Why Won't Wireless Carriers Admit Coverage Problems?

Does Admission of Guilt = Class Action Lawsuits?

There can be several reasons why wireless carriers may be hesitant to openly admit problems with their network coverage or services:

Is Apple Creating Bugs To Trick People Into Buying New Phones?

When Will Congress & EU Investigate Apple for Antitrust Issues About Purposely Creating Bugs to Trick People Into Buying New iPhones?

Have you ever asked yourself why your iphone keeps crashing every October or November before the Christmas shopping season?   I think this coincidence of this annual phenomenon is actually done on purpose by Apple secretly to trick people into thinking that they need to buy new phones.  

Apple has created an amazing business through planned obsolescence but ever since Steve Jobs passed away they have not innovated enough that would entice most frugal people enough into buying the latest new iphones.   I think Apple knows this and is not purposely creating bugs in the iOS operating system to make people think their phone is defective.   If the truth was ever was to be investigated and discovered I think this could destroy about half of the companies market capitalization.  Watch Apple's stock if you ever start to hear about an investigation like this.  

If you understand the software business it is not hard to imagine why Apple wouldn't purposely create bugs in their operating system to trick people into thinking their phone is now defective.  Everyone I talk with who owns an iPhone thinks they need to buy the latest iPhone hardware in order for their phones to continue working.  

The Android World is much difference and Google does a much better job of releasing updates and that are consistent with the phone hardware.  You can use an Android phone for many years after a phone is released.  However, older iPhones seem to get bloated with worthless software and bugs that seem to crash and clutter phones with things you really don't need.  

Another thing that Android does is allow you to offload photos to Google Photos easily for minimal costs and doesn't scam you into thinking you need to buy iCloud storage to backup.  This is such a scam by Apple.  If you are a sophisticated iPhone user having Google Photos backup and remove all of your photos is essential so you don't have to use Apple's worthless iCloud storage.  

Would love some Apple supporters to comment on this below.  

Consumer Reports Cell Service Ratings by City

Does this Consumer Reports survey of 66,000 people have any credibility for a cell phone service shopper? This survey represents a narrow demographic of respondents. Even Consumer Reports states their “Findings might not reflect the general U.S. population.” Also, it is indeed a survey and does not contain any empirical testing of the type that has made Consumer Reports the respected entity it is today.

But the main reason these results are not meaningful, or fair for that matter, is the lack of information regarding smartphone users vs. old school phone users, broken down by the wireless provider being rated. Why is this important? Smartphones demand a much higher quality of service and bandwidth to operate. Even Consumer Reports implies that users who use their wireless devices primarily for talking and texting (non smartphone customers) are easier to please than those who have smartphones, who require more demanding tasks such as web surfing and watching videos.

Consumer Reports does not provide any data as to which providers in the survey were rated by smartphone subscribers vs. non smartphone subscribers. Thus, their results are comparing apples-to-oranges. For example, is it meaningful or fair to compare Provider A who, for example, was rated by customers who primarily use smartphones vs. Provider B, who was rated by customers who primarily use non smartphones? I think not.

Based on my years of running this web site, I can conclude that some wireless providers have a larger percentage of smartphone subscribers than others. These smartphone subscribers are, by nature, sophisticated, demanding and particular. Other providers have a larger percentage of non smartphone subscribers who are typically lower paying, less sophisticated customers who are happy with status quo and using older phones. These customers, of course, would be happier with their service.

My take? Consumer Reports should divulge the percentage of smartphone and non smartphones subs rating each wireless provider. This key information would allow readers to make fair and meaningful comparisons.

Deadcellzones.com surveys an audience of similar size of 60,000 but does so on a monthly basis. Thus we survey an audience that is 10 times larger than consumer reports. DCZ also provide searchable maps with very specific geographic information about coverage problems. Ask yourself which is more useful as a consumer shopping for service in your area?

Taxes on Your Cell Phone Bill

Consumers are paying an average of $7.67 per month on their cell phone bill taxes per month.  Did you know that cell phone state tax rates range from 5% to 20% per month depending on where your cell phone bill is sent?  That is approximately $92 per year for the average cell phone bill which is $47.21 per month.  All together US consumers per $26,875,860,000 in total taxes from mobile phone customer each each by AT&T and Verizon.  No wonder AT&T and Verizon are the largest donors to Congress because it appears that its one big ponzi scheme.  We look for companies like Google to come into the market in the near future and provide advertising supported wireless to disrupt this telecom corruption and tax on consumers.   See the tax map provided by the TaxFoundation.org.  

Related Stories:
AT&T Steals $1 Billion from Customers in Illegal Taxes
Verizon Steals $93.5M From Taxpayers with Fake Surcharges & Taxes

Cell Phone State Tax Rates Are Ridiculous

Americans are now being paying an average of 16.26% tax on monthly cell phone bill.  Depending on the state that number can shoot up as high as 23.69%.  Each month, the talking tax is silently imposing on America's wireless customers, and unless legislative action is taken the rates go go even higher.  The highest states are Nebraska, Washington, New York, Florida and Illinois.  All the more reasons to start using free wireless whenever possible and dump your data plans because Wi-Fi competes with 4G LTE.  On top of these ridiculously expensive tax rates AT&T & Verizon are the most expensive carriers by far compared with wireless carriers around the world.  Not only do you pay high taxes each month but your data plans are funding two of the highest paying dividend companies on Wall Street.  See the tax map provided by the TaxFoundation.org.  

How to Avoid Early Termination Fees

Buy your phone outright without any subsidy and unlock it. It's that simple! However, if you are already in a contract and need some help read these two posts that will help you get some ideas on how to get out of a contract & how to drop early termination fees if you already purchased the phone.

Savvy smartphone users are among the most likely to leave their current carrier. According to a recent survey, 31% of U.S. consumers are ready to switch wireless providers. Some may even want to dump their carriers entirely and use their Gmail, Google Voice services in the cloud for almost free. Early termination fees are rising and carrier loyalty is fragile at best. Prior to the rise of smartphones, carrier loyalty has been tied more to network coverage and for many it still is. Consumers don’t want to worry about signal strength or proximity to a cellular tower in order to use a phone in their home or at the office.

The carriers realize that customer loyalty is not what it used to be in this age of cloud computing and Wi-Fi VoIP. So what do they do to keep their customers? Make you think they have been upgrading their networks with faster data services and new cloud syncing services. Now that smartphones are available on all the major U.S. carriers contracts or hand-cuffs have become the discussion more than the service. The carriers have answered this with higher termination fees.

Verizon was first this year, doubling the cost to get out of a contract from $350 from $175 on smartphones. AT&T followed suit by boosting its termination fee to $325, adding a higher exit barrier for consumers who want to leave the carrier. Increased upfront hardware subsidy costs at the time of purchase are the excuses given to the media but that is a lie since phone prices from the manufacture have actually decreased not doubled.

My advice to carriers if they want to keep their customers happy is pretty simple. Don’t raise the barriers for customers to leave your network by increasing termination costs. Why not let your service speak for itself by providing better coverage at a reasonable price. Consumers are becoming more phone savvy all the time and they can solve most of the problems themselves with WiFi.

Related Posts:
Customer Churn: Coverage vs.Contracts

Rural Wireless Carriers Have Better Coverage

Rural Carrier Trade-offs:  Great Coverage or Great Devices?

Rural wireless operators continue to face a number of challenges in their daily quest to remain viable options for consumers increasingly bombarded with advertising and promotions from nationwide operators AT&T, Verizon, Sprint & T-Mobile.  These operators that spend billions of dollars on marketing each year and in the case of the nation’s two largest operators are increasingly dominating the market.

There are approximately 160+ rural carriers who are constantly trying differentiate their local coverage and better customer service against the larger carriers. However, these carriers are at a huge disadvantage not having access to the hotest devices like Apple's iPhone and iPad, which often results with customs not staying with the local carrier and get inferior coverage. Most customers choose a wireless service that provides good local service, but if a rural carrier doesn't have the latest hardware device offerings it’s hard to compete. Many people are willing to stay with local smaller companies even if they are not using brand name handsets.

Rural carriers have been battling handset exclusivity issues for many years and try to offer compelling alternative devices to remain competitive.  Some smaller carriers have had luck negotiating access with large hardware manufacturers, but there is more needed to be done.

90% of all new postpaid customer growth in 2009, or roughly 9 million customers, were signed up by either Verizon Wireless or AT&T Mobility. And that even the smallest of the nationwide operators, T-Mobile USA Inc., was more than five times larger than the largest rural provider – U.S. Cellular Corp.

Related Article:
Rural Wireless Customers Have Fewer Choices

The Wiki for Cell Phone Coverage Complaints

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia also started in 2001, has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. The content of Wikipedia is free, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a "wiki", which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Dead cell zones operate under the same "wiki" principles however it uses a database to easily contribute and search for information.