Fucktardery

So my phone's been stuck on ROAM the entire time I've been down in SLO. I finally got ahold of customer service for Cingular and after messing with my phone, my account, and the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, they found a solution: Cingular doesn't cover people near the coast. And by near, they mean less than 30 miles or so. Los Angeles is, of course, and exception. And I would assume that the entire SF Bay Area would qualify as well. Come to think of it, Seattle's pretty much right on the water, so they're out, Manhattan's a fucking island, but they've got to cover there. I imagine D.C.'s also in the zone, there's a lot of people in Virginia Beach, and Miami and Houston are enormous markets. So, except for those places, and a few other coastal cities that warrant coverage like Coos Bay, OR or Ferndale, CA, (look 'em up) I guess they don't cover the coast.

WHAT?!

Does that make sense to anyone!? "We don't cover people near the coast." Half the fucking country lives within 30 miles of the coast. HALF! This has got to be the weakest, lamest, most obviously BS cop-out I've ever heard. It's like the cable company telling you your cable's down because your house isn't quite level.

But, I know what you're thinking, maybe it's true. Maybe they really don't serve SLO. Maybe SLO's a tiny little village not worth serving because it only has 40,000 residents, 20,000 college students and three Cingular Wireless stores. Maybe. Here's the thing though: I've been to SLO about a dozen times since I got this phone. I know for a fact there's coverage. Sure, there's dark spots and dead zones in the area (i.e. on 101 between SLO and Pismo) but not half a mile from fucking DOWNTOWN! There's only two explanations, either Cingular's fucked up and nerfed my phone from the network (which I suspect they have, since they tend to do stuff like this as soon as I get in the car and go somewhere it isn't raining) or they're actually tearing down the TDMA towers.

Either way, it's fucktardery.