Mobile Wiseguy
Translator
- On a Carnival Cruise for the next week. Thanks Josh Linker your vacation linker. Super bowl on the water
Verizon Wireless Plans and Accessories
Phonescoop news, info and reviews
- AT&T Confirms Device Upgrade Fee Rising to $36 February 11, 2012AT&T is prepared to double its device upgrade fee from $18 to $36. This fee is generally paid when customers choose to purchase new equipment and add it to their plan. In a statement sent to media today, AT&T said, "Wireless devices today are more sophisticated than ever before. And because of that, the costs associated with upgrading to a new d […]
- Apple Dings Motorola Over Qualcomm Agreement February 10, 2012Apple has filed a new lawsuit against Motorola over a patent license agreement that exists between Motorola and Qualcomm. Specifically, Apple argues that since it is now a Qualcomm customer, it is a "third-party beneficiary of Motorola's agreement with Qualcomm," meaning that Motorola can't sue it for patents it is licensing from Qualcomm […]
- FCC Schedules Mobility Fund Auction for Sept 27 February 10, 2012The Federal Communications Commission today announced plans regarding the Mobility Fund Phase I auction and Connect America Fund. The Connect America program is meant to bring wired and wireless broadband to under-served Americans, who typically live in rural regions. The FCC has scheduled a reverse auction to award $300 million in one-time Mobility Fund Pha […]
Archive for the ‘customer service’ Category
Sprint charges customers for incoming international calls
I had a client call me a few days ago asking me how to forward their home phone to their Sprint phone so they would not get charged for long distance calls. I said to them you don’t get charged for incoming calls because the person who calls you pays the international long distance charges.
I was wrong Sprint does charge for international calls incoming or outgoing. When i called customer service to clarify this the Sprint representative said yes and asked what country would be calling me. I used Trinidad as an example because that is my country of birth. The cost of calls incoming or outgoing to Trinidad would be $1.99 a minute.
Sprint must be banking on these incoming international calls, I can’t see how that would cost them anymore than any other incoming call. I receive international calls on my Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile phones without having any extra charges so why does Sprint charge? I guess any extra revenue stream helps the bottom line.
What will texting cost while overseas with at&t wireless phone
I am on the way to Trinidad and just got off the phone with at&t. The customer service representative argued with me about texting outside the country. The at&t representative said that it would cost to send and receive text when outside the country. I told him if you have a text package the incoming messages would come out of your package. He said this is what he does for a living and I should go to att.com to verify what he said.
This is how at&t wireless charges for texting overseas. If you have a text package your incoming text come out of the package. For example if you have unlimited texting you can receive unlimited incoming text while overseas, if you have the $5 200 text package you can get 200 free incoming text while overseas but if you go over your package the the cost is $.50 a text or $1.30 for a picture. Out going messages are always billed, see below for more details.
This was copied directly from att.com website.
Sending Text, Picture, and Video Messages When Outside the U.S.
Text Messages $0.50 per message sent
Picture and Video Messages $1.30 per message sent
Home pay-per-use or package rates apply to all text, picture, or video messages received when roaming internationally. See your Rate Plan Brochure for details.
Data usage pay-per-use rate is $.0195/KB, except in Canada where rate is $.015/KB.
To save on data usage when roaming internationally with your smartphone, iPhone, or laptop see att.com/worldpackages.
Pandora is fixed on my unlocked Blackberry 9700 Bold it was the APN setting
Two weeks ago I could not listen to my favorite application Pandora on my Blackberry Bold
9700 which is unlocked from AT&T and being used on T-Mobile data only.
I have used all my applications for over a month without any problems on T-Mobile.
The Bold 9700 unlocked from at&t works only on EDGE which is 2G on T-Mobile, it will not work 3G on other carriers, but I had no problems on the EDGE, I used all the functions, applications including Pandora.
Now about two weeks ago when I tried to use Pandora I was getting an error
(Critical tunnel failure). It would not sign me in to the Pandora application.
So I deleted Pandora and re installed it, that didn’t work. Next I wiped my Blackberry clean, which puts it back to factory settings and erases all of the content, applications, settings and contacts.
I then reinstalled all my previous contents. That did not work also, I then
decided to download another music radio application to use in the mean time so I downloaded Slacker Radio. Slacker worked for a day then prompt me to re-input my user name and password. I did but Slacker gave me an error saying it was wrong. I then had to reset the password and it would work for a few minutes, then prompt me to re-enter the user name and password again and again.
Now I am of the opinion it was something in the Blackberry software that was causing Pandora and Slacker not to work.
I did some research on the web and came to the conclusion that it was my APN setting. The setting was still set on AT&T which was (wap.cingular).
I put a call into T-Mobile tech support who then transferred me to RIM support and after explaining the problem and stating it was an unlocked Blackberry from AT&T the tech from RIM then told me the APN setting for T-mobile is wap.voicestream.com.
Now Pandora and Slacker is working properly and the fix was simple. The APN
setting is under options, advanced options then TCP/IP. The T-Mobile setting
does not have a user name or password so un-check that box. At&t had
wap@cingular.com and the password was blanked out.
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
ported new number to Sprint
Yesterday I changed my Sprint wireless phone number. I had a Dade County Florida number with a 305975xxxx and wanted a Broward County cell number.
I could have called Sprint and ask them for a number change since I now reside in Broward County and opened my account years ago in Dade County. They would have done a number change with no cost because of the new location I live in but I wanted a cool number and decide to find the number first. Sprint would not have giving me a choice of numbers to pick from free and the choices would not be as good as I could find myself.
So I activated a at&t prepaid account. The new account allowed me to pick from a list of phone numbers. I found a few good phone numbers like 954xxx9999, 954xxx1234 and 954xx55555. The number with the 5s has 6 5s in the number so that is the one I picked to activate. It did not matter what prepaid plan to pick, I would never use this number on at&t. I did not even have to put money into the prepaid account.
I called Sprint after I got the number and told them what I wanted to do. I wanted to replace the existing 305 # with the new 954 # that I have on at&t. The representative at first said I could not do this because I would need to open a new Sprint account. I asked her to check and after being on hold she proceed to try and help me port the number but said she was having trouble so I got transferred to the department that does the porting of phone numbers for Sprint.
The new Sprint representative asked me the normal questions what number I am porting, account number and any password. The representative did the port and then told me the phone would work for voice calls in 10 minutes and for data in 30 minutes. I waited an hour and tried to make a call out from my Sprint phone with the new cool number but the call did not go through a message said that this call is not authorized. I then realized that the new number had to be programmed into the phone. The representative who help me port the number should have helped me do that. Now I had to call customer service again to program the number into the phone.
The second call to Sprint was different it seemed to have been routed to India or some overseas call center. The new representative was very polite more so than the previous reps. I explained what I did and that I needed programing of the number and he understood. It took him and I about 3 minutes to program the number into my Sprint phone which by the way is a LG Rumor. After the programing was done the rep asked me if I was happy with his service. I said “yes”. He then told me that I would receive a survey about our interaction. He said that he hopes and preys that I would give him high marks and asked me if I would give him high marks. I obsessively said “yes” to him, I was not going to say “your accent sucks and I could not understand you” but that’s a joke he was good and helpful, I just thought it was strange how he asked me.
This whole number changed could have been done on one call using less resources and time by Sprint and by me. The new number was worth the little hassle for me. 954-xx5-5555
My Sprint Plan is grandfathered $15 month 1500 minutes, first incoming minute free, unlimited text, unlimited data and voice dialing.