westcoaster

Just got the phone bill tonight. I was recently in Texas and California on courses, naturally a guy wants to call home to see how things are going, pick up the hotel phone and make a calling card call home. In Texas the rates were reasonable, the hotel delt with sprint, California on the other hand.... $11.02 for a two minute call, $20.something dollars for an eight minute call. I'm not sure who the carrier was in California (it wasn't a big name I recognized)
seven calls the longest being eight minutes and the shortest being two, came to a total of $110.something dollars.
I didn't even get a kiss before I got..... well you know.

Palmetto_kid

Nextel offers nationwide free long-distance calling. Its nice to have when I travel.

John Rodriguez

Same. They charge extra for the kiss WestCoaster

Buckshotmckee

You NEVER make a phone call from your hotel room in Cali. They REALLY stiff you good! It's always better to go to the lobby and use the payphone. I know its inconvienent but your pocket book will thank you. The hotels feel that their doing you an extrordinary service for having phone in the room. You don't a cell phone? Most cell phone companies now days have free long distance and or roaming, I know my Verizon has both.

westcoaster

It looks like they billed me for collect daytime calls rather than evening calling card calls, I'll have to give the phone company a call....
Is Nextel a cell phone company??
The local phone company has given me a 1800 number to call next time. Live and learn...

rharveysr

Maybe they offer that because they know their phones wont get reception ..Sorry!


Using Nextel here at work for a while because of the radio feature instead of the cell phones. Biggest pieces of do do...I could have the phone sitting on my desk and it would drop signal and then 3 minutes later the phone would beep and there would be signal. I told my boss that if he didnt get our old cell phones back...I would make many little pieces of this one big piece...

I made a call to Scotty in Canada ....it cost me $1 per minute I found out later


Rick

Chrisreyn

We use Nextels at work for the radio feature as well and have the same problem.
We are only two miles from the repeater tower, and cant talk from one gate to the other, only about 500 yds distance.....The Nextels remind me a great deal of what the horses leave behind when done eating.....

Lary Ellis (Top)

Now I can see why that ticked you off

I only pay .35 a minute to keep Scotty from calling me

pickingonScottywhileheisgoneLary

DieselDaze

Rich

edwinsmith

I have nationwide long distance on my cell. I always use it for long distance even when I'm home. I never go over my anytime minutes and I can talk as long as I want at night or weekends for free. I just wish it would work in the boonies.

Edwin

joel

I think if you read your hotel information booklet they leave in the rooms, direct dial calls are billed at the highest appliciable rate, plus 10% or something stupid like that. So, you were probably billed at the operator assisted, person to person, collect call. Plus the surcharge.

Like edwin, I use a cell phone for all long distance stuff. I've exceeded my minutes a couple of times and Verizon is pretty **** proud of their extra minutes. I've tried to talk to them - politely - about changing their policies so that they are competitive with Sprint (they bump you to the next higher level automatically for the month) or Cingular (rollover minutes). I went with Verizon because they have (had?) the best coverage on their network, even though they were the highest rate. When this contract is up, I am most likely going to Cingular unless Verizon gets its head out of its butt and lowers its rates. Oh, and changes it's policy of trying to extend your contract every time you talk to customer service. I've called them on it twice so far. They probably all do that, though.

jfpointer

Glad I'm not the only one! All of our Help Desk people have them, so they can use the walkie-talkie feature to talk to one another, consult, interact when the task requires it. The one place in the building where they almost never work? Where the Help Desk people actually sit!

Shovelhead

Maybe Verizon should take down some of their towers and use cheaper equipment to reduce their coverage so they could compete with Sprint & Nextel.

That's like telling Don M. he should reduce the price of his injectors because you can buy inferior ones cheaper on Ebay.





Yes I'm a 24 year Verizon (not Wireless) employee.

joel

Well, I guess that remains to be seen with the ATT/Cingular merger.

I agree that the CDMA is a better technology than TDMA/GPRS. But, as long as the coverage is good, I'll switch for the price.

Shovelhead

Don't count yer chickens..........
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...2244_tc024.htm