Not Much To Call Home About...
Written: Jun 08 '01 (Updated Jun 08 '01)
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Pros: Nationwide Service, simple national plans, AT&T name
Cons: Coverage not available in all areas, customer service hit and miss
The Bottom Line: Relying on their name more than the quality of their service, AT&T's cell phone plan was adequate but disappointing for limited nationwide coverage and poor customer service.
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| varaonaid's Full Review: AT&T Mobile Phone Service in Washington/Baltimore |
I signed up for AT&T Wireless Digital One Rate plan about 15 months ago. My husband and I travel A LOT and I needed a cell phone plan that was up to the task. This gave me 300 Anytime minutes, nationwide, with no roaming or long distance charges for $59.99 per month. My first trip was to the Midwest to visit family and I had problems right from the start. My phone wouldn't roam. I tried and tried but it would never connect to AT&T just to what ever local cell carrier was in the area. The error message always asked for a credit card to place the call. After much annoyance and tracking down of customer service, they tell me that when they sold me the phone the just forgot to download all the programming for roaming. Their solution - just drive to the nearest AT&T service area and stay there for a couple of hours until the programming automatically downloads into my phone(until then, it's completely unusable). Unfortunately, the nearest area is 3 hours away! When I explained that I would be unable to do this for another couple of weeks they finally gave me a credit for all the time that I was unable to use the phone. Not great, but I felt satisfied that they had tried to make it right.
The problem is, in all my travel, I haven't found AT&T to have good coverage. Customer Service says they have 99% of the nation covered but I just don't believe it. Only last week, I was in the Champaign, IL (a university town with approx. 100,000 people in the metro area) and I couldn't place a call at all. Not even to customer service.
When I'm in an actual AT&T area (very large Metro cities, usually), coverage is fine. All the features (Call ID, Call waiting, etc.) work in digital markets. But be aware that you will still hit pockets with no reception at all, even in an AT&T area. When I asked customer service about this, they just told me to drive around the city for awhile and try to pick up one of their cell towers! (like I don't have anything better to do) It doesn't give you much peace of mind.
One thing to beware of. If you are on a nationwide plan it takes awhile sometimes for the other cell phone companies to bill AT&T for your usage while in their area. THE MINUTES GO ON THE MONTH THEY ARE RECEIVED BY AT&T NOT THE MONTH THAT THEY WERE USED! I was unaware of this and one such month 2 weeks of call time were received late and applied to the next month. My bill went from $59.99 to $235 that month. ZOWIE!! When I called customer service about this I was treated worse that I have ever been by any company in my life. No exaggeration. They are completely inflexible about this issue.
AT&T does offer calling capabilities in Canada. The service is much the same up there as it is in the US. In fact, at times it was better. Be aware, though, there is a surcharge for Canadian roaming (either per minute or a $19.95 flat per month rate to include Canada as part of your home calling area on a Digital OneRate plan).
Text messaging is included in the OneRate plan but no offers for web at this time (that I know about). The price now has changed to 450 anytime minutes (no roaming/long distance) for $59.99. I recently saw very good offers from Verizon for more minutes and a better nationwide plan. I'm out of my contract with AT&T but before I went to Verizon I thought I'd call and see if AT&T could come up with something comparable. When I asked the service rep if they had any nationwide offers to compete with Verizon, it was a flat no. I tried to explain why I was asking about this - that I would try to stay with AT&T - but no dice. They wouldn't renegotiate my contract.
So, as of this week, I'm a Verizon customer.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 59.99
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Epinions.com ID:
varaonaid
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Location: New England
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 0 members
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