After All That Fuss, AT&T No Longer Claiming It Has The Fewest Dropped Calls (Perhaps Because It Doesn't)
from the why-let-facts-get-in-the-way dept
We've joked about ever mobile operator claiming it has the "best" network in some way or another, with each using slightly different descriptions to explain how their's is the best. Sprint and Cingular apparently got into a legal spat about the whole thing, with Cingular wanting the courts to say that claiming it had "the fewest dropped calls" is accurate. Eventually, the Better Business Bureau had to weigh in on which silly marketing claims Cingular could use. The latest, however, is that following all of this legal positioning, AT&T (the rebranded Cingular) is dropping the ad campaign that claims "the fewest dropped calls" perhaps because it's not a claim that can be substantiated well. A variety of studies have shown AT&T's wireless service ranking pretty low on the reliability scale. That said, the whole "dropped call" thing is becoming less and less of an issue. All of the various mobile operators have greatly improved their networks over the last few years, and dropped calls seem to be increasingly rare on any carrier. Sure, they still happen, but with much lower frequency -- so perhaps AT&T is phasing out the campaign because it's just not a big deal to most people any more.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: mobile operators
Companies: at&t, cingular, sprint
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Re: Pseky Facts
huh? Some of the worst advertising, ever, really. What a terrible angle for them to take. No wonder cell service in the US is so reviled. THEY ALL BLOW.
'fewest dropped calls' - such a negative! "We don't suck as much as our competitors" - the ad agency should be drawn and quartered.
AT&T - "Our shit doesn't stink as much as the next guy (but it STILL stinks - a lot!)"
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Abbadabba networks
There are no funeral homes that advertise the "fewest dropped caskets of any funeral home in the industry", though insiders tell me it is a rather common occurrence. It takes a good bit of skill to lower those 500-pound loaded caskets into the ground. When are cellular networks going to see themselves buried and tumbling out of caskets anyway?
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no dropped calls?
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Re: no dropped calls?
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Drop this...
Everytime I go to dial, I get a fast busy, or Connection Error. I even had to drive to a Pay phone, those are hard to find, to Call 911 becuase my Cell phone wouldn't, and I had 5 bars of single, I kept gettin Connection Error.
Plus, I get voice mails three days later from when they were left, and I have checked my messages many times in between..... And Text Messages, I had to have them Block all Text messages inbound and outbound becuase of the new charges for just receiving them, thats rediculous.
I figured with the amount that I complain, when I can make a call, they would just drop me like so many others that have complained.
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You could just ask
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Re: You could just ask
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Thay all drop calls frequently..
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Pitiful
That said, I don't have many dropped calls and didn't way back with the "original" AT&T either (the joy of not living in the sticks I guess).
Add all that up, and I think that if the "best" thing about your company (the thing the corporation is going to spend advertising dollars on) is "fewest dropped calls" then you have significate problems.
P.S. My post is obviously the best on Tech Dirt as it has the fewest dropped capitals.
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Re: Pitiful
No kidding. Maybe rather then trying to trick people into signing up, they could work on not pissing off the customers they already have.
I'm to the point where I know I hate AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile... so now I'm giving Helio a try. The most sad thing about my experiment so far, Helio seems to have better customer service and nicer people (most of whom seem to speak English).
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Re: Re: Pitiful
I always get good phone support at Verizon tho. That is ONE area where they really excel (from my experience anyway). Always pretty easy to get a human and while they seem to be from a part of America where english has been spoken badly for ages, I always get someone from the States on the line.
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Re: Pitiful
I guess 15 minutes (10mi) NORTH of downtown Los Angeles is what you call living in the sticks?
FYI, most dropped calls come from METRO areas... you know, the areas where everything is made out of concrete and it's close to impossible to find a spot to park the car (ahem, I mean SUV)
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RE: They all drop calls frequently.....
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Re: RE: They all drop calls frequently.....
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Re: Re: RE: They all drop calls frequently.....
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It all depends
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Worst hand-off in my experience...
Whatever it is, it sucks.
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Dropped spam...
To stop someone from texting you, most providers have a spam filter you can use online. It helps to find out what provider the number is from by the Area code and the Exchange (npa/nxx) numbers and the block their number @ whatever carrier. "theirnumber@Vtext.com, theirnumber@tmomail.net and others" That stops spam from my end although I know not all carriers offer online spam filters but they should. If it's a company like Jamster, reply with the word STOP and see if that helps.
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T-Mobile
The worst I can complain about is that there are two dead spots when I'm driving home. And about every 6 months or so something goes a little loopy and I have trouble for one night at my house.
They called me up one day and said because I'm a "valued customer" they were giving me an extra 100 minutes every month (whatever, but I still get the extra 100 four years later). And whenever I've had a problem with my phone, they've fixed it at no cost to me.
Sure, I get the occasional dropped call but I'm guessing it's no more or less than anyone else AND I have no way of knowing whether it's my service or the other person's service.
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Dislike
I constantly experience dropped calls or dead time. I watch my bars dance from a red line to 5 green without moving my phone.
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This is just not true at all, especially with AT&T. My company pulled out of AT&T service and we got Verizon Blackberry now.
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Not many drops but...
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I know how Cingular/AT&T could claim
Most of my family uses Cingular because AT&T (the old one, not the current joke that just took the name for better brand recognition) was the only carrier that gave acceptable coverage up around where my grandfather lived until he died in '01. When Cingular bought them up, I started making a fuss, and after some drama with my father being a moron and extending *my* contract instead of his (hooray for my moronic parent having control of my cell phone bill because I didn't have established credit yet), I eventually bailed and went to T-mobile. I've been happy since, gotten nothing but good service, and most everywhere I have reception problems, people on other carriers do too.
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I always hear about the dropped calls from family and friends on AT&T here - I'm on Verizon and don't suffer them nearly as much...
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Oh, and btw, in my neck of the woods, we have Alltel, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile (no local Verizon). Oh, and Unicel, which is a conglomerate made up of oldies like Cellular One and Cellular 2000, among others (their coverage stinks and so do their plans). I know for a fact that AT&T hardly works in the main building where I work, especially in the basement. All the corporate cell phones are on Sprint, which is running local advertisements CLAIMING to have the strongest coverage in town, but even Sprint barely works in the basement areas, and I only get one bar, maybe two at best at my apartment, which is also in town.
My Alltel phone, on the other hand, rarely drops below three bars of signal, even in basements and elevators, at least around here. Oh, and rural coverage is very strong too, which is one of the biggest selling points of Alltel. Most of the other big guys stink at rural coverage.
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The Fewest Dropped Calls ?
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Re: The Fewest Dropped Calls ?
They think that getting 10 million new customers a year (but they won't mention that they lost 7 million angry customers) is better than only getting 6 million new customers (and only losing 1 million). It's all about "growth".
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Sprint...
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Dropping
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Cingular vs AT&T
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my att phone no longer works
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At&t Number One
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