Clearly, AT & T bashing is the order of the day, at least for iPhone fanatics. But I’m not here to bury Ma Bell, but to praise her.
The wife’s been agitating for a new phone. She’d basically worn out a low end Nokia and was simply looking for something equivalent.
Meanwhile, the both of us were well past our upgrade deadlines. We were on separate individual plans and both of us were wildly underutilizing our minute allocations. So we stopped by the local AT & T store and looked into a Family Plan.
Previously, I had called to ask about this, and it sounded like a nightmare. In particular, I was told we’d have to upgrade both phones at the same time. Maybe it was the fact that we were in an AT & T corporate storefront, but the process was exceedingly painless. Some major corporate discounts and fee eliminations from my employer probably helped. My wife got the phone she was looking for, a Nokia 2330, plus we cut our combined monthly bill down by 50%. The only downer is we lost all our rollover minutes. Then again they were expiring at the rate of 400 a month, so it’s not like we were actually using them. Took us about 30 minutes total to conduct the transaction.
And I didn’t have to upgrade my phone, while maintaining my upgrade eligibility. So once I put a little cash aside, I can walk in and buy a fully subsidized app phone. Maybe that’s when I’ll find out the hard way about the downside of AT & T.
In the meantime, props to AT & T for excellent customer service.