T-mobile subscriber with a CHICAGO 312 or 773 area code phone number? You're screwed right now for travel.

For my non-USA readers thanks for stopping by! I actually want more readership from outside the USA to show that ONE American is curious about the rest of the world OUTSIDE the 30-second fear-laden news bites unlike most of us believe like dumb sheep... But in most other countries a cellular number has it's own area/city/long distance code that allows for a callER pays model.

That means (for my US readers) that when you live in another country you think TWICE before dialing a cellular phone because it's going to cost you (at night) slightly more and (during the day) A SMALL FORTUNE to make that call. The mobile phone owner happily answers those calls because they are (for her/him) 'free' and in a lot of countries the mobile phone owner gets marketing 'points' they can use in exchange for free airtime or maybe even (yeah right) a free phone.

In the USA it's another story. You get a 'bucket' of minutes. Doesn't matter if they are inbound or outbound calls. You get 'free' calls to phones that are on the same carrier in most cases but otherwise it does not matter whether the call is RECEIVED or SENT - the cellular subscriber pays minutes.

T-Mobile USA has had a big network problem that they are hiding. It's been going on for a month. I notice it because I've got a Chicago phone number in Arizona.

I sent the following to the "breaking news" email addresses of all the English-language Chicago television stations because otherwise T-Mo is not going to do a damn thing. I followed it up with phone calls to all the newsroom phone numbers I could find (as well as a coupla talk radio stations).

Otherwise I doubt T-Mo will fix the problem anytime soon.

Quoted message:"
I live in Arizona but have a 312-xxx-xxxx number with T-mobile because too many of my business contacts have it. Over the last month receiving calls has been MADDENING. Didn't matter whether I was in Las Vegas, Southern Utah, San Diego, Phoenix, Flagstaff - wherever.... the phone would ring and I'd get dead air. My caller would also get dead air - no voicemail.

When I finally had a moment to call customer care they did not even tell me about this on the phone when I called them, they sent me to a store to have my phone looked at and agreed that a possible SIM swap was indicated.

I told them, "I can't receive calls at all. They ring with the correct caller ID and then its dead air. The caller hears dead air and the call doesn't go to my voicemail."

I was ASTONISHED when we didn't start a troubleshooting tree - the woman said, "Do you have a Chicago phone number?"

"Yes."

"Oh we thought we had the problem fixed but intermittently for about the last month more often than not, calls to T-mobile subscribers with Chicago numbers go to dead air - their phone rings just like you're describing."

"So when will this be fixed? I use my phone for business and it's very confusing for my customers to get dead air, not even my voicemail."

"We don't know. 350,000 customers have reported the problem and we are.... " (guess what words are coming next) "... TAKING THE PROBLEM SERIOUSLY."

We went back and forth but essentially the T-mobile employees at the Scottsdale Fashion Square politely told me I was SOL and there was nothing they were going to do for me. No credit, no options, no nothing. I just had to wait until they fixed the problem.

Cellular users with T-mobile Chicago numbers in area codes 312 and 773 if this has caused you issues - the internal trouble ticket number is TT976176. Give 611 a jingle and help T-Mobile to take the problem seriously, truly seriously - because if you're traveling with your T-mobile phone outside the Chicago area you are probably S*** OUT OF LUCK for receiving calls.