Kirb’s Musings

Kirby Witmer’s ponderings, ruminations, and meditations of… anything.

I’ve been organizing my files and photos that were scattered from one hard drive to the next, and I discovered these old Nextel ads I had downloaded a couple of years ago. Sigh. I miss the old Nextel.
(If you have trouble watching these videos, you can download the original mpegs at the bottom of this post.)

http://www.kirb.com/media/radiotower.flv

http://www.kirb.com/media/antennalope.flv

http://www.kirb.com/media/pigeons.flv

http://www.kirb.com/media/lunch.flv

Original MPEG Files (right click to download)

http://www.kirb.com/media/radiotower.mpeg
http://www.kirb.com/media/antennalope.mpeg
http://www.kirb.com/media/pigeons.mpeg
http://www.kirb.com/media/lunch.mpeg

Via the Washington Post:

It used to be all but impossible to walk down a city street in the Washington area without hearing the “chirp.” The distinct beeping noise made by Sprint Nextel’s walkie-talkie-like service, called Direct Connect, was so commonplace that it almost seemed a part of the aural landscape. These days, the chirp stands out because it has become so infrequent. More people have been abandoning the service over the past year, following Nextel’s merger with Sprint. The company has lost more than 700,000 monthly subscribers this year, and the carrier warned last week that it expects to lose 370,000 more this fiscal quarter. The vast majority of departed subscribers are former Nextel customers.

“The chirp is not extinct,” he said. “It has, perhaps, become less deafening.”

The article goes on…. and echoes what I’ve written before. 

This is soo not cool. If I want to add a line to my existing Nextel account, I can’t do it online! Sprint.com asks for my zip code, upon entering it I get the following message:

Service Available in Your Area

Sprint currently offers wireless service in the 17013 area. To purchase Sprint products and services:

Shop online

Call 1-800-213-5431

Find a Sprint Store

Nextel wireless service is also available in the 17013 area. To purchase Nextel products and services:

Call 1-800-SPRINT-1

Notice that it doesn’t give me an option to buy Nextel service online? My guess is… that no one wants to anyway…

The competition is heating up. heh.

rcrnews.com reports:

The carrier, which is floundering behind rivals AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, boasted that during 2006 company measurements showed double-digit decreases in the percentages of blocked and dropped calls on its CDMA network. Sprint Nextel claimed that an unnamed, third-party study found that the carrier “earned top honors for the ‘fewest dropped calls.’”

I’m not sure where the third-party study was done, but apparently it wasn’t done in my area. The Sprint CDMA network is almost NO good around here, not to mention the increasingly problematic Nextel iDEN service. Why can’t the cell phone providers operate a network that actually works? CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

Dropped calls, garbled audio, no service… GRRRRRR…. I remember a couple of years ago I could barely remember the last time I had a dropped call. Now, its almost a daily occurrence, even when I’m traveling thru the capital of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. Its sooo frustrating, some days I could just about throw the phone out the window. It all started when Sprint bought out Nextel. Nextel’s phone and two way service is deteriorating rapidly. You better shape up, Sprint, or we are all going to ship out.

In other news, Sprint/Nextel is going to make huge layoffs. Huh? Why not make our phone network better?