The ogo to get the go ahead from AT&T Wireless today?
posted Sep 15th 2004 1:06AM
It's only 1am here on the East Coast so we probably still have to wait a few more hours until any sort of official announcement might cross the wires, but reader Valor says that he just spoke with an AT&T Wireless customer service rep who said that the ogo, their new handheld mobile communicator for doing email and instant messaging, should be launched later today. Here's the unexpurgated scoop:
I just talked to a *very* helpful customer care representative at AT&T, who gave me a lot of information about the new "ogo". Here is everything she told me: It will cost 17.99 mo, but there is a $3/mo introductory offer (she didn't say how long the offer was good for), there will be an activation fee of $19.99, and the price of the unit is $129.99, with a $30 rebate at launch. She read me the capabilities of the unit, which included unlimited domestic text messaging (didn't know if the unit would have its own phone number) with premium and international SMS available for a fee, unlimited instant messaging, and "unlimited access to 1 premium portal" (AOM, MSN, Yahoo), as well as support for "some" other email providers. She couldn't tell me what all that included, or if it included your own IMAP/POP3 server. In the most notable news, she told me that the launch date is tomorrow, September 15!!
That was a $3/month DISCOUNT, to make it $15/month
so yeah i am gonna be beta testing this thing, and i am supposed to get it around the 26th. shrug, too bad i'm not THAT excited about it.. but it will be fun! so i'm not too sure about the 15th release.
You are beta testing a unit that the entire country will be able to buy today. Cute.
I hope AT&T really supports this product and crushes T-Mobile Sidekick in the deaf and hearing impaired market. The customer service sucks and these Danger/Hiphop Sidekick break and need repair way too often. AT&T Ogo is perfect for deaf people's need, and best of all no cell phone.
Although the device is not able to make or receive phone calls, according to the manual on the FCCs webpage, the device will have it's own phone number. The manual says something along the lines of "You will get a phone number to give your friends so you can start receiving SMS Messages."
I called the local store in Frederick MD and she said it won't come out until the 27th of September.
According to my AT&T wireless regional manager, it will be released tomorrow, the 17th.
According to my AT&T wireless regional manager, it will be released tomorrow, the 17th.
OGO at AT&T stores tomorrow September 27th! Already have mine on hold and this is supposed to be a big thing for teenagers and deaf people. I have a feeling AT&T will bring in the new Nokia "SideKick killer" with a web browser so there was no need for web access from the OGO plus it keeps the cost down.
So I drove 35 miles last night to go buy an Ogo at an AT&T Retailer (not a reseller), since the 5 stores near me were completely sold out. Salesman didn't know anything about it, wanted to run a credit check (even though it's paid monthly on my credit card). He called AT&T, and after 15 minutes was told that I was right, no credit check was needed.
30 minutes later, I was in the parking lot and started my activation. Took about 5 minutes to enter my information - not too bad!
12 hours later, my Ogo still said "activation is in progress." I called customer care at 7:00 this morning, and no one knew what to do with it - several didn't know what an Ogo was! I finally was referred to another call center, that didn't open until 9am EST.
I didn't want to wait that long, since I had to head out for work. I went to their website, set up an account and started a chat with a tech. He was very helpful and friendly - told me my system was already registered on their network, everything was in place, and wasn't sure why my Ogo wasn't working. He had me power it off, pull the SIM, put it back in and restart it. Then I got in, and was able to send SMS. I let the tech go.
When I got to work, I tried adding my AIM account. No dice. Kept giving me Registration Failed messages. Same thing for adding my POP3 account. So I called again, was referred to yet another number, and between being put on hold and talking with four different technicians, 4 hours later I was told that my device hadn't completed registration, and that the "several hours" that is written everywhere really is 24 hours.
The tech then told me to drop my SIM again, and restart the device. Now I'm back on the "activation is in progress" screen. Headed on 18 hours here and still don't have a functioning Ogo.
Best part? They assigned me a ticket that would be resolved within 3-5 business days, and wouldn't offer me a credit on my service until after they had a resolution.
Anyone want to know why I cancelled service with AT&T 4 years ago, and went back to Verizon?
I'll provide an update if this ever completes.
The Wifi department is definitely the group to work with! 866-896-9434 option 3. (This number is on your Ogo, but you can't get to it when you're stuck in activation mode. And, it's buried on the AT&T website.)
I called in this morning with one last attempt... the person I spoke with had me working in less than five minutes. He had me turn off my Ogo, then he "pushed" the activation from his end. I immediately received an email on my computer saying that Activation had been completed. I turned my Ogo back on, and there was the Setup Accounts wizard!
I'm good to go...
Moral of the story: Call the Wifi department! The main "Care" number (866-293-4634) is not the number to call!
The OGO is awesome...
I bought it for my boyfreind who is Deaf, and it is perfect for him. He had the sidekick before... but actually prefers the OGO.
Activation took 24 hours... but well worth it..
the only problem is I can't get him off of it to pay attention to me :( LOL
:)
Lisa
Took 5 minutes to activate mine :). But I cant seem to get the buddy list loaded. :(..
My Ogo Nightmare:
Ordered Ogo via website on 11/22 @ 2:00pm w/ the understanding I would receive it next day.
Got email on 11/23 saying order was delayed for an unknown billing reason, and to call order support.
Called order support, they didn't know why the hold was placed, but now that I called "it will now be shipped, expect it in a few days."
They shipped it to my Billing address (my accountant's office) not my shipping address, so I had to wait will she was back in town from Thanksgiving to drive 40 miles to pick it up.
Finally had it in-hand on 11/29.
Attempted to activate the Ogo immediately. Got stuck in "Querying activation server" for 24 hours, at which time it said "Activation failed. Please call tech support."
Chatted w/ tech support who referred me to Wi-fi support group. Called them 5 times over the next 24 hours; they typically had me go through the Activation Wizard repeatedly, then wait a couple hours, then call back. Finally was determined my SIM card was bad.
Went to an AT&T store to get a new SIM card.
Activation completed within 30 minutes of getting new SIM card.
Once Ogo was finally activated, discovered that it would not come out of hibernate mode, only way to turn it back on was to remove the battery and replace it.
Chatted with online help who referred me to call Tech support who referred me to Warranty Group.
Warranty Group said that since I bought it online I could not return it to a store; rather I would need to send my Ogo to them first and they would send a replacement.
That's when I gave up on Ogo, Cingular, and AT&T Wireless, all at the same time.
Said that wasn't acceptable, got # for Customer Service.
Called Customer Service and requested to Cancel my service and send the Ogo back.
Customer Service said I would still be charged for "my usage" - which appeared to be the time since I first tried to activate the device (keep in mind the total elapsed time between finally getting it activated and cancelling my service was about 14 hours). Said this was not acceptible and negotiated the usage time down to one day.
Customer Service cancelled my account successfully but could find no record of my web order for the device, and suggested I contact "whomever I purchased it from" to send it back to.
Went through my e-mail, found the AT&T wireless online store web order #, called Customer Service with it.
Was notified that this was the wrong place to call, and transferred me to Web Order handling group, who after a long hold finally located my order, determined yes indeed I had purchased it from AT&T Wireless, and processed the request to send me a return shipping label. That should now be on its way; we'll see if it gets sent to my shipping or billing address.
Total estimated time spent on chat support: 35 minutes.
Total time spent in AT&T store for new SIM card: 52 minutes.
Total estimated number of transfers between departments: 30
Total known/tracked time spent on live support: 13 calls, 6 hours 13 minutes total.
My time: priceless (or so I thought)
I'm not going to comment here about the knowledge or professionalism of the support folks - the purpose of this message (which I will also post on as many relevant web sites as I can find) is to relay the extreme example of what one customer went through, and to expose the possibility of a similar experience for other potential customers as well.
So sorry about your bad experience.
I lost my patience with one of the female reps and she hung up on me.
My account had been set up and I called in for help and this gal acted like I had no account with them. WHen I told her to transfer me to the Ogo activation dept, she insisted that SHE was the person that I needed to be talking to.
Then when I gave her all of my phone numbers, name, address, everything under the sun, she just kept acting like "we don't have any information on you" and just acted like I was supposed to hang up and forget about it or something.
I didn't cuss at the beotch but I got really snippy with her.
I mean, she wouldn't transfer me to where I needed to be but insisted that I needed to deal with her and just sat there like a brainless ditz when I gave her my account number and all other identification numbers.
She hung up on me when I said "gosh, this merger between you (AT&T) and Cingular has really screwed you guys up".
Well, it's the damn truth.
I'm very happy with my Ogo now that I've got it activated and the technicians in Ogo support chat really do know their $#it and they're all polite.
But AT&TCingular better get their rear in gear with their activation department or they're going to lose a lot more potential customers.
I've read a lot of comments about the problems people are having with activation.
i am trying to find the sim card for my ogo the sim card that i have in the ogo is not working anymore and need to be replace