All hail, modern technology!

So, I’m ditching my poor, pathetic cell phone. I have Alltell service, which is an oxymoron in much the way “military intelligence” is–the phone drops calls at least a half-dozen times a day, it gets no reception in places like Boston and Washington, DC, and if I stand in one certain corner of the computer room upstairs, it thinks I’m roaming.

The phone itself is a brick, like something out of the 1970s–good to hit people with, not so good to place phone calls on.

As it turns out, T-Mobile offered me a new phone for free, and the same plan I’m on now for $59 a month less. And to sweeten the pot, they threw in text messaging, Internet access, unlimited email access, and unlimited AIM access–still for $59 a month less than I’m paying Alltel. And I’ll have the same phone number.

So. New phone and new service should be up and running end of next week. Goddamn, why’ve I been spending so much money with Alltel?

8 thoughts on “All hail, modern technology!

  1. T-mobile

    I switched from AT&T to T-mobile about a year ago and I have never looked back. I couldn’t be happier with the price or service. When my phone stopped working recently, the Fed Ex’ed me another one, Overnight, at there expense with the understanding that I would send my broken phone back in the same package (also at there expense). I was without service for less then 24 hours and I didn’t have to leave my couch. That’s not to bad.

  2. T-mobile

    I switched from AT&T to T-mobile about a year ago and I have never looked back. I couldn’t be happier with the price or service. When my phone stopped working recently, the Fed Ex’ed me another one, Overnight, at there expense with the understanding that I would send my broken phone back in the same package (also at there expense). I was without service for less then 24 hours and I didn’t have to leave my couch. That’s not to bad.

  3. Just ditched T-Mobile…

    …for Sprint. A new store down the street from us opened up and their opening discounts plus putting it on ‘s account made it basically an offer we couldn’t refuse. I had good coverage from them and loved the all-you-can-eat data plan, but really, really, *rilly* did not like having to wait a week for them to replace my HipTop, only to have the replacement show up dead, along w/ the replacement for the replacement, along with the 3rd replacement, AND THE FOURTH!!!!
    So like *5* HipTops and 3 weeks later, I finally got one that worked. They wouldn’t overnight me one, they wouldn’t waive shipping charges, no I had to wait a week each time and then contest the shipping charges. Bastards.

    So I dropped them for Sprint and a Treo 600. Number portability is a beautiful thing. Less than 3 hours after walking out of the store w/ the new toy, I was able to make calls and get SMS.
    Change is good, competition is good. We’re going to save something like $30-40/month, most of that as a result of going from two individual plans to a “family” plan w/

  4. Just ditched T-Mobile…

    …for Sprint. A new store down the street from us opened up and their opening discounts plus putting it on ‘s account made it basically an offer we couldn’t refuse. I had good coverage from them and loved the all-you-can-eat data plan, but really, really, *rilly* did not like having to wait a week for them to replace my HipTop, only to have the replacement show up dead, along w/ the replacement for the replacement, along with the 3rd replacement, AND THE FOURTH!!!!
    So like *5* HipTops and 3 weeks later, I finally got one that worked. They wouldn’t overnight me one, they wouldn’t waive shipping charges, no I had to wait a week each time and then contest the shipping charges. Bastards.

    So I dropped them for Sprint and a Treo 600. Number portability is a beautiful thing. Less than 3 hours after walking out of the store w/ the new toy, I was able to make calls and get SMS.
    Change is good, competition is good. We’re going to save something like $30-40/month, most of that as a result of going from two individual plans to a “family” plan w/

  5. Alltel is the worst cellular company ever. I had service from them several years ago. The Alltel representative entered my address into their database incorrectly, so I never received my first month’s bill. They disabled my account, then sent me a letter two days after warning that they were going to disable my account for non-payment (oddly, this went to the correct address). I called, made corrections, and was told that I could just pay on the next month’s bill. The same thing happened the next month.

    Alltel sold off their business in my area to Bell Atlantic, who managed to suck quite a bit less. I had assumed they went out of business–I’m surprised to hear that they’re still around.

  6. Alltel is the worst cellular company ever. I had service from them several years ago. The Alltel representative entered my address into their database incorrectly, so I never received my first month’s bill. They disabled my account, then sent me a letter two days after warning that they were going to disable my account for non-payment (oddly, this went to the correct address). I called, made corrections, and was told that I could just pay on the next month’s bill. The same thing happened the next month.

    Alltel sold off their business in my area to Bell Atlantic, who managed to suck quite a bit less. I had assumed they went out of business–I’m surprised to hear that they’re still around.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.