Geekwhore.net - Pimpin’ since ‘02

So I’ve been fairly happy with Viaero Wireless, they appear to be a growing company, the local sales people are nice and many of them I have known for many years so I feel comfortable going into the store. However, I have been seeing some cracks starting to develop, my guess is that they have simply grown too fast and are at that weird time that all successful companies go through where you have to start doing things like a big company even though people like you because you are a small company. We use Viaero quite extensively (something like 12 cell phones, 1 blackberry, and 1 internet PC card). I definitely do not consider myself a small customer, I’m sure there are bigger but we spend around $10,000 a year with them. Anyway, time for my rants.

1. Customer Service - So I got a new Sony Ericson K790a a few months back. I love this phone, I can take 3.2 Megapixel pictures with it, get RSS updates, browse the internet, and all the other general stuff that a cell phone should do. The reason for going with this phone was twofold, first, I wanted to be able to stop carrying my digital camera around and second, text messaging/internet means I can view our network status from anywhere. HOWEVER, a few problems have cropped up with this. First, I can’t send picture message on the phone, nobody at Viaero can tell me why I can or can’t, I call into the *611 and they try a bunch of stuff and then tell me to go to the store. I go into the store and they tell me to call in for additional support. Every now and then I’ll pass by a Viaero store when traveling around the panhandle and I’ll stop and see if whoever is in the store can help. Having stopped in 3 different stores now I can say that I will NOT stop into any store that is not in my home town, not because I don’t want to and not because it is not convenient. Whenever I go in to a store and the sales person doesn’t know me the first thing they want to do is sell me a phone…that’s great, they are commission based, however, as soon as I tell them that I am already a customer and that I just need assistance the walls go up. They want me out of there ASAP so they can sell a phone to the next guy. On numerous occasions my phone would just not ring and my voicemail wouldn’t pick up. I went into the Viaero store in Scottsbluff, NE, ask the sales guy who looked really tired or really stoned (maybe both) why my phone was acting strange. He looks me straight in the face and says “I don’t know we aren’t having any problems”, hands me my phone back and then turns back to his partner in crime behind the counter and finishes the joke he was telling him when I walked in.
2. While it is nice that you offer blackberries and the PC card, however, for all that is holy, figure out how to offer tethered modem support. I was told by the “blackberry expert” that Viaero was not going to offer tethered modem support because it was slower than their pc card service. At the time I had not tried the PC card service so I figured what the heck. However, now that I’ve used it for a few months I can tell you that your PC card service isn’t all that fast. Yes, I have the newest version of Venturi (think pre-caching to make me think your wireless is fast). Yes, I have disabled my anti-virus, it didn’t make a difference. And finally, Yes, I have good signal. Now, I don’t mind the slow speeds, the fact that I can get ANYTHING when I’m in the middle of nowhere Nebraska is great, that’s why I pay for it, not for the speed but the fact that if I’m driving and some network issue comes up I can stop on the side of the road and have a fairly solid connection is great. Now, if you offered tethered modem on the blackberry I would be even happier, the blackberry can do almost everything that I currently use the PC card for. The only reason I want tethered modem is so that in the rare occasion that I need my laptop I can use it, speed doesn’t really matter to me, I promise! If you could figure out how to get the Blackberry 8300 I’ll give you a one-up as then I have the camera and GPS…but I can live with the 8100.

   Now for all the ranting in this post, I must say that I like Viaero, they have done a LOT of good in the area, two years ago I was at the end of my rope with Alltel, they refused to admit that they had signal issues in the area, Viaero came in and 1 year after Viaero came into the picture Alltel now has a tower actually in Imperial.