Browsing Tag: verizon

    Miscellany

    Consumer Reports: Cell Phone Service Ratings

    November 30, 2009

    I tweeted earlier today about the wireless provider ratings that are in the new issue of Consumer Reports, and that tweet provoked a lot of discussion about customer service, dropped calls, coverage areas, etc.

    So at the risk of violating the terms of my CR subscription, here’s the chart showing the factors that CR used in making its ratings. You should be able to click the image to see a larger version.

    cell-co-ratings

    CR tested the four companies in 26 US cities, and Verizon was rated best in all 26. And this is why, when the iPhone is no longer just an AT&T device, I plan to switch to Verizon.

    More discussion on Techmeme.

    Miscellany

    Verizon: You are Craptacular

    September 1, 2009

    Verizon: I doubt itVerizon is most certainly not amping up my Internet experience.

    I’ve been having DSL problems for a couple months now; the connection just randomly drops. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evenings … sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes for as many as 30 minutes. It’s beyond frustrating, and makes working from home extremely difficult.

    Verizon sent a guy out in July, and all he managed to do was disconnect the phone line connected to our 2nd DirecTV receiver so it hasn’t been able to send a signal to the mothership since then.

    They were supposed to have a guy out again at noon today, but Kelly in dispatch called at 10 am to let me know that they mistakenly scheduled him for four appointments at noon, and he’d be delayed. Then she called back at 3 pm to tell me he can’t make it at all today because they only have two techs in this area, and they scheduled 30 appointments for the two guys just today.

    Now I get to sit around between 8 am and noon tomorrow waiting for the next twist in this cruel story.

    Update, September 2: The next cruel twist was that Verizon never showed up today — not between 8 am and Noon, not after Noon, not at all. And they never called, either. KMA, Verizon.

    Update, September 3: Internet connection was down at least 20 times today that I know of, and probably more since I didn’t spend every waking moment in my office. Sometimes it would go down for 5-10 seconds, others for 5-10 minutes. Extremely frustrating. OWT has been very helpful, and submitted another tech support job ticket to Verizon on my behalf. This is the 6th ticket so far this summer, and so far no answers from Verizon. OWT thinks Verizon might send someone out tomorrow to see what’s wrong.

    Update, September 4: It probably goes without saying that Verizon never showed up today, nor did they call about yesterday’s support request. The Friday before Labor Day weekend? Yeah, good luck getting Verizon to care.