Well, I’m no longer an AT&T Wireless customer. I’ve made the switch to Verizon. It wasn’t as painless as the [previous experience] for Farrah’s phone, but I think it went as smooth as possible.

The main selling points with Verizon for me were (1) the good rating for Nationwide reception, (2) the good rating for customer service, and (3) it wasn’t Sprint or AT&T. I’ve never considered T-Mobile or Cingular for service. I don’t have a good feeling about them, though Dave is on T-Mobile and he finds it good for his use.

Of course I wanted the latest and greatest phone. Problem was the Verizon stores don’t get them for a couple of months after their release, but they are available online. The phone I wanted was the [LG VX8000]. I wanted this particular phone because (1) it was new, (2) it was bigger than my current phone - which to me is a little small, and (3) it has a color screen. I didn’t necessarily want to take pictures with a phone, but it seems almost impossible to find a phone that doesn’t take pictures.

I tried to order the phone online, along with another phone for my mom. I kept running into a problem with porting over the two phones. It was ok to port a single phone/single phone number, but the ordering flow didn’t accommodate moving over two or more phones. Time call and test their customer service.

I got a really nice sales rep on the phone who understood what I was trying to do, and was able to answer any question I had without a single hesitation. Do this phone include Nationwide long distance? Yes. Do the IN-Network minutes apply to all phones in the family plan? Yes. How long does it take for the phone to be delivered to me? Two days by FedEx. Again, so the IN-minutes aren’t restricted to the primary phone? Yes, that’s correct. Simple.

A day and a half later the phones arrived at my work. I had them up and running later that night. I did run into a little delay on the phone in activating them. I was on hold for about a 30 minutes with apparently no end in site. But my subsequent call to customer services was another good experience.

I wanted to analyze our phone usage for all three phones to determine if were were on the right plan. The rep was helpful in suggesting the right minute plan and also said I could save a little more by being under the family plan. And if it didn’t work out switching was too difficult.

What this whole experience has boiled down to is just good interaction with a large company. As long as this level keeps up, and the phone services is good, I don’t see switching phone companies for a while. But if that comes to that I need to I do like that you can bring your phone number with you now. No more telling family and friends, “Hey my new number is….”

More random thoughts:

Here’s a list of things I’ve heard said or were said to me:

  • "It's good to see some CEO's here today." - Said by a priest to his parishioners (as relayed by Evan - because I don't really go to church myself). CEO means Christmas Easter Only church goers.
  • "Stuck in the pad." - Said by anonymous. Literal meaning: a fart that is trapped in a menstrual pad. Other meaning: thoughts that can't be converted to sentences properly (see also brain-fart).
  • "No, there is no room for advancement." - Said by my supervisor, regarding movement into a different position.