Comments on: T-Mobile Service Ties Cellphones to Home, With Some Sacrifices

By: Dot Meehan

Dot Meehan — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:32:19 +0000

Be afraid, be very afraid. I signed up for this service in July, 2008. It appeared to work alright w/ some outages until January, 2009 when it was down for minutes, hours, days. When the problem occurs it requires you to reset your router each and every time. It was so bad I had to set up a surge protector under my desk, so I could simply use my foot to turn the router on and off, on and off, on and off…. When I called to complain, t-mobile told me they were not aware of this problem, well to be frank they are liars. There are postings all over the place, including their own forum on how unreliable this service really is.
They sent me a new router, knowing full well this wouldn’t solve the problem – the problem was I believed them. Why wouldn’t I, I had VOIP for years from other providers with no real problems. Well – same problems. You are on the phone and all of sudden the person on the other end cannot hear you – reset the router. You call them back or they call you and it drops again – reset the router. You do it a few more times – same thing. Like I said it may be minutes but more likely hours and in the end days at a time. It also takes your internet service with it. Linksys forum also has many postings, look up “no blue light”.
So I call again – told my case was closed – really, no one called to see if it was working. Told you have to start at the lower level customer service all over again. Email CEO, get call from executive response team. Now they are angry, combative, abusive and threatening – yes, threatening to “investigate” my phone calls or how I use my phone – I told them – have at it. Their executive response person Beckett spoke over me continually – actually yelling at me. I told her I did not want any more contact with her – find someone else. Oh – did I mention she thought it was funny I had this kind of phone service. Even though the phone continually disconnected while I was speaking with her – she tried to claim it wasn’t their problem and they still expected me to pay the bill. Anyway, Beckett had the audacity to keep calling me and I told her emphatically not to call. She said she would continue to call – oh, really – had to inform her this was harassment in writing. Then someone else called but the call kept dropping and they didn’t call back.
Senior tech Kevin calls and told me he had the same issue, but it wasn’t as bad these days – not as bad – are you kidding me! He was supposed to come to me and bring a new router – well he never showed up. Then a letter from t-mobile they are terminating my service and keeping my activation fees, the money for phones and equipment, but we still want you to pay the balance on your bill or we won’t release your number. Keep in mind I paid all along, believing they were honestly attempting to fix the problem – because they said so – like I said – LIARS. In April when the service became unbearable, leaving me without my internet service – I told them I would pay when they fixed the problem – therefore I was disputing my bill. American consumers have to stop being doormats – we have let this happen. Not me – not anymore. I reported them to the FCC, BBB, AG and small claims. An important fact is that you cannot call 911 should you need to when you have no service or it disconnects every minute. Well at least that would get the cops here, since they would figure we were making prank calls to 911. Totally disgraceful company.

By: Graves On SOHO VoIP » Blog Archive » Rave: I Really Like T-Mobile

Graves On SOHO VoIP » Blog Archive » Rave: I Really Like T-Mobile — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:33:54 +0000

[...] Walt Mossberg has written a review of the service here. He’s been part of the beta program so he can speak from experience. However, I feel that his [...]

By: Harold Hart

Harold Hart — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:59:11 +0000

Interesting technology article, but T-Mobile must have missed the invention of Bluetooth. I purchased a Bluetooth enabled VTECH phone system that allows me to answer mobile calls from any cordless extension in my home via Bluetooth. Each cell phone paired to the base has a unique ring tone and setup is easy. Sure the price of entry for a base station and seven extensions may be high but for ease of use what a good balance.

By: Eric Welch

Eric Welch — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:21:13 +0000

My local service with SBC is $16.95. They’re going to have to give me a great deal to give up the benefits of that cheap local service.

I would like to drop it, because that much for 911 service and maybe three calls a week – two of which are not welcome – is kind of a waste of money.

I’m dumping T-Mobile later this year to get an iPhone. I guess I’ll be stuck with whatever AT&T offers.

By: elder norm

elder norm — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:36:33 +0000

I dropped my land line years ago when the price started going over $ 80 per month just for local calls. And the service really sucked.

Now I use Vonnage, get great service, unlimited calls and long distance and overseas calls are cheap. All for $ 25 per month. My cell phones (family plan) work for on the road and when someone is yacking on the main number.

By: Ike Elliott

Ike Elliott — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 05:18:40 +0000

“This new system is not a so-called voice-over-Internet-protocol phone system, such as Vonage.”

Really? Just like a Vonage service, the call uses VoIP to get the call from the subscriber to a more traditional phone network. Sure, T-Mobile uses UMA while Vonage uses SIP, both both services are most definitely VoIP services. More details at http://ikeelliott.typepad.com/.....es-ne.html

By: brad fuller

brad fuller — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:26:08 +0000

I had to laugh at this:

“But there is a big drawback to using a cellphone at home, especially in a large house: You have to schlep it around with you from room to room.”

What has the world come to? Gee, those phones are heavy (and, how is this different from a cordless?)

– As far as history goes, wasn’t the phone originally a novelty where most people believed there would be one phone per town?

We are so spoiled…