Initial sales consultation was pleasant thanks to efficiency of our rep at a walk-in location in Morgantown WV. Ostensibly, it was a corporate location (as opposed to a reseller) but you will notice that the Cellular One logo is tagged with "from Dobson Cellular Systems." I honestly don't know if there are other flavors of Cellular One given the consolidation in the industry, but I assume this to be the case.

It all went pear-shaped after that. To list all the issues would exhaust the disk space of epinions.com so I'll list some highlights:

*Reception/clarity/quality*
Don't trust the maps or any believe any assurances regarding coverage, especially out of your home region. The phone frequently does a tap-dance between home service, extended area and roaming, even when you are stationary! Signal drops to zero all too frequently, even when multiple towers are in plain sight.

Most recipients of calls stated aloud how poor the sound quality was (even on two different phone makes/models). Echoes, static, dropouts and a delay that inevitably resulted in both parties talking over each other, then both parties starting the halting, "you first" routine.


*Phone selection*
Flavor of the month? Flavor of the day is more like it. Any phone you are offered as part of a plan will be a base model lacking many features that should be standard in this day and age - phone directory, text messages, speed dial, voice-activated dialing, etc. Upgrades will cost you, regardless of the number of minutes/dollars you spend each month.

Stores switch brands/models at a blistering pace. While they must keep pace with new technology, it is also evidence that the hardware itself is dirt cheap, since they obviously can trash inventory on a whim. A store loaded with Ericcson products will be be loaded with Nokia tomorrow. Still, you will pay a premium for any phone with reasonable battery life, size and/or features.

This probably doesn't make Cellular One unique, but it is a reflection on the way they do business. More on that below.


*Customer Service*
Where to begin? Let's start with billing. Our bills were generally accurate and complete. We paid on or before the due date without exception, but frequently received "past due" letters, prompting us to call their customer service. Like most companies, the use of offshoring and/or call centers meant that the person on the other end really didn't have the power to get to the root of the problem and/or correct it. Our credit reports/ratings were not affected, but I wouldn't put anything past this bunch.

In-store personnel were uninformed, unmotivated, and unresponsive. If you were not a new customer, they couldn't be bothered to help, since you didn't represent a new activation and therefore a commission for the sales rep.

Their reaction to inquiries for help and/or changes in service/equipment bordered on hostile, and they would spend more energy finding ways to avoid fulfilling your request than they would executing the changes that you, THE CUSTOMER, desired.

Example: a one-year contract had expired. We obtained new phones through a renewal of our contract (although we still had to pay a premium for acceptable equipment!). I used the phone for 1 day (a Tuesday), making or receiving only a couple of calls. Despite my tech background, utilizing the call-waiting swap feature was a bit tricky and I ended up leaving a call open (I was left on hold on one line). That evening I decided I would return the phone for a different model and left it at home while I traveled out of state for two days.

Upon my return Thursday afternoon, I brought the phone back to the the orignal location (dumb luck, as it turns out - read other reviews for the 'original location' runaround some have received). After waiting for the reps to finish their conversation (about some after-work topic) I asked them for a new phone. The rep snatched the phone up and began typing in codes to check the call timer(s). She announced, "we can't do it - the phone has been out of the store for over 36 hours and it has 42 minutes of talk time on it."

I told her that I had traveled out of state and that the 42 minutes, while accurate, was likely the result of my call-waiting incident, as I had only made 2 calls that day. I asked her to check our call records for verification. She declined, saying the phone timer was the crucial item. I remarked that the time/minutes involved were fairly trivial and that we had just renewed our contract.

She announced, "it's not our policy, it's Nokia's." I asked her if we could contact Nokia for verification. She shoved the desk phone at me and handed me a Nokia pamphlet. I called Nokia myself while the rep and her colleagues directed a healthy dose of dirty looks at me. Nokia customer service picked up my call almost instantly. A gentleman there informed me that Nokia had no such policy. Their warranty deal strictly with equipment failure for 1 year. I thanked him and related the conversation to the sales rep.

The rep then announced, "our wholesaler won't take the phones back." I asked for the wholesaler's information and/or a representative - all she could provide was a company name (more on that later). I then asked to see the manager, who I had observed slinking around the store during my visit. I was told she was unavailable.

Seeing logic and reason fail miserably, I appealed on a common-sense, customer-first basis: we pump hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars into this business. Are we not entitled some benefit of the doubt, especially where 12 minutes - 720 seconds - are concerned?

Out of the blue, another rep turned on her heel and actually started yelling at me about how difficult it was for their wholesaler/warehouse to deal with equipment that was not in re-saleable condition. Needless to say, I was dumbstruck by this outburst. I gritted my teeth, gathered up my phone and left.

I subsequently contacted the wholesaler via e-mail and phone and was informed that they have no set policies on the return of equipment, beyond outright failure (similar to Nokia).

I relayed the entire incident to Dobson's corporate office in Oklahoma and have never received a response or an acknowledgment.

Epilogue: Our contract expired this month and we contacted Cellular One to inform them that we would not be renewing. The rep responded, "is there anything we can do to keep your business?" After we stopped laughing, we told them it would be impossible.

We are now customers of Sprint PCS.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 120/phone