Tag: OptimusVProblems

Virgin Mobile USA Outage

Wow, there are a lot of people upset about Virgin Mobile USA outages on their facebook page.  People regularly post their zip code to see if Virgin Mobile will cop to an outage in that area.  There seems to be a universal dislike of the customer service as well.  I have had my own problems with Virgin Mobile but most of the problems were related to my old Optimus V phone problems.

Here are a few suggestions for Virgin Mobile in dealing with customers and service outages:

  • Admit To Your Service Outages.  In fact post them proactively so that customers don’t have to look very hard to find it.  This will save you money in terms of customer service requests and it will eliminate the feeling from your customers that you are trying to hide the fact that the service is spotty.  All providers have outages so there is no shame in admitting it.
  • Offer Credits For Loss Of Service.  When you customers tell you that they haven’t had service in days, offer a credit.  If you can verify the loss of service for that customer by relating it to known service outages in their area, then credit them for the amount of service they lost.  Half a month without service should mean half the bill for the customer.  Offer generous credits so that your customers know you care about their problems or so that you start to actually care about their problems because it hurts the bottom line.  Either way it is the right thing to do.
  • Notify Customers When The Outage Is Over.  When a known outage has happened in a certain area, let customers sign up to be notified when the outage is over.  The electric company in my area does this and it is very helpful.  Until I receive the notification, I won’t complain again about service starting and stopping over and over.  You could let people sign up to be notified or you could notify people based on their billing zip code.  Either would be good.  Both would be better.
  • Stop having people post fake positive posts to your facebook page.  It is obvious to even casual visitors that those posts are planted to make you look better.  I’m sure you have some happy customers but one liner posts from people with empty profiles are just silly.

And here is a suggestion for customers:

  • Complain More.  Post to the company facebook page, twitter account and call them.  At some point they will see the cost of their outages and either become proactive about fixing them or proactive about dealing with customers or raise their rates to accommodate the increased need for customer service.  That will drive customers away and then they  will become proactive about fixing outages or dealing with customers.

Oh and don’t forget to check your minutes using the Minutes Checker Free android app 🙂

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Android phone like an Ipod touch (follow up)

Because of some end of year travel, my side of the family celebrated Christmas early this year.   The android phones as ipod touches that I mentioned in an earlier post have worked out great.

The key app to making this solution work for me is called Smart App Protector Free.  It allows me to give this wifi connected handheld computer to my kids (both under 10) without worrying about what they might google or see on youtube or stumble across on the web.  Smart App Protector lets me leave wifi on so they can have a text chat app with their cousins while blocking their access to youtube or google or the browser.  I also have searching the market locked down because there are plenty of inappropriate apps there too.

Another nice solution I found is that I can leave their phones in airplane mode while turning wifi on (android 2.2) which makes it so the phone isn’t constantly searching for a cell tower to talk to (since the phones aren’t activated).  This saves battery galore.

The kids both have their phones (LG Optimus Vs purchased for ~$50 new on black friday) loaded with game apps.  They have also discovered how fun it is to be able to text their cousins and parents (and soon grandparents maybe).

I just wanted to follow up after my first post to say that the Android as an ipod touch has worked out great so far.  I recommend this for other parents looking for a way to avoid buying a $200 ipod touch.

Use your Android phone like an Ipod touch

Your old android phone can act like an ipod touch for your kids.  It has wifi, music, games, apps.   You don’t need to have the phone activated to use it this way.  I just bought 2 for $50 each (optimus v at target black friday deal) to use for my kids.  They have been bugging me to get them an ipod touch but I wasn’t willing to spend the $200 per kid to make that happen.  So, I spent $55 per kid instead.  I downloaded ~25 games and an app to lock other apps so I can keep them off youtube and google.  I copied over their kidsbop ripped mp3s and tada – android like an ipod touch for <$55.    Christmas this year isn’t going to break the bank!

Optimus V – Rooted with GingerBreak 1.2

I finally rooted my Optimus V phone.  The only reason I took the risk was that I was running out of internal memory and I needed to either get rid of some of the bloatware that comes on the phone or delete apps that I wanted to keep.

I used GingerBreak 1.2 which I got from here.   It worked fine.  Then I used Root Uninstaller Free to uninstall these stock apps:

  • Email
  • Scvngr
  • Twitroid
  • Where
  • Poynt
  • Downloads

Then I used Titanium Backup * Root to force my ATT Uverse app to the sd card because it is the biggest app on my phone (13mb).  I would have just removed the ATT Uverse app but sometimes I really want to remotely set my DVR to record something while I’m out.

After all that, I still have 47mb free.

I looked into adding Adobe Flash.  I downloaded Flash apk 10.2 from some site because the market won’t let me install Flash 11.  It installed OK.  I tried to download the apk for version 11 but it would not install.  Flash 10.2 might have worked but Crackle only works with Flash 11 so I gave up, uninstalled Flash 10.2 and called it quits.

I also looked into overclocking but I don’t think it is worth risking bricking the phone.

Status update

My 3g still isn’t perfect but it works most of the time.  The biggest complaint I have is how it sucks the battery dry from time to time.  I still use the free taob (toggle airplane on boot) app from the Market.  I’m home most of the time so I’m on wifi and luckily wifi works great.   As much as I’ve had problems with the 3g, I still am glad I got this phone at the $25/mo price when it was still available at that price.

I’ve been looking into getting the new Motorola Triumph or HTC Wildfire S or Optimus Slider.  The cheaper 2 have the same problem – low internal memory like the Optimus V.  The Triumph has other problems like the size is a bit big for my liking.

Optimus V.. spoke to soon

Ha, I posted that things were getting better for me.  Then the next day I went out to dinner.  In the hour and a half that it took to eat, my battery dropped from 85% to 15% on 3G only.  My wifi was off.  My gps was off.  I never turn bluetooth on so it was off.  Bummer.

Most of my time has been at home on wifi lately so I think I was just fooling myself into thinking things were getting better with 3G.

 

Optimus V – Getting Better For Me

It has been a while since my last Optimus V post.  I haven’t had problems in a long time.  When I’m home I stay on wifi which works fine.  Over the last few months, 3g has been working pretty well for me.

I have found that leaving wifi on while on 3g (away from home) tends to drain the battery pretty fast.

I think Virgin Mobile has changed their service in some way to help correct the problem.  I haven’t had to reboot my phone in a while.  I haven’t had to pull the battery in a while.   I don’t know what they did but it seems to have seriously helped the issues.

I do use some app (taob – toggle airplane on boot) that puts my phone into airplane mode for a few seconds after a reboot.  I’m not sure if it is still required but it doesn’t seem to be hurting anything.

Knock on wood; The Optimus V seems to be getting better for me.

Optimus V Review Rejected By Virgin Mobile

So I resubmitted my Optimus V Review again today with this exact text:

great phone but the 3G dropping problem stinks – you lose your 3g connection and it doesn’t auto-reconnect when 3g becomes available again.  I won’t recommend this phone to friends until the 3g dropping problem is fixed.

And once again it was rejected by Virgin Mobile.  So much for a useful review process.

You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category:  https://montykamath.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/

Optimus V Review (Rejected By Virgin Mobile)

My review was honest and fair but it was rejected by Virgin Mobile.  I guess they don’t like people giving honest and low ratings.  Now I see how Virgin Mobile is keeping the rating for the Optimus V at 4.5 stars on their site!

I resubmitted my review again today with this exact text:

great phone but the 3G dropping problem stinks – you lose your 3g connection and it doesn’t auto-reconnect when 3g becomes available again.  I won’t recommend this phone to friends until the 3g dropping problem is fixed.

I’ll post an update to let you know if this review is rejected by Virgin Mobile too.


You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category:  https://montykamath.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/

Optimus V 3G Drops (update 3/24/2011)

Last night around 8pm my 3G connection started working again.  It was slow but it stayed working.  Today it is still working (knock on wood).

Both my wife and I experienced 3G connection problems all day yesterday.  As already stated on the forums I think there are 2 problems here:

  1. Virgin Mobile 3G service is sketchy so 3G goes down a lot
  2. The Optimus V doesn’t auto reconnect to 3G once it becomes available again without doing something (reboot, toggle airplane mode, switch to wifi and back, toggle data off/on)

Yesterday I rebooted 5 times, toggled airplane mode 10 times, switched from wifi back to 3G 10 times, toggled data off 5 times, etc.  It was pretty frustrating.  Luckily it started working around the same time I had to go away from my wifi.

Come on Virgin Mobile, please address the issue!  There are a lot of people with Optimus V phones who are having the same problems that I am.

You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category:  http://trillionth.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/