Your letters to Consumer Reports

In this report: Overview

Your letters

Last reviewed: March 2010

This article appeared in
March 2010 Consumer Reports Magazine.

Cellular reach

In Best Cell-Phone Service (January 2010) you focus on large cities, with no comparison of coverage areas. The two top-rated providers, Verizon and T-Mobile, use different technologies and can have very different coverage areas, especially where terrain varies. Roaming agreements are of no value if the only nearby cell tower is based on a technology other than your phone's. This may be a nonissue in densely populated areas, but in remote areas it's a big consideration.

Brad Gabel
Edgewood, NM

It is such an irony that not one of the cell phones was rated higher than "average" for voice quality. What part of "phone" don't the manufacturers understand?

Andrew Harker
Redwood City, CA

Chicken safety

Regarding the photo on page 20 with How Safe Is That Chicken? (January 2010), for greatest safety, raw chicken should be on an impervious plastic cutting board and the less hazardous broccoli on a porous wooden one.

Michael McGoodwin, M.D.
Seattle, WA

Should you rinse raw chicken in salt water before cooking? One of my cookbooks recommends this. Do you?

Noreen Ryan
Fishkill, NY

The Department of Agriculture says wood or plastic is safe for cutting raw meat. Use just one board for raw meat and poultry and another for everything else. Throw out a worn or grooved board. We don't recommend rinsing chicken because of the chance of cross contamination if the water splashes onto, say, the sink or counter.