Alltel snags lots of gold in recent call quality survey
by Darren Murph 
posted Apr 1st 2008 at 4:35PM
While Verizon and T-Mobile shared honors in a customer service survey just two months back, it was regional carrier Alltel snagging most of the gold in a recent J.D. Power and Associates survey of wireless call quality. Reportedly, said carrier was able to take the "sole or partial top spot in three of the report's six regions," while Verizon stood on top in two regions, US Cellular in one and T-Mobile (along with Alltel) in another. The data was gathered from 24,570 respondents that were questioned about dropped calls, static / interference, failed connection on the first try, voice distortion, echoes, no immediate voicemail notification, and no immediate text message notification. Interestingly, the study also found that "customers using 3G handsets experienced fewer call quality issues," and while call quality problems reported by folks using CDMA happened around 14 times out of every 100 calls, nearly a quarter of calls from those on the iDEN network were primarily about problems with call quality. Check out the full spill in the read below, we won't tell anyone you're a number lover.
Filed under: Alltel, Verizon Wireless, EV-DO, Studies, CDMA
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Simon @ Apr 1st 2008 4:57PM
OMG I love love love love love you guys
those are some balls
and I am so glad I dumped Tmobile now
Mitch @ Apr 1st 2008 5:57PM
Finally a little love for the great company. I've always had great service with Alltel, and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Superevil @ Apr 1st 2008 11:37PM
Alltel is great and all ut they seriously need to jump into the 21st century and adopt Sim cards
Jamar @ Apr 2nd 2008 4:44AM
And before anyone else says anything YES, you can have CDMA with SIM cards. China does it, Thailand does it, as well as Japan and a few other Asian CDMA countries. Korea and the Americas are the only places that identify users by ESN instead of by card.
slamEVIL @ Apr 1st 2008 5:56PM
"The data was gathered from 24,570 respondents..."
wow a whole 24,570 respondents? ok, waldorf maryland loves alltel, what about the rest of the u.s.?
"...the study also found that 'customers using 3G handsets experienced fewer call quality issues'..."
so my $300 3g phone is better than that 2g phone i get free with a contract, for reals?
this study sucks!
chrissmith338 @ Apr 1st 2008 7:41PM
Before running your mouth off and making a fool of yourself, why don't you learn a little about statistics...
Jamar @ Apr 1st 2008 9:40PM
If you can only get 2G phones free with contract... ouch. Time to move?
slamEVIL @ Apr 2nd 2008 12:23AM
@chrissmith338
before running your mouth off and looking like an ass why don't you learn about sarcasm.
Wayne @ Apr 2nd 2008 10:21AM
I said it before (http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/11/10/verizon-t-mobile-take-top-honors-in-latest-j-d-power-survey/comments/8668283/), but the prior JD Power survey was not for customer service but for retail sales satisfaction for the mobile carrier's individual stores.
Their notes about the average quality of CDMA versus GSM is interesting. The article states that GSM is not as efficient, and therefore requires more towers than CDMA for equivalent call quality. But that would be resolved if GSM were the dominant standard, which it is not, in the US. Market forces at work, I suppose.
Still, hard to decide: cool phone... good quality...