The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the combined Cingular and AT&T Wireless had the highest number of customer complaints of any U.S. mobile phone carriers in 2004, according to figures released by ConsumerReports.org.
The Consumer Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Communications Commission and obtained reports documenting the complaints received and the carriers to which the complaints referred. They filed the FOIA request as a follow up to a mobile carrier satisfaction survey of the readers of Consumer Reports that was published back in February.
Verizon Wireless did the best of the national wireless carriers in terms of number of complaints per million subscribers, followed by future merger partners Nextel and Sprint.
There is little doubt that Cingular deserves its place as the worst carrier in 2004. The question is how much will they improve in 2005? They are getting toward the end of their GSM 850 and EDGE data network upgrades, and gradually eliminating differences between the Cingular customer experience and that of the former customers of AT&T Wireless. This can only help their future numbers.
People who read Operation Gadget regularly are probably a bit surprised by how the numbers treat Verizon Wireless. This company is being sued by customers who bought the Motorola V710 for use on Verizon only to find that many Bluetooth features of the phone have been locked out. This type of issue probably doesn’t fit well in the FCC mobile phone carrier complaint framework.
I don’t regret ordering a phone that works on the Cingular network. I think their worst customer service performances are largely behind them. Kathleen has been an AT&T Wireless customer for the last few years, and she hasn’t had a bad experience with them either.