Customers complain after cell phone switchover Minnesota Public Radio

Some customers say the real thing falls short of the promise. The Minnesota Attorney General has sued one of the nation s largest providers over customer service issues. Congress is considering legislation to tighten federal control of the industry. Some customers say wireless companies pay little attention to consumer complaints. Some customers are still unhappy. It affected almost a half million customers in southern Minnesota as well as parts of Iowa and Wisconsin. Alltel s Jason Bates calls the switchover a great success with only a few minor hiccups. There were some issues with some dropped calls. I don t know that it was more than anticipated says Bates. I haven t heard any issues as of lately from consumers about it. Some customers disagree with that assessment. Exactly how many people have complained to the company is unknown because Alltel refuses to release that information. The complaints cover everything from poor signal strength to inaccurat! e bills. There were some issues with dropped calls. I don t know that it was more than anticipated. He s one of the former Midwest Wireless now Alltel customers who s had problems. It seems that there s been real problems with the switchover says Shepard. When asked how the signal is coming through at his end Shepard replies You re coming through pretty good. Then the line goes quiet. There are a few seconds of silence before he s back on. Dropped calls are part of life with wireless service. Shepard says it s frustrating that service interruptions became more frequent when Alltel took over. The line goes dead again. Shepard s not the only one with problems. Scott Bennett lives in the southern Minnesota town of Arlington. For many consumers poor cell phone service is an annoyance. Bennett says for him it can also be a matter of public safety. Bennett is a police officer in Arlington. His main communication device in his patrol car is a cell phone. He rememb! ers the nerve wracking night last summer when Alltel took over. For t he whole night I could not get calls on the phone says Bennett. That took almost a month for that to start working correctly. Bennett also had problems with his family cell phones three in all. They were purchased from Midwest Wireless. Bennett says the old phones were incompatible with the new company. None of them were working correctly so we went to Alltel phones. Just to get phones that worked it cost us bucks says Bennett. Alltel s Jason Bates says there were a few problems with older phones not working on the Alltel system. He says in most cases the company assumed responsibility. Basically they could go into a retail store and get with a rep says Bates. Customers have also complained about billing problems. Several told MPR that when Alltel took over they simply stopped receiving bills in the mail. Then they were threatened with late payment fees. Others say their bills contained unexplained charges. Many object to Alltel s penalty for ending a contract ! early saying it s too harsh. Alltel isn t the only cell phone company drawing customer anger. Consumers criticize the wireless industry in general. The Better Business Bureau says it s been the nation s most complained about industry the past three years. He says Alltel has made available a wide variety of new services and intends to offer more. Paul picks a new fire chief Questioned bridge over Minn.

Source: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/30/alltellprobs/?rsssource=1

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Is San Diego County Facing Water Crisis

It rained in San Diego on Sept. and it did not rain very much just . of an inch at Lindbergh Field. It was the first measurable rainfall in San Diego in days. Farmers will be the first and hardest hit. They are facing percent water cutbacks on Jan. due to the judge s order. If there s a wet winter now it s not going to cure the problem. Stehly is a third generation farmer. To cut back on water he is losing avocado trees. To make the cutbacks it s percent said Stehly. San Diego County has added water storage in recent years and spent a lot to increase its water supply. However reservoirs are at percent capacity and there is concern. Well we re always concerned. San Diegans are being asked to conserve and to be aware. Still not everyone is convinced of a water problem for the area. Who do you believe How much of a crisis is there really asked one local resident. Stehly knows what he has to do. I m going to put in better sprinkler systems. I m going ! to use green waste mulch. I m going to go after every leaky faucet. I don t care if it s in the kitchen or in the yard he said. Officials are warning residents that there will be less water and all should be ready. In the city of San Diego hired a rainmaker. During that time the city then as now was in the middle of a drought. Charles Hatfield would be paid if his rainmaking machine could perform a miracle. Gonzalez represents the environmental groups Coastkeeper and Surfrider. He admitted reclaiming water what critics call toilet to tap is a tough sell but these are desperate times. Experts said that water has been through someone s toilet at some point during the process. Toilet to tap literally goes from the sewer into a water plant where it is treated. However it is not doing anything near that now. Before anyone could drink the water it would have to go through several more purifying steps. Time and cost would depend on the plan of action. Long term effec! ts of this we just don t know he said. We re re circulating sewage th at is being filtered through a process that has to let water molecules through. Anything smaller than a water molecule is going to pass through including a lot of bacteria human hormones E. coli all kinds of scary things said Mazzarella. This water is safe. You just have to get over the public perception it is not safe or healthy said Reznik. Reznik opposes desalination because of long term concerns about marine life around the plant. The plant builders said that is not a big deal. We re talking about producing a water supply for San Diego residents said MacLaggan. The county could use the water but at what cost Mazzarella said It s a high energy user. If approved the plant would be the largest ocean water desalination plant in California. The I Team has learned that the plant has many regulatory hoops to jump through before it is built. Reclamation has a major public relations problem with the main one being the toilet to tap label. Experts said the cheapest and! easiest solution to swallow is conservation. This material may not be published broadcast rewritten or redistributed. Complete our simple secure online request and compare up to offers. Links We Like includes a selection of information tools and resources from our partners and sponsors.

Source: http://www.10news.com/news/14365577/detail.html

BMW accumulate New Ratings

y y to units. In the first nine months of the current fiscal year sales rose by . At units BMW sold . more cars in September while the MINI brand recorded . growth climbing to a new monthly record of vehicles. Finally Rolls Royce generated growth in sales to units. Only bike sales dropped . in September to units. The analyst considers the company s sales results as positive. In the first nine months sales were down by . At Wednesday s closing price of . and a P E ratio of roughly the company s stock still seems to enjoy a rather moderate rating. A possible significant economic downturn in the US still poses a certain threat. AC Research reiterates its accumulate rating on BMW. Recommend this article to a friend BMW detailed quote chart all headlines add to watchlist previous BMW overweight J. Morgan Securities BMW announces new strategy to save bn in costs newratings. eFinance Solutions powered by IS. Republication or redistribution strictly prohibit! ed without the prior written consent of newratings. In no event shall newratings. com be held liable for this or any other content or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. com makes no warranties either express or implied as to the fitness of the content for any particular purpose.

Source: http://www.newratings.com/analyst_news/article_1629022.html

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Water saving focus of project The Desert Sun

Landscaping accounts for up to percent of home water use board president Tom Kieley said. What the agency has done has cut their landscaping water use by to percent landscape architect Thomas Doczi said. The re landscaping is also an educational tool. They can come here and learn about the trees and plants said general manager Dave Luker. They can see it and see how good it can work in their yard. The public is welcome to come to the facility to view and pick up information on the new plants. Then they can take that to the nursery. The agency also has information pamphlets available. And you can still save water. They ve also kept an existing fountain at the entrance. The fountain along with all of the landscaping irrigation uses recycled water from the agency s Water Reclamation Plant. They relandscaped their headquarters with different plants in order to conserve more water.

Source: http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071013/NEW! S01/710130334

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Hearing Held For Woman Charged With Stealing Jewelry WMUR New Hampshire

A woman charged with stealing worth of jewelry from a Hudson N. home waived her probable cause hearing Wednesday. Kristine Davis was arrested last week along with her brother Michael Davis. Police said the two entered the home on Sept. and took the jewelry. Bail for Kristine Davis was reduced to cash and personal recognizance. Michael Davis remained jailed on unrelated charges and is scheduled for a probable cause hearing on Oct. This material may not be published broadcast rewritten or redistributed. Links We Like includes a selection of information tools and resources from our partners and sponsors. Monitor storms animate your forecast create personal alerts Try it now or Log in here.

Source: http://www.wmur.com/news/14310063/detail.html?rss=man&psp=news

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Paul Cox

BMW s position in the U. is also cause for concern. in addition to the Spartanburg S. Others wonder why BMW is being so aggressive trying to raise sales in the U. when the dollar s weakness makes profits hard to come by there. Reithofer also outlined some financial targets for including . billion in efficiency savings and an to percent automotive operating margin. BMW s operating profit margin fell to . percent in the second quarter of from . percent a year earlier. In BMW s operating margin hit nearly percent and has been steadily declining ever since. to the euro percent would be impressive. The dollar has been falling relentlessly against the euro. It was just below parity close to cents in and has recently fallen to more than . So profits have taken the strain. If it is sustainable it is ambitious enough. Mercedes is likely to reach percent soon but I don t expect it to keep it there. Audi can use components and engines from its huge Volkswagen ! owner. Jonas agrees that this is a disadvantage but not much of one. BMW will have to fight harder to find other ways to extract efficiencies and differentiate the product he said. Stephen Cheetham auto analyst at stockbroker Sanford C. Bernstein in London believes the profit target is plausible but worries about the negative vibes from its U. market accounts for about percent of BMW s automobile sales. The sole source of concern general consumer recession aside is the U. dollar which has a proven ability to crimp margins. The announced expansion of BMW s U. This plant produced vehicles in down from in and now has a capacity of about . Cheetham said BMW should think about producing engines in the U. although this would be difficult because of the scale sensitivity of making a broad range of power plants. Maybe another assembly plant would make more sense. plant of around units a year would be needed to make a serious dent in its U. dollar exposure said Cheetha! m. or proven low cost sources such as Asia he said. BMW s high incen tives Citigroup said that BMW is making things difficult for itself in the U. In our view BMW itself compounds its dollar risk by continued aggressive expansion in the U. Autodata a well respected estimator of incentive levels puts BMW incentives amongst the highest in the industry Citigroup said. But BMW s problems in the U. only serve to underline the company s dynamic performance elsewhere according to Morgan Stanley s Jonas. We estimate that BMW s margins in the U. were close to percent six years ago when the dollar s weakness began . Today they have sunk to between and percent. BMW doesn t get enough credit for being such a high achieving company outside the U. E mail him at neil. Starting first parse .

Source: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071009/AUTO02/710090301/-1/DEBATE

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Bidding war for Rio asset

Local players said to be eyeing the Kintyre deposit include Paladin and Oxiana. Mr Clifford increased his estimate on current year earnings by per cent to . billion and set a new price target of for Rio scrip. Rio s share price closed down . We expect the impact of the U. Please provide your full name. We also require a working email address not for publication but for verification. The location field is optional. Read our publication guidelines. com Online Dating site Worldwide. Simple supported risk managed just min per day.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22559455-913,00.html

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