AT&T Drops the Ball on Dropped Calls

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I love the iPhone. The design, the features, the functionality—it's as close to a perfect little device as you can get. Unfortunately I can't summon up the same level of enthusiasm for AT&T. Although AT&T agrees that, yes indeed-y, I'm in their coverage area, 50% of my calls consistently have been dropped since the day I brought my shiny new baby home. Some days I'd be better off sending homing pigeons or signaling from the roof with a lantern like Paul Revere.

When I emailed AT&T about the situation, I received a lovely response informing me that AT&T doesn't guarantee "in-vehicle or in-building coverage." This gave me a moment's pause, as you can imagine. No buildings and no cars? That leaves...what? The backyard? Imagine my neighbors' reaction on seeing me at 10 o'clock, chatting with my mom in the middle of our street in my night gown. "Oh, hey ya', Bob! Coverage is great tonight. Love the new lawn gnome."

If I were AT&T, I probably would have put that bit about the guarantee at the bottom of the email, not the top. A defensive stance never goes over well with irate people who have just paid you for a service you can't deliver. Instead, like some political personalities who shall go nameless, they would garner a lot more good will and maybe even some sympathy if they just came right out and admitted "Alright. Yeah, we screwed up. The coverage sucks. But we're working hard on it. Honest. Just give us a little more time."

Common sense tells us it's a waste of time and energy to deny the obvious. Much better to just acknowledge a mistake, take your medicine, and instead spend your energy on correcting the problem. But common sense doesn't seem to have a lot of fans these days. Just look around.

Noted on 19 October 2008 in

• Life by Design