It’s a bit hard to write this because I really wanted to believe you were better than the others. I wanted to believe that you told me the truth when we could tether and that you used the native T-Mobile network. I wanted to believe you when the marketing team told me that you would go after sites* and people that violated your marketing terms. Unfortunately, I was wrong to believe you. It turns out that you are just like every other cellular company out there, just telling people what they want to hear.
I fought for you in the forums, only to have my posts deleted. I argued service maps with other users only to be told that the map that showed coverage in Canada and Mexico was right – even thought directly below it said it wasn’t. I tried to get people to realize that “Unlimited voice text and data on a nationwide 4G network” didn’t mean unlimited 4G data like they all thought. I really tried, but ultimately people are getting frustrated quickly with the misinformation and worse yet, frustrated with the service.
Back in February you became the first carrier in the US to launch the BlackBerry Z10, yet to users that ordered it, it didn’t become usable until the 10.1 OS update earlier this month. To make matters worse, you allowed GSMNation to charge your users $999 for the device that didn’t work properly on the network. This trend continues today with more devices being available that are unlocked international versions of devices that are not AWS compatible.
The final straw to me is the lack of accountability to the end users. The forums are littered with requests for things like Short Code SMS, data monitoring and even getting simple usage details. Here is a typical conversation and the response that Solavei delivers:
Question: (12/10/12) I need to be able to get banking alerts and other important alerts like I did with my previous carrier---I hope the service gets better real soon cause I've experienced more than my fair share of "call failed" and E (edge) is super slow--I am not happy about the switch right now---
Solavei Rep: (12/10/12) Currently, Solavei supports short codes for Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Support for more providers may be added in the future, but we do not have any estimate on when we will be working on this kind of enhancement yet. We will definitely post updates on this site when any changes are made.
Please let us know if there are specific providers that you would like to see us support for text messaging short codes, and we will make sure it gets considered. The reason that short codes are not universally supported is because many businesses that utilize short codes charge for their use, which is an issue when using a phone service that is paid in advance each month.
Solavei Rep: (6/12/13) Just to clarify, Solavei is not currently working on adding more support for short code messaging. It is possible that additional support will be added in the future, but we don't have any definite plans that we can share at this time.
Fortunately, today's smart phones can access mobile web sites and apps that provide the same (or better) functionality than a short code can. It's important to keep in mind that short code technology came about before smart phones were popularized. Using a short code was often the only option back when we were all using basic phones that only had voice and SMS capability. We now live in the era of QR codes, touch screens, and mobile applications. Where 10 years ago we had no choice but to use an SMS short code, now we can search with a mobile web browser, install a deal of the day app, and check our bank account balance without ever touching SMS.
More and more businesses are adopting these newer technologies and I personally believe that we will see short codes being used less and less as more of the world migrates to smart phone technology.
I hope this post helps add some perspective on this topic.
So what we get here is the Solavei representative ignoring the problems of the “call failed” and "edge” data speeds and going straight for the SMS topic. He specifically asks for people to chime in with specific providers that users would like to see added, then tells everyone after 6 months that there will be no more codes added and they aren’t even trying. For someone like me, that uses a Windows Phone, his answer is terrible. They don’t make Apps for me and more and more places like grocery stores, radio stations and He is predicting the marketing future of companies and making excuses. The correct answer for this is, “No, we do not support Short Codes.” This would have eliminated this entire topic 6 months ago.
Also, the fact that Solavei bills itself as a ‘prepaid’ service, yet charges ‘postpaid’ taxes is ridiculous. The advertising clearly states $49 yet my bill continues to be $59+ a month. I understand that post-paid cellular companies charge up to 22% in taxes and fees, but they are a post-paid company. Other MVNO’s like Simple Mobile, Spot Mobile, Ptel Wireless and Net10 have no such fees or taxes on their flat rate plans. As a matter of fact, you can even purchase the PIN’s online from sites and not even get hit with local sales tax. Again, transparency is missing in this one.
Finally, the last straw for me… I signed up under a friend during the ‘lane period’ in August of 2012. I then heard rumors that people that were signing up were placed under a different sponsor or worse yet, ones that entered a specific sponsor’s page were redirected to a different sponsor. After hearing this, I signed up on my own page for more information. I never got any contact information, nor did it register that I had signed up for anything. Then on the 18th of August, I received an email from Shad Wehrli, inviting me to join Solavei.
The email** included such information as “unlimited 4G nationwide voice, text and data service” and that I was invited to see the Solavei Webinar Event on 8/22. The footer of the email even stated that “This is a commercial message from Solavei, LLC, P.O. Box 971 Bellevue, WA 98009” so obviously this had to have come from the website directly. My question is, how did I register at my own page – yet get an invite from someone else? More importantly, how many of my 10,000+ page visits have gone to another Solavei user?
In closing, thank you for the last year. It’s been a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be a thousandaire in your company. I really tried… In fact, if I told folks half of what was posted in the forums about the service promises that others had made, I’d probably be one, but I choose the honest path, and it didn’t work out as well for me. I suppose for those with 1,000 different MLM platforms to run through, Solavei is an easy pitch. You know the, “you’re already getting your Mona Vie from me, why not your cell phone too?” style pitch? But for those that have better values for people, and ones that have paid consistently, Solavei just doesn’t deliver in any form.
Thanks for letting me vent and good luck.
Ron
* – I reported http://solaveinetwork.net/ in January after having to rename this blog because my blog name was “solaveiguru.blogspot.com” and we are not allowed to use ‘solavei’ in our domain names. Yet http://solaveinetwork.net/ is still active today.
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