Ratting on AT&T Wireless

March 6th, 2008 omo Posted in Gadgets | No Comments »

Nothing against Cingular, but I’ve recently stayed onboard with them under our family plan for another 2 years. They have pretty good dealer incentive (as in, authorized AT&TW dealers get good money and their current clients get good saving) to keep current customer from switching over to a different carrier. The problem is their best deals including phones are online only, and their online retail operation is TERRIBLE.

Of course that might just because AMEX is pretty anal about online transactions (especially involving shady cellular equipment vendors I suspect) and there was a minor mixed up from our authorized dealer with names. But it should not take me over 2 hours on the phone (total, there were 3 calls made) and about 9 days of delay to get this done. At least they ship next day with DHL 2 day delivery (for free), so it’s speedy.

As an aside, the majority of income of US cellular carriers today is through “bonuses.” Last week Sprint announced their simply everything plan with some flair (contrasted with Verizon and AT&T’s announcements–both went pretty much quietly and ignored like they should as advertisement) because they’re cutting into the most lucrative part of their income–text messaging, data, and bonus features like “early” nights and weekends, and other nonsense cellular carriers charge.

I guess that explains why my employer is doing so well right now. Anyways, that’s my bit of consumer flag waving and retaliation. Free market ftw.

Tags: cell phone