Secret Network Outage at SprintPCS - Houston, TX 5/27/04

So last evening at 7 PM, I'm basically unable to make calls, getting
"Network Busy" 9 out of 10 times. I finally call *2, but am told "Wait
time of over 15 minutes", so I wait and called in at 6 AM Friday when
the wait time is less. And I get a different story from every CSR,
either "Call Processing" difficulties for all of Houston, TX; or a
"scheduled maintenance at 10 PM", "but maybe it started earlier". DUH -
I had problems at 7 PM. Maybe they had problems at 6 or 7, and then
scheduled a maintenance??? Impossible to know, Sprint refuses to tell
you.

They apologized and said "Well we do schedule maintenance over night",
and I replied and say to all of you: "Fine but 10 PM is not over night,
and 7 PM certainly isn't; and where can I find it posted: the scheduled
maintenance?", only to be greeted by stunned silence. Sprint will
(as it's allowed to) - schedule maintenance, but there is apparently no
way for you to know about it. That might be customer friendly. Thats why
I say its SECRET.

I asked if I was entitled to a CREDIT since I had no Network available
to me, and was given (eventually) a 1 day's credit, but was also offered
an alternative free 60 minutes. However it shows as a "Courtesy Credit",
not a "Network Outage Credit", so auditors can be misled.

At least I'm pleased to learn its the Network (maybe even in Cambridge,
Mass with a 2 year old phone) and not my phone. Maybe the number of
dropped calls will decrease after the maintenance, or was the
maintenance only because of call processing issues earlier in the day?
Sprint will never say.

(I should have listened to my own counsel, as I previously posted,
sudden changes in ability to make or receive calls is usually a Network
Issue, not requiring trips to a SprintPCS store to wait on line to not
receive a firmware upgrade).

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› See More: Secret Network Outage at SprintPCS - Houston, TX 5/27/04

"Røbert M." <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> So last evening at 7 PM, I'm basically unable to make calls, getting
> "Network Busy" 9 out of 10 times. I finally call *2, but am told "Wait
> time of over 15 minutes", so I wait and called in at 6 AM Friday when
> the wait time is less. And I get a different story from every CSR,
> either "Call Processing" difficulties for all of Houston, TX; or a
> "scheduled maintenance at 10 PM", "but maybe it started earlier". DUH -
> I had problems at 7 PM. Maybe they had problems at 6 or 7, and then
> scheduled a maintenance??? Impossible to know, Sprint refuses to tell
> you.
>
> They apologized and said "Well we do schedule maintenance over night",
> and I replied and say to all of you: "Fine but 10 PM is not over night,
> and 7 PM certainly isn't; and where can I find it posted: the scheduled
> maintenance?", only to be greeted by stunned silence. Sprint will
> (as it's allowed to) - schedule maintenance, but there is apparently no
> way for you to know about it. That might be customer friendly. Thats why
> I say its SECRET.
>
> I asked if I was entitled to a CREDIT since I had no Network available
> to me, and was given (eventually) a 1 day's credit, but was also offered
> an alternative free 60 minutes. However it shows as a "Courtesy Credit",
> not a "Network Outage Credit", so auditors can be misled.
>
> At least I'm pleased to learn its the Network (maybe even in Cambridge,
> Mass with a 2 year old phone) and not my phone. Maybe the number of
> dropped calls will decrease after the maintenance, or was the
> maintenance only because of call processing issues earlier in the day?
> Sprint will never say.
>
> (I should have listened to my own counsel, as I previously posted,
> sudden changes in ability to make or receive calls is usually a Network
> Issue, not requiring trips to a SprintPCS store to wait on line to not
> receive a firmware upgrade).

Please point me to a single cellular site that does this.