Can you hear me now?
Well, I did it today. I switched to Verizon Wireless from AT&T Wireless and I’ll be dumping my home line shortly.
Today I went over to the AT&T Wireless store to see if they offer deals to users who are thinking of switching to a new company. After waiting half an hour to get help, a very un-enthusiastic sales person came over and started answering my questions. I asked about rate plans, satisfaction guarantees, roaming charges, etc. I asked about bonuses they could throw in. There were none to be had. I was on AT&T’s TDMA network (old network) with an older Nokia phone and they’d be happy to upgrade me to a crap GSM (new network) phone for free, or semi-crap phones for a little money, or nice phone for a lot of money. No deals to be had, either. No free extras. Nada. They I started looking at their plans with nationwide coverage (no roaming, free long distance) and compared to Verizon’s nationwide plans, AT&T’s plan wasn’t as good. They guy was really dismissive and disinterested, so I said fuck it, let’s go over to Verizon and see what they can do for me.
Once again there was a bit of a wait, but not too bad. Once I got a sales person he was very helpful. I told him I had been looking at the LG VX6000 phone and asked if it was my best bet. He said it was his favorite and ask every employee in the store and most of them will use that same phone. There were more expensive phones available, but he said the deal Verizon was offering on this phone right now was the best. I compared it to a couple of other phones and agreed. I had him add in a car charger and headset and then we talked calling plans. For nationwide coverage with no roaming the plans at Verizon are better than AT&T’s. If you’re staying local, AT&T is cheaper, but just by a little. Basically, if you go to Verizon you should expect to pay a little bit more per month, but all indications are that the service (both cell and customer) are leagues better than their competition.
I’ve been playing with the phone a bit since I got home. One of the keys was making sure the phone had good reception at my house, which it does, so on Tuesday I’ll call SBC and have them switch off my home phone number. I also took a photo with the phone. Take a look. Pretty nice quality. I didn’t put the photo through Photoshop for optimization or resizing. This is exactly what it took.
So far I’m pretty pleased with the new phone, but let’s give it a few days before I pass final judgment.
Oh, and if any of you are thinking of switching to Verizon, drop me a line so I can get the referral credit!!!
