FCC Nudges Cell Phone Companies to Give New Orleans Customers a Break
Posted on: Monday, 10 October 2005, 03:01 CDT
By Anonymous
To atone for the poor performance wireless customers have received in the past month, most companies are offering a rebate.
The Federal Communications Commission has said customers displaced by the hurricane should not have their cell phones shut off because they had not paid their bills since they had been evacuated. The FCC sought details on what carriers were doing.
Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier, will give discount cell phone bills for customers in areas hit by Hurricane Katrina discounts on their cell phone bills.
Cingular/Sprint customers in the New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss., markets will receive a one-time 50 percent credit on the monthly fee and will not be charged for roaming, extra minutes, long-distance or text messaging from late August through this Friday.
Cingular subscribers in Mobile, Ala., Jackson, Miss., Baton Rouge and Lafayette will get a one-time 25 percent discount on their monthly charge as well as unspecified discounts on roaming and text messages.
The company, a joint venture of BellSouth and SBC Communications, said the expiration date for prepaid customers will be extended to Oct. 31 and will replace any that expired since Aug. 29.
Cingular told the FCC the carrier would not shut off customers in the affected areas for 30 days and would stop collection efforts in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The company declined to say what impact the policies would have on its revenue.
Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 carrier, said it was working on a case-by-case basis with customers, would not cut them off and had stopped bill collections. The company is a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone.
Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 wireless carrier, said it would give a month of free wireless service to subscribers in the hardest-hit areas and would also give free long distance, extra minutes, roaming and text messaging.Sprint told the FCC it would not cut off customers and has stopped trying to collect on unpaid bills for now.
(Copyright 2005 Dolan Media Newswires)
Source: New Orleans CityBusiness
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