Cingular Tops the Charts in Customer Complaints in 2004
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the combined Cingular and AT&T Wireless had the highest number of customer complaints of any U.S. mobile phone carriers in 2004, according to figures released by ConsumerReports.org.
The Consumer Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Communications Commission and obtained reports documenting the complaints received and the carriers to which the complaints referred. They filed the FOIA request as a follow up to a mobile carrier satisfaction survey of the readers of Consumer Reports that was published back in February.
Verizon Wireless did the best of the national wireless carriers in terms of number of complaints per million subscribers, followed by future merger partners Nextel and Sprint.
There is little doubt that Cingular deserves its place as the worst carrier in 2004. The question is how much will they improve in 2005? They are getting toward the end of their GSM 850 and EDGE data network upgrades, and gradually eliminating differences between the Cingular customer experience and that of the former customers of AT&T Wireless. This can only help their future numbers.
People who read Operation Gadget regularly are probably a bit surprised by how the numbers treat Verizon Wireless. This company is being sued by customers who bought the Motorola V710 for use on Verizon only to find that many Bluetooth features of the phone have been locked out. This type of issue probably doesn't fit well in the FCC mobile phone carrier complaint framework.
I don't regret ordering a phone that works on the Cingular network. I think their worst customer service performances are largely behind them. Kathleen has been an AT&T Wireless customer for the last few years, and she hasn't had a bad experience with them either.
Comments
My general opinion of ALL wireless (as well as wired) providers is extremely low. These companies are obviously out to monopolize the market and provide fewer choices for consumers by merging with each other. It's really unfortunate that this environment exists, but I think this is partly why VOIP is taking off so quickly and I'm sure we will eventually have people who are VOIP-only customers as more muni wifi takes off.
I've been with Tmobile now for at least 3 years, maybe 4, and while the service I get now is fine, it was horrible back when I had a Sidekick and was living in DC propper. Tmobile's disregard for its customers based on its marketing targets for the device alienated tons of power-users who could have made the device almost as popular as the Treo, but Tmobile didn't want it to be marketed as a gadget, but rather as a fashion accessory.
I am probably going to be moving my family over to Cingular within the next few months because I will be able to take advantage of EDGE which should at least double my connection speeds. My only big fear is voice quality. My sister, brother-in-lar, and mom in NYC switched to Cingular from Tmobile a month or two ago and when I call them now the voice quality sounds much less clear than when they had Tmobile. It doesn't have that same crisp sound, and sometimes there's clipping that makes a syllable drop out here and there. Very annoying. My other concern is having to sign a contract, and I know Cingular deals with those longer 2-year contracts. My hope is that if we have GSM phones already, can we simply subscribe without signing a contract? I sure hope so!
Posted by: Levi Wallach | March 29, 2005 2:18 PM
Cingular did not own its own facilities in New York City prior to the AT&T Wireless acquisition. They were using GSM capacity leased from T-Mobile and I think Cingular TDMA customers had to roam on AT&T Wireless.
I suspect that the problems your family have experienced will be improved over the near future if their handsets can work with the new GSM 850 network. If they are GSM 900/1900 or TDMA customers, I doubt there will be much improvement.
Dave Aiello
Operation Gadget
Posted by: Dave Aiello | March 30, 2005 7:29 AM