rytr23 said:
Well, the magazine has been around a while... so I guess someone does.. this is the typical flippant remark of someone who has no actual rebuttal. But lets go with your logic.. why do they poll anything? Why ask for any testimonials.. WHy would anyone research the customer satisfaction of anything? Want to by that yugo? Dont bother checking around just plunk your money down.. Want to buy that cheap house in an urban area you're unfamiliar with? Don't bother asking anyone who has been there etc etc.. See the point?

Granted these types of things aren't the end all be all, but are certainly valid in your overall research when picking a cell phone company.

That's all very true. I always do ...
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thank you.

Amen.

Yet researchers use small samplings all the time. Forgive me for not citing numbers of people surveyed, since the internet is locked here, but exit polls are used to accurately predict political races, a small sampling of people determine television ratings, not all 300 million people are surveyed for the census...

Not saying that Consumer Reports is right or wrong, but just don't jump to conclusions and dismiss it outright.

CptWireless said:
Yet researchers use small samplings all the time. Forgive me for not citing numbers of people surveyed, since the internet is locked here, but exit polls are used to accurately predict political races, a small sampling of people determine television ratings, not all 300 million people are surveyed for the census...

Not saying that Consumer Reports is right or wrong, but just don't jump to conclusions and dismiss it outright.

I'm not dismissing it completely. I'm questioning how accurate a survey of only 40,000 people can be when you're talking about a nation-wide network, which (like ALL wireless services) performs differently in each geographical location. Each of those areas would alm...
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As one who has had 20+ years of experience in the retail marketplace I feel I can speak on this subject with some accuracy.

Consumer reports often gets it right, but more often than not, gets it really wrong. Many of the products recommended by CR are good buys for the consumer. Most, however are not. We have often sold products recommended by CR only to encounter huge customer dissatisfaction. We have had identical products with our private label rate very low while the name brand product rated as the best choice. These are identical products in every way.
They consider the freeway between NYC and Albany, NY as rural for wireless coverage.
Out in the West we call that all Urban. If they want to talk rural coverage they should talk ab...
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CS2006,

You wrote of Consumer Reports, "Also in many regions the best choice is not a national carrier, but one of the regional carriers such as Dobson, U.S. Cellular or ALLTEL. These are never mentioned."

Had you READ the latest Consumer Reports ratings, in the January 2007 issue, you would have found that ALLTEL was mentioned. In fact they came out at the top of the pack in Cleveland, Phoenix and Tampa, the only three of the twenty surveyed major metropolitan areas in which there was sufficient survey data to rate them.

In those cites, Verizon was second, with Cingular third, fifth and fourth respectively.

Your having commented without READing the data is not unique here though.

Let's take a POLL of how many people on this website are sick of constantly sifting through the redundant bullshit that are Consumer Reports results.

The truth is, even those that the reports glorify are sick of hearing the same thing over and over.

Guys,
Some very intelligent and thought out responses on this thread.

If you need to criticize something, you get no credibility from anyone if you don't back up your argument, just use words with **** in them.

If you understand how CR works, then you can profit from it. And thousands do.

Before there was epinions, blogs, phonescoop, pcmag reviews, dpreviews, etc etc...
there was Consumer Reports.

If I were buying a $2,000 TV:
Step 1 CR
Step 2 Web reviews on manufacturers, retailers, technology
Step 3 Look for myself
Asking a friend would have little value unless he did a similar process.

I am biased, I'm a 20 year reader of CR and I do fill out their surveys truthfully.

And how many people fill them out untruthfully?

Perhaps you should have taken the time to read my arguments in the other threads to this post.

If you made the extra effort to read what I was responding to, it would be clear that criticism was met with criticism and the like of my response was justified.

Good day.

There are some issues with CR that after 20 years of selling electronic devices as well as other products cause me to question their credibility:

* The bias toward certain manufacturers when the experience of those selling the products says the product should have never been recommended.

* The constant apples to oranges comparisons, that is comparing the favored manufacturers upper end products to the unfavored manufacturers mid range products.

* The obvious lack of understanding of the industries they review.

* Reviewing and recommending discontinued products which by the time the magazine hits the reader is no longer available anywhere in America

My rebuttal is this:

No Consumer Reports survey on wireless service will ever prove to be more beneficial than trying it out yourself, or asking friends, relatives and even strangers which service is best in your areas of need.

RUFF1415 said:
My rebuttal is this:

No Consumer Reports survey on wireless service will ever prove to be more beneficial than trying it out yourself, or asking friends, relatives and even strangers which service is best in your areas of need.

did anyone get a list of the 20 places they tried?

and isn't it funny that they seem to kiss verizons a$$ year after year... like they can do no wrong. and no matter what cingular does, never gets a good word???? something must be up with that.

crackberry said:

RUFF1415 said:
My rebuttal is this:

No Consumer Reports survey on wireless service will ever prove to be more beneficial than trying it out yourself, or asking friends, relatives and even strangers which service is best in your areas of need.

did anyone get a list of the 20 places they tried?

and isn't it funny that they seem to kiss verizons a$$ year after year... like they can do no wrong. and no matter what cingular does, never gets a good word???? something must be up with that.

Ruff(as usual) is dead on correct with his statements.
#1 Consumer Reports surveys have always been biased towards Verizon and against Cingular.
#2 CR st...
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CamelTowing wrote:

#1 Consumer Reports surveys have always been biased towards Verizon and against Cingular.

Nonsense! CR is not "biased". They are reporting a compilation of the responses of 42,971 individual cellphone users in twenty metropolitan area markets across the country. That is a significantly more massive statistical database than any other non-governmental survey that YOU can identify.

#2 CR still doesn't offer any kind of scientific facts or studies... they offer a "poll" of their own subscribers.

More nonsense! Do the Gallup, Roper, Harris, Quinnipiac, Zogby, Wall Street Journal, etc. polls offer any such "facts or studies"? That is those organizations' internal proprietary information. CR's subscrib ...
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This thread is worthless.

Since you don't like Cingular and you are using the CR "survey" to support your stance...why come here to post it and then get defensive when people that do use and like Cingular don't respond in the manner that you like?
Clearly you were looking for an argument/debate/flame war...and you proceeded to start one. I am sure in your mind, this is all unprovoked, but the reality is that you lobbed the first grenade.
If you don't like Cingular or GSM...then don't utilize their services and the problem is solved.
This post detracts from the original intention of these forums...providing answers to user questions and news bulletins regarding upcoming phones and services that they might be able to use.
This is one reason why people like me have...
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Sorry for the all caps. This is a cut and paste job. The markets rated by Consumer Reports are:

ATLANTA
BOSTON
CHICAGO
CLEVELAND
DALLAS
DENVER
DETROIT
HOUSTON
LOS ANGELES
MIAMI
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL
NEW YORK
PHILADELPHIA
PHOENIX
SAN DIEGO
SAN FRANCISCO
SEATTLE
ST. LOUIS
TAMPA
WASHINGTON, DC

One interesting factoid: their poll is of Consumer Reports subscribers, not a random sample of customers.

And Sprint is last for a reason and even their own CEO knows that they are effing it up!

Cingular is second to last for a reason, their network still needs allot more work!

You buy your stuff based on CR. I will buy it based on personal experience. It works better that way! One million people could tell me I won't get wet if I go in the rain. But from personal experiance I know I will. That is like reading CR. It all depends on what you want from a wireless provider, what you want to pay and were you are located at. Verizon can not be beat in the native area(IE were they started at) But in places like AL,LA,OK,TX,KS to name a few Verizon is umm almost non existent. However sprint and cingular has a pretty good coverage area in those states. So once again I will not say one is better it all depends on what you want!!

wombough said:
You buy your stuff based on CR.

Nah I base it off of being a verizon customer for ten years and seeing my phone have coverage countless times where others didn't, they have never let me down and in time of emergency I rather count on verizon for getting the network back up, then sh*tty sprint who dropped the ball on putting their own customers first!

Sprint needs to get organized they're a mess!

wait...this is about cingular not sprint. Why are you changing the subject. The only reason cingular got a bad rap is because they are fixing at&t's inability to build out their gsm network. And overall GSM is a better technology than CDMA considering thats what the rest of the world uses.

the rest of the world uses GSM becuase CDMA was ilegal to use for a while. Not because its better. CDMA does have a little better voice quality and is alot more secure.

wombough said:
CDMA does have a little better voice quality and is alot more secure.

I'm sorry, but wrong. GSM has better call clarity and it is more secure than CDMA. Do your homework. 🤨

ArmySF said:

wombough said:
You buy your stuff based on CR.

Nah I base it off of being a verizon customer for ten years and seeing my phone have coverage countless times where others didn't, they have never let me down and in time of emergency I rather count on verizon for getting the network back up, then sh*tty sprint who dropped the ball on putting their own customers first!

Sprint needs to get organized they're a mess!

No, I base it off of being a Cingular customer for five years and seeing my phone have coverage countless times where others didn't. They have never let me down and in time of emergency I would rather count on Cingular for getting the network back up,...
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Yeah I can say that bieng a sprint customer for 6 yrs I can say I have had countless blah blah. Your right is does vary. No one is better then the other.

At my timing or my comment 🙂