The personal SEO Blog of Aaron Shear, and his ideas and rants.
by Aaron Shear
I have been in the search industry since the late 90’s, no not 10-20 years. My career started early in the search Day’s at Inktomi, where I supported large search portals. For example, MSN, AOL, iWon, Hotbot, CNet too name a few. After Inktomi I became a freelance consultant. I consulted for a few of the Top SEO’s around 2002 time frame; obviously the market has changed since then. After consulting I joined a small SEO firm called SEO Inc as the CTO. At SEO Inc. I successfully optimized some of the largest clients including IGN, Sony, VEGAS.com, Beaches and Sandals Resorts to name a few. Even though SEO Inc was a ton of fun, I still wanted the ultimate SEO challenge. I moved on as the global head of SEO for Shopping.com an eBay company. This challenge was an interesting one, how do I optimize a site with 50 million products? Every month I helped the business grow by leaps and bounds. I am now consulting for mostly enterprise e-commerce clients. Yes there is more too me than this profile shows, but you will just have to ask.
14 Comments:
lol..I've been with Verizon for years and have never had a dropped call..
but the Cingular commercials are really funny.
- Michael
Oh, my wife is a recruiter for eBay and she told me about your blog.
michael
http://www.britopian.com
Hello:
I am surprized that you switched to Verizon.
I don't think they are any good, based on my using them for 20 yrs.
I believe T-Mobile is the best service now.
Ikey Benney
maychic.com/marketing-sitemap.htm
Time for a random rant since I saw this randomly.
Cingular and it's statisticians do not base their coverage and said statistics around the basis of where you reside.
There are apx. 63,999,999 more customers than you living in more areas than your immediate shouting distance.
So please. Choose your battles carefully :) ...By the way... How are the rollover minutes working for you over at Verizon? ...Oh... Wait... :)
-PZ
Hey Patrick, I am more than happy to keep bitching about this. Let's compare Cingular's crappy coverage in San Francisco, a real city. This is not a flat part of Ohio where you can see the tower from miles away.
People in small towns like that can't afford cell phones, I am on my phone all day long and cannot afford to drop a call while driving up one of the largest streets in San Francisco. All cingular phones drop calls there!
The bigger laugh is their so called high speed network. It is SOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOOOOOW, I thought that 300 baud modems died in the 80's, but Cingular brought it back. To make it worse, their so called 3g network is a joke.
This same phone would drop calls all over NYC, LA, San Diego, Miami, Philly, Chicago, Boston shall I keep going?
Take the phone over to Europe and all of a sudden its blazing fast and calls don't drop. This might be a sign of something!
Btw, I am guessing you work for Cingular so you may have the ability to create change.
Also you can't roll over minutes when you actually use your phone. I am on my cell almost 3k minutes a month. Cingular does not even have a plan that high.
Again its a great network if you pay $30 a month and have a cute little pink phone. It's not ok when you depend on your phone.
Well, all bias aside, I'd like to address your seemingly frothing at the mouth, unresearched and altogether autistic comment on Cingular's wireless network and services.
For starters, you robbed me of at least a few I.Q. points and also some of my soul when you commented on Cingular's dropped calls and slow network speeds.
Let's start there. In the San Francisco area, the predominant wireless provider is, in fact, Verizon. The primary reason behind that being that Cingular has focused most of it's market diversification in the San Diego area and the LAX market. Now that we have that out of the way, let me also point out that the customer base for Cingular is much higher in San Francisco (and California as a whole) than any other wireless provider including Sprint. That being said, we know that Cingular will be making a huge jump into the San Francisco and Sacramento markets sometime in the near future, the very near future. The service in that area is degraded only because, drumb roll please.... they use Verizon's towers!! How about that? The service sucks because they use old and, yes, obsolete Verizon technology.
When you take a look at the technology in the area you will see that the old CDMA Verizon towers operating are a giant slap in the face to Verizons nearly 3.2 million customers subscribing to their unflexible price plans and poor customer service in that market. Oh, and as a side note, pray to whatever god you hold most dear that you never have a billing dispute. If you do, you may just as well punch yourself in the throat and eat your bill whole because you'll get the same feeling calling the shambled ruins of a "customer service" system that they have. Considering that J.D. Power & Associates has awarded them no higher than third place for customer service EVER (last year they were just barely in front of Sprint with a 48% customer disatisfaction rating and interestingly enough, Cingular was in first place) I would certianly assume you'll be calling the YMCA and talking to Doofy when you dial the hotline. But, I digress, who cares about customer service anyway? Right?
Moving right along, to address the wireless network I will need to reference once more the stone age, archaeic and, probably, wooden/tin foil covered cell towers Verizon has operating in your area. The "3G" network that Cingular has, has never been made out to be the largest network, only the fastest, and it is. You'll notice speeds emulating a catatonic drooling molasses only because, once again, Cingular uses Verizon towers until late 2008. The "3G" network is the fastest and most stable network available within the United States, and the world (excluding Japan) available today. Two months ago the very first video conference call ever was held in Austin, TX using only Cingular "3G" cell phones. Thank God, for the "3G" network, because absolutely no other wireless provider in the country, including Sprint and Verizon, have developed the technology that can support such endevours. In fact, both other wireless providers are about 5 years behind Cingular in technology because they do not care about their customers enough to update their technology more than once a decade. But I guess "people in small towns can't afford cell phones", right? So I guess it makes no difference that Cingular is the only wireless provider who has "dared to dream" by placing the only reliable network available in Montana and northern Wyoming. Keep that in mind if you decide to leave good ol' Cisco anytime soon for almost anywhere else in the Pacific Market. I would imagine having to say "can you hear me now" gets old after a while. If you do, make sure you go to Europe. You're right, the service over there would be amazing compared to what you're used to, because you're not going to be using Verizon's tree trunks with cloth hanger wires fastened by chewing gum.
Last year alone, Cingular spent close to 17 billion dollars to update their wireless network across the continental United States and estimates that they will spend another 12 billion by the end of 2007. Combined for the past 5 years Verizon has spent little more than 5 billion dollars total including network updates, and cell site purchases to update or improve their network across the U.S. as a whole. With that in mind, Verizon would also rather lose a cell site and pay another company like Sprint or Cingular for their services as partner coverage than build another one of their own. So you can expect those blazing speeds to crawl to a halt, or at least the pace of an old man with a walker. And get ready for those dropped calls too, because their towers won't last forever especially not when they're already in a state where their HLR's and BSC's are quite literally so old they are killing their employees with electrical surges and contact shocks.
Well, I could really go on. No joke, there are ao many things that I could say about Verizon I could probably fill the internet as a whole with problems so comical they would make a grown man lose all bowel and bladder control instantly. Personally, I feel for you man, I really do. If I had signed a 2 year contract of my life (and you can never get those years back) with Verizon Wireless I would definately throw myself off of that balcony in your picture and try to hit every wooden cell tower on the way down so I could free space for Cingular when it blitzkriegs through your area in 2008. At least then I would die knowing I did something for the betterment of humanity. No worries, though, those old wooden monstrosities will still service the same purpose they do now, to dry your underwear after you lose all bowel and bladder control, remember?
And by the way Mr. Shear, Cingular's minute plans include a 3,000 minute and up to a 6,000 minute with unlimited mobile to mobile and unlimited nights and weekends as well, those are not new additions. Not to mention the Unity plans which allow for unlimited mobile minutes and landline minutes as well with unlimited text and IM for less than $100.00 per month for multiple phones, but we won't go down that road, I've gotta be running out of space by now.
Anyway, after writing this, I'm feeling kinda depressed and self destructive, so maybe I'll go sign up for a two year with Verizon and get a phone that I can't return outside of seven days, or efficiently exchange through a warranty service or get options for replacement unless my ARPU is higher than $100 per month. Ah, who the hell am I kidding, I can't... I don't speak Indian.
Amazing analogy Nate... I would have to agree with you there... although I have Verizon, its NOT the best network out there for SURE... I'm praying that when my contract is up that my boyfriend will realize how crappy it is and go to cingular. I still SO want that blackjack! With Verizon, and Tmobile for that matter in our area, I contantly drop calls and get lots of static even in the city sometimes. Half the time when I go to connect a call, I have to powercycle my phone and try again. :P
3G hits our area in what June? I'm so jonesing for that one. Cant wait to see HBO Mobile in action.. ( btw, Verizon does NOT have that! ) The amazing things you can do with MMS and SMS is great too! Who wouldnt want to get a great morphing picture or animated text card!?
Dont EVEN get me started on customer service either! I called in because like they all do, my LG started randomly turning itself off and back on. They point blank told me that I had to find a store with a tech in it to look at the phone before they'd even consider Warrenty replacement! Cingular, I know for a fact, doesnt make you do that. Its a known defect in LG phones and they will send your right over to warrenty to get that stinky phone replaced.
On another note as well, with me being a verizon customer, AND a 20 something aged person who, as most of us do, text till the cows come home. I was excited when I heard commercials about "unlimited" texting. Only to find out when I called about it that it was ONLY on family talk plans $100 or UP! I dont even use the minutes I have NOW! We had to REDUCE our priceplan because we dont have ROLLOVER min and we lose them! Why pay for it when you dont use it. I could find a lot of better things to spend my $20 on than unused minutes. Like...hmmm... GAS!
Id rather have an unlimited texting plan... which Cingular DOES offer for a mere $20. Unlimited internet AND Texting? $40! Lets see... on a 3G network? $.01 per KB... I think I'm definately getting the better end of the deal there! Get over yourself Aaron... I feel bad for you... you probobly dont power cycle your poor phone on a regular basis.. and as Nate said... you are using the crappy 19th century Verizon towers. Kinda doesnt get 3G sorry... did your phone even GET 3G???? Did you try upgrading to get a great new phone like a BLACKJACK? ( drool ) or a PEARL? All 3G devices baby. You will certainly be missing out... and I will be keeping an eye on this blog to see how long it takes for you to start whining about Verizon and how you wish you'd have stuck with Cingular... NOW the new AT&T!
...I think he's scared... :P Or maybe hes contemplating? "Gee, what have I done?"
I love sparking insight. But that aside, you guys make valid points. For a person with a low income, $36k average in LA according to Wikipedia. A cheap service on a slow network is a great idea. Sooner or later when 3G actually comes to life, GSM may be a good idea. The fact is that I posted this as a rant because on one of the busiest roads in one of the busiest city’s in America every call is dropped. To me that is not the least amount of dropped calls, while sharing the Verizon tower that does not drop calls.
How can a company be so excited to role out a technology that is now out dated like 3G? Instead of rolling out 4G at this point which is still in Beta.
For now EVDO is a hell of a lot faster than EDGE, in fact I am browsing from my Mac Laptop in a hotel on my Verizon air card. The only carrier to setup drivers for a Mac directly with Apple, the speed is blazing fast. Since EDGE is what is available its what I am going to rate against Verizon. Also since CDMA resets so often, how could I be connected on my computer for 15 hours and it not reset?
As the bay area is still known as the tech mecha of the US, why would we get the slowest network when we have the highest disposable income for these toys? San Francisco also gets more visitors from Europe who expect good cell coverage over LA and San Diego. Why would they want to roam on a spotty network?
The customer service line is funny, if you don’t mind waiting 30+ minutes to talk to someone at Cingular they aren’t so bad. When I call the Verizon line and get a human within 5 minutes every single time. They are very friendly, quick to help and speak clear English. Some super star could rate their customer service and I wouldn’t give a crap, its what I experience when I use it that matters.
I have never had to reboot my CDMA phone, but then again since I travel constantly I do have to put it in air-plane mode. Which is also the reason that I take so long to respond, I do have a real job.
If you want to bash a company for bad customer service bash Sprint. They absolutely suck; in fact I got my phone from them first and was so pissed off I returned it. The process to return the phone was a 4 hour phone call.
In California you can return your Verizon phone within 30 days, just like Cingular.
Also I just checked, 4000 minutes a month is currently 149.99 on Cingular. No data included.
4000 minutes a month on Verizon with unlimited data is 159.99 a month.
What's a better deal?
I don't know, if I paid money from my "real job" I'd certainly want to be able to actually USE my service. But that's just me. By the way, EVDO isn't available in the U.S. right now and unless you're planning on moving to Japan, China or Europe we're forced to draw the conclusion that the fastest available network is AT&T. If I was stating opinion I wouldn't be so ardently set in my views. But they aren't really an opinion. While personal experience may dictate otherwise, statistically speaking, you're eventually going to get bent over by your provider.
I don't know, if I paid money from my "real job" I'd certainly want to be able to actually USE my service. But that's just me. By the way, EVDO isn't available in the U.S. right now and unless you're planning on moving to Japan, China or Europe we're forced to draw the conclusion that the fastest available network is AT&T. If I was stating opinion I wouldn't be so ardently set in my views. But they aren't really an opinion. While personal experience may dictate otherwise, statistically speaking, you're eventually going to get bent over by your provider.
Nate if EVDO is not available in the US, why can I get well over T1 speed on my EVDO devices here in the US? They say connected with EVDO.
I am still waiting for a valid example of 3G working in this country, I haven't seen it work. Someone prove to me that it works and I will go and switch service today. But until then Cingular still drops more calls and is slow.
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