WOW! A response to the CellularOne post

Okay, so I sent a copy of that last blog post on CellularOne to Jonathan Foxman, the CEO of CellularOne. A quick Google search and he showed up really easily, so I figured - why not? The feedback might be valuable to him.

At the time I sent that message, I never could have imagined what was going to go down next. The COO, the local store manager, and three other people from their management team took me out to lunch today (Famous Dave's, 3 had salads, one had a BBQ chicken sandwich, I had a burger, and I forgot the last one's meal) saying that they just wanted a chance to talk with a customer. I found this very odd, but I went rather unsure what to expect.

Sure enough, they really just wanted to chat in a friendly way about my experiences. I also found out they had noticed they were late sometimes relying on their phone time but had never really noticed the time was off. Apparently it is now going to be fixed. Yay on that.

They also talked some about their business model, plans, reasons why it is hard (as I noted) to compete in every item with the national carriers - but also that they do very well in others (a fact I certainly wouldn't deny! They're great in a lot of areas regarding their pricing and I don't think there can be any doubt after this that their customer service really does care).

Basically, I think I'm going to end up sticking with these guys. Even if I do have to pay roaming on picture messages the few times I leave the state. There is nowhere else where you will get problems taken care of like they do, and the service and coverage where I am is unbeatable. And I sure am not going to find a way to beat their pricing on my normal, typical month's usage! And for what I save I could sent a LOT of picture messages on a prepaid T-Mobile SIM the occasions I do travel.

So here I am, highly recommending Cellular One. Go in, sign up today. You'll be treated right. And mention that Mark Uhde / 406-314-0362 sent you. I know they have a referral program. I don't know if they'd count it if you just go based on that. I'd recommend them anyways :)

P.S. I am writing this purely of my own free will and for no incentive at all. Just since I know the fact I met with some of their management might seem suspicious, they never asked me to write an update, they never offered me anything for anything. Nothing. Just had lunch with a customer.

Cellular One - On Competition, Marketing, and Most Of All - Network Time's Relation To Billing Fairness

An Introduction

I've been a CellularOne (of Montana, MTPCS) customer for over a year now and have been fairly happy. There are things about them that just make no sense (Alaska and Hawaii aren't included in National and "All of America" plans - and that fact is only noted in the fine print. Given those are popular vacation spots from Montana and they both have native AT&T service (CellularOne's preferred roaming partner in the places I have traveled) that seems to be a way people who don't read the fine print could end up with massive roaming charges that they are not expecting. They really should call them 48-state plans, not national plans.

And then there's the 1 cent/KB data roaming charges. Again, even on national plans. Given the maximum MMS size of 300KB, that means sending or receiving a SINGLE PICTURE MESSAGE while roaming could cost up to $3.00. The average size of a picture message from my phone is 50KB. That's 50 cents per message sent or received roaming! Again, an easy way for someone to find themselves with a far higher bill than expected. The only national data plan is the BlackBerry plan.

But that's not the one that bugs me either. The one that I only realized today is actually a billing issue is the time. CellularOne keeps their network time two minutes behind real time (and outright denies it in an email I sent to them). This has bugged me a ton as it's very annoying and I've put it down to incompetence or laziness.

Today, However...

I realized something. Having the network time two minutes slow is a potential revenue source. It means nights and weekends start two minutes later than what is promised... Instead of 9:00pm nights, it's 9:02pm nights. I confirmed looking at my detailed usage online that the calls get billed as the time shown on the phone, not as real time. Now, imagine people with Verizon or Alltel waiting until 9:01 then calling you... You can see how that's a problem since it's only 8:59 on CellularOne. I haven't paid enough attention to know if CellularOne splits the rate period or would charge the whole call as day minutes, but even an extra day minute or two adds up here and there.

Is it the law? NIST

Fixing the network time would seem to be easy (I've never ran a cell network but it would seem there is no reason you couldn't sync with an NTP (Network Time Protocol) server automatically), and there is a reason that time, like weights and measures, is standardized by the NIST. This standard may (or may not - I am not a lawyer) legally require the correct time to be used for billing since CellularOne advertises free minutes after a certain time, but due to their incorrect network time, your free minutes really start two minutes later.

Not only that, but it is downright annoying. So I would *highly* encourage everyone with CellularOne to call in, complain, don't take "it's right you're imagining it" for an answer - it's not right. This needs fixed, whether it is caused by simple incompetence/laziness or (honestly very unlikely) more sinister reasons.

Oh and while you're at it point out that Alaska and Hawaii are part of this "nation" and part of "America" and they really should call their plans 48-state plans and that 1 cent/KB is extremely high (of course, as a small company, data roaming really could cost them a fortune since they're not in as good of a position to negotiate - but they can do okay with BlackBerry roaming?)...

In Conclusion

It's too bad there have to be little things like these. Because I've never had better technical support, the coverage is great everywhere I need it - including some areas Verizon and Alltel don't cover, and most of the people are really friendly on tech issues (ignoring the time thing since they outright denied that to be true). I'd probably keep CellularOne if they got rid of the data roaming charges, counted AK and HI as part of the US, and fixed their network time.

But as it is - nah, I'm going to AT&T when my contract is up - AT&T should be here by then :)

Mark