You Would Think a Cell Phone Company Would Want to Blanket an Airport

Verizon, my current cell phone provider, has no signal at the American baggage claim area at MIA. No bars. No data. No phone. No texts. Nothing. Just a phone getting warm as it tries to punch out or pull in a signal.

This isn’t a one-off thing today — I’ve noticed this problem before, as have family members. There is great coverage at the Miami airport while you are on board the plane, and perfectly fine coverage when you are on the departures level. But baggage claim is the lowest level; it’s street level but in every other respect feels like a basement as there is lots of concrete between the person and the sky.

Anyway, being the helpful sort of cuss that I am, I phoned in the problem to Verizon when I got home. The guy took down the info, and said he’d send it off to the right department. Then he kindly explained that Verizon doesn’t promise coverage everywhere, which seemed an odd way to thank me for pointing out that they don’t serve a major part of a major airport, which you would think Verizon would want to do. I asked if anyone would get in touch with me to tell me if they were going to fix the problem. No, he said, that department doesn’t talk to customers.

I complimented him on Verizon’s great customer service, and asked if he would recommend AT&T. “That’s not what I’m saying,” he gamely replied.

You would think a cell phone company might want to cover the busy baggage area at a major airport, no?

As it happens, I am outside the 2-year period on my contract and, although I didn’t mention it, AT&T does have the HTC One…. Problem is, though, I used to have AT&T. I don’t recall if they have a signal in the bowels of MIA, but I do recall that they were, overall, worse at customer service than Verizon.

As for the HTC One, it doesn’t have a SD card, but otherwise, it sounds really good. Switching costs are high though, as I’d lose my unlimited data plan at Verizon…although keeping it would require buying new phones outright rather than taking subsidized ones…