Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
Well it has officially turned to fall, and this got me thinking about one of America’s favorite pastimes. No, not football, though from what I hear that game has quite the following. Instead, I am talking about a real American pastime. Complaining.
Whether it’s complaining about the economy, the president, the weather, food being too hot, food being too cold or just complaining to hear yourself complain, finding something wrong with just about anything is what this country is really good at. (Of course, I use this gift on an almost weekly, if not more frequent, basis.)
What got me thinking about this precious of all pastimes was a conversation I had this week with some male family members where the topic of discussion revolved around how bad wireless service is. (And I have to say, next to complaining, the one thing Americans like are cell phones.)
As is typical in these conversations that involve the mobile space, I laid back and just tried to listen to the complaints being levied on the wireless service of just about every operator. The general tone of the complaints are those that have been common across the mobile space for a millennia: can’t make a call from inside a house; can’t make a call from outside a house; can’t make a call while looking at a house; can’t make a call while chasing a mouse around the house. You know … the usual.
There were even the occasional comments that we could send a man to the moon (allegedly), but couldn’t get cell phone service to work under water. (If not for the false argument about the moon landing, this was the sort of comparison I could have gotten behind.)
Once there was a break in the action, I tried to take the side of the accused and interject that cell phone coverage is a complex issue involving black cats, scientists, orbiting planets and French cheeses. Of course, all those explanations got me were quizzical looks and an order to get more beer.
On my way to acquire more conversation lubrication, I started thinking about the bitch-fest I had just witnessed and how the wireless industry really is in a bind. My guess is that the knowledge base of at least 90% of people who subscribe to wireless services as to how that service works stops and ends at if they can make a call or not. This is not really their fault as I have no idea how a toaster works, only that I get very angry when it doesn’t toast my toast.
And this is what the wireless industry is up against. To make wireless service do its thing requires the engineering talent of the world’s most gifted minds and even if they get all of the billions of calculations right, an errant tree branch or a brick fa
