VoiceStream in New York

It's ok Rich, sorry to hear about your accident I wish you a speedy recovery and hope you feel better

 

LOL.....been there and done that Rich. My 96 KX250 got the better of me back in 98, I did learn an important lesson.................Oak trees do not move

 

Voicestream don't have their towers in the world trade how can this be?

 

ummmmm.....that review kevin posted is not th only VS customer. where i used to work in North jersey at a company called ECI conference calls inc... a voicestream sales rep came and signed up over 20 people at my work. including my girlfriend and 10 people who worked in mine and hers departments so i knew hwo there service was and it sucked. calls went right to voicemail voicemail notification came hours late or one time in my girlfriends case two days later.

things have gotten better but most people i know have left VS by now (including my gf she saw me on my sprint phone havin a good time and was pissed lol and now has sprint)

VS was the last to get there act on after 9-11 that lady is right at least for north jersey too it was a week before things got back to normal and the funny thing is the problem started happening the day before with my one friends and GF phone not day of 9-11. everyone at my work with a voicestream phone was carrying a paperweight for most of that week.

 

Go with Verizon or Voicestream. Stay away from Nextel!!!!! They are horrible!!! ATT is good, Sprint is good, and Cingular is comming to NYC in the summer i would also recemend them (they will be sharing a network with Voicestream).

 

huh?? I'm nowhere in this thread. What review?

 

lol pardon i meant Kenny. the review he posted of VS service in NY.

all you AT&T people look alike its eery.

btw like the animated effect on the bluetooth logo

 

I had Voicestream for 2 years now. I found their service better outside the USA since I have a dual band phone. Lately I can send text messages to other mobile users outside the USA. My verizon phone can't do this. However, I have to admit Verizon's coverage is really extensive here in the states.

 

Be aware - VoiceStream's calls placed FROM Manhattan generally route to New Jersey towers - my company has a dedicated "800" employee line, but for New York calls only, and- you guessed it - I'm standing in New York, unable to get through on my company line.

I am currently fighting VS about the early termination fees - they're not getting $200 per line (I had 2 lines) from me, when their service was this bad.

Slap-back was horrible, and I totally agree on the voicemail notifications - frequently VERY late, sometimes days. That's unacceptable.

 

hihoslva, what's the area code on your Voicestream phone? If it's 201 then of course you cannot call your company's 800 line because the phone switch thinks the call is coming from NJ since 201 is a New Jersey area code. In that case, this is really not Voicestream's fault. If your Voicestram phone area code is 917 or 347 or 646 I don't see why you are having problems calling your office's 800 line. You can either call the direct non-800 number (212 area code?) to your office, or tell Voicestream to change you to a NYC area code. See, with cellphones, it doesn't matter where you are, is what your area code is that determines if you can call certain 800 numbers or not.

 

Actually, a phone company's service quality depends a lot on who you ask. If you live in a neighborhood where Voicestream's signal is weak then of course you will speak badly about them. However, those people that say that Voicestream is great is because they live and move around an area where the signal happens to be good. We know that everyone moves around different particular areas of towns and cities and they work and live in different areas so everyone's experience is unique. Also, some phones handle weak signal situations differently than others and that may influence their opinions.

I've always heard Voicestream service is excellent in NYC/NJ but I live near NYC and my brother's Voicestream phone can only be used near the back window on the second floor...hehe. However, when he's anywhere driving around the area I've never got cut off when we talk. Many people say Verizon is the best in NYC/NJ area. The only provider that had a signal in the basement of my house was Verizon. However, my job got me a Verizon phone and the signal was close to none anywhere near or inside the building.

However, my Cingular phone is full power everywhere in the building where I work. In my house though, I used to go to the attic to get Cingular's weak signal. Recently though, AT&T put up a tower nearby and my Cingular phone is now full power in my house so I can use my Cingular phone in the basement too. By the way, Cingular and AT&T use the same antennas in this area. I've had dropped calls while in my car specially in NYC (manhattan, Queens, Bronx) But ever since I switched from my Nokia 5160 to the 8260 that problem seemed to disappear.

I've used borrowed Sprint phones quite often while driving and I have to say the sound quality is excellent. The closest approach to land-based phone I've seen. However, I've also seen Sprint phones drop calls here and there although not many. My sister hates Sprint now because of the dropped calls in Queen/Manhattan but I think its because she got the cheapest Sprint phone that was available.

Her husband now has Nextel from his job and the quality is super. I haven't heard him complain yet. Even in my house is full power. Although he hasn't had the service for that long to discover any coverage holes. The downside to Nextel's plans is their price though.

So the bottomline here is that all providers have their pros and cons and they all have coverage holes here and there. You should sign up with the provider that has the phone that you like the most and better covers the particular area where you move around. This may take some trial and error testing though. Good luck.

 

How about coverage in VIRGINIA/

 

Not sure about the rest of Virginia but the DC area and surrounding areas in Virginia have excellent coverage from Cingular. I always see my phone with a full signal no matter where I go in that area.

 

My VS area code was a 631 - Suffolk county number. My company is in Nassau. No reason why I shouldn't have been able to call the 800 line when I was in New York, except for the way VS routes call.

Just a side-note - I had called VS three days after starting my contract to complain about this. They wrote up a trouble ticket, and the techs investigated. First thing they did was pull my call records, which indicated that I DID get through on this 800 number - they discontinued their investigation, without ever verifying that the problem was solved. Of course, when I was travelling on Loing Island, or basically just not in Manhattan, I was able to get through. The problem was mostly in Manhattan and the very immediate surrounding areas. Since I did get through at times, the techs figured the problem "fixed itself". Good work, guys.

 

- I had called VS three days after starting my contract to complain about this.


It's really not the responsibility of Voicestream to make sure your phone is logged onto a tower which will allow calls to connect with an 800 service that has inbound limitations. As a user stated above, try using the direct landline number to contact your job place while on the road rather than the restricted 800 #.

 

How can this NOT be VS's responsibility? When I am in NY, dialing a NY number?

Bottom line is that VS admitted this was a problem, and "looked into it". Their techs dropped the ball by not truly investigating.

It is totally reasonable to expect that when I am in NY dialing a NY restricted number, that I should get through properly. It's not like I was in East Bumblef*ck, NY - I was in Manahttan!

 

Though I don't think that the towers are the problem, you are probably one in a million that this has happened to, and I don't think they are going to change their whole way of routing calls just for one person. I think maybe the tech misunderstood the problem, and thought that you just weren't getting through to that number at all. After they saw that your call was forwarded, that means that your call went through, and that it was forwarded from within, which it was.

 

hihoslva, is that 800 number restricted to calls from NYC only or from NY state only. Because if it is NY State then there is a problem. Otherwise there is none. Keep in mind that what Voicestream does is buy space at your local office. So you have 631-??? lets say the ??? is 564, Voicestream owns all the numbers that start off with 631-564, and there is an actually a machine that handles all of those.

 

The number is restricted to the basic NY metro area, including all five boroughs and Long Island, eastern Connecticut, and a bit of upstate NY. I'm pretty sure it is area code-related, so I believe all incoming calls from 212, 646, 718, 516, 631, 917, 914, and whatever the area code for eastern CT is, plus any nearby NY codes I may have missed. NO Jersey area codes are able to get through.

Well, if I am one in a million who had this problem, I will be the one in a million who gets the early termination fee waived.

I can guarantee that nearly every VS customer has this issue - only you don't know it because you don't dial NY restricted numbers.

Bottom line is that if I am standing in NY, I should be able to dial any NY number.

Let me ask you this - hypothetically, if I had a very restrictive home area, let's say only Long Island and the NY metro area (but NOT Jersey), and everything else was roaming, would it be fair of VS to charge me roaming while I'm IN Manhattan? I'm not talking about one floor of some obscure building, mind you - this issue was present nearly everywhere in the city, including Midtown, East Side, West side - it didn't matter where I was.

You would not think this issue was no big thing if it was YOUR company and YOUR boss on your back for not using the proper incoming call line. I did not expect VS to build me a tower all to myself. However, I did expect to get the service I paid for - which I did not.

 

So you can get through from at your home phone? The only thing the 800 number should see is from caller ID, which would show up as 631. Do you have caller-ID block on, that could cause a problem.

 

The reason I say it may not be Voicestream's fault is because when you make a phone call Voicestream is not the only company the call has to go through on its way to its destination. Verizon gets in the way too. Sometimes the caller-ID info doesn't get properly handed over from one switch to another so the switch that connects to your company's 800# rejects the call. I don't think you can pickup a signal from a tower in NJ when you are in manhattan. Cellphones will automatically pickup the nearest tower and specially when you are in Manhattan, the signal from NJ towers cannot go through because of the buildings. Also, your physical location does not determine your ability to make a phone call to area code restricted number. In your case, your problem is not because you are in Manhattan. However, I believe it has to do with either a switch misconfiguration or a caller-ID issue like I stated before. Depending on which tower you connect to, your call may be routing through a misconfigured switch. This switch may be a Voicestream or Verizon switch or if your company uses a different phone company it may be theirs.

I have made calls to 800 lines restricted to NJ only and I could be located in Massachussetts or Florida and the call went through with no problem. Why? because my cell phone area code is 908.

 

I can't say exactly how the system works, because I really have no idea. But I do know that my company has had this setup for many years - long before anyone even heard of caller ID. I think this 800 # and the restrictions on it even pre-date popular cell phone use.

I can still call this number from my home, and my home number IS a private number (doesn't show on caller ID).

And since switching to AT&T, I have not had a single problem, including the same areas where VS would not go through.

 

Just a quick note to complete my end of the discussion:

I cancelled my VS service, and went with AT&T

One fax to VS customer care, they called me back, I returned my two Nokia 3390 phones and.....NO EARLY TERMINATION FEES.

Obviously, VS realizes that this WAS their uncorrected issue, whether I was the only one who complained or not.

My compliments to VS for handling this matter easily and professionally - I was expecting a fight, and did not get one. As dissatisfied as I was with VS service, at least this end of it went smoothly - and for that, I am grateful to VS.

 

Good for you!

 

Jennifer Leroy

If you don't like VOICESTREAM why are still using their service for over a year?

 

how about upstate ny?