Cell phone blues: Notes of a techno-unsophisticated gadget-loving refugee from Sprint

I'm all for the power of the internet as a networking tool, but it's still amazing what you can learn from the people you meet f2f in the real world.

For instance, one of the most interesting people I met at the New Communications Forum last month was Dan Taylor, accomplished business blogger and managing director for the Mobile Enterprise Alliance, Inc. (MEA), a "non-profit industry association that advocates enterprise adoption of mobile technologies." Dan and I turned out to have many interests in common, and he has even been kind enough to encourage his members to provide valuable input to my information overload study by taking the InfoYou survey.

(Have you taken it yet? I need your valuable input, as well, and you need the terrific free download I offer at the end, "Infomaven's Top Ten Tools for Taming Information Overload Online.")

In any case, given Dan's profession and the always-erratic behavior of my Sprint PCS Treo 300 smartphone, the talk inevitably turned to phones: how to choose a plan and a cell phone, how to decide on a carrier, how to deal with the confusion of comparing competing plans, whether the time was ripe switching from traditional landlines to internet telephony. I listened carefully, knowing Dan's expertise would come in handy very soon-- especially to the part where Dan offered to share his expertise with me when I got ready to switch.

Shortly after I returned from the conference, my Treo 300 started to go completely haywire, so I e-mailed Dan for some advice to the phonelorn:

Dear Dan,

I need to pick your brain some more about mobile phones. I have a Sprint PCS account with two phones on it, mine and my husband's. Mine is out of warranty, has gone haywire, and needs to be replaced. It has no contract on it, but is not eligible for a discount on a new phone. My husband’s is new and under contract until 10/05 (a mistake in our favor, for once).

Getting out of that contract and keeping our numbers will cost $150, probably the same discount as I would get from Verizon or T-Mobile on a replacement phone. In addition, when I moved to Sprint, I moved all my landlines there as well, because I was supposedly getting a bundled, better price. That has turned out to be a disaster, because Verizon owns the lines and anytime anything goes wrong (like today, when my business line has no dial tone), somehow the repair ticket goes to the bottom of the pile.

I am thinking of just bailing out of Sprint and moving to Verizon for mobile and landlines. (I know, you recommended Vonage instead of landlines, but I want to wait to see what my cable company has to offer.) One concern is that with the AT&T/Cingular merger, I wonder if Verizon is still the best choice. Also, I have cable modem service and could probably save if I moved to Verizon DSL, though how much is a question.

Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated, especially since my Treo 300 is doing the same things it was before it died at the age of six months and Sprint replaced it with a refurbished unit: continuously turning itself on for no reason and failing to hold a charge. (This is the replacement I got last May!). As for the next phone, I don’t know whether to take a chance on the newest very cool Treo or wait until the smartphones get smarter. One advantage of my little old clamshell type phone was its size and convenience, and it still could access the web in a pinch.

Thanks,
Lois

With Dan's permission, here is his response:

My thought on the telephone thing is the following

(1) Bundling: It's a joke. Don't worry about getting a better price on a bundle including wireless service and landline. The bundles work best when combining Internet access with local telephone service.

(2) Wireless Operator. If you've had it with Sprint, then I'd consider moving to either Verizon or T-Mobile. The plan should be to add your husband to your plan (usually an extra $10 per month) next year when he rolls over. Consumer reports rates Verizon at the top in terms of coverage, but T-Mobile is also up there. Cingular and AT&T are at the bottom of the list. In my books, T-Mobile is the underdog these days - they're #4 and a little smaller (17 million subscribers). I'd buy from them just because they sponsor uber-cyclist Jan Ullrich, my favorite cyclist of modern times.

Also, T-mobile has the best pricing on their WAP service (t-zones, it's called) and you should be able to do some basic Internet stuff on t-zones.

Anyway. Here's the advice I recently gave my mother, though she didn't take it.

(a) When you sign up for a new plan, you're apt to get the best price on a new phone. If you'd like to save a buck, take a peek at Wirefly to see what kind of deal you can get. If you're smart, you can get a phone for free ... or even less.

NOTE: Wirefly will take longer than going to the phone store, and their customer service isn't so great. My girlfriend tried to switch providers using Wirefly, and she had a problem (I think because she called the 800 number), they assigned her new numbers instead of transferring hers. It took her a month to get everything right, and then she still has problems with Cingular.

On the other hand, I switched from Sprint to AT&T using Wirefly. It took a week, but everything transferred over OK. My phone showed up on day 5, the number was properly ported, and my Sprint account was cancelled without my having to deal with it.

(b) Calling patterns. I'd spend a few minutes looking through my cell phone bill. How many minutes do you use? Whom do you call the most? In my case, my girlfriend and I talk the most on our mobile telephones, so mobile-to-mobile is the most important part of the puzzle for me. There are some really wonderful calculators out there for figuring this stuff out. Try this one: http://www.lowermybills.com/twi/index.jsp

(3) International. If you make international calls, or calls to Canada, you should look at Gorilla Mobile -- you dial into an access number which then gives you a dial tone to make international calls. This is a nice feature and incredibly decent rates, even if you only call to Canada. Rates to Western Europe are very good.

(4) Handset. Get whichever telephone makes you happy. I prefer simplicity and ease-of-use. I also tend not to go in the smartphone direction, because telephony is the most important application for me. Second is SMS. I find e-mail on a cell phone to be a joke.

I hope this helps. It'll take some work to figure out a solution. When you have an idea, please feel free to run it by me, as I might be able to catch a potential hitch or two.

Take care, talk to you soon,

Dan

Well, I visited some of the sites Dan suggested, talked to some other folks about their customer service experiences, and hoped the problem would go away. Of course, it didn't. This week, my Treo 300 became almost entirely unusable.

So first, I checked again with Sprint about my contract obligations. It seems that I would be eligible for a great deal on a new Sprint phone if I waited until April 1, eighteen months after I bought the Treo 300. But what am I supposed to do between now and then -- revert to smoke signals?

Sprint Customer Service says that only the Rebate Department can make an exception, and the Rebate Department says it's up to Customer Service. What's more, they now say that my husband's phone is in thrall to Sprint until May, 2006, and can only be ransomed for an early termination fee of $150.

Typical Sprint: The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and you have to wait on hold on two separate numbers to ascertain that their customer service is as bad as ever. So I knew for sure it was time to switch cell phone carriers.

Others had told me good things about Verizon customer service -- at least, in comparison to other providers they had used -- and I remembered from my earlier visits to Wirefly that the $150 early termination fee would be offset almost immediately by the good deals on new phones and the lower cost of the Verizon plan most appropriate for my needs.

So I went to Wirefly to choose two new phones and set up Verizon service using our existing numbers. I hoped that would be a relatively simple process, but the jargon-filled phone specs made it hard for me to be sure that my new phone had a couple of key features I wanted, in particular the smartphone-like ability to sync to my desktop computer using a USB cable. Hours later, after reading dozens of product reviews, I chose a Motorola V260 for myself (net cost: $49.99 after rebates) and an LG VX3200 for my husband (net profit: $30.01 after rebates) on a shared Verizon plan.

That's when I discovered why Dan's girlfriend had resorted to the 800 number. Every time I tried to begin the purchase process, I could only choose two identifical phones. Trying to use Wirefly's online help was an experience in frustration: every time I found what seemed to be the correct topic, I was asked for an order number. No order number, no answers.

I couldn't find a phone contact number anywhere on the site, so I clicked "Order by Phone," which generated a code number and a toll-free number intended just for orders. I reached a human who was very eager to have me place an order, but not so eager to answer questions. However, I learned from him that the best, if not the only, way to order two different phones would be to order two individual plans, each with one of the phones I wanted, and later contact Verizon to combine them. 

That prospect was a nightmare to me -- I immediately envisioned hours on hold with heavy metal in the background --, so I said I would order two identical phones. I deceitfully obliged the rep by taking his direct contact info to call back "so I can get my commission." Remembering Dan's advice, though, I knew I would be placing the order online.

Here's where I hope I didn't blow it: I forgot Dan's invitation to run my plan by him so he could flag any potential pitfalls. I placed a Wirefly order for two Motorola V260s (net cost: $99.99) on an appropriate Verizon plan. The Wirefly site and ordering system include clear directions on how to make sure the number porting process goes smoothly, so I'm optimistic.

But it seems the customer is now responsible for cancelling the old service once the new service is in place. That means, if I'm lucky, one more round with Spring. I then ordered the synching software and cable from the Motorola online store, the only place I could find it, after making sure the purchase would be returnable if this whole adventure turns out to be a bust.

The Wirefly site enables real-time order tracking. As of this morning, my credit has been authorized, Verizon has approved my order, and the phones should be "activated and shipped within the next 24-48 hours" -- hopefully with our current numbers properly ported to them.

Stay tuned.