Hi. I'm long Nokia and have been lurking here since the beginning of the year. I first considered Nokia as an investment after I became a Sprint Spectrum customer and was impressed by my new Nokia handset.
I thought the thread might be interested in the current conversion from Sprint Spectrum to PCS. Contrary to what this Post article says, the letters I have received from Sprint Spectrum say that this is being done as a settlement in a law suit.
Karen
From the Washington Post:
Sprint Spectrum Shutdown Hits Static
By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 23, 1999; Page E01
Faces taut with frustration, a dozen people waited in line
under the mood lights at the Sprint store in downtown
Washington. Trouble filled the room--phones that couldn't
be activated, choice models hopelessly out of stock, calls
lost in oblivion.
The company was shutting down its once-pioneering
cellular phone network, Sprint Spectrum, shifting its more
than 100,000 Spectrum customers to a newer service by the
end of the year. Here, as in stores throughout the
Washington and Baltimore areas, crowds of people--some
angry, many confused--waited in the hopes of leaving with a
phone that would work on the new system.
"It's a disaster," complained Jeff Nussbaum, 24, a federal
worker. Despite hours spent trying to program his new
phone to his old number, it refused to ring. The company's
customer service line offered no relief. "I was on hold for
more than 20 minutes," he said.
As if that weren't enough, the phone Nussbaum was
struggling to activate wasn't the model he wanted. He'd
been forced to accept a Motorola Startac rather than the
sleek Nokia that better matched the features of his old one.
The Nokia was sold out. "We do not have it," informed a
sign near the entrance. "We do not have an estimated date
of replenishment."
"This is Kafkaesque," Nussbaum said, his eyes rolling
skyward.
Less than two years ago, when Nussbaum signed up for
Spectrum, the service was marketed as a gateway to the
future, the nation's first all-digital network. Today it is a relic
of Sprint's past, a stranded hamlet on the modern
communications map: The system serves only Washington
and Baltimore. Sprint is moving its Spectrum customers to
its new, national network, Sprint PCS, which claims 4
million users.
"I feel like I bought a Beta VCR," Nussbaum groused.
The "migration," as Sprint calls it, requires Spectrum
customers to trade in their old phones for PCS-compatible
ones while keeping their old numbers.
As the company portrays it, the transition is happening
smoothly enough, considering the undertaking. Shortages
of phones have been a problem. Help lines and stores have
been jammed. But those are the exceptions, the company
says.
"We've got an overwhelming response to this," said Brian J.
McIntee, Sprint PCS area vice president. "We're not happy
about the fact that customers have to wait on line for an
extended period of time. We're not happy that customers
have to wait on hold on the customer-care lines. But we
also have many, many customers where this migration has
gone flawlessly."
In recent weeks, McIntee said, Sprint has extended store
hours to handle the crush, while boosting the ranks of
customer-service operators by nearly a third.
At the root of the trouble is a basic technological divide.
Spectrum runs on a technology known as GSM, which is
incompatible with the new system's technology, CDMA.
GSM is used by roughly 130 million people in Europe,
lending it appeal as a transatlantic standard. While the new
Sprint PCS phones don't work in Europe, the old Spectrum
ones do.
But ever since Sprint claimed a series of new frequencies in
1995, it has been erecting a national network using CDMA.
The company says calls over CDMA sound clearer and the
system carries data faster--a key virtue, as communications
networks increasingly carry great flows of computer traffic.
Even as Sprint has expanded its new national network into
the Baltimore-Washington area, it kept the old system
running. For the past 18 months, the area has been served
by both.
But this year the company decided that running two
systems was cumbersome and muddied its marketing
efforts. PCS customers are eligible for flat-rate plans that
involve no roaming or long-distance charges, since Sprint's
newer network runs in virtually every major market. But
Spectrum customers frequently pay roaming and
long-distance charges when they carry their phones beyond
the local airwaves.
"With Sprint Spectrum, you're sort of on an island," said
company spokesman Larry McDonnell. "It made sense for
us to upgrade our Spectrum customers."
Sprint designed a system that was supposed to prevent a
rush of customers to its stores. The company sent out
letters early this summer announcing that the switch was
coming. Then it sent brochures offering customers a choice
of three phone models. If customers wanted a different
phone, Sprint applied a $50 credit toward the purchase.
Sprint mails out the new phones and asks customers to call
a hot line to activate them. Then Sprint sends a
postage-paid box for customers to return their old phones.
But the system has not prevented a flood of customers to
Sprint stores from Rockville to Laurel to downtown
Washington.
As Paul Gresham, manager at the store on 18th Street NW
in the District, surveyed a packed room, he blamed the
troubles on those who had not followed the instructions.
"It's a disaster because our customers aren't doing this
through the mail like they're supposed to," he said.
Many say they were forced to go to stores when the system
failed. While new PCS customers report no special
problems, Spectrum customers have encountered myriad
adventures.
Ming Ngo, 26, a D.C. police officer, said he never received
instructions on how to trade in his phone. He was making
his fifth trip to the store to try to get his new phone
programmed.
Aziz Ahmed, 23, a student, said he didn't find out about the
change until his Spectrum phone stopped working and he
took it in for service. When he received his new phone and
called Sprint to activate it, he was put on hold for more than
half an hour.
But while Ahmed was able to dial out on his new phone, no
one could reach him. "I would ask my friends, 'Why didn't
you call back?' " he said. "They were like, 'Dude, we did
call back. We got your voice mail.' "
Ahmed dialed his cell-phone number himself: voice mail,
indeed. Four days in a row, he dialed the customer service
number, once staying on the line for three hours, he said.
Each time, new codes failed to provide a fix. "It seems like,
over the phone, they don't know what they're doing," he
said.
Distraught, Ahmed took the phone to the Sprint store,
where a salesman finally discovered the trouble: Someone
had left his old Spectrum account open. The calls were
going into the void.
But the mishaps didn't end there. On this day, Ahmed was
in line again, trying to fine out why his efforts to dial out
brought a recorded voice that cheerfully informed him his
number had been "temporarily disconnected."
Across the Spectrum
Sprint says customers can get better service in the shift
from Sprint Spectrum to PCS by:
Calling the customer service line at 1-800-311-4221 before 9
a.m. or after 9 p.m. and avoiding lunch hour on weekdays.
Customer service is available 24 hours a day.
Visiting stores on Sunday, when there are fewer customers.
Stores in this area are:
Washington 202-496-9400
Gaithersburg 301-987-5220
Laurel 301-483-6333
Rockville 301-984-2000
Towson 410-296-7100
Tysons Corner 703-448-7447
Reston 703-742-7778
Annandale 703-914-4555
Annapolis 410-224-4300
Baltimore 410-244-6550
Columbia 410-740-8250
SOURCE: Sprint
¸ 1999 The Washington Post Company |
