC credited my SBC account for $175, but there
was no corresponding charge on my credit card, I called them. I don't
know where the credit came from, and neither did they.

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>That is an inaccurate statement! Per your own posting of cited information,
>>it MAY be subject to non-response bias.
>
> It definitely is "subject" to non-response bias given the small sample size.
> What's unknown is the *amount* of non-response bias.
>

What is know is the amount of non-responses ... not the bias.

>>Further, it should be fairly easy,
>>with other data, to confirm non-response bias, but I have not seen this done.
>
> The only sure way to measure and/or eliminate non-response bias is to compare
> characteristics of response and non-response groups; e.g., by high-response
> interviewing of both groups, a time-consuming and expensive process.
>

Your article indicated clearly methods of doing the comparison. One example
in that article was census information, which doesn't probably apply to this
scenario, but illustrates to you that I read what you posted.

>>A large random sample could very well still be only a couple of percent of
>>customers, remain statistically valid and not suffer non-response bias.
>
> The issue is the response rate, not the size of the sample. The problem of
> non-response bias is associated with low response rates, and can't be
> eliminated just by taking a larger sample.
>
> NON-RESPONSE BIAS
> If you try to survey 100 people, and 40 of them don't respond, those 40
> could be different in some important way from the 60 who did respond.
> That's non-response bias - a problem often ignored in survey research.
> Non-response bias can be estimated by comparing data on the current sample
> with other data (e.g. from a Census) on the same population.
> <http://www.audiencedialogue.org/gloss-data.html>
>

It can be estimated ... the non-response bias was not estimated as you
indicated, just the responses were (and thus the lack of responses), but not
the bias.

> NONRESPONSE BIAS ANALYSES AT THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS
> In surveys with low response rates, non-response bias can be a major
> concern. While it is not always possible to measure the actual bias
> due to non-response, there are different approaches that help
> identify potential sources of non-response bias. In the National
> Center for Education Statistics (NCES), SURVEYS WITH A RESPONSE RATE
> LOWER THAN 70% MUST CONDUCT A NON-RESPONSE BIAS ANALYSIS. This paper
> discusses the different approaches to non-response bias analyses
> using examples from NCES. [emphasis added]
> <http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=11-522-X20010016269>
>

You posted all this already ... thanks for sucking bits. In any event, as I
have indicated over and over, you have not cited non-response bias, simply the
potential for it to exist based on the response pattern. At no point has the
bias been estimated. If it had been estimated you could cite the statistical
populations they compared their data with to estimate bias. Please do so.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

Thomas T. Veldhouse <[email protected]> wrote:
>In alt.cellular.t-mobile Steven M. O'Neill <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Verizon lost me as a customer when they immediately stopped my
>> service when my auto-pay credit card got a new expiration date
>> and I didn't tell them quickly enough.
>
>I am not defending Verizon at all here, but, lesson learned about Autopay.
>[...]

True. I don't use credit cards for auto-pay anymore. But that
doesn't mean Verizon couldn't have handled it better.

>> You'd think they'd call or email first to see what was going on.
>
>I don't think so, although I would think they would give you grace if your
>credit rating is high enough (if your rating is low, I would cut your off
>immediately too).

Exactly. They didn't even wait until the bill's due date. I
have impeccable credit, and always paid my Verizon bills on
time. You'd think Verizon would have valued a customer like
me a little more highly. I'm very happy to not have to deal
with them anymore, as I also recently ditched the land line
altogether.

>> But what really got me steamed is that they had no problem
>> shutting it off instantly, but to get it turned back on required
>> 5 days or some garbage like that.
>
>Yes, that is insane, as you can walk into any store and have it activated
>immediately. So, how did you pay when you reactivated? 5 days sounds like
>the time it takes a check to clear.

I offered to pay with a different credit card immediately, but
when they told me it would take 5 days I told them not to
bother.

--
Steven O'Neill [email protected]
Brooklyn, NY

Somewhere around Thu, 18 May 2006 11:29:10 -0500, while reading
alt.cellular.cingular, I think I thought I saw this post from "Thomas T.
Veldhouse" <[email protected]>:

>In alt.cellular.t-mobile John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:

>> . . .
>> Funny how you criticize only Cingular when Verizon didn't even use a third
>> party for its claims.
>>
>
>Verizon takes pride in how it gathers this information. I once saw on
>television what they do with those trucks. They have several phones hooked up
>in vans which are automated. The driver drives from place to place and they
>check coverage. Simple.
>
As seen on TV. Guess it must be a fact, then.
--
Marty - public.forums (at) gmail (dot) com
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...
well, I have others." - Groucho Marx

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
> Yes, that's true. And on some of my bills, I don't even bother to open
> them. Still, for satellite, and wireless, I use auto-pay, and I haven't
> had a problem yet.
>

Some do. Some do not. Some, like Bank Card Visa, which may be attached to
your checking account, may make it rather difficult.

>> My point though is that they can have a glitch, or a billing error and bill
>> you for FAR more than you owe. If you are on auto-pay, that money is taken
>> from you and you fight to get it back, usually with a significant wait that
>> amounts to a credit on your next bill.
>
> No, the credit card company credits you immediately while they are
> investigating. However if you're wrong, you pay interest on the charge
> when it's confirmed.
>

See above. This is generally the case however, but it is by no means a fact.

> If they make such an error and you get
>> a paper bill, then you are not out anything and you can call and get the bill
>> fixed BEFORE you pay it.
>
> I'm so honest that when SBC credited my SBC account for $175, but there
> was no corresponding charge on my credit card, I called them. I don't
> know where the credit came from, and neither did they.

Good thing you did ... if they had given you that money and discovered it
6-months later, they would have a right to get it back ... a bit of a bummer
if you already spent it and don't have the liquid funds available to pay them
back. I once quit a job and had that employer continue to direct deposit into
my account. It wasn't straightened out until deposit three

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> The GSM carriers tend to have more trouble with
>> cutting out and dropped calls, again, this is my experience from people I have
>> personally dealt with.
>
> It's inherent in GSM technology to drop calls if the cell you're moving
> into has no more capacity. With CDMA, the quality will decrease as the
> compression increases. However, at least where I am, the GSM capacity
> issues have been solved for at least the last two years. There are still
> a lot of coverage issues with GSM in the San Francisco Bay Area, which
> is one reason why Cingular has always done so poorly in all the surveys.
> I have a Cingular phone on an MVNO, and it's useless in many parts of
> the Bay Area that are on the outskirts of cities.
>

CDMA compression doesn't change, the noise increases do to more phone chatter.
It is like walking into a room where there are 20 people talking at the same
time at the same volume. It can be hard to hear what the one person you are
talking to is saying. But, if you remove the other 19 people in the room, you
can hear just fine. Essentially, your choice is to talk louder (not allowed
to boost the power on CDMA phones beyond the required limit (what is it 0.2W?)
or you can move closer (effectively reducing the noise). With GSM ... there
are just 20 cups and 10 pieces of string and each call may use one or more
cups ... so if all the cups are in use at the same time, then the call can not
be initiated ... or if a site handoff is occurring, it may result in a dropped
call.

>> Verizon offers CDMA, which makes better use of
>> available bandwidth, they cover both 800MHz and some 1900MHz as well as own a
>> huge base of licensed spectrum (or they have agreements in place), and couple
>> that with proper tower saturation and excellent customer support and I have a
>> hard time believing that anybody will beat them on quality and satisfaction
>> alone.
>
> The bandwidth issue with GSM isn't as bad as it once was, due to CoDecs
> that do more compression (at the expense of voice quality).

That doesn't change the bandwidth at all, that changes the codec. You can use
the same codecs with CDMA you want.

>
>> The big disclaimer I see with Verizon is cost ... they are notoriously
>> expensive, but now I see Cingular has headed in that direction as well.
>
> They are not any more expensive than Cingular or Sprint for most plans.
> For me, not only was the base rate the lowest at the time, but there are
> many discounts. Also, I have 8:01 p.m. nights, which saves money on
> Intra-LATA calls, and that hour is a big help as I can call people back
> east at 11:00 p.m. but midnight is a bit late. Up until recently,
> Verizon also had holiday off-peak, they were the last carrier to drop
> holidays as off-peak hours.

Check out a previous post of mine on this matter. Most people I have talked
with agree that Verizon costs more, but most that are Verizon customers simply
tell me that "it is worth it". I for one have priced my required features and
Verizon comes up higher than ALL other carriers available to me. I still
intend to move with them at some point in the future if Sprint doesn't start
filling rural holes (meaning in-building coverage). My Verizon counter-part
in the small town I currently work gets coverage fine with Verizon but I am
always at one or zero bars ... requiring the antenna to make clear calls. My
previous employer, the problem was worse and I actually frequently missed
calls while my Verizon counterparts had full bars ... that was in a the large
Twin Cities suburb of Eden Prairie.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
> BTW ... you are clearly a Cingular supporter, absolutely no doubt
> judging by your comments here. I don't advise denying that in the
> future.

Oh, Thomas, that was priceless. A waste of time, but priceless
nonetheless. <g>


--
Mike

SMS wrote:
> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
>> I don't trust auto-pay and never have, because the
>> responsibility of paying the proper amount is on the biller and not
>> the payer,
>> and that to me is a signficant vulnerbility to a system failure or
>> criminal
>> activity ... or just plain mistakes.
>
>
> You should never do autopay from a checking account of course, but from
> a credit card you do have enough protection, and it's very convenient.

Many mortgage companies/banks require auto-draft from checking accounts for mortgage payments (mine
does). I use auto-pay from my credit card for many things, just too darn convenient to not do so.
The only hassle is to update all the auto-pay accounts every few years when the cc expires.

Marty wrote:

> As seen on TV. Guess it must be a fact, then.

It wasn't an advertisement though. There was some news show that was
looking at how the carriers test coverage. It's a very sophisticated
system that automatically makes calls as the van is driving around, and
logs the results (no signal, dropped call, completed call) of all the
phones from all the carriers.

I'm sure that other carriers do something similar, but of course they
don't want to advertise the results!

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

> Consider options with teenagers and their ability to suddenly smack you with
> large usage ... and you might find that Sprint's F&F plans will be the best
> in the business With other carriers, your only option is to pick a plan
> and overpay with the trust in your child that you don't get build hundreds of
> overage dollars Alright ... I just cited a single example, but I find it a
> compelling argument in the price wars.

Good points. Actually I manage my daughters use by telling her that she
has to pay for extra minutes on her PagePlus prepaid phone. It's a phone
to use when necessary--she can have a gabfest with her friends on the
land line. I might have went to a family plan, but I'd lose too much
grandfathered stuff on Verizon if I did that.

Yes, the F&F plan is a very good idea, and I think that it's probably a
net positive in terms of revenue for Sprint. With Verizon, I'd not worry
about going over if the extra minutes were 10 cents each, rather than 40
cents each, giving them a few bucks extra a couple of months a year.

[email protected]lid wrote:

> Many mortgage companies/banks require auto-draft from checking accounts
> for mortgage payments (mine does). I use auto-pay from my credit card
> for many things, just too darn convenient to not do so. The only hassle
> is to update all the auto-pay accounts every few years when the cc expires.

Hmm, I've had many mortgages and never found one that had that
requirement. I remember seeing some mortgage rates from banks that
offered you 1/8 point off for automatic payment, but their rates were so
high to begin with that it was meaningless.

The mortgage company I used did give me 1/4 point for doing
impound-escrow for both property tax and insurance, which was well worth it.

Marty wrote:

> As seen on TV. Guess it must be a fact, then.

Well of course if it were just Verizon saying "we have the best
coverage" then only people with personal experience that backed up that
assertion would likely believe them. In my area, you've got at least
three different very respected surveys that back up that claim (Bay Area
Consumer Checkbook, Consumer Reports, and J.D. Power), and in other
areas at least two. Actually there was a fourth one that came out today,
and even though it also states that Verizon is the best, it wasn't a
very scientific study and some of the other "Best Of" picks were for
truly awful businesses. See
"http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/special_packages/bestinsv/14594148.htm".