FAQ: The 411 on radio frequency interference

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Feeling Cingular and the failure to disclose RF interference

Great article Marguerite. You should check out the funny music video about this issue on you tube under "feeling cingular." The EMI from his Cingular/ATT GSM phoneactually broke a guy's computer speaker. He recorded his calls with their call centers and made a rocking song and animation about it as well as a pretty sweet parody website at feelingcingular [dot] com.

In your article, while you admit that CDMA carriers (Verizon and Sprint) don't tend to have this issue, you don't illuminate on the intentional failure of companies, especially Cingular/ATT in the above example, to purposefully not disclose the RF interference at the point of purchase. You should check out the video's supporting website "share" comments. One Cingular/ATT employee even tells the guy he deserved it and needed to upgrade his equipment anyway. Under this logic, imagine if you were a company that signed up for a corporate contract with Cingular/ATT, do you have to upgrade your entire company-wide landline phone system because of Cingular/ATT's failure to disclose the known issue? What if you make this discovery after the 30 day window? As the guy mentions on the site, Cingular/ATT would make you pay all of the termination fees. If you had gone with a CDMA carrier, it most likely wouldn't have even been an issue to begin with. The only solution is to turn your phone off your phone like the Cingular/ATT call center employees must do. Let's hope your wife isn't going into labor while you're on that next call! Too bad they don't work for Sprint.

Your article is one of the first real resources to outline the issue in greater detail. I applaud your efforts. Therein lies the main problem, though. Most consumers are like the new iPhone owner, neboytraveler, under "all phones?", who discover the issue only after subscribing to the service? I think you give Cingular/ATT and others a little bit too much of a free ride. If they know it's a real problem, they should be in the business of telling new customers about it, so that they can at least make an informed decision. While the article is very informative, your omission of this blatant corporate irresponsibility undermines your efforts to paint a true, circumspect picture of the consumer impact of this ubiquitous problem.

Posted by: iphone   Posted on: 07/28/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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