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Sprint in deep trouble? Sanyo ditching cell phones

scaredpoet

sanyo

UPDATE: Oh heavens! It’s Sprint fanboy drama! View comments to see what the cat dragged in.

Well, it hasn’t been a great couple of weeks for Sprint, a US cell carrier that can count me as one of its numerous defectors over the past couple of years. Back when the Sprint Nextel merger was first hashed out, I (and other, more clear-thinking, non-merger happy people) predicted there would be problems. Looks like we were right.

Last week, Sprint dropped the bomb: while every other cell company in the US gained customers, Sprint managed to somehow lose around 638,000 of them during the holiday season. So in response, they’re going to make it HARDER to sign up: close 125 stores, and layoff about 4,000 people, mostly in retail and customer service operations.

If that doesn’t take some mad skillz, then consider this: about six months ago, Sprint dumped about 1,000 customers, on purpose. Because, you know, they were just too much to handle, calling in too much to have their billing issues resolved, or roaming too much because they happened to be in coverage holes within Sprint’s nationwide network. And can you blame Sprint? I mean, really, the nerve of these people to want to get their billing problems corrected, or to actually expect to be able to make phone calls. Right?

Well, customer service issues aside, one of the problems Sprint has had lately is poor phone selection and lack of variety. Sure, the latest Palm OS 5 PDA was awesome and state of the art in 2002, but rolling out the same PDA running the exact same OS in a repackaged form factor 6 years later starts to get a little old. So is selling the RAZR two years after everyone else had it, but only after two commissioned copycat models failed in the marketplace.

Now, Sprint’s problems are about to get worse: Sanyo, one of Sprint’s long-time suppliers of cell phones, has been in financial trouble for a while now, and is selling off their cell phone unit to Kyocera.

This might not be any worse than the current situation, considering Sanyo hasn’t really come out with a decent phone since… well, about 2002. Funny how Sprint’s network is so state of the art, but the phones haven’t been top notch in 6 about years, eh? But unfortiunately, Kyocera isn’t known for innovation much. I mean most peeople hail the iPhone as a crowning achievement in industrial design. Kyocera’s contribution? This…

Strobe

That’s right. Who want’s a touch screen, WiFi or an advanced linux/unix-based OS, when you can have a nylon strap and a carabiner bolted to the top of your clunky phone? Eh?! Eh?! 🙂

So yeah, Sprint is in deep shit right now, which is a real shame. Even ignoring the whole Nextel mess, Sprint is not in good shape, and I worry that it might not even continue to do business by the end of ’08.

By the way: In researching photos for this article, I came across this great review of the Treo 300 in 2002. Of course the Treo 300 isn’t nearly as advanced and cool today, but one photo on the site does send a rather ironic subtle message about the current state of Palm OS technology:

treo cassette

Yeah, that’s about right.

Telcos to FBI: LOLZ! No wiretaps for you, deadbeat!

scaredpoet

disconnected

Well, FBI wiretaps actually cost money! Phone companies not only do the dirty work for our fearless government, but the FBi pays them for their work. Who knew?

Well, truth be told, the term “paid” is being used loosely, as the Feds have lately begun to act like a finicky teen who ran up their phone bill and can’t pay it:

According to the Washington Post’s Dan Eggen, audit results released today found that “telephone companies have repeatedly cut off FBI wiretaps of alleged terrorists and criminal suspects because of failures to pay telecommunication bills, including one invoice for $66,000 at one unidentified field office….The report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Glenn Fine also identified one case in which an order obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was halted because of ‘untimely payment.'”

Oh, in case you were wondering: there was also mention in the report of other incompetence at the FBI, too. You know, piddly stuff… like, guns and laptops with citizens’ personal data on them missing. Nothing terribly important. You know.

So here we were, all worried that our civil rights were being violated, but in reality the FBI can’t even pay a phone bill on time. Or, if you come from the right side of the aisle, consider this: actual terrorist targets are probably able to talk freely because the FBI can’t pay their damn bills. Greeeeat.

It also makes you wonder: how much does a single wiretap cost? Also, how much taxpayer money is the federal government pouring into telcos to spy on people as a whole?

Unfortunately, the cited article above goes into a rant about how we should send telcos a “citizen’s” bill and make them pay, linking this to the big issue of whether telcos should be granted immunity from lawsuits over wiretapping. Frankly, I don’t understand the hard-on that civil liberties unions have over suing the telephone companies. Let’s face it: they were doing what the government TOLD them to do. If a big menacing government-guy walks into the average IT drone’s work space and talks of terrorism and Homeland Security and then waves an officially looking piece of paper around, giving orders all authoritative-like, chances are, the IT guy is gonna cave. That’s just how it is.

If the Civil Liberties’ people want to sue someone, they should lobby hard to permit lawsuits on the issue against the government, and failing that, the individual people within government who gave the orders for wiretaps in the first place. Civil liberties groups keep referring to this as illegal wiretapping… so why are they ignoring that our government officials spawned the illegality in the first place?

2007: Looking back at all of the fun stuff

CrazedPenguin

First, and most importantly, I’d like to wish any and all readers a belated happy New Year. That will make up for how much you all might end up hating me by the time this column is done with. 2007 was a fun year, yes, and there were quite a few goodies that I, myself, have just gotten familiar with. For instance, did you know that the XBOX360 isn’t just an overpriced piece of garbage? Or maybe I’m just being too gentle because my system is too young to have Red Ring of Death’d me just yet. Regardless, I have so kindly put together a list of major “props” and “flops,” from my viewpoint, of 2007. Then, of course, there’s also the “indifferent,” but that’s because I’m not so shallow as to say something has to completely suck or rock the world off of its axis. Hopefully, I’m not alone in all of these views–and I doubt I am–but, even if I am, remember that this is all in good fun. If you disagree, that’s all well and good, but save yourself the time of typing up that angry e-mail and sending it. Instead, try doing something productive.

My shenanigans aside, here we go:
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Merry Christmas, Maing!

scaredpoet

Vote for Chris to replace Santa! 🙂

OH NOES HERE’S MOAR:

Happy Holidays, folks.

CrazedPenguin

Let me start off this rant by saying this much: I work in retail. I am instructed, by my bosses, to say “Happy Holidays” versus, say, “Merry Christmas.” Seeing how they are my higher ups and, in fact, can fire my ass, I’m obliged to listen to what they say. After all, I already basically spend the entire time I’m there socializing with people and being the village asshole anyway. However, I’m digressing.

Many a customer will verbally attack me, saying, “Why not Merry Christmas? It’s Christmas!” Let me respond with a few questions of my own. What about the other holidays? What about the other religions? What about, most importantly, the people who don’t give a damn about these days? Do we just ignore them because they don’t celebrate Christmas? I have some advice for the people lobbying for the whole “It’s Merry Christmas” side of this argument. Please, for the love of all things pleasant and vacation-oriented, STOP BITCHING. Pardon my bluntness, but it’s ridiculous to make such a fuss over something like this. Allow me to explain.
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