Cell phones forum: What would make you want to switch cellular carriers?

If any carrier can beat my current plan, I'll drop Sprint in a heartbeat for them!

# Nationwide Long Distance Included
# 3000 Anytime Minutes
# Unlimited PCS to PCS Calling
# Unlimited Text Messages
# Unlimited Night & Weekend Mins. Included
# Nights: M-Th 7PM-7AM Wknd: F 7PM-M7AM
# Caller ID, Call Waiting
# Three-way Calling
# Voicemail
# Unlimited Power Vision (Web) Access
# $50 Service Credit every month (covers downloads, ringtones, etc.)
# Total Equipment Protection (covers everything that could possibly go wrong with my phone

All for $27 a month (No, I am not kidding). Yeah, I think I'll be staying with my beloved Sprint LOL!

Once you're "fluent" in the terms and conditions of "plans" or the simple submission of accepting the idea that there should even _be_ a plan, you've entered into the processes of a marketing campaign designed to coax and cajole the consumer into handing over those credit card details.

While I think the question is moot, I think the context of the question should start not at the submissive level, the "presumptive close," but at the level of shifting the attention to the existence of telecommunication companies and their predatory business practices designed, very much like tobacco companies of just a few decades ago, to lure children into being consumers of their products and to provide a habit-forming, cost- and debt-laden approach to what should be a simple, government-provided utility charged to the consumer in a means that's affordable to the individual and relieves the community of the cost and the practical impact of building and maintaining the infrastructure of hard-wired telephones.

The same questions should be addressed to postal competitors. Why do we have the expense and inconvenience of Fedex or UPS when the government still has the postal service? Why can't the government take back control of these services? What is the impact on the environment and the economy to have numerous, huge and incompetent companies competing for profits to shift packages around the world? Why can't this be the business of a government, as it was in the past? I'm tired of being told I have to drive a fuel-efficient car when I see the UPS truck and the Fedex truck drive up the hill past my house twice a day with probably no more than an envelope or a box of stuff from eBay in the back. And the post is delivered by another truck. Then there's DHL and all the other trucks. But the burden is on me to buy a new car that gets 25 mpg because my "old" car is chugging down 15 mpg.

Back to the topic. If there are people in other countries getting better service and new technology at sensible prices, why is the USA lagging so far behind? Could it be the weakness of government and the strength of the lobbyists? There's a real question to pursue. We don't need to compare frying pans.

Was this $27 plan a 1 time special?

Customer service. Each carrier offers basically the same services. The only thing that separates them is again - customer service. I refuse to spend my money and be mistreated or disrespected. I normally don't say anything but when you look up - I would be gone! It makes no difference about a contract, either.

As a septuagenarian I find it both curious and humorous that you begin with the assumption that everybody has a cell phone. Don't have one; don't need one; don't want one--and nuthin gonna make me want to switch!

I can get decent cell reception in my area, but I'm dead in the water at home! Lots of others share this problem. It's almost comical to see folks hanging over balconies or standing in the middle of the street in order to talk . . . .

I had Sprint for over a year, but when I moved to my new house in Washington I had no to poor coverage at my house. If I went up a hill one block I had two to one bars, but in or around my house it was one or no bars. I talked to few people at the Sprint store about my problem and found out that it just don't work too good in my area. He tried to get me on Nextel since that works great in my area, but Sprint had issues with doing that for me. I'm mad since I liked Sprint in the past in Oregon it works great, but in Washington I can't use it in my own house it's the only phone I got. Now I'm on AT&T and that works with full bars in my house. I just feel Sprint was wrong to charge me $200 to get out of my contract when I had no choice or coverage at my house. I guess it's better that the $400 they wanted first. I will never go back to Sprint although that's what my plan was at first "the people at the sprint store thought it be better by than" after two years on AT&T.

I need better selections of phones like XV6800 MOGUL pda. Verizon is too slow so I have to make the change. My old phone is a XV6700 and it is out of date

I said "other" b/c there was not an "all of the above" choice. I would especially be happy if the govm't passed a law that all makes of phones could be used with any company in which case I would get an Iphone and stay where I am for now. I have only been with two companies, cinglular and now verizon, but in both cases there were pros and cons and none of them perfect. I am not willing yet to give up my contract to switch to at&t for the iphone. I have a son on cingular, now at&t and gets terrible reception. He has my previous phone which I paid a good dollar for and he still doesn't get great reception. I am doing okay on verizon but they nickel and dime you for everything...I used to send my pictures to my computer with bluetooth with cingular- quite easy. Now verizon makes me pay for that plus it is much more time consuming to email my own photos to my own photo. I like my cable tv.phone, internet because there is no contract. I would like to see cell companies do the same thing...I hate contracts. I hate keeping track of minutes or text message counts, etc. I'm tired of it. If the companies practiced better pr, then even with out a contract I think they would still get business. They could compete with prices and features without contracts or at least without contracts with penalties. I have a friend who kept one contract and still signed up with AT&T in order to get the Iphone. She says it is the best phone she has ever had. When my contract is up, I may have to switch in order to get that phone. I am sorry Apple did not find a way to make its phone available to other contracts or better yet, start its own cell phone company with no penalties and lower rates to lure some of us away from our current contracts.

I'm with Cingular/at&t and been a customer since January 1994 (back then TDMA for Metrocell in Dallas), and would not switch - until someone started providing service for free.
Pretty/very happy with service (great coverage!), decent customer service (the few times I needed to talk to them) and most important: GSM phones! The latter one is such a big thing, that I would not give it up. I need to have the capability to (easily) control my own handset and switch it out as I feel like it.

For me, GSM (and UMTS/HSDPA) is here to stay and yes CDMA in Verizon's current flavor gives slightly better data speed. But, that changes from year to year as technologies evolve. Right now CDMA is faster, next year it is the GSM camp (using WCDMA).

I'd jump to T-Mobile because I'm drooling for the Sidekick 3, but they have such incredibly bad coverage (according to their map) that it would be ridiculous to even try it.

Their plans are reasonable and varied (better than my present ATT or old Verizon). But if you wander off the main highways or away from densely populated areas, you're carrying dead weight.

BTW, their website is way easy to navigate. Some spots have a folder hierarchy metaphor to get to what you want!

stop and think about didn't telstra say all them years ago that the call cost for using moblie phones would only be higher than the lan line until the cost of the towers required were paid for well they have been paid for 3 times over infact and they still don't give you the same rate as a land line phone and if that isn't bad enough they also want BS term contracts in today's age phone and internet contracts are something I don't have nor would I ever go back to that BS. futhure more if they really wanted people to use the moblie phones they should be giving them free not including them in their BS contracts where you pay for the phone three times over what it is worth and considering the way phones are out dated like computer motherboards well don't you think they should be offering a free upgradeonce a year during the life of the so called must have contract. that only means the company CO can enjoy a huge bonus payment each year thanks to the huge profit the phone companies make from their once again BS contracts I have better things that my good money can do then to be wasted on Rubish like over priced out dated moblie phones
Thank you for taking the time to read this post and if you are unhappy now start a petition get some media coverage of you taking the petition to your local federal member of parliment and as they said in the sixties " stick it to the man ( person)"

... and there is none, to date. We have been using CDMA phones w/o add-ons since the mid 1990's. Analog signals can't match the clarity and coverage of digital, IMHO. We don't get our calls dropped and wherever we are is covered. We want an excellent performing PHONE is all, & that's what we have: 2/$64/mo. w/no roaming charges, anywhere.

Sprint changed my plan without telling me. When I called them on it, they said that because I had paid my bills each month, by default I agreed with the changes. I had not received any notice of the changes. I only discovered the changes because one month I went over the basic minutes allowance and instead of getting a bill for $80, I got a bill for $130. And when I transferred service to another carrier, Sprint insisted on charging me for a full month, when I only had their service for 2 weeks. Yes, integrity is important.

I made a switch in carriers a little over a year ago. When AT&T/Cingular/AT&T wanted me to "raise the bars" I did...I went with Verizon. With ATT/C, my calls were dropped every few hundred feet when traveling my home region (NYC area). If the iPhone were all that spectacular (and I'm not convinved it is), then the only way I'd get that phone is if Verizon carried it. I buy a phone to make calls (although surfing the internet is OK to pass the time, it's not mandatory in my world).