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From AT&T to Zoom Mobile, we here at Consumerist have fielded complaints from every domestic mobile carrier we can think of. Additionally, just about every company has been labeled “the worst” by scores of readers. But today, instead of picking on any one carrier, we want to get at the bigger issue of what’s bothering cellphone users in general.
It’s been well over a decade since mobile phone technology began to pop up in the hands of everyday consumers, but the same problems still seem to persist. There are the customer service reps who don’t understand your issue, the constant dropped calls or suddenly snail-like data connections, contracts that keep customers tied to a company they despise, and bills that leave some wallets bare. Then again, some people have no complaints.
Well now you can all have your say in this Consumerist poll:
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Personally, I have an iPhone 3G, and the thing I hate most is its crappy performance. I don’t mean the AT&T network (although it’s not perfect). I mean the phone itself is crappily slow! 10 to 15 seconds, pretty dang often, just to open the messaging app, and get to a point where you can begin typing a text message. Nothing to do with how many conversations, or how many texts are in a conversation… just takes a freakin’ long time. Somehow my old Motorola dumbphone could write texts nigh-instantaneously. =P
That’s definitely not indicative of all the iPhone 3Gs. Mine is really fast. Clear your messages. The fact that the phone has to load all of your messages means it’s going to take a little longer, so clear your text messages and it should speed up significantly.
The lack of true caller ID. In lieu of that I’d love a one-touch Google search button for a phone number I don’t recognize. Hmm…maybe that’s why Apple is building a data center.
Lately my phone has been erasing ALL my texts, including the ones I locked.
What irritates me the most is how delicate my damn phone is. I have an HD2, and I had to order an insurance replacement last night after I messed up my screen. I was putting on a new screen protector & I was trimming the edge with a razor blade(stupid, I know, but I’ve done it before & I figured since the screen is glass it’d be fine) and I accidentally nicked the screen. Now it’s all washed out with vertical lines running through it. It still works, but it’s definitely messed up
Such a far cry from my old phones. I used to have contests with my friends back in the 90s to see who could throw their phone the farthest. I always won, cause I could whip my old Nokia 5120 farther than anyone & still trust that it would work fine afterwards. *sigh* I miss those days :/
I think the poll would be more valuable if it linked the complaint to the company.
I think the poll would be more valuable if it linked the complaint to the company.
I’m happy with mine, so far. I used to be on a family share plan with my dad’s AT&T service, but last week I got my own phone with Metro PCS. It’s $40 a month, unlimited minutes, texting, and web, no contract, and my phone was only $70.
My boyfriend’s smart phone is cool, but I don’t need one for work and I don’t make enough money to justify getting one as a toy. My old phone was so old and outdated that I’m still kind of excited that my new one plays MP3s.
I voted the contract because there was no option for “The phone”
ATT customer service has been great, I get reception and fast connection speeds all over the place but I HATE my iphone. The fact that I have to use crappy software like itunes to put stuff on it and can’t download alternate programs without unlocking it is retarded.
The iPhone misses out on so much functionality that is out there, how about arrow keys for moving around in text, or displaying info on the lock screen, or running flash? Then to get stuff on it I have to have Itunes which doesnt not accept “do not ask me again” as an answer, doesnt recognize half my music (because apparently itunes is too good for flac), has a poor interface for managing large quantities of music and as much as apple wants it to be is not a file manager.
It’s bad when I wish I could get my windows 6.5 mobile phone back because of the crappy interface on the iphone.
I can’t wait until my contract is over so I can get a different phone.
For some unknown reason, I can’t vote.
Network, can you spell EDGE?
My son was here at Christmas and couldn’t access any data service at all. 16 miles away at my mom’s house he could get ‘G’
Cost, which is why I don’t have a cell phone of my own. I do have an ancient cell phone that my mom and I share so I can have something for emergencies. It is turned off 95% of the time.
The fact that everyone expects you to have one too, there should be no reason to oust me from your social circle just because I don’t want to give $100+ per month to the carriers for cell phone service. Heck that is more than half of a car lease payment in some cases (I would prefer to drive over having an expensive phone that will be obsolete in 4 months thank you). I have no problem with people who can afford to pay that much for a phone to decide that is what they want to spend their money on. But for me, its just not something I want to spend huge monthly fees for nor is it something I can comfortably afford.
NAGGERS
I hate that I can barely get a signal and half the time my phone doesn’t ring when someone calls me or when I call my girlfriend.
I really have no issues with T-Mobile. I use a hacked iPhone, which they were more than happy to provide me tech service on despite not even carrying the phone. I never drop calls, and my 1000 minutes, unlimited text & web is only $64/month. They are polite and very helpful everytime I call and don’t leave me on hold for ages.
I’ve been out of contract for quite awhile but will have no problem going back into one to get a G2.
I don’t have a land line, and Cingular built my network, I’m still on a legacy plan (yes, they let me keep my calling plan and just add data), and as a result I’m a perfectly happy AT&T customer.
Maybe I have one, small complaint about the phone itself: I have to go through all of the trouble to unlock it to use it with Telcel (which is not an American company and not AT&T’s competition).
The cost is an easy one…. the only possible explanation for why my cell phone bill has not dropped in half over the last 6 years, is because the cell companies are greedy and are avoiding price competitions….. that, or they are using all my money for building out faster and faster data speeds for what should be a PHONE network.
and seriously? $.20 for a text message? that must really tax your network and cost alot of money to deliver.
I used a pre-paid cell phone during a recent extended stay in Hong Kong. Normally I would never have considered it as an option here, but as it turned out, I loved it. It was much more convenient to just pay for the voice/data that I used and it was much cheaper when compared to my cell plan here in the US. The kicker?!? The speed was faster and I never found myself down to even 1 bar, let alone outside of coverage.
Related to the cost is the plans. I was lucky that I could continue my old service with a new iPhone 4. I would of been happy with a 5 gig cap with tethering with my PC’s. I never blow a 5 gig cap with my usage. 2 gig cap? Yeah, I’ve gotten scary damn close, so no, I don’t want a 2 gig cap even though my usage is under it. You want me on that plan, AT&T? Bump it to 5 gigs and I’ll be glad to share that 5 gigs with my netbook. Otherwise, I’m keeping my old plan until you offer something better for the iPhone 6.
I honestly don’t care about the contract, and I don’t call customer service enough to have a problem with them. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones.
But what I do *hate* is when I buy a phone, and it’s jacked up with all these inane apps that the provider pre-loaded, that you can’t unload, and they cost money *each* *month* if you want to use them.
I switched to prepaid, and so I’ve handily taken care of the cost and the contract. But I still hate using a weak, locked-down phone.
It doesn’t make toast.
That.
Is.
Just.
Wrong.
I have a prepaid thing with Virgin Mobile that has cost me approximately $150 a year ever since I’ve had it. I *LOVE* my phone… My phone was released in 2004, cost me $15, it doesn’t have bells or whistles (although it does have a flashlight!), it’s never dropped a call, I’ve NEVER had an unclear call on it (and I’ve had service since 2004!). It calls and texts. That’s it. I love it and dread the day I have to replace it.
I have Verizon and I’ve never had a problem with them, the phone or billing.
Mine does what I need it to do and for reasonable cost.
My only problem is coverage – I have great coverage everywhere I go except in my office area at work. It’s the ultimate dead-zone.
I would *love* to have a flashlight in my phone.
I want the little ivory toothpick and a saw blade.
Forbid cell phone companies from adding any fees other than state sales tax. The rate advertised should equal the amount paid with no bullshit fine print or mandatory extra fees
I’ve stuck to newegg for my phones for a while now, I currently have the Nokia c6-00 (I’m stuck on Nokia smartphones, I think they’re amazing) and since it came factory unlocked I can pop in my AT&T sim and stay on my $10 data plan while enjoying 3.5G data as well as wi-fi access, free turn by turn navigation..just to name a few awesome features.
What DON’T I like about it?
Honestly I can’t think of anything.
O’ Consumerist, add “crippled phones” as a choice please.
Lack of GSM network coverage in far flung areas, and providers’ habit of crippling the phones are most annoying thing for me as a Tracfone user.
Correction: “Lack of GSM network coverage in far flung areas and crippled phones are the annoying things (as a Tracfone, thus AT&T network, user)”.
They ‘cripple’ Tracfones so that they can’t be bought up cheap, unlocked, and resold–as phone traffickers once did. Really though, you have too many choices to choose from for prepaid service to complain about one brand selling locked-up phones–all of the carriers do it, even with contract phones.
Besides, you have both alternatives on the CDMA, GSM sides to use feature phones from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint (Page Plus, O2 Wireless, Simple Mobile, PlatinumTel come to mind). Hell, even Boost Mobile will let you activate old Nextel phones–so there’s some iDen spectrum for you to use. There’s always alternatives, even in the boonies.
TracFone 1225 minutes left with1016 days of service remaining. Paid $200 for 3000 minutes in December ’09. I blew up my clamshell in June when I reversed polarity on a charger and spent a whopping $30 on a new slider. CS helped me activate and transfer the minutes without a problem. I do prefer the clamshell over the slider and am considering another for $30. Just make sure that the phone comes with double minutes for life. The phone does not work in Canada and if I need to be contacted call the wife’s Blakberry ( which she got on her own and has a horrible contract). Can anyone explain why the contract phones are so much more expensive when the specs are similar to the TracFones?
what annoys me the most is how i cannot upgrade my phone whenever i want to! i have verizon you have to wait every year or 2 to get a new phone for the new phone pricing other wise the gold standard for outright purchase always seems to be over 500. WTF do you care how much i change phones, why restrict me, no one even if your desperate will pay 500 for a phone when they can go on ebay and get one…..you should be happy if i wanted to change my phone twice a year, due to new technology, more money in your pocket…yes i know i can go off ebay, but not to fond of buying cell phones off of them
Dropped calls… no question. We can send hi-res jpgs from Mars, but I can’t drive through an intersection by my kids’ school without losing the call.
Silly me. Based on the title of the article, I thought this poll might actually be about THE PHONE. But no, it’s still the same old questions about the carrier, their policies and infrastructure.
The fact that it is very very difficult to separate the purchase of a handset from the carrier or its authorized agents.
If handset manufacturers could put them in Target and Walmart stores, the prices wouldn’t be so high. But having one narrow channel allows the networks to tightly control their customers through contracts earned with subsidies, and the handset manufacturers get unrealistic retail pricing for their products.
Then, when you’re out of contract, does the subsidized portion drop from your monthly bill? How about when you bring your own device? Nope.
All if it is to disguise the true cost of service by the carriers and avoid having to compete on price.
Because I don’t want to pay for a plan, I have a Tracphone. The thing I hate is that it seems like recently every time I go to send a pic from my phone to my email, it fails. I can have full bars of service, it deducts units of time from my phone to begin the transmission, then I get a “Message Fail-Resend from Outbox” error. They are essentially sucking minutes off my phone for no service. Worst part is, I emailed Tracphone about the problem and my growing frustration/annoyance. What did I get? An email reply giving me instructions on how to send messages/pics from my phone. DUH. I emailed back stating that that was not the issue in question. I get back another email reply – giving me instructions on how to send messages/pics from my phone.
They can have their phone back. In the little pieces that it is going to end up in after I take a sledgehammer to it.
What annoys me most about my mobile phone is the phone itself and my carrier(virgin mobile) doesn’t offer a viable alternative.
This is not on your list.
The network. I’ve already got the phone, so I figure I’m paying for service. Fickle networks (“why did I just lose all my bars?”), dropped calls, terrible (and fickle) lag on data — what am I paying for again? Not reliability apparently. AT&T, I’m talking to you.
You left one obvious possibility out of the poll — the phone itself! There are some great phones out there, and some abominable ones. I own an abominable one.
I hate having to pay way toooooo much for something that is a basic neccessity of everyday life in the 21st century! Argh!
I’ve been super happy with my Sprint plan & phone for the last 4+ years or so. I pay about $26 with taxes, unlimited internet, text & 500 mins, which I never run up on. There a few minor set backs, but for what it’s worth I could not be any happier.
You should have, “Network-specific mobile phones” on the list. I hate owning a piece of hardware that’s locked into one and only one specific network, and I really hate not having any choice in the matter. The hardware and the network should be completely separated.
You should have, “Network-specific mobile phones” on the list. I hate owning a piece of hardware that’s locked into one and only one specific network, and I really hate not having any choice in the matter. The hardware and the network should be completely separated.
Specific places where I consistently have no signal. And I’m not talking about a town, I know specific 100 foot sections of road where signal always drops and returns seconds later.
I was paying $89 a month with verizon, and the mom wasn’t very happy paying that phone bill while I was in school. So, I looked around and actually found one for about half the price with Diverse Mobility. I get unlimited everything for like $45. Which is pretty awesome, because I live on my phone!!
My cell phone is fine. I have a pre-paid T-Mobile Razr and it costs me about $100 every six months. Reception and clarity of calls are great and texting never fails. I don’t need to get online and check emails or the weather because I have a computer at home to do this.
Data plans are over expensive with few options unless your a att customer. Also this 200 or 2gig is crap.. if your going to offer tiering the do it realistically.
more like 500meg = $15, 1gig = $20, 2gig = $30.
Same with Text messaging..
Customers like intelligently designed choices! Not this little bit or everything choice you give us!
I must be crazy. I am happy with my plan and AT&T. I’m not going to be an apologist for them but I’ve been with them since 2001 and have never had an issue. They even helped me out on a few bills when I have been unemployed.
I use an iPhone and use it a lot. So the nearly $100 a month I spend is worth it, to me.
The cost.
I would like to vote 2 more times, the cost of the plan and the contract. I really hope that Google does enable VoIP in their app called Google Voice. Then all you need is a data plan and have unlimited voice minutes, text messages and data.
I guess the only thing that irks me is that we still itemise texts, voice, and data charges. I don’t even mind tiered plans, but it’s all data, transmitted in precisely the same fashion. We don’t use any analog networks anymore, so why do I need a plan for data, and then a plan for data, and then a plan for data? It’s just a machine to nickel-and-dime people. I’ll pay for what I use, but if I never even begin to approach my “minutes” each month, why can’t I just have that count against my allocated data plan?
I used to hate the wireless industry. I was with AT&T for 7 years and I could no longer deal with the dropped calls. Switched to sprint in Jan. 2010, and I no longer have dropped calls, and pay $45 less per month for MORE features!
Ehm, where’s the “crappy software” option? My phone was programmed by monkeys on crack. It has to be the worst software I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t do very many things, but it manages to do everything it does wrong. Fails to ring, fails to send messages, fails to receive messages, fails to save photos, fails to save videos, fails to play music, crashes often. It has infuriated me for two years and I intend to play baseball with it when I finally replace it on Saturday.
Can I say all of it?
The price for what you get is ridiculous. It’s possible to pay as much for internet services on a phone as it is on the computer, yet you can do substantially less considering the speed of the network, the size of the screen involved, and the sites you can visit. Mobile versions of sites remove many of the features. Many sites load improperly or not at all. And even if they do, you can’t see them (I have a BlackBerry).
The fact that I’m forced to sign a contract to obtain your services. Even if my needs change, I don’t have a job, I still have to pay you whether I like it or not, whether I use it or not.
The fact that the reception is quite poor in many areas, and there is no incentive for any of these companies to improve.
If I need to change some thing, I’m forced to renew my contract. When I got my Blackberry in June of 2009, I took a job where I was forced to call people with my personal phone on a regular basis, be in constant contact with people around the state, and respond to e-mails and messages instantly. When I first changed it to unlimited minutes, they could do it in an instant. When I changed back to a much cheaper 1000 minute plan, I had to agree to another 2-year contract, starting over at that date. Bullshit much?
Look at how they all have the same prices. There’s no incentive for any of them to offer any services for less money. To say that there’s no collusion in the wireless industry or price fixing would be beyond naive. When one raises costs, they all do because you as a consumer have no choice. You’re stuck paying their fees.
Whenever this contract ends (December 2011), I think I’m just not paying for a cellphone anymore. I hardly use it all anymore since I left that job, no one calls me anyway, and all the bells and whistles that amused me before don’t really now. Add in the ridiculousness of the state of MD requiring me to buy a headset to use my phone in the car (effective 10/1). I’d rather have the money in my pocket. It’s tempting sometimes to go pay the ETF and just be done with it, at least it was before they raised that racket to $350.