Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen's Blog

...which also seems to be death to GSM, and death to Blackberry.

Because I moved to Manhattan, Kansas...I wanted a local number. Though the silly customer support doesn't seem to understand this kind of request. At first they wanted to issue me a new Columbus, Ohio number. Yeah, my old number is there. But, I had already updated my billing, mailing and service address to Manhattan, Kansas months ago. Though I had switched to paperless billing a couple months before the move.

Then they wanted to know what area code I'm in...and what is the nearest city. Well, okay..the area code is 785....but, ummm, Manhattan, Kansas is the city.

What they then said was it'll cost me $15 + $2, to change...and I might lose my calling plan, and have to get a new one. Later another rep even said based on a review of my past usage, I should upgrade to a plan that costs twice as much as I'm paying now. Past usage? Until the 'move'. My monthly usage was only in the low double digits. It was only because of the 'move' and not having any home services for almost a month...that my usage spiked last month. But, total bill was only about 50% more....sure it was only over by like 75 minutes. And, for the cost of 150 minutes, they would add 600 more to my plan. Except I'll probably never need those minutes again.

Especially since they didn't give me a local number. The only people that will call me are people dialing wrong numbers. Though this was largely most of my received calls before....but, circumstances are different....

Anyways...after lots of canned support responses....they finally understood the issue, and said they would escalate as me wanting the matter corrected as having already paid and not getting what I wanted. And, before I could write back that it wasn't about the money and that I would pay another $17 to get things done right, but they weren't saying this in any of their responses until now....I got the response, they are out of local numbers...and all they will do is appologize for the inconvenience....

Follow up:

Meanwhile, my new cards arrived...with my old non-local (Columbus, Ohio) mobile number printed on them. No point getting them updated with the new non-local (somewhere I don't know in Kansas) mobile number...since I intend to jump ship, as soon I as wrap my mind around the things I would lose in leaving T-Mobile.

Though I don't know if it'll be before or after my upcoming high school reunion. Which was kind of why I had new cards printed, knowing there was a chance that the information would be out of date almost immediately.

Looks like, I'm gonna be without GSM...since the only other GSM provider in the area, offers only really basic phones...no Blackberries (and unlocking won't help, since they also don't have the backend services). Even though Cingular seems to be buying up ad space in the area, they won't sell service in the area.

Now, I had been thinking of upgrading to an 8700g/c, though that's GSM only and without GSM...no upgrade. And, the other providers are CDMA....and they only offer blackberries that are either comparable or older than my present device. And, they want the arm and leg to get it. I'm not really interested in forking out all that cash to duplicate or reduce my current level of Blackberry service.

So, I've been trying to decide that if not T-Mobile, and not GSM....how about not Blackberry. While there are some pretty cheap phones out there once you remove the Blackberry restriction (and I don't want a Windows smartphone)....but what I'll probably end up getting will still be pretty expensive. Same ballpark as what a Blackberry (7130) would set me back for. Because, I'm still a gadget-a-holic.

Current thinking...is to finally get a camera phone....a 2MP one at that....

I wonder if it is only T-Mobile that doesn't have numbers (though people I talk to say they also have pretty lousy coverage on/around campus, so they probably don't care about the University population....)