Heaven and Helena, Montana Sprint EVDO Kindle coverage lackinggadgets, customer adventures, travel — by TDavid @ 6:50 am PST
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If you’re traveling to Montana with shiny new Kindle in hand, might want to buy those books beforehand. Sprint EVDO coverage in Montana is limited, very limited if you look at the EVDO dead zone in the nationwide Kindle coverage map below.
When no Sprint EVDO network is present, the Kindle will attempt to downgrade to the dramatically slower Sprint data network. Unfortunately, coverage in Montana and other white areas on the map is still limited.
Relating to this coverage issue bookofJoe has a post asking: Amazon Kindle a Fraud?:
You and I know now — and Jeff Bezos knew, or certainly should have known — that the device doesn’t work in certain places yet Amazon happily banked the money from the dupes who didn’t, as well as crowing about how demand was so great it was sold out the day it appeared. Not the way a good company does business.
Hey bookofjoe, you’re reaching, mon. Anybody in this day and age who paid $400 for a device that relies on internet connectivity for full functionality and didn’t first check the service coverage area should have their license to geek taken away. Don’t any of these people have cell phones? Who doesn’t know internet coverage isn’t omnipresent? Really?
Apparently, bookofjoe and the commenter he was excited about, Steve Saroff who lives in Missoula don’t believe checking coverage maps before purchase is important? Mr. Saroff goes even further to suggest that this might be some kind of “bait and switch” advertising by Amazon.
Please.
While I would submit that the customer is almost always right, this particular Kindle customer is wrong. Missoula and Helena are beautiful cities with wonderful and friendly people, but they just don’t get much respect when it comes to Sprint coverage. Blame this on Sprint, not Amazon. Lobby them for more towers.
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I checked carefuly first, and Amazon and Sprint maps showed coverage in Missoula, Montana. However, it was only after the Kindle arieved, and did not work, that Amazon tech support admited that the type of Sprint coverage in Montana does not work with the Kindle. Yet their maps sill have not been corrected.
Comment by Steve Saroff — December 7, 2007 @ 9:57 pm PST
Admittedly, the smart customer, or at least the self-aware customer, will always consult a picture of the coverage area before buying a cell phone, pda or any other gadget that relies on mobile connectivity. To their credit, amazon does have a pop-up link on the kindle page to ‘check wireless coverage’ but they should have put up a map, much like the one on this page, so it would be visible to every customer surfing through. And I think their recently added “Note: There is no wireless coverage available currently on Sprint’s data network for Kindle in Montana and Alaska.” might be a case of too little too late. I’m not saying they’re in the wrong, but if they wanted to cater to each customer, these are things they could have done pretty easily.
Comment by Kevin — December 7, 2007 @ 11:54 pm PST
Hi Steve - thank you for stopping by and providing additional details.
I’ve been a Sprint EVDO customer for awhile and a search prior to purchase for Sprint EVDO coverage in Montana or talking to somebody who actually used Sprint EVDO and had been to Missoula (like me) would have told you in advance that it’s a dead zone there
We do a fair amount of travel in WA, OR, ID, NV and western Montana and have become pretty familiar with where there is coverage and where there is limited or none. I know we’re not the only customers who can speak firsthand about coverage areas. When you live in/near/around rural areas you figure out that internet coverage is limited. With all due respect, I have a hard time accepting that you didn’t realize this living in Missoula.
Yes, Missoula is one of the bigger cities in Montana, but dude, drive 20 or 30 miles west on the interstate and there’s not much else there.
I do agree with you on one thing though: it’s important to make an issue out of this (reasonably though) so others that are less computer savvy don’t make the same mistake. At best, however, you might call this “confusing advertising” maybe even “somewhat deceptive” by Amazon, but I can’t get on board with “fraud” or “bait and switch.”
Now let me give you a comparable example.
I’ve been waiting for Clearwire coverage in this area to try that service out but the closest tower provides service five miles away. I’ve talked to the local Clearwire rep and they know they don’t provide coverage to this area and yet if you look at their coverage map it seems to indicate they do. A map scaled large enough will not show five mile radius outages.
Are they being deceptive with their maps? Kind of, yes. I’m sure there is at least one other person in our area that has bought the service, brought it home and realized it didn’t work. You know what, I’ve had experiences like this with other non internet-related things before. I once bought one of those over the air HD antennas, it didn’t work as well as I would have liked in our area. I just took it back to the store and get my money back.
This clearly isn’t bait and switch and neither would be my situation with Clearwire. Amazon didn’t try to sell you something else in place of the Kindle. Looks like I’m far and away not the first to tell you this.
I understand being frustrated that Montana is a dead zone for Sprint, but as I said in the post above, you and others in Montana who want coverage should be lobbying Sprint. They are the ones with/on the towers.
At the same time it is good that you are out and about spreading the word. Just a friendly recommendation to keep your head about you in the process
People will tune your message out if it becomes too shrill.
Have a nice weekend
Comment by TDavid — December 8, 2007 @ 6:52 am PST
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