ATTSucks.me

Anyone in the market for a smartphone these days will likely see the term 4G shoved in their face by the major carriers. “We have the biggest network!” “We have the fastest speeds!” Sometimes the providers back up their claims with blazing fast data and great coverage, but other times, consumers will wind up feeling cheated. Here are some examples in which the reality simply doesn’t live up to the marketing hype.

Sprint’s 4G LTE Phones: Hurry Up and Wait

The nation’s third-largest carrier finds itself in serious catchup mode against Verizon Wireless and ATT. Sprint is launching its 4G LTE service in six cities this summer, while Verizon already has more than 250 markets lit up and ATT has 35 and counting. So what do you do in the meantime?

If you’re Sprint, you launch phones with 4G LTE in the name that don’t yet offer those speeds anywhere. Devices such as the HTC Evo 4G LTE and LG Viper 4G LTE don’t even connect to Sprint’s older WiMax network. For now, they’re 3G only. I gave Sprint a pass back in 2010 with the original Evo 4G because the carrier was first to market. Now the game has changed.

I think it’s great that Sprint will be the only provider offering unlimited 4G data, but right now, the names of these phones feel downright misleading. At the very least, Sprint should be more transparent about which cities will be getting LTE service after the first six markets launch, so shoppers will know when coverage is coming to their neck of the woods.

[Inside Sprint's 4G Comeback Plan: Will it Work?]

The Faux G iPhone

Did you know you could get a 4G iPhone in the U.S. right now? No, the iPhone 5 didn’t just launch. It’s just that the recent iOS update to the iPhone 4S on ATT changed the 3G icon to 4G at the top of the screen.

Alas, the phone didn’t get any faster; it’s just that Apple’s software now reports ATT’s HSPA+ network as a 4G network, just as the carrier’s many Android phones do. In our tests, ATT’s iPhone 4S was indeed faster than Sprint’s and Verizon’s models, but the speeds pale in comparison to ATT’s newer 4G LTE network.

As anyone who has used the ATT iPhone in a dense urban area knows, speeds can slow to the point where you have to wait 30 seconds for the contents of an email to load. That’s not 4G to me, making this one “upgrade” I could do without.

[iPhone 4S Carrier Shootout: ATT vs. Sprint vs. Verizon]

T-Mobile’s Rigged Test Drive

Of all the major carriers, T-Mobile is furthest behind in deploying a 4G LTE network, which won’t get off the ground until 2013. In the meantime, the carrier does have a HSPA+ 4G network that offers vast coverage and pretty good speeds. So why would you sabotage that with bad marketing?

T-Mobile has set up a website that invites people to test drive its network versus the competition. Unfortunately, the carrier chose the 3G iPhone 4S from Sprint and Verizon and the faux G iPhone 4S from ATT as the basis for comparison. Of course T-Mobile’s 4G phones are going to wipe the floor with these devices when it comes to streaming movies and downloading apps. It’s simply not a fair fight.

The HTC One S from T-Mobile we recently tested delivered downloads as high as 9.5 Mbps and uploads as fast as 3.2 Mbps, which are actually well within the claimed range of 4G LTE. On the other hand, T-Mobile’s performance can be quite inconsistent, depending on where you are. In front of a T-Mobile store transfer rates were as low as .1 Mbps down and .6 Mbps up.

T-Mobile should just stick with its 4G-for-less-money message and leave the fixed fights to the WWE.

Bottom Line

If you want the fastest speeds on a smartphone right now, Verizon Wireless and ATT are your best bet. With Verizon, it’s easy for shoppers, because the carrier offers only one flavor of 4G in LTE, and you get consistently fast data in the most cities. With ATT, it’s more complicated because there are two varieties of 4G: HSPA+ and LE. Go with a phone that offers real 4G–LTE–like the HTC One X, if you want the best  performance. Should you avoid 4G phones from the other carriers? Of course not, but you should know what you’re getting — and what’s missing.

Editor-in-chief Mark Spoonauer directs LAPTOP’s online and print editorial content and has been covering mobile and wireless technology for over a decade. Each week Mark’s SpoonFed column provides his insights and analysis of the biggest mobile trends and news. You can also follow him on Twitter.

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Article source: http://blog.laptopmag.com/the-truth-about-4g-crimes-against-reality

Article source: http://attsucks.me/2012/05/17/4g-reality-check-beware-of-these-cons-and-lies/

Article source: http://attsucks.me/2012/05/17/4g-reality-check-beware-of-these-cons-and-lies-attsucks-me/

By Rich Adin

For a long time I have advocated buying ebooks from Barnes Noble. Not because BN was the cheapest or had the very largest selection (although I admit that I consider the argument that Amazon has more titles than BN to be a specious one; after all, does it truly matter that one has 1.3 million titles and the other has 1.1 million titles, as long as the store where I shop has the title I want to buy? How likely is it that I will read even 10% of the available titles — or, more importantly, even have an interest in 90% of the titles that make up those numbers?), but because I do not want to see a retail ebook world that is essentially Amazon only.

Alas, BN seems to be doing its darndest to give the ebook world to Amazon on a silver platter.

In recent weeks, I was given a Nook Tablet as a gift. It is an excellent device and works smoothly with the BN ebookstore. I think BN’s hardware is excellent and even many of the critics rate the BN devices as the better devices.

Between the Amazon and BN ebookstores, I prefer the layout of the BN store. Whenever I visit the Amazon store, I feel like I am being assaulted by an infomercial for some unneeded and undesired product that shows at 2 a.m. on local TV. I know that Amazoners praise the one-click buying system at Amazon, but I don’t find the two-click system at BN overtaxing.

The bottom line is that I think BN has a lot going for it, yet it is handing over to Amazon a little bit more of the ebook world daily. BN has a significant flaw, one that it appears unwilling to address, or perhaps it is simply unable to address. That flaw is customer service.

As I reported in an earlier post (see The Tablet and Me: The Nook Tablet), the impetus for giving me the Nook Tablet was the deal combining a New York Times subscription with a discounted Tablet. Those of us who read the Times know that it is a morning newspaper — it is meant to be read at the start of the day, not at the end. When I had the print subscription, the paper was usually delivered by 4 a.m. and no later than 5:30 a.m., allowing me to read the Times at breakfast (I am an early riser). This delivery schedule was met day after day, year after year, the exceptions generally being when Mother Nature intervened and prevented timely delivery. If the Times was not delivered on time, a quick telephone call resulted in a credit to my account. No-hassle customer service.

What I get now from BN is the electronic version – bits and bytes sent over the Internet — that is, when I get it. Some days it arrives by 5:30 a.m., but never earlier; some days it arrives by noon or later; some days, it doesn’t arrive in a timely way at all. So when it doesn’t arrive by 5:30 a.m., which is already late as far as I am concerned, what can I do? Turns out: nothing.

You can’t contact BN customer service because it isn’t open; it has banker’s hours. When it does open and you do get someone, as helpful as the initial reps may want to be, they are hamstrung by BN policies, at least as communicated by the customer service representatives.

On one occasion, when the Times hadn’t arrived by noon, I called and asked for a credit. The customer service rep tried to give me one but couldn’t, and so very politely passed me to a supervisor. At first, the supervisor told me I’d have to take the matter up with the Times. I replied that it was BN that sold me the Times, it is BN that I pay every month for the subscription, and it is BN that delivers the Times to me, so why would I contact the Times?

The supervisor then told me that it was my problem, not BN’s; that BN doesn’t give refunds even when it doesn’t deliver the purchased item; that there would be no credit of any kind; and I ‘had to eat it.’ I suggested that not only was this theft, but more importantly to BN, it was giving paying customers another reason to abandon BN for its arch-rival Amazon.

I understand that we are not talking a lot of money – about 40¢ – but it is the idea that BN simply doesn’t care that matters (and I’d be less concerned if this happened once rather than several times over the course of a few weeks). After the incident, BN sent me a satisfaction survey. I wrote of my dissatisfaction and even gave my telephone number so BN could followup. I’m still waiting for that followup. In my business, if I get a hint of dissatisfaction, I’m on the telephone trying to do damage control. It doesn’t always work, but I try. BN seems impervious to the idea of customer satisfaction.

(This disinterest in customer satisfaction goes back to the beginning of BN’s latest foray into ebooks. You may remember my complaints about how BN treated its club members when it introduced the original Nook. BN refused to give members the 10% discount on the Nook, claiming that, even at $250 per Nook, it was losing money. Not long thereafter, the price dropped to $150 before going even lower. I had wanted to buy two Nooks and ended up buying none.)

Is Amazon better? I only know what I read and what I read is that had I had the same problem with Amazon, something would have been done. I also suspect that Amazon would deliver the newspaper on time. But it really begs the question to ask if Amazon’s customer service is better — it can’t be worse! And this is what BN doesn’t seem to understand. Customers will put up with a lot if they think they are being fairly treated; if they think they are not being fairly treated, they will put up with little to nothing — and will let others know of their dissatisfaction.

The point is that it is these little slights to customers that build into major frustrations, and it is these little things that should be taken care of immediately. You are better off putting out the fire while it is still in the BBQ than waiting for it to ignite the forest – a lesson that BN sorely needs to learn.

I am happy with my Nook Tablet; I really cannot say enough good things about the device to express my pleasure with it (I like it so much that it has been a month since I last used my Sony 950). I enjoy shopping at BN’s ebookstore (although I dread what customer service I will get should I buy the wrong ebook or an ebook that is missing material). I especially like that I can automatically download ebook purchases to my Nook Tablet, as well as download those purchases to my desktop computer for storage (and that it is easy to strip the DRM from BN ebooks so they can also be read on my Sony 505 or 950). All of this is to the positive.

Yet the problems with customer service, the limited hours of operation, and the attitude that the customer is to blame is irritating. I’m gradually getting closer to leaving BN in the dust; each time I call customer service and am told I need to ‘deal with it,’ and am displayed BN’s indifference to customer satisfaction, I get closer to saying ‘Enough already!’ What holds me back is my unwillingness to give the ebook market over to a single gorilla ebookstore. But what I want may be of no matter as BN seems to be working diligently to turn another customer into an ex-customer.

Ultimately, whether BN survives the ebook wars will rest on its customer service. So far, it is losing.

(Via An American Editor.)

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Article source: http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/and-then-there-was-one-barnes-noble%E2%80%99s-lack-of-customer-service/

Article source: http://attsucks.me/2012/05/16/and-then-there-was-one-barnes-nobles-lack-of-customer-service/