Satya's blog - Wireless phone providers suck

I found out last weekend that I'm no longer on the 2-year contract with Suncom. Huzzah. After trying to switch, Suncom's Unplan still looked attractive price-wise, despite being locked in for another 2 years. I say, okay, fine, since current plan costs us about $amt=~/^\$\d\d\d$/ per month.

Suncom rep for the place where I work (TPWIW) says okay, call custserv and sign up to the new plan, will cost about $amt-30ish. Get and activate handsets. Call him so he can apply TPWIW discount, and it will be something like $amt-40ish.

Okay, call custserv. SWMBO says "Hi, we want to switch from the Unplan to the Unplan" "You already have Unplan" "Yes I know" "*hold*" ::Satya takes over and gets angry after 2 minutes of "Hi, I'm Harry Dipnick Junior" and hangs up::

Call again, SWMBO more calmly explains Unplan.oldandexpensiveTMDA[0] -> Unplan->newandimprovedsowe'llgouge.GSM[0] switch. They say, okay, and we'll ship the phones to you in about 5 days. SWMBO says nuh-uh, need them tomorrow because offer ends Saturday. Retail store? Okay, there are like, 3 within 5 miles. They're outflanking the Starbucks franchises.

Now why do these people have "Suncom stores" when the only place you can buy a new handset is in the "retail store" or whatever 8 miles away? And why does it take 40 minutes to buy and activate 2 handsets, and switch a plan?

TPWIW representative was helpful but couldn't really do anything. I guess I don't really blame the people involved, just the sheer babu-level bureaucracy.

I wonder how much Nokia 6010 will suck.

[0] "We'll switch you from the old system to the new system" I'm not scared of the letters "TMDA" and "GSM"! Just tell me! Once! Don't repeat the same thing every time I try to clear my confusion over your Unplan-but-not-really scheme! And they call this Truth in Wireless(TM, no doubt).