The new phone
Published on Sep 28, 2006 at 5:10 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
I was thinking of what to write about, and I’ve got several ideas, but I don’t have a lot of time to do a good job with them. Then, I read Aviatrix’s post about her cell phone. “Aha!” I thought. I’ve got a cell phone story, too. So, I’ll share that. The next post will be back to astronom, I promise.
Anyway, I have had the same phone for a number of years. I never saw any reason to change. After all, it still made and received calls! OK, the battery was getting weak, so I just charged it more often. That’s all. Anyway, it was an older phone that did nothing much but make and receive phone calls. OK, it could do text messaging, and someone sent me a text message about once or twice per year. I never sent any out. But, best of all, this phone used the older technology that you still find in many rural areas, and if it couldn’t get a signal, it switched to analog mode and got a signal. Now, I am often in the middle of nowhere doing astronomy (not quite as middle of nowhere as Aviatrix, but still nowhere enought). There have been plenty of times that my phone got a signal while my students, who had the fancy phones with all the bells, whistles, attachments, and features on their phones to do something other than talking, could not get signals. Anyway, in an effort to spur their customers with older equipment onto their new network, which has MAJOR holes in it in rural areas, they assessed a surcharge on my monthly bill for using the old network. Well, I wasn’t happy about that, but I still didn’t want to change.
Then it happened. I broke the antenna off of my phone. Rats. OK. I temporarily patched it, and a few days later had time to go to the cell phone store. Now, I had been there before to ask about changing. I wanted to know if any of the new phones had analog backup. “Oh, no!” they tell me. “You’ll never need that. We have great service anywhere that you are likely to go.” So I ask, “How about near xyz?” “Well, no, but no one ever goes there much.” “I do,” I say. “About once per month, in fact. So, how about near abc?” “Well, we don’t serve that area either, but we plan on expanding the new network once we get all the customers from the old network to switch over.” Well, a lot of those people might be like me and didn’t switch because the new all digital network doesn’t work places that they go. So, I had left things alone that previous trip. I checked on the internet a month ago to see about the calling plans that I’d have to get if I got a new phone (they wouldn’t let me keep the old one). All the new plans had lots more minutes, and cost more. However, I never used all the minutes that I had anyway! I don’t talk on the thing all the time — just now and then. My students are on the phone continually, but for me it’s just a phone.
OK, so now I am back at the store. They have several people working there, but only one helping customers. She tells me that she’ll be right with me. Well, she is taking forever to help this one guy who seems totally clueless about anything at all dealing with cell phones. I poke around in the store, and I look at the phones and calling plans brochures. She is still with this one guy, and the rest of the workers are still not dealing with customers. Someone has just walked in and asked on for help and he directed her towards the girl helping people. She tells him that she’ll be right with him. She’ll be right with me, first, of course. But, there are three other people already in the store waiting when I got there. I realize that this will take forever, so I leave.
Just down the street is another company’s cell phone store. I go in there. They greet me when I come in. I tell them my story.  The salesman asks a couple of questions to figure out what I am looking for. He then suggests a modest calling plan that costs a bit more than what I currently had, but tells me that there is a discount program for government employees and educators. I am a professor at a public college. That cuts the bill to about what my plan was costing with the surcharge at the other place, but with more than double the allowed daytime minutes (not really an issue, since in four years I had only three times come even close to using up my monthly minutes). Better, the new phone was pretty inexpensive, and it would use either the new company’s all digital network, or switch to an analog backup if that didn’t work. I already knew that people who had the more basic phones with this company had reception at about the same places that I did with my old phone. The fancy phones, with all the bells and whistles, that play music, take picutures, surf the internet, do email, and wash the car rely on the all digital network that isn’t available everywhere. I like the new phone. So, I go with it. I now have a new cell phone. It is similar to the old one, but with color graphics. The old one was monochrome (I told you that I had it for years). I just got it, so I haven’t tried it yet out in the middle of rural Texas. That’s where I really need it.
So, I guess that the old company’s idea of adding a surcharge to its customers using the old technology as an incentive to change actually worked. It was an incentive for me to change to another company!
The next post should be back to astronomy.
-Astroprof
Me on September 29, 2006 at 1:42 am: 1
Didn’t you go back to the first shop and loudly tell all the waiting customers to go to the new shop?
Astroprof on September 29, 2006 at 10:10 am: 2
Haha! I did think about going to tell them why I was switching, but they didn\’t want to talk to me in the first place. And, I thought about loudly asking before I left if anyone knew where the nearest XYZ store was. But, I figured that was just a bit too mean, which is why I didn\’t mention the names of either company here. But, if they treat others this way, it\’s a wonder that they still have customers (a recent study showed that my old company led the nation in complaints from customers). I was only with them because they had bought the company that I used to be with.