Consumers experience dropped or blocked calls as well as noise on calls that makes hearing calls difficult. Consumers experience poor coverage, which in rural areas may be the result of lack of infrastructure and in urban areas stems from lack of capacity to manage the volume of calls at peak times.

Consumers experience problems such as long waits, ineffective assistance, and insufficient resolution to problems.

The GAO gleaned its information from FCC officials as well as interviews with 1,143 randomly selected consumers..

Some other interesting facts from the GAO survey/report:

-GAO estimates about 21% of wireless phone users who contacted their carriers' customer service were dissatisfied with how their carriers addressed their concerns; FCC's efforts to handle complaints are an important means by which consumers may be able to get assistance in resolving their problems. However, the results of our consumer survey suggest that most consumers would not complain to FCC if they have a problem that their carrier did not resolve. Specifically, we estimate that 13%of wireless phone users would complain to FCC if they had such a problem and that 34% do not know where they could complain.