Yee-haw. CONSUMERMAN just did battle with Cingular, and
found that, contrary to appearances, they *do* have some
people who understand service. Particularly that the money
in the cell business is in the service, *not* the telephone..
One thing about Fry's that torqued me was that they were (as
is apparently usual for retailers) so deeply in bed with Sprint
PCS that you could not buy any cellular unit that Sprint
did not sell themselves.
Bah. I need to upgrade to a world-phone, and I have had my
eye on the Nokia 8890. Which Cingular currently does not
sell in North Carolina. Cingular Sales basically gave me
five minutes of 'duuuuhhhhh', birdlimed to the canonical
script of 'if we do not sell it, you cannot use it.' Customer
Service, on the other hand, had a very bright chap who *did*
understand that keeping the money rolling in from my account
was more important than selling me a one-time telephone, and
managed to do the research to learn that yes, an 8890 bought
elsewhere would work in my area, and here is what I would need
to do. He spelt it all out (e.g., my current SIM card will
work, but I *should* upgrade to a newer one, here is how;
after obtaining the new phone, it needs to be provisioned in
the Cingular system, and here is how and how long it is likely
to take; ..)
So, nu: now to find a place to purchase a Nokia 8890 without
any concomitant service agreement. And maybe hear remarks
from the flatware drawer about what is good/bad about the
8890. (hint, hint)
-- #ken P-)}Ken Coar <http://Golux.Com/coar/> Apache Software Foundation <http://www.apache.org/> "Apache Server for Dummies" <http://Apache-Server.Com/> "Apache Server Unleashed" <http://ApacheUnleashed.Com/>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:26:02 PDT