UCAN Testimony, October 23, 2002
SUMMARY OF UCAN's TESTIMONY IN CINGULAR PROCEEDING

ON OCTOBER 23, 2002 UCAN FILED A SERIES OF DOCUMENTS THAT CONTAIN THE TESTIMONY OF UCAN STAFF, UCAN RETAINED EXPERT AND CINGULAR CUSTOMERS. THESE DOCUMENTS OULINE THE TYPES AND NUMBERS OF COMPLAINTS THAT UCAN HAS RECEIVED ABOUT CINGULAR WIRELESS.

WE'VE CREATED A SUMMARY OF THE TESTIMONY BELOW. GO THE END OF THIS SUMMARY FOR LINKS TO THE SPECIFIC TESTIMONIES OF EACH OF UCAN'S WITNESSES.

IF YOU HAVE SIMILAR EXPERIENCES THAT YOU'D LIKE THE REGULATORS TO KNOW ABOUT, WE'D LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT IT. PLEASE SEND AN E-MAIL NOTING YOUR EXPERIENCE TO
mshames@ucan.org

SUMMARY TESTIMONY OF JODI BEEBE ON BEHALF OF UCAN

Since 2000, UCAN has received an inordinate amount of complaints regarding Cingular service coverage compared to any other cellular provider in the San Diego market. In cataloging the complaints, I have found that:
· · The consumers who contacted UCAN often felt misled by the claims of sales representatives about the extent of Cingular's coverage.
· · They were also frustrated by "iron-clad" contracts that could not be cancelled despite the misrepresentations about Cingular's service.
· · Numerous complaints of network problems including SOS call only messages, an inability to send and receive calls, Dead Zones, delays and additional costs associated with voice mail, and dropped calls, were indicative of service quality problems with a cellular network that was rapidly deteriorating.
· · Consumers indicated their frustration not only with the inability to use their cellular phones and service for the reason it was purchased with high termination fees.
· · When confronted with the complaints, Cingular and its sales representatives did not place blame on their network and oversubscribed services, but used the opportunity to entice customers to either purchase expensive phone upgrades or extend their contracts for free phones, while promising an improved network in the near future that never materialized.
UCAN has been contacted by 198 individuals regarding their Pacific Bell Wireless and Cingular Wireless service since January, 2000. Compared to other cellular providers offering service in the San Diego area, UCAN has received over one-third (23%) more complaints from individuals about Cingular's service than its closest contender, MCI-Worldcom Wireless, which were predominantly billing-related, and almost three times as many complaints as third place Sprint. UCAN has received more complaints about Cingular than its four main competitors (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and Nextel) combined. 128 individuals sent UCAN complaints about the customer problems, identified in the OII regarding Cingular Wireless service. Since some people identified multiple problems, UCAN has recorded 237 separate instances on seven OII related issues:

1) 1) False promises of coverage at the time of sale
2) 2) Busy signals and "SOS only" call limitations
3) 3) Voice mail problems and delays
4) 4) Dropped calls
5) 5) Termination fee issues
6) 6) Phone/ equipment repair problems and;
7) 7) Unfulfilled promises of more towers and increased coverage.

In late August 2002, UCAN unveiled its Dead Zone interactive project, which allows cellular customers in the San Diego area to submit the name of their service provider and where they have experienced dead zones in service coverage. Cingular by far ranks first in reported dead zones, as indicated in Fig. 2, with almost two hundred more dead zones reported by Cingular subscribers than Verizon, which ranked second. Over 40% of the total dead zone reports involve Cingular Wireless.

SUMMARY TABLE OF TESTIMONY OF CINGULAR CUSTOMERS

(SEE ATTACHMENT)

SUMMARY TESTIMONY OF ROBERT ZICKER ON BEHALF OF UCAN AND PUC STAFF
1. Apart from the large areas of California where Cingular concedes that it has no coverage, there are holes within the areas that Cingular typically shows as covered. There are four types of coverage holes which are found in the Cingular Wireless system. These four types of coverage holes are:
(a) "No Signal" coverage holes - where there is no signal present at the user's location. In these situations, the California user's Cingular portable handset will indicate "No Service", "No Coverage" or nothing at all.
(b) "Inadequate Signal" coverage holes - which differ from "No Signal" coverage holes and exist at locations where there is an insufficient amount of signal from or to the user's portable handset to enable the desired service;
(c) "Voice Channel" coverage holes - which exist at cell site locations when the number of voice channels available is less than the number needed to handle normal peak traffic; and
(d) "Interference" coverage holes - which exist when in locations where the signal(s) from other cell sites or users degrade and interrupt a user's conversation.
2. Cingular knows about these coverage holes and about related shortfalls in its system capacity. As late as June of this year, Cingular's engineers acknowledged inadequacies in their system that made coverage inside buildings inconsistent. Cingular's engineers are also aware of the high incidence of dropped calls and "service denied" due to network congestion,
3. Cingular Wireless has the tools and information at its disposal to provide coverage maps that will enable its existing and prospective customers to reasonably determine where they can expect to be able to place and receive calls on their portable handsets -- whether in the open, in vehicle, or inside buildings.
4. Cingular's PCS system will offer different coverage than cellular systems, such as those offered by AT&T and Verizon. For example, it takes roughly four PCS cells to cover the same area that is covered by one cell in the original cellular system. This fourfold increase in equipment infrastructure requirements has restricted the deployment of PCS to those population centers where revenue potential appears to be sufficient to provide for a reasonable payback period of the huge capital investment. PCS service is not ubiquitous and covers much less area than is covered by cellular. Additionally, whereas cellular technology could often support cells 10 or more mile radius when communicating with portable handsets, PCS frequencies have an 8 mile radius from the tower theoretical maximum cell size providing good service to its portable handset. This maximum cell site coverage can only be accomplished in the outlying areas, as the cell site power must be dramatically reduced when cell sites are spaced close together to obtain the capacity needed to
handle large volumes of call traffic.