Sprint Provides AWFUL Service, Could Take A Lesson From AT&T

Via The Consumerist:

(Mike Licht)

Melissa couldn't get any reception around her home on her iPhone, despite living only 20 minutes from downtown Chicago. Zero bars. It wasn't just annoying to always miss calls, it was also damaging her rental business. But thanks to a detailed, and snarky, email to the CEO of AT&T, she was able to get the wireless provider to reset its towers and fix the service around her house.
At first AT&T told her the problem was with her phone. All the problems would disappear once she upgraded from her iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4. She did, and they didn't. Then AT&T tried to tell her that it was her car that was interfering with the signal. But she would step out of her car and there would still be low reception. Since she could drive to her parent's remote lake house and have perfect reception, it really seemed like the problem was localized around her home. (If you have a low vulnerability to motion sickness, you can watch this shaky and blurry Flip cam video of Melissa having zero bars inside her house. The text on the screen, referring to the speed of the text messages, says "They go fast inside. Just can't hear you.)
It wasn't until she sent the following email to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson that she got real action:

“

Dear Randall,
I know I said yesterday I would stop with the emails but today was not a good day for me and the iPhone 4. Also I would like to mention that I spoke with Katria this morning. I would like to say that the phone conversation was very pleasant, funny and very, very helpful. Seriously. I really mean that. She was very very helpful.
So here is what's going on today. Maybe this will help your tech's figure out the problem. Maybe there is actually a problem. I still believe it's New York all over again where you had to stop selling them. The Apple store even said that but no one at AT&T will admit that.
Taken in Munster, IN (25 miles from downtown Chicago). These are taken today and the time is CST. This was while sitting in my car outside. Maybe my car is at fault.
Yep, still in Munster IN in my car. Still won't load. Again, maybe it's my cars fault.
Wow, look it loaded finally. And hey, congrats to my brother on getting that barfly badge on yelp. I told him to add it to his resume. It shows commitment and follow through. BTW he posted that to his Facebook yesterday so really no new news. Still in Munster IN.

Still in Munster IN. Still not updated. Still really proud of my brother. BTW he's 25, I remember being 25. Good times.
Wow, have to be connected to a network, that's shocking! Still in Munster IN.

Now please let me explain that the doctor is really not asking her to sample actual shit. It was pills to make her back feel better. I would never recommend a doctor that makes you sample that. Back in my home town of Whiting IN.
Also had a great call with my lawyer today at 12:29pm again I believe maybe Munster or Highland IN. They couldn't hear me. BTW lawsuit has nothing to do with you. I was injured. I'm not suing. Just want my phone to work. Anyway, again, another important phone call while driving and THEY COULDN'T HEAR ME!
Also Randall, My cousin Amy who is not taking the what we talked about before came over last night and we put our iPhones side by side. She had sent me a text message that never came through. I was unable to take a picture of this. I'm going to suggest to Apple that their next new iPhone model can connect two of them together and some how take a picture. Randall, I suggest if they do make this product you only sell it on the moon. I believe they may have good reception there.
So here we go again. Another day, more lost calls and texts. But I just want you to know I sleep good at night that I upgraded and you got that money and I added internet to my second line and you get that money. I really really really hope you spend it on jet fuel to get around. That would mean a lot to me.
All My Love,
UNSATISFIED AT&T USER
Melissa

”

After she sent this out, AT&T called her to tell her the information in it had helped them diagnose the problem. They were going to reset several towers in her area. Melissa noticed a change. She had more than one bar on her phone and people were able to hear and understand what she said in phone conversations. Amazing! AT&T also credited her $79.99 for her troubles.

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38 Comments

via consumerist.com

Interesting. I'm having a very similar problem with Sprint, and they have been unresponsive, failed to meet commitments to even call me back, and have ignored a score of e mails like this lady sent. I wonder if the people at Sprint even care about customer service. I have the private emails of most of their top execs, including CEO Dan Hesse, but NONE of them have ever written back. Sure doesn't seem like it. And yes, The Consumerist has copies of all my emails and calls. 

SO here's the question: Should I post all the e mails and legally recorded phone calls I've had with Sprint? The call where the dude I'm talking with freaks out when I inform him the call is being recorded and read him the Missouri and FCC laws about recording calls is worth the price of admission alone. Classic corporate meltdown. 

What do YOU think?

Posted via email from Mark Edwards 3.0

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Is Local Radio Dead? In Some Ways It Is, But Owners Don't Know It Yet

via followthemedia.com

I came across a post on LockerGnome, Chris Pirillo's website about all things tech and geek (and I say that in only a good way) posted by Matt Ryan that asked if local radio was dead.  Chris's conclusion on a video that was part of the post was that it was but it just doesn't know it yet, and it got me to thinking about the industry I've been involved with for most of my life, its past, and most importantly its future.

According to the ratings service Arbitron, local radio reaches 93 percent of Americans 12 years and older in the average week.   I certainly have had my disagreements with Arbitron over the years, especially since they've introduced the PPM as the way to measure radio listening, but I do believe that local over the air radio still touches almost everyone almost on a daily basis.

For now.

The PPM, or Personal People Meter, is a means to electronically measure what listeners are hearing and it has forced many broadcasters to drastically change the way they program their stations so they are more "PPM Friendly".  That means stations have had to move commercial breaks to "better play the PPM game", tell talented Air Personalities to cut down the amount of talk they do on the air, and make it easier to import generic programming to local stations.

Those changes have led to mixed results and hundreds of lost jobs in the radio industry in the last month alone, (FD) including mine.  PPM wasn't the only reason for the layoffs, big radio companies had to cut expenses because of lower revenues, and even one large company said the layoffs were designed to make their stations better.

All that is just background for the meat of this post.  The people who own radio stations, whether they are the big companies or the smaller operators, simply do not understand that the way they deliver "radio" has to change, and they have to get out in front of the change.  

CourtesyTom Bosscher

Those big giant towers in the middle of cornfields and cemeteries, those 50,000 watt legendary AM stations, those HD Radio channels that nobody is listening to, they are losing value and necessity every day.  Broadcasters think all those things are trophy's, somehow showing how "heavy" they are in the industry.  Going forward, all that hardware and early 20th century based technology will mean very little to listeners or advertisers.

Wireless device usage is exploding, and now there are more wireless devices activated than there are people in the United States.  Most of those devices have the ability to play audio, whether they be iPhones, Android devices, tablets like iPad or Kindle Fire, or gadgets we haven't even heard about yet.  Yet, broadcasters continue to do a second rate job of serving those devices and don't see the future where people can receive the radio station from their home town, Spotify, Pandora, or a local radio station in Turkmenistan on the same device WITHOUT using AM, FM, HD Radio, AM Stereo, FM Quad, or any of the other failed and antiquated technologies that broadcasters have tried to force on consumers.  Toyota is rolling out a car with Pandora and I Heart Radio in 2012, making it even easier to not listen to local radio.

image via randallcole.com

The days of wireless delivery platforms and complete parity for any kind of audio or video stream are here, and American broadcasters are not prepared for the migration from those old school technologies they've relied on for almost a century to the wireless, personalized experience that listeners will discover, adopt, and almost certainly use to replace traditional broadcasts.  As media guru Fred Jacobs wrote almost a year ago, being local matters, no matter how the content is delivered.

Local matters.  While consumers may enjoy renting movies from Netflix, buying toaster ovens from Amazon, bidding for cars at eBay, or creating custom music channels on Pandora, that doesn't mean they've lost interest in what's happening next door, down the street, and in the heart of where they live.

 Jacobs isn't the only one who sees the future, The brilliant media strategist David Martin wrote this blog post in August of 2004 about the future of music radio.

It is time to admit it - we are operating in a fundamentally different business environment; the rules of the game are changing and so must we.

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit last month, KCPB's Mary Meeker showed the growth of mobile usage and the fact that Pandora, the online radio network, is already getting 60% of it's traffic from mobile devices. Those people listening could be listening to traditional broadcasts, but they're turning off AM and FM and turning on digital streams. 

Radio companies will tell you they have a "digital strategy".  Here are real live examples of those strategies in action at some of the major radio companies right now.

• A major radio company has moved all its stations to its own app for smartphones and tablets, but after testing the Android app on six different devices over three carriers, the app was only able to stream listenable audio on two of the devices.  Android now commands 40% of the U.S. smartphone market, but this company's stations can't be heard on a majority of those phones and many Android tablets.
• Clear Channel Media Holdings, the country's largest radio owner, has recently hired Bob Pittman to run the company.  Pittman is a very smart man and understands the future of content delivery as shown by the company's huge investment in I Heart Radio, their streaming and station creation app.  Unlike the above example, this app works on every Android device I tested it on, as well as devices on other platforms.  They may have some of the right ideas, but have eliminated hundreds of jobs in the last month as they add more centralization to their programming, completely ignoring the fact that being local is one of traditional radio's most important ways to differentiate itself and keep listeners, regardless of how the content is delivered.
• Most other radio companies let each station create their own digital presence, controlling the overall look of websites, but using a myriad of vendors for streaming and mobile applications.  Most of the reason for this is that the companies either refuse to acknowledge the future of mobile while they concentrate on those big towers in the cornfields, streaming a single station (often badly), or trying to make people care about HD Radio.  One major company will let any station have an iPhone app, but the station has to wait until a certain number of iPhone apps are downloaded before they can have an Android app.  Looking at the penetration of Android, it is clear this company does not understand how listeners use streaming or even what they listen with.

All of this brings us back to the topic of this post.  Is local radio dead?  Not yet, but in most cases the people who own local radio stations don't realize that their properties are dying slowly in a hospice called AM and FM.

These broadcasters, notorious for spending their lifetimes in perhaps the last industry to see the world as it really is time after time, need to get their brands on life support by coming up with a well thought out, forward thinking strategy that involves delivering audio how and when people want it, making local information available no matter where the listener is (how many radio executives really understand the power of GPS and location based application development?) and adding a strong social and interactive component to their brands.  The benefits will be immediate, and will keep their brands viable for years to come.

There once was a radio in the kitchen

Almost a decade ago, these same broadcasters began to see the number of people using radio in the morning begin to decline  Traditionally, the morning show was the most listened to and most profitable daypart for radio stations.  Where did the listeners go?  Directly to television, because TV figured out they could give all the local information and much of the entertainment people were getting on the radio and add pictures to it.  Morning radio listening continues to decline, especially among listeners under 40, and some of the most successful local TV morning shows are produced by former radio morning show producers.  Yet, the radio industry for the most part has done little to fight the migration of listeners to television.

A recent story in the Chicago Tribune talks about how FIVE local TV stations are doing local morning newscasts starting at 4:30AM and two of them continue locally after the network morning shows start on affiliate stations.

The moves reflect a national trend that has reached critical mass over the past two years. Most large-market stations now broadcast local news at 4:30 a.m., with at least one station starting that early in all of the top 50 markets, according to Steve Ridge, president of the media strategy group for Frank N. Magid Associates, a television consulting firm.
"Thirty years ago, we had to beg stations to get into the morning news business," Ridge said. "Now, it has become the most lucrative daypart in local television."

I for one do not want to be a pall bearer at local radio's funeral, but I'm afraid that I'll live to see that day.

What do you think?  Comments are welcome!

Cheaper Than an iPhone 4S: At End of Emails, Type ‘Sent from my iPhone 4S’ « Borowitz Report

CUPERTINO (The Borowitz Report) – A clever work-around discovered by a tech-savvy smart phone user has enabled millions of consumers to avoid buying Apple’s heavily touted iPhone 4S: at the end of emails, they merely type, “Sent from my iPhone 4S.”
Tracy Klugian, a self-described “gizmo fanatic” from Akron, Ohio came up with the ingenious solution after deciding that the iPhone 4S’s price tag was too rich for his blood.
“I’m glad that this work-around will give non-iPhone 4S owners the same thrill that people who spent $299 on it have been experiencing,” he said.  “It’s definitely a much cheaper way to go.”
Across the country, millions of iPhone 4S owners who learned about Mr. Klugian’s inventive fix jammed Apple stores to return their devices, many of them purchased just hours earlier.
“The only reason I bought an iPhone 4S was to let people know that I owned an iPhone 4S,” said Donnelly Rixon, 24, a self-described “douche” from Sacramento.  “This wrecks everything.”
An official statement from Apple indicated that the company would not accept returns of the costly devices, but assured consumers that the $299 price tag was well worth it: “The iPhone 4S is the most amazing device in the history of the smart phone, until the iPhone 5, which will be released tomorrow.”
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The iCloud Is Here, for Apple Devices ONLY. Does Google Change Its Pricing Strategy NOW?

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeSo Apple finally unleashed the iCloud today, and as many had feared, unlike similar offerings from Amazon and Google, their whiz-bang service ONLY works with Apple devices.  So those of us rocking an Android phone or (heaven forbid) a Windows phone or PC are out of luck.



Check out this graphic from the Apple iCloud site.

There’s iCloud. And then there’s everything else.

If music is your thing and you have the collection to prove it, iCloud with iTunes Match is the easiest, most affordable way to store and access all your music.

	Apple	Amazon	Google
Library in the cloud	Scan and Match3 (minutes)	Upload4 (weeks)	Upload4 (weeks)
Music app for Mac and PC	iTunes	Web	Web
Upgrade to 256-Kbps AAC5
Annual price for 5,000 songs	$24.99	$50.00	$???
Annual price for 20,000 songs	$24.99	$200.00	$???

FULL DISCLOSURE; I am a paying customer for the Amazon Cloud Drive and am beta testing the Google Music beta.  I'm not getting compensated for either.  But I'm also not an iOS user, with my only Apple device being an iPod Nano.  That means I can't use iCloud or iOS5.  

I think Amazon's pricing is fair.  I do wonder what Google will charge for their service, but since I carry an Android phone by HTC (no compensation) I'm probably going tostart paying for Google Music when it's time.  Mainly because it will probably work best with my phone, although right now I prefer the Amazon Cloud Player because it has a decent equalizer. 

So if you're Google, what are you thinking about the pricing of your music service now?  Apple is putting theirs out free, with the handy iTunes Match service (which I would pay for if I had a compatible device) for $25 a year.  Does Google undercut Apple and make their service cheaper or somehow better, like linked to Spotify?  I'm guessing they're thinking hard in Mountain View right now.

This is going to get interesting, and it proves that the future is in the cloud. 

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Buh-Bye BlackBerry

I’ve been an early adapter of technology since my childhood.  As I grew older, I saw the opportunities and power of technology, and helped test things like AM Stereo in the early 1980′s and the first portable cell phone a couple years later.  And my computer experience goes back to the infamous TI-99/4A, which featured the high tech concept of loading programs onto the machine using a cassette tape recorder and communication at the blazing rate of 300 baud.

So, yes, I am a geek.

Fast forward to the early part of this century, and I had been through portable cell phones of all sizes, half a dozen “laptop” computers, very early Internet use, with my first time on the Interwebz being in 1993, and exposure to LOTS of technology, some good, most bad.  Then I discovered BlackBerry when I was able to wrangle my company into getting me one of these beasts, an early model that sort of moved data around, but was completely unusable as a phone, so I carried the Blackberry on my belt and the cutting edge PCS phone on the other side of my pants.  I was livin’ the dream because I could get my e mail everywhere and make my family crazy by being “connected” at all times.   But I saw the future and it was inspiring, the concept of having all your communications in your hand, little need for a 20 pound computer, and constant contact was GOOD, maybe even GREAT.

Over the next few years, I quickly changed and upgraded devices, getting a “world phone” that would let me call from anywhere on the planet in exchange for letting a service provider’s daughter join me backstage to meet a Rock Star.  Hey, a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.  This was the first BlackBerry decent enough to use as a phone in addition to for e mail, so I retired the trusty flip phone and went to a pure BlackBerry experience.  I felt like Martin FREAKING Cooper (click the link if you don’t know who that is) now.

Then, for the first and only time, I dropped the BlackBerry and it self destructed.  I had heard that a new touch screen phone was coming, so I used a cheapo model until the way cool phone without a keyboard and a big screen was supposed to come out.

Then it did.  The original Blackberry Storm in late 2008.  Was it perfect? FAR from it, but it was a BLACKBERRY that had a touchscreen, like the then groundbreaking iPhone AND my Corporate IT department would let me hook it up to our e mail system.   Side note: I hear that that same brilliant Corporate IT group (who I no longer work for) just let people connect iPhones to email about 3 weeks ago.

This was not a good phone.  It had more issues than the Library Of Congress, I went through four of them in a year because they continued to have software and hardware failures, but it DID have a big screen and let me, a visually impaired person, make things really big on the screen.

I got real tight with my service provider and the well meaning but not very helpful people at Research In Motion in Canada in “The Year Of The Storm” and had the second generation of the phone, the BlackBerry Storm 2 in my hands the day it came out.  If you follow my antics on the Interwebz, you probably know how that went.  Software issues, equipment issues, and a total of SIX devices in a little over a year of use.  This was a better phone than the Storm, but it too had issues and never really satisfied me, but I was forced to stay with BlackBerry because of Corporate IT.

While I was spending far too much time on dealing with my BlackBerry Storm 2, the mobile world was changing in a big way.  Not only was the iPhone on its fourth version, but the Android platform was taking off in a big way.  Both of those systems offered better hardware, thousands of helpful (and some fun) applications to make the mobile experience more rich, and they just plain worked better than my BlackBerry.  It seems that the company was too interested in working on the new genre of Tablet Computers and had lost interest in developing an evolutionary device to replace the Storm 2.

A month or so ago, BlackBerry had their annual “here’s all the kewl new stuff we want to sell you” conference, and the rumored upgrade to the Storm 2, the Monaco or Monza, wasn’t part of the hoopla.  No idea on when or if it was coming, how much it would cost, or how much better it might be than other phones on the market.

That was the last straw.  I couldn’t deal with the continuing problems with my Storm 2, and now the touchscreen was beginning to fail and the phone is out of warranty.  That means, even with “insurance” on the phone, it would cost me money to replace my phone with a reconditioned (that’s code for USED AND REPAIRED) obsolomodel, reload all the software, and pray the replacement used phone worked until BlackBerry decided to drop the new model.  REALLY?  I don’t think so.

I really like the carrier I’ve been with for years, Verizon Wireless, and I could pick a phone on any platform from them.  But I’m in Kansas City now, the headquarters of Sprint and my office sits in the shadow of a Sprint 4G tower.  I have no issues with Verizon Wireless, my decision on what to do was based on hardware and operating systems.  I spoke with Verizon, told them what I was thinking, and they made me a very fair offer to stay and get a much better device.  But Sprint made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, partially due to the fact that it seems like half of Kansas City works for Sprint and can offer incentives to switch service.

So I spent the requisite amount of time researching devices on Sprint and finally settled on the Samsung Nexus S, which is technically a Google phone because it comes without the basic Android features and apps and none of the carrier-provided “bloatware” that I’d probably never use and would pretty much immediately delete.  The phone is using the latest Android software, has a huge (but not the largest) screen so I can see things better, and should run really fast while in the Kansas City area or with the family in St. Louis since Sprint has done a fine job of providing 4G coverage here in the Heartland.

I’m going to miss being a BlackBerry “Power User” and the great service, both technical and customer service from Verizon Wireless.  But the bottom line is that BlackBerry isn’t keeping up with the times, either in hardware or software.  I have an itch as a geek to have access to the latest and greatest, and a need as a business person to have the best tools to use when doing my job.

Will I love my new phone? I hope so, but I know its a new device and a new user experience because it ISN’T the “BlackBerry World” I’ve been in for so long.  Will I be satisfied with my new carrier?  G-d I hope so. My wife has had Sprint service for over 11 years and its worked well for her.  I’ve had a couple of not so small bumps in the road in dealing with Sprint’s offshore CSR’s, but I found an Angel within the company (whose name I won’t use to protect her privacy) who has made the transition nearly painless.

UPS tells me my phone is going on a truck tonight and will be in my office tomorrow.  Give me a few days to see how it works.  Hopefully, my Twitter Feed will be butterflies and rainbows, and not the ravings of a frustrated person who made a bad decision.

By the way, if you’re an Android user and have any tips for me, feel free to send them along to mark@markedwardsworldwide.com.  I’d be much obliged.

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Posted via email from Mark Edwards 3.0