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Cell Phone Madness in Southern California
(don't forget to read the caveats!)

Okay, so back in December 1997, Wayne and I each got one of them PCS Sprint/Qualcomm flip phone.  We got something like 1000 minutes for $75, and another 10 bucks off if you signed up with Sprint.  The cost of the phone was $500. Pretty cool, comes out to 7.5 cents a minute.  Except the problem was coverage was horribly spotty.  Phone would not work 40% of the time on the 405 freeway between Orange County and Los Angeles.   Sprint said that they were building capacity, problem should be cured soon.   Meantime, I had a miserable time trying to call people on the freeway.  I thought for 7.5 cents a minute, I could throwout my local phone service, and go all cellular.  Except, my Sprint phone would not work at my house...service was spotty.    Wayne went and traded his phone in for an identical phone, and he said it helped a little bit.     One day Wayne had problem with local generic phone service he bought, and all 20 lines into his business went dead.  So when he called the big Local phone services guys to fix his T1 line/trunk, of course he was on the bottom of the list since he didn't buy local service from them.  Customers are paging him and his sales people to buy and sell business phone systems, and if Wayne or one of his sales guys at Phoneguysusa doesn't pickup the call, the customer just calls the next guy on the list, and a sale is lost.  Some sales can be $5000 sales.  Wayne is going crazy, whips out his PCS phone.  Except it won't work at his office, no signal.   So he has to run down the street about a block, and wave his phone around in the air, praying for a signal strong enough so he can return a call to make some money.   Now think about how ridiculous this is:  Wayne Buys and Sells used business phone systems.  He is The Phone Guy.  His life is centered around phones.   Except  no one can call him.  And he can't call anyone back.  

When I went on vacation, the cities I went to had either no service, or spotty service.   So, if I happened to get in a wreck, or go off the side of a hill, or got stranded in a deserted area where psycho killers live, I would be out of luck with my service.    So I decided to go on a warpath, as I simply could not take it anymore.  

I screamed at Sprint.  They said part of the problem is that the phone I have sucks, and I need to trade it in for one of their newer ones.  But their newer ones were a lot bigger, and would not fit in that stupid fanny pack I carry around all the time.  They had some refurbished small Sony phones that they said would work a little better, but still they tried to sell me on a full size phone, which I don't want.  I wanted to know why I could not get analog backup, so if no PCS signal, it would default to Analog.  They said that Airtouch and LA Cellular own the analog airwaves in Southern California, and Sprint could not get access, because of course Airtouch and LA Cellular don't want Sprint to get a foothold into the market.   SOUNDS LIKE ILLEGALLY DIVIDING UP THE MARKETPLACE TO ME.   So at the time, Sprint is stuck with PCS only, which has coverage that is getting a little better, (but my new small Sony phone also doesn't work from my house).  Supposedly Sprint will get some analog backup capabilities in their next generation full size phone, not sure how, but they also said that if it defaulted to analog backup, you might have to punch in a credit card number in to use that feature, which is a nightmare when you are doing 95 mph in bumper to bumper traffic.  I complained that my Sprint phone doesn't work at my house.  Sprint said that because many cities view cellular towers(relay stations?) are eyesores, they won't allow  them to build more capacity in some areas, and I guess my area is one of them.

Okay, I give up.  I went to local phone independent cellular phone store. Told him I wanted one of them Motorola Startac phones that did both Digital and Analog.   Unfortunately, not yet on market.  He tried to sell me on digital Startac, but I told him no, DIGITAL/PCS SUCKS, and I mean sucks.  I told him to sell me a analog Startac.  Except the pricing is hugely expensive compared to the Digital/PCS plans, which don't work.   We agreed that the only thing that would work is to:
1.  Get Analog Startac with cheapest plan
2.  Keep Sony Sprint PCS phone, use as main phone
3.  Use Sony Sprint phone, since I get 1000 minutes for $75.  If no signal, switch over and use analog Startac
4.  Carry Sony Sprint PCS phone in fanny pack, but have analog Startac nearby in case no service. 

Now I thought this was really ridiculous, having to have two cell phones.  Until I went to Sacramento to pickup my car at Comptech.  The Cab driver, who could speak halfway okay English, was driving me from the airport to Comptech.  About 10 minutes out, he pull out his cell phone, and turned it off.  He then pulled out a different cell phone, and turned it on.  I ask him what in the hell he was doing.  He said, "I cat dis PCS pone, 1000 minutos por 75 duhlors, but no workee away from airpuerto.  So, den I pull out da analog pone, so cusstomors can call me, and wife can call me.  Mi Friendo does same ting."  And I thought I was the only nut case that took this route........

December, 1999.
Wayne gets the Nextel phones.  He loves it.  He convinces me and Larry and Dagmar to get them, so we can use the two way radio feature and easily buzz each other.  These phones are GREAT.  One person can be in San Diego, another in Vegas, another in Huntington Beach, and we can use the two-way radio feature(no airtime charges!) between all the locations.  Nextel, you are GODS!  We cancel our PCS phones, we cancel our Airtouch analog phones, we cancel our pagers.  Nextel, you are it!

January, 2000.
We are forced to move out of our rented townhouse, and we find another one.  We get the movers to pack up the equivalent of two 53 foot trucks worth of stuff and we make the move to a bigger place in Newport on the hill.  Dagmar and I have alot more space here to store our stuff, life looks good.  The movers dump everything off, and we start moving in.  I whip out the phone to call Wayne.....but the Nextel cellular signal sucks up here.......I can only get an intermittant signal.....DAMN!