🚀 go-pugleaf

jennifer@noway.com (Jennifer) wrote in message news:<3c2a18ea.77417614@news>...
> I was wondering how Nextel service is in the Northern Virginia area
> and DC area.  I am about to switch cell phone companies and I am
> seriously considering Nextel.  Right now I have Sprint and service is
> very sporatic where I live.  I don't get any service in my house.  I
> am wondering if Nextel is going to have better coverage.  Thanks for
> telling me any of your experiences with the company.
> 
> Jennifer

Jennifer,

Our company bought us all Nextel phones in December of 1999. We had
them until August of 2001.

Before living in DC, I lived in Northern NY (Albany Area). There I had
a phone with NYNEX (--> Bell Atlantic --> Verizon) and Cellular One
(--> Cingular I believe). Ma Bell was good, Cell One was not.

Nextel however was *the worst* service I ever had. Forget annoyed
because you dropped calls, but now you get error messages: "Blah blah
blah hello? hello? Code 21? What the hell is an Code 21?"

Our offices are on 12th Street in NW, we had no service in the
building. Every other carrier has service in our building (some even
in our elevators). When we'd call Nextel they'd say "too bad". We were
never able to use direct connect because so many people lived places
where they got no service at home (you know, like Arlington,
Alexandra, Fairfax, some parts of DC - real rural places like that).
It would drop calls all the time, and my voicemail would arrive DAYS
later, as would my pages. I called about my VM and pages being delayed
and the rep was like "we know we're working on it." I pointed out it
had been going on for months, and she couldn't/wouldn't do anything
about it. That was not spurradic or anything - my pages and VM were
always always always delayed if they came when my phone was off or I
didn't have service at the time. The only time I got them immediately
was if my phone was on and I didn't answer it. No service on the Metro
either. We gave Nextel and our sales rep every opportunity to make
good, but once they sold us the phone they were gone.

Comparably, their service is really expensive too. The basic shebang
is like 90$ a month!

I have heard good things here in DC about Verizon and AT&T (once they
upgraded their network to handle the capactity). Verizon is the only
carrier who has rights to the Metro system, something I didn't know
when I moved here (if you're real interested I can tell you why and
how much they paid for it, but that's another story).

Yeah, this sounds like a rant, and it is. If every cell phone carrier
in America goes out of business I'll tough it out before I'd ever use
them again. It's too bad because Direct Connect is cool when it works,
and their phones are slick.

Best of luck on whatever you choose,
�foo?