Machine Caught in Cellular Time Irregularity
July 28th, 2009Tomorrow?
I don’t know how AT&T does it, but I keep getting my voicemails and missed call notifications late. Sometimes days late.
This morning I kept my cell with me, and I checked it several times, because I was expecting a rigger to deliver my milling machine. Two hours after the scheduled arrival time, I noticed two missed calls and two voicemails. One was from last night, and the other came in at about 9:00 a.m. The morning call came from the rigger.
Guess what? NO MILLING MACHINE TODAY. Two of the rigger’s guys failed to show up. So it will be here tomorrow at 9:00. Unless they cancel again, and AT&T lets me know next week.
My garage is barely usable. When I park, I have to unroll the window to get out. Everything is moved around to accommodate the mill. I was going to do the rearranging after it arrived. Now I’m stuck for another day.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:55 PM
Now you have time to buy the T nuts.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Do you see a sign outside that says “Top notch quality and efficient service”?
No, it says “AT&T”
July 28th, 2009 at 1:18 PM
Not consistantly, but often enough I’ve had that happen with Verizon.
Was it Carly Simon who sang “Anticipation” (otherwise known as the catsup song)?
July 28th, 2009 at 1:46 PM
I called AT&T. They could not believe I was not given a new sim card when I got my phone. But when I got the phone, I told them the old one had been through the clothes washer, and I specifically asked whether the old sim card needed to be replaced.
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The lady I talked to today said AT&T would replace and back up the card for nothing. All I had to do was go to ANY store that sold AT&T phones. I asked for clarification, because I didn’t want to drive to a corporate store. No, ANY store could do it.
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I went to Radio Shack. They said I had to go to a corporate store. I went to the nearest store with an AT&T sign. Guess what? There are stores that call themselves AT&T stores, yet which are not corporate stores. I drove to a third store, and finally, the card was replaced.
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Will it fix the phone? No idea.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:23 PM
Don’t count on it. M Jackson had Neverland, all cellphone users have Etherland, sometimes the missed calls and voicemails show on time, and then again the show as a duplicate weeks, or months later. They have been in Etherland. Texts seem to come through on time.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:25 PM
Don’t count on it. M Jackson had Neverland, all cellphone users have Etherland, sometimes the missed calls and voicemails show on time, and then again they show as a duplicate weeks, or months later. They have been in Etherland. Texts seem to come through on time.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:27 PM
Will it fix the phone?
.
No.
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That’s because there’s nothing wrong with the phone. There’s nothing wrong with the SIM card, either — if it works at all it’s OK.
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The problem is in the network. You can’t really seriously blame AT&T for it, although you should; they deserve all the calumny that can be heaped on their heads. The problem is that nobody, but nobody, expected the level of usage of the cellphone system that’s been achieved. Store&forward applications like voice mail have a lower priority than the tens of thousands of texting teenagers, and it takes a while for the computers to catch up.
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What you experienced is the electronic equivalent of a placebo. You got to do something plausible, which for many people is better than just sitting there when nothing’s really doable. Support techs of all kinds resort to that tactic from time to time; we really shouldn’t, but when the customer is demanding and the fix is simply not possible at that level it’s a terrible temptation.
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Regards,
Ric
July 28th, 2009 at 3:08 PM
At least the phone has stopped turning itself off and saying “Sim card error.”
July 28th, 2009 at 3:59 PM
I have a Trac phone and have had voicemails come through anywhere from a few minutes to 12+ hours after they were posted. Mostly pretty quick, but….
July 28th, 2009 at 4:09 PM
The same thing happens with my husbands phone. And the weirdest thing of all is when he will be out in our front yard(I will be in the house) and I call him on the phone(so I don’t have to scream out the front door like a fish-wife) and it will go straight to voice mail-even though he isn’t talking on the phone or ignoring calls. The saddest thing of all is that AT&T has the best service for our area. There’s even one of their towers less than a 1/4 of mile from our house!
I think ErikZ’s comment hit the nail on the head! LOL!
July 28th, 2009 at 4:45 PM
I have a setting on my phone that allows it to receive calls at any time. I also have a setting that will block calls if any other function of the phone is being used.
The “allow calls at anytime” setting is fourteen hundred menus deep, written in sanskrit, and requires a knowledge of the pelipponesian wars to grasp. The ” block calls” is apparently set automatically everytime Chris Mathews has twisted fantasises about Mr Fixit. Go figure. So i miss calls if my phone is in any other mode but “phone”
July 28th, 2009 at 10:05 PM
I live in a third world country and my cell phone service is with a company called Movistar owned by that really rich Mexican guy. I consistently get calls from people I don’t want to hear from like my boss. Is there anything that can be done for that?