Rainn Wilson (Dwight from television’s The Office and the film The Rocker) recently tweeted “I wish there was an app to not drop calls.”
Comedian Jim Norton said “Downloading an update for my iPhone. It’s supposed to help with dropped calls. You know what would help with dropped calls? Verizon.”
An oft-quoted joke is “I submitted a new app to the App Store that drops calls and overcharges you. It got rejected because it duplicates services already provided by AT&T.”
Tuesday, Consumer Reports released the results of a survey sent to over 58k subscribers, and AT&T dropped dead last in the rankings of US cell phone carriers. Customers of AT&T have often been heard complaining about dropped calls, poor signal reception, and problems with customer service.
While the exclusivity of the iPhone has kept AT&T in the upper echelons of sales, it has not kept them up with customer satisfaction rates. Interestingly enough, Consumer Reports readers ranked the iPhone in a four-way tie with 3 samsung phones running the Android OS.
It’s expected that Verizon will announce the addition of the iPhone to its offerings in the beginning of Q1 2011 (the iPhone currently only supports GSM networks, Verizon runs CDMA technologies so that and the exclusivity agreement with AT&T prevented a Verizon offering in the past). Verizon currently offers the Apple iPad with Verizon service, so the addition of the iPhone would seem to fit logically.
With customers jailbreaking and unlocking Apple iPhones and using them on carriers like T-Mobile or internationally, and Verizon possibly getting access to AT&T’s crown jewels, could this spell the death knell of AT&T?
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The death knell? No. Prodding to pony up to improving their service? Maybe…
It would be impressive to see AT&T make things better and respond to customer complaints in a constructive way. However, these commercials “More bars in more places,” and how they have better coverage than the other carriers seems like they’re pretty oblivious, or are just trying to convince potential customers it isn’t true.
Well I hope all of you remember what happened in 1985, the Justice Dept broke up the Bell System. I worked for AT&T for many years and I think things started going downhill after the break-up. In the old days the workers took pride in their work and it was a strict work place. Employees were proud to work for AT&T and when someone asked us where we worked we said “I work for Ma Bell”.