US Cellular Service

US Cellular

Cell Phone Service, southern Illinois

I wanted to say that I am not very happy with US Cellular phone service. There are not a lot of services in our area, so we did not have a large

choice to begin with. USC takes advantage of this, and charges some amazing fees, while providing iffy service.

First off - we had a family plan, where we could add up to four additional phones for $9.95/month. That's fine. Until you try to add the phones. We tried to add

two phones to the account last October, when my son started college. First off, our acct rep stated in person that we'd have to pay an activation fee

of $15 per phone to add them to our plan. I didn't like it, but feeling stuck, I agreed. Then we got the bill - it was actually THIRTY ($30) activation fee PER PHONE,

double what the rep stated. I called USC, who said that was between us and the rep. I went back to the rep, who stated that it was coming from USC not them.

So, fee volleyball had begun. I had to pay it to avoid getting the phones turned off. Then we tried their infamous Easy Edge, which was supposedly $10/month for unlimited downloads.

First of all, we were given one free download with the phone. We were NOT told that we would get hit with charges for just LISTENING to a ring tone, even without downloading it. We'd gone through several tones, while my teens tried to decide which ones they wanted. Well, on our next bill, we got charged $336 for "airtime" for LISTENING to the ringtones - not downloading, just browsing the categories! I about had a cow. They charge one penny per second to BROWSE. Yepper - even looking costs you with USC.

Then we signed up for Easy Edge on ONE phone line to try it. USC charged us for ALL the phones on our acct (4 total) for an extra $40 per month, then telling us later that we could not choose just one phone to have it on. Needless to say, it was cancelled ASAP.

Also, we tried to download some other ringtones from the multiple places that are available on the internet for the tones. Of course, almost any other service allows you to download on a pay-as-you-go basis. Not USC! You cannot download one blooming thing to your phone via any means EXCEPT their "easyedge" costly program. What a ripoff. No one is trying to get free ringtones, but we should not be shut out from every service, just because we went with USC.

Three of our phones do an okay job with the calls. My phone, a cheaper model, constantly drops calls and goes out. I've called about it, and was told that it was probably just our service area, and to try to find places with stronger signals. What??? Okay, three people who live in the same house can use their phones just fine most of the time (they do lose reception in and out all the way through the area) - it is only my phone.

Southern Illinois already has a very strange contractual phone setup, and it locks out a lot of customers from getting decent services for home phone, internet connection, cable, etc. Where we live, we can't get any form of DSL here. The only phone company that provides home service in this part of the area has a spotty "high speed" dialup for five times the cost of what I pay for the one I currently use. They call that their "DSL" connection, and it isn't even DSL.

I wish the government would get involved in Illinois, and deregulate the phone companies in this area. I'd like to try AT&T and their services. I'd love to get rid of Frontier, who is the only one out here. They stink. We've had cross talk on the lines, horrible connections, crackly lines when it rains. We've called, and get the same sort of response from them - "well, the area has old lines". Well, you charge enough - how about REPLACING some of those old lines?

Looking forward to moving back into civilization, where there is at least a choice. Of course, it won't help with our USCellular contract. I'd advise people to steer clear of them. Too many rules, hidden fees and other garbage - if we did not need to have a cell phone in this area, we'd pay the fee and cancel the entire thing!