Apparently, cell phone companies are acting like a bunch of toddlers in a sand box who just cannot get along with each other.
I say this because not every cell phone company will allow cell phones from other companies have access to their cell phone network. Heck, I don’t know if there is a single cell phone company that allows access a cell phone from any other cell phone company to access their network.
I bought a cell phone because I want to be able to use it to make a call. And I want that call to work no matter where I am.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I am having problems making calls simply because there is no cell phone coverage in some areas. Hardly! I’m very well aware of the fact that there are areas that just don’t have coverage due to lack of towers or the terrain. We have that problem in quite a few locations around where I live. But that’s not what I am talking about at all.
What I am talking about is being in a location with very good cell phone coverage and still not being able to make or receive a call because my phone is not allowed to access the cell phone network in that area.
This, as far as I know, is because the company that I get my phone service from does not have an agreement with the company that owns the network in the area where I am trying to use my phone.
Like I said before, I have a cell phone because I want to be able to use it! No matter where I happen to be — as long as there is cell phone coverage there. Is that asking too much?
Apparently so. Recently we drove from Southern New Hampshire into Vermont and then north on Route 91. As soon as we were west of Keene, NH, my cell phone was completely useless.
All the way up Route 91 I was not able to make or receive calls on my cell phone until we reached White River Junction, where it seemed to work OK and then once we were past that area, it was useless again all the way up to Route 89 and right up to our destination not far from Montpelier.
All that time I could tell that we were in areas that had good cell phone coverage because the signal meter on my phone indicated that. It would show me that a good cell phone signal was present, but the signal meter was blinking on and off, which in my experience means that there is coverage in the area, but my phone is not allowed to access it.
This is the year 2007 isn’t it? If I take my cell phone on a trip with me, I expect to be able to use it no matter where I am in the country as long as there is sufficient cell phone coverage there. All this greed-driven nonsense needs to stop and it needs to stop soon.
I don’t know if this is a problem in other parts of the world, or if the U.S. is embarrassingly behind the times as we are with broadband Internet access. As usual, we end up behind the times because of corporate greed. The driving force behind just about everything that happens in this country — including our politics by the way!
I don’t care if I have to pay $1 a minute or whatever if I want to use my cell phone in the far distant Kingdom of Vermont, or in any other location in the U.S. I’d be willing to pay extra for that important call I want to make. And in those cases, all I want to do is deliver a brief, important message to someone, like “I’ll meet you at exit 26,” so it really isn’t going cost me a fortune to do it.
I’m not one of those people you see out and about with a cell phone plastered to my ear most of the time. I make very few calls on my cell phone and when I do make a call, it is usually for a good reason and not just to call someone and say “What’s up?”
Although I have not actually tried it, I trust that my cell phone would be able to make a call to 911 even in an area where my phone is not allowed to access the service. I believe that is mandated by law, and that’s a good thing, but these cell phone companies should stop acting like children and make sure that every cell phone in the country can access the service anywhere in the country that it happens to be.
We Americans do travel from time to time and being unable to use our cell phones just because I am in another state is completely ridiculous. Get your act together and grow up, cell phone companies!
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