My cellphone is my only phone. I like it this way. I’m not an obnoxious user.
I’ve been an at&t wireless customer for the past three years. A happy customer, never had a problem with phone service and whenever I needed to speak to a customer service rep I was always pleased with the experience. I don’t need much from a cellphone - just a good coverage area, voicemail & caller id.
I’ve had the at&t free long distance plan for the past two years because my brothers live in FL & ND and my best friend lives in NJ. The plan costs me apprx $90 a month which I was ok with paying for the “luxury” of being able to call them whenever and talk for however long they wanted which is usually about an hour or more. However since my brothers are now in better financial positions, I no longer find it necessary to shoulder the burden of paying for all of our communications, especially since I’ve got another mouth to feed.
So I decided the other day to change my rate plan back to the $40 month dealie which is more than adequate for my needs. Here is where we encounter Cingular.
As you may have heard, Cingular has recently taken over at&t wireless. Please keep in mind that this was a decision that Cingular made of their volition. They acquired my account, I didn’t choose to switch to Cingular from At&T.
Did you hear that Cingular - you chose to take over my at&t account. It was not my choice to become your customer. You are already managing my service.
Why in the flying fuck are you charging me $18 and requiring me to get a new phone in order to change my rate plan? “We’re giving at&t customers a discount from the $36 dollars we charge everyone else to switch to Cingular”, says your little customer service weanie. On top of that you’re making people go through another credit check? Just check my payment record to at&t - it’s spotless - that’s all you need to know.
This is goddamn bullshit. I would’ve been fine staying with Cingular if they weren’t charging me this stupid fee. So fuck you Cingular. I’ll be joining my SO’s Verizon wireless plan as soon as my contract is up. And I won’t be back.
I signed up for Nextel’s automated payment plan which charges my debit account monthly. But the problem is that it takes 2 billing cycles until it starts and i got nailed by not paying the first one. I reread the TOS and still don’t see that part in there. Mobile phone companies piss me off.
What a second - you have a cell phone and you had to pay an extra $50/month for free long distance. Honey, you’re pitting the wrong thing here. (Though I do agree that charging you to “switch” to Cingular when they merged with AT&T is a pretty fucked up move).
I’ve used two different cell phone companies (Sprint & T-Mobile), with both, long distance is always free (though does use minutes) with the basic plan. Right now with T-Mobile my basic plan is $39.95/mo. That includes free long distance and free nationwide roaming (within the T-mobile calling area). I pay a bit more (my total bill is $60/mo) and have free nights and weekends (doesn’t count against my 600 whenever minutes) and free t-mobile - t-mobile calling (which is good, because I usually talk about 1000 minutes a month just to other t-mobile people, all long distance calls).
I’ve been pretty happy with T-Mobile, and I was very happy with Sprint. I only switched because T-Mobile, when I did my research a couple years ago, gave you the most perks for your money.
You should be switching, but not for the reasons you think!
It wasn’t for just free long distance - it included a substantial amount of free “anytime minutes” also - which was necessary when I got the plan two years ago. I did the majority of my phone calls during the 3+ hours I spent commuting every day at the time. The plan without all the regulatory fees and whatnot is $75 a month.
Plus at the time I signed up, at&t was the only carrier who provided consistent coverage in the semi-rural area I used to live in and where I still make frequent trips to see my family. Although now there are probably more companies providing coverage in that area.