billege

Okey-dokey, here's where I'm at:

My wife and I don't have a landline phone. When we lived in Michigan, up to this past March, Nextel was rock solid service. We always had dependable service, just about everywhere we went. The exceptions being out in the middle of nowhere, which one expects.

Now we live in Hilliard OH, and the phones suck. Just before we moved, we added national long distance to our plans, which of course hung us for another year with Nextel. At the time, we didn't mind at all.
Down here the phones are practically non-functional.
I can't make dependable calls from work, I can't even get service at work. People around me on Sprints, Verizon, etc. seem to do well. I can't make dependable calls from home. I can depend two things: I will drop the call, and at one point I will hear the other party, but they will not hear me. Then I'll drop the call.
We've gotten used to the fact that if our phone keeps the call for 10 minutes, we've gotten lucky. This is like having a cell 5 years ago! It's not funny.
Basically, where we live and work, Hilliard, West Jefferson, Worthington, the freeways inbetween, we practically can't use our phones.

My wife and I both have reasonably new Nextel phones, both in good repair. Both are affected the same ways, so I really don't think it's our phones' fault.

I've complained to Nextel several times. I got back the canned "We try to provide the best service possible in Metro areas, however in rural areas service may be spotty....blah...blah..."

I am irked by this. If where I live is rural, I think they need to check a dictionary. We live less than 10-15 minutes from downtown Columbus. If we hit I70 from our house, all of 2 miles down the road, you can SEE downtown! There is no way we are rural. What Nextel is telling me is: too bad, soo sad.

What I am really trying to find out, is what do I have to do (if it's even possible) to get out of these contracts without paying them $200 for failing to provide service.

If the service was merely spotty, I'd understand; it's a cell, it's not perfect. But this is beyond reasonable. The phones do not work! I've been tempted to keep a log of what happens on every call I make. I was thinking that maybe I'd be able to show that the phone's service is less than reasonable. But, I have no idea who I could talk to at Nextel that would care.

They all know thier service sucks, thus the contracts, but I can't believe it's legal to enforce a contract for a service that is not being provided.
The only reason I'm not willing to sue to get out of this, is that it'll be cheaper to pay Nextel $400 for the both of us, than to retain legal services.

If anyone out there has ever worked for a cell company, especially Nextel, and can help me out, I'd appreciate it.