Hello Cell Phone Service Providers:
I am making this call (hopefully it doesn’t drop before I can finish what I have to say) on behalf of the thousands of us who are your customers asking for an improvement in the cell phone services we are currently receiving. We have been experiencing dropped calls, no calls, delayed texts, and/or no service across the territory for many months now, and it seems to be on a steady decline with system upgrades. The excuses that our issues are being caused either by our phone or our SIM card are no longer valid.
We remember when the networks first launched. Service was on point and complaints were promptly addressed because you wanted our business. Now things seem to have fallen off while profits continue to roll in because we must make five calls to finish a conversation. Frustration does not begin to describe what we have been putting up with. Samsung Galaxys and iPhones are only as good as the network they are connected to, so stop telling us to power the phones off and on.
US experience
When I worked as a radio-frequency design engineer with one of the top cell phone companies in the United States, we had a team of performance engineers whose daily focus was on troubleshooting the network to ensure customers received the best quality service possible. They checked into customer complaints whether it was one person or ten. They also received daily system reports that showed statistics for problems like dropped calls. I’m willing to bet my phone that these reports are available on the high-tech LTE systems now in place that would facilitate proactive, and not reactive, maintenance of the systems. I believe you guys can do much better than what is seemingly in place. We know anything manmade can malfunction, and this is even more reason a maintenance plan is imperative. Everything including the radios, antennas and frequency interference can create a problem and needs to be monitored regularly. Let’s not adopt the public-sector policy of minimal/no maintenance and allow millions of dollars of investment to run down.
‘Holes’ in service
One major pet peeve I have is the “holes” in the services area along a major highway. For example, I drop calls consistently from Havers to Towers and also while at home. We are weary now of complaining, and it needs to be rectified. And if there is an issue that can’t be fixed unless another tower is put in place, we need to know that too. For communication companies, you are not communicating effectively. When we press the buttons on our phones, we expect service to be available 24 hours a day unless there is a system outage or maintenance work is being done. We expect premium service for the premium prices we are paying and we would like to start receiving value for our hard-earned money. With increases in taxes these days, remember cell phones are discretionary spending and might get cut from our personal budgets, but that’s another story for another day. All we, your valuable clients, would like, is to continue to flow with the bigger, better networks as our phone use is life unlimited.
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