Growing Pains

The New York Times has an article about the increasingly bad service provivided by mobile phone carriers.

I got my phone (SprintPCS) over the summer, and didn't use it all that often. Since I've been at school, it has become my primary means of communication with the outside world (i.e. not Harrisonburg, Virginia). There are literally antennas all over town, such that I have a strong signal almost anywhere I go (excepting my own apartment, where, in an ironic twist of fate, I only get one or two bars). Just the same, I need to redial almost every call I make at least once. Hell, I tried to call Dan's phone (Verizon) on Saturday and had to wait ten minutes until I got through!

It seems that there's no real hope for alleviating the situation, though. The initial, rapid "network-building" phase of the industry is over, and there's simply not enough capital right now for the carriers to be upgrading their network. Instead, they're pushing the 2.7G phones with things like unlimited Internet access and built-in cameras and clogging the network even more. Unfortunately, the concept of a mobile phone has beome deeply entrenched in our society over the past ten (or fewer) years. Given a choice between convenience (i.e. better service) and price, I'm not sure what Americans would choose.

November 19, 2002 - 09:26 AM