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To: Keith Feral who wrote (115855)	3/21/2002 9:52:09 AM
From: saukriver	Respond to of 152472

VZ probably has the best network and customer service. However, the rate plans are very pricey. As much as I am unhappy with PCS, they are the only company for a single price service in the CDMA group. I never knew what to expect when I (used to) open a VZ statement. Not my experience. We have two phones sharing minutes in the same rate plan. No surprises from VZ on billing as I typically check my usage before the end of the billing cycle. Coverage is so-so for Sprint in the Puget Sound region, and AWE ironically has many dead zones. But I will keep Sprint in mind. Coverage is quite important, which gets back to Lars' critical point. On more thing, VZ has a no-extra charge service. You can forward calls (after so many rings) to another number. (The reason is driving safety as you can let calls go and they will simply ring into voice-mail.) I declined the voice-mail account VZ offers and simply forward calls to my cell to my work voice-mail. This eliminates the hassle of checking 2 vm boxes (work and cell) or someone leaving you a msg. on your cell vm thinking that they will reach you. AWE has a similar service, but charges 10 cents for each forwarded call.

To: Keith Feral who wrote (115855)	3/21/2002 1:10:09 PM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 152472

Keith, Comments on single rate plans: << FWIW, VZ probably has the best network and customer service. However, the rate plans are very pricey. As much as I am unhappy with PCS, they are the only company for a single price service in the CDMA group. I never knew what to expect when I (used to) open a VZ statement. >> Bell Atlantic Mobile (formerly Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile and now Verizon) was the second wireless carrier in the US to offer National Single Rate plans (with no additional roaming charges and no additional long distance charges). The first of course was AT&T wireless. The AWS plans were better originally because they were tiered. I used to pay $160/mo for the BAM plan for 1100 minutes (well more than I used or still used but less expensive than prior because of the lack of LD & roaming charges). Eventually BAM offered Single Rate East plans that were tiered, and when they became Verizon. They began offering tired national one-rate rate plans, tiered regional one rate plans, family plans, bonus off peak minutes, and now the new tiered Americas plan - their best ever. One rate plans take the confusion out of billing (unless you exceed monthly allotment). Cellular billing was frightffully expensive in the early days was a bloody nightmare and that is because of the way we chop up spectrum licenses geographically into tiny chunks called BTA's and RSA's) and bigger chunks called MTA's or MSA's which is why I think that inevitable natural selection or survival of the fittest through M&A is vitally important and is servicing us well. This leads to the issue of customer service which may not be uniform across Verizon's combined national network. Remember that Verizon is a combination of 4 larger networks (BAM, NYNEX, GTE, and AirTouch). I live in the heart of BAM country, and Verizon's headquarters is not all that far north of me. BellAtlantic always offered exceptional customer service and technical support on both wireline and wireless side. The tradition continues with Verizon. The same old BAM techs that installed my original residence and office service in 1985 pull up in their Bell Atlantic trucks with same old Bell atlantic signage (being frugal I guess) to service my ADSL or swap or splice a copper cable down the street because data service has deteriorated because the darned squirrels chewed through the fabric down to copper (again). I am not embarrassed to sound like a commercial for BAM (Now Verizon). They have earned it. In the interim, it occurs to me, that the same exceptional commitment to service excellence may not apply uniformly across the entire Verizon combined network. In regard to the 3 C's, my priorities are coverage, capacity, then cost - in that order. - Eric -