Barney
Jacksonville,#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, June 11, 2002
I wish more cell carriers were honest about the "National Plans." Having been in the business since 1995 I can offer a few perspectives that no carrier seems to want to admit. First, lets face it it is wireless service and it will never be 100 percent clear (sorry man in black coat). Secondly there is no one carrier that has 100 percent service in the United States and when outside your home area you are roaming. What has changed is how you are billed for the airtime (it use to be daily access charges plus airtime and ld). All carriers have roaming agreements with carriers throughout the US (the exeption is Nextel). And not always on a digital network. What you signed was an agreement for no roaming or long distance charge to be incurred. If you read the small print it states that you are responsible for airtime used when you left your home network in the month that Alltel receives the bill from the carrier you were roaming on. As an example lets say your rate plan allows for 500 minutes and in August you are in your home area for only 2 weeks (and only use 200 minutes) but also travel to Florida for the other two weeks were you use 250 minutes. You did not exceed airtime allowance but the carrier in Florida does not report the airtime to Alltel until November a month you are in you home area the entire month and use 450 minutes then comes the airtime charges for when you were in Florida so now you have exceeded your airtime amount by 200 minutes (450 + 250) and charged accordingly the airtime overage.