Southern Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is demanding cell phone service providers, Verizon and AT&T expand and strengthen their signal coverage in Southern Arizona. Congresswoman Giffords specifically wants better service for the region along the border where rancher Robert Krentz was murdered.

Spotty Cell Phone Signal Contributes to Rancher’s Death

Rancher Robert Krentz was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant working for a smuggling cartel. The lack of reliable cell phone coverage was a contributing factor, the family claims. It does give new meaning to Verizon’s ad “Can you hear me now?”

As a California rural resident, I can relate to the frustration of spotty coverage. I have to cross “the abyss” traveling my daily commute to and from work. My friends are used to being “dropped” and then recalled when I am through the dead zone. For me it is just an inconvenience. Obviously for rancher Krentz, it was a life and death situation resulting in tragedy.

Is network coverage driven by the Almighty Dollar? You bet! Southern Arizona’s Mexican border probably isn’t populated by a huge number of cell phone subscribers so the coverage update schedule is no doubt low on the priority list. Will congressional pressure bump them up on the list? We’ll see.

Cell phone service providers have figured out ways to bilk their customers of billions of dollars! They hire experts to figure out which bundles will suck the most money out of the customer’s pockets. People are catching on, however, and fighting back with prepaid phones and other work-arounds.

9 Ways Cell Phone Service Providers Rape and Pillage

Last year T-Mobile lost a class action suit for charging early termination fees. AT&T, Verizon and Comcast rejected $4.7 billion in government stimulus handout because the terms of accepting the free money required fairness in the provision of services. They were smart enough to realize that they could make much more than the $4.7 billion if they weren’t held back by the fairness agreement.

Here are 9 ways cell phone providers are able to charge more money.
1) Text messaging (costs the provider a penny per text and while charging us 20 cents)
2) Cell phone insurance (with deductibles and the monthly fee, it’s often more expensive than the used phone they send you.)
3) Early cancellation fees (some providers have stopped this and are charging sign-up fees)
4) New phones without signing up for a plan (go to discount stores or eBay)
5) International roaming fees (cheaper to buy a prepaid phone when traveling in Europe)
6) Miscellaneous fees and surcharges (These little add-on charges total 13 percent of bill charges for such useful extras as termination and activation fees, regulatory fees, equipment shipping and administrative charges.)
7) Wireless service (US is in the top three most expensive countries for wireless service)
Mandatory Voice Mail Messages (announcements that take up valuable minutes)
9) Double-charging Minutes (charging the caller and the receiver)

Do they have us over a barrel? We are all dependent on our cell phones. But with a little ingenuity, we can save money. Buy a prepaid phone if possible. StraightTalk offers a reasonable $45/month for unlimited calling and uses the Verizon network so the service is the same. Verizon will be allowing calls over the Skype network starting in late march. The new cell phone MagicJack is coming.

Keep your eyes and ears open for discounts! Fight back!

Nokia just rolled out its new Maemo phone, after 5 years in development. It combines their Linux Maemo software platform with Intel’s Linux based Moblin to create the new platform, MeeGo.

Intel and Nokia plan a merger on new cell phone

The MeeGo announcement came last week at the Mobile World Congress fair in Barcelona, Spain. The MeeGo is direct competition to the Apple iPhone and other Smartphones. Nokia understands that getting out a phone that will appeal to the consumers is the key to the race. But will anything really replace the popular iPhone? When AT&T loses it exclusivity this year, other providers will be able to sell the iPhone. I predict it will triple in popularity, replacing the new trendy Droids as well as the BlackBerry phones.

For those Linux fans, this is another way to slap at King Kong (Microsoft). Will Microsoft even feel the blow? It’s doubtful. Still it’s nice to see that free enterprise competition out there.

Smartphones and other data-intensive devices have been taking down the service provider networks right and left. With more and more Smartphones (Droids and iPhones) being sold, cell phone service providers are understandably concerned. But not Verizon….

Verizon confident in its network

Verizon is very confident in its infrastructure. Verizon’s chief executive, Ivan Seidenberg, assured investors regarding this issue. “To the extent that usage picks up, I think our guys have done a very good job in making sure that we stay in front of that issue,” Mr. Seidenberg said. “And I know most investors are worried about that. But over the course of the last 10 years, this is what we pride ourselves on doing. So I’m comfortable that we are in good shape on this.”

“Can you hear me now?” Verizon has the best coverage in our neighborhood but still drops calls in isolated spots on the highway. We can only hope that with the higher usage coming with the Smartphones, Verizon will continue to give us fairly dependable coverage.

Verizon may soon carry Apple’s iPhone. Although the Droid ads have poked fun at the iPhone, Verizon has hinted that it plans to sell the iPhone as soon as AT&T loses its exclusivity. I am still undecided if I would rather have an iPhone or a Droid, but until Verizon actually starts selling the iPhone, it’s a moot point.

Verizon had 13,000 lay offs last year and is expected to do the same this year. With their land line business shrinking and stiff competition in the wireless market, Verizon faces a tough road ahead. The economy hasn’t helped, but Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg feels 2011 will be the turn around year. Most of these lay offs are in their land line side of the business, but some lay offs should be expected in the wireless side as well.

Verizon posts 4th Quarter Loss

In light of the price war going on between the big 3 service providers, Verizon dropped its unlimited talk time rate to $70/month last week. (See my blog Cell Phone Service Provider Price War.) It seems Verizon is scrambling to stay afloat. Their main focus is attracting high paying customers away from AT&T and the iPhone, although another big push is for the fiber optics video service and Internet connection.

AT&T loses its exclusive hold on the iPhone sometime this year. In the meantime, Verizon is pushing the Android phone using Google’s platform. Will having the iPhone available help Verizon’s profit this year? I think so. Dropping the monthly service prices will help as well.

How will the new gadgets like the MagicJack for cell phones affect the wireless service providers? It’s a tough market out there with all the competition. Consumers are facing the same scary economy as the big companies and are being more cautious with how they spend their money. I say, the more competition, the better! What about you? Are you feeling the crunch?