I guess that I'm kind of on a newsfeed kick the past day or so, because today I'm going to write a little bit about another article that I read on msnbc dot com this morning. The article has to do with cellular phone woes that people who use Sprint as their cell provider are experiencing. Apparently, likely unbeknownst to a lot of us who don't use Sprint, the company and the services that it offers are going down the tubes...and fast. I guess that it's not all too difficult to imagine that such a thing might happen, since companies such as these appear to come and go quite frequently as one buys another out and then another pops up shortly thereafter. It seems like the next biggie to bite the dust might be mighty Sprint. The article that I was reading this morning decries some of the horrible practices that the company is resigning to in their attempts to communicate with their customers. The worst out of all is apparently their semi-automated customer service practices. For service calls, customers receive phone calls from the automated service, after which they are forced to navigate through some kind of automated menu (you know the ones that I'm talking about), and then when they are nearly to the end, the system ends up hanging up on them. Top that with the fact that the company is charging customers for these random service calls that end up hanging up on them anyways. If I was a Sprint customer, I'd surely be peeved.

I guess that we all have our problems and peeves about our individual cellular phone providers. I've had service from Cingular for at least the last five or six years, and after some initial mixups and mess ups, I have to say that I've been pleased overall with their service. They are sticklers on phone upgrades and renewals, but their customer service staff, both on the phone and in stores has always been top notch. I have heard that people have had issues with some billing practices, and they have been denounced by some for sticking to the nine o'clock pm free call start, rather than the seven o'clock that some companies have adopted. I haven't really noticed much of a problem on either, so I can't really comment about that. There are tons of other providers out there though...some of which are nationwide and some of which are local. I suppose that there are some advantages to each. I tend to prefer the nationwide plans and providers myself, which is much of the reason that I've decided to stick with Cingular throughout the years. The coverage is great, the price is pretty decent, and the plans for long distance and mobile-to-mobile are some of the best. On the other hand, the local providers might provide better prices and deals, but then they charge you an arm and a leg if you leave your local area. I can't remember the last time that I had a roaming charge, but I hear that they still exist on some local networks...and that is just scary.

Another great thing about the bigger networks is that many of them, depending on the phone that you happen to own, have the capabilities for use overseas. Most of the time, all you have to do is change the SIM card in your phone when you go overseas, and bam...instant cell phone. I learned this when I traveled to Paris a year ago. At that point, the phone that I had didn't support the overseas calls, but people that I knew there from elsewhere just had various SIM cards that they used as they traveled from place to place. It was admittedly pretty amazing that the system worked so well. It's also kind of funny to walk down the street in Paris and see Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular stores on the street corners in the busy parts of the city. I guess that's what they need for businesses to have a global presence.

So anyways, if you happen to be a Sprint customer, you might want to take a few moments and make sure that the service that you're getting is worth what you're paying for it. Also, it's probably better to go talk to someone in person, rather than trying to get in touch with customer service over your network...and if I were you, I wouldn't answer any of those pesky hang-up service calls. Good luck!