Great local coverage; adequate customer service update March 2009
Written: Mar 21 '06 (Updated Mar 29 '09)
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Pros: Nice local coverage at fair prices for standard phones
Cons: Service issues; locking into contracts, small coverage area, lots of drops on blackberry 8703.
The Bottom Line: It’s an adequate service for Chicago and surrounding areas on standard phones. Bad drops with my Blackberry 8703. Compare before you sign up.
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| Saxguy's Full Review: General Reviews of US Cellular Customer Service |
Since I got my Blackberry 8703 in Nov 2007, I have been plagued with drops. It seemed that my office location was an intermittent dead zone. I worked with the tech support people to align the phone with the nearest tower without result.
Nothing was working, so I switched to verizon. I therefore cannot recommend US Cellular for Blackberries, although the service was adequate when I used a standard phone.
I am therefore changing my rating to 3 stars.
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I have been with USCellular and it’s predecessor, Prime Co (remember the “Little Pink Guy”?) for several years now. The coverage and quality of the phones has improved over the years and we recently extended our contracts. While their service has been generally good for a local/regional service, there have been some lapses which I will detail below.
First, the main (not exclusive, but main)m purpose of my cell phone is to accept communication for my music business. My wife will tell you it’s so she can contact me, but, for me, it’s not worth laying out $75 a month for that. There are less expensive ways to do that. I have enough students and they are mainly middle school students, so I need to be flexible. I also strongly prefer not to use my office phone for music calls. It’s a little easier to take a minute here and there to deal with music issues.
I don’t need a picture phone, I don’t need fancy-schmancy downloaded ringtones, I don’t care about sports scores on my phone, what I need is functional phones that work. My recent ones with USCellular have generally worked well and I love my current phone.
My music business, both teaching and performing, is entirely local, so I really do not need a national coverage area. US Cellular does provide free nationwide long distance with my local calling plan.
Before I get into plans, I want to say that the quality of their signals and coverage over the Chicagoland area has been solid and improving over the last several years. Whether it is more cells or digital technology, the dead spots in my office building have disappeared and I usually don’t get dropped calls.
The coverage area for local calls is Most of Northern and Central Illinois, most of Iowa, the southern half of Wisconsin, a small portions of Minnesota (including Rochester), Nebraska and Kansas, and north central Indiana (South Bend in, Indianapolis out). If you have a local plan and you originate a call from outside of here, there is a $.69 per minute roaming charge if coverage is available. Most of the US has available coverage, but there are areas with no coverage in the Northeast (small portions of PA and upstate NY; a larger portion in Maine) and out West where all major cities seem covered but there are larger rural areas without service.
The phones did not work when we were in Canada a few years ago.
The calling plan I just changed to is $39.99 for 1000 local minutes for outgoing. Within those 1000 minutes, there is no additional charge for long distance. Incoming calls are free, as are outgoing calls (walkie-talkie) to other people on my account. I ma paying $9.95 a month extra for shared minutes with my wife’s cell phone and $6.95 monthly for insurance on my phone (covers loss and out of warranty repairs). I did not spend the $9.95 per month for unlimited evening and weekend minutes because we have never gone over.
This plan is a $5 per month reduction from my prior plan, which had a shared line charge of $15., I’m getting 100 more minutes and even more minutes since incoming calls are free as are calls between our own cell phones on the account.
The other local plans are $24.95 for 400 inutes, $49.95 for 1300, $69.95 for 1800, $99.95 for 2500 and $199.95 for 5000.
The national plans, which increase the included areas you can call from are @29 for 250 minutes, $39.95 for 800, $45 for 1500, 59.95 for 1200 (that’s an anomaly, but it’s on the web site), $99.95 for 2000 and $199.95 for 4000.
Within these plans, the free incoming minutes only apply when the phone is inside the local coverage area, as I defined it above. So, the basic difference between the local and national plans I describe, other than the rate and minutes is that there are more places you can call FROM without roaming charges
Generally, I have been able to talk with their customer service people when I have needed to without inordinate waits and they generally have been very helpful in dealing with my issues. I can also say that about my local stores, who have reprinted bills for me, replaced batteries (ahem) slightly out of warranty for me and fixed phones that were reallydifficult to fix (the old-style Motorola charge-battery interface was complicated with easily-bent pins).
The voice mail service works well, although their automatic purge (about a week) is on the short side. Caller ID also works well.
However, I do have some issues with their service practices, which include:
1. Bills are not available online, nor is bill pay
Not a big deal, but I understand that the major competitors do this.
2. Billing is by the minute and not based on partial minutes.
I understand that some services charge based on increments of as little as 6 seconds.
3. No rollover minutes
Some others do.
4. No waiver of cancellation charges as plans end
Even if a month or two is left on a contract, you still need to pay the cancellation charge. We decided to get rid of my son’s cell phone 6 months before the contract expired and we dutifully paid the $15 a month line charge until it expired for nothing, instead of the $150 cancellation charge. They should have let us kill the phone by paying the runout charges in advance.
5. Activation charges If I buy a phone on Ebay (I actually did a few months ago), they charge $15 to activate it. Yeah, this is standard, but I don’t have to like it.
6. Contract period of 2 yearsThis is similar to many other services, except for those where you buy prepaid minutes. A lot of the majors have the 2 year contract period. This is attractive to consumers because they provide a free basic phone. However, this locks in the vendors’ revenue because once a contract is signed, you can’t get out of it. If a better plan comes along from that same vendor, you have to commit for 2 years once the plan changes. This is a factor binding the customers to their initial vendor of choice. It makes it very difficult and costly to change vendors. It’s standard in the industry but I don’t like it a whole lot.
Lastly,
7. Joan Cusack I know she’s trying to sell more phones, but I liked the little pink guy better.
I have noticed that their plans have declined a bit in price, I suppose in response to competition and they have recently stopped charging for calls between USCellular users, again likely in response to competition.
I received a rather heavy-handed letter about a month ago announcing that GPS functionality for 911 calls was now a legal requirement. This is so 911 can find out where you are in an emergency. Well, the letter said that non-GPS phones had to be swapped for GPS enabled phones or would be subject to “substantial service charges”. That was the bold print. The fine print said that you could do the new phone discount for 2 years deal if you extended for 2 years. Well, I did extend the contract and I did get the phones cheap, not free, because I didn’t take their wireless information service called easyedge.
I got a letter yesterday apologizing for the aggressive tone of the letter and promising a credit of $5 on each line for the upgraded lines. I verified it this morning.
On balance, USCellular provides a quality service than meets my needs, despite some annoyances.
If you live within their local calling area, I suggest that you determine your needs, compare plans from several vendors, including USCellular and make an informed decision.
Thanks for reading. God bless!
Please check out my related reviews:
Sandisk Sensa M-240 1GB MP3 Player
Sony CFD-G500 Boom Box
Fender 1270P Powered Monitor Speaker
Shure SM-57 mike
AKG C1000s Twin Pack Microphones
Audix D4 mike
Audix 0M3 mike
Sony CFD-G500 Boom Box
AMT Roam 1 wireless mike
Audio Technica Pro-35x wireless mike
Roland Dr. Beat DB-66 metronome
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 75 monthly
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