Randomness: Cell phone roundup from Consumerist

Consumerist a Gawker Media blog that lashes out at companies that exploit consumers. We love them even more when they cover the telecommunications industry (we also show no restraint in expressing our detestation of the telecom industry). Over the past couple of days, they’ve had some great telecom content, and we’d like to share it with you. First up is a piece from Mouseprint, in which the author goes over clauses in the AT&T contract. It’s kinda like we did with Verizon’s contract. A few points of note: AT&T can disconnect you if they find you’re using your cell phone as a modem, or if you’re using their “unlimited data” services too much. Sorry for taking “unlimited” too literally, AT&T. Our bad. Additionally, if you’re placing a call and the other line rings for more than 30 seconds, they start the minutes timer. This is actually better than Verizon, who appear to charge you when you hit the “SEND” button. The next two pieces are intertwined. Editor Ben Popken ran an experiment where he typed “_____ is cool” into Google, where he replaced the “_____” with the name of a telecom company. Verizon and Helio tied for the most, with eight matching results. Sprint came in second with seven, then AT&T with five, T-Mobile with four (we’re surprised there aren’t more of those), and Alltel with a mere one. The other one was the same experiment, except “is cool” was replaced with “sucks.” (Incidentally, have you ever Googled your name + sucks? It can be interesting). Sprint tops all with 31,000 results. AT&T had 22,500, and Verizon 20,000. It drops off from there. Notably, T-Mobile only returned 745 results. The conclusion: There is none. It’s just a neat experiment to see what people say about these companies. We just wish AT&T and Verizon had fewer “cools” and a whole ton more “sucks.” [Consumerist]]]>