Why I HATE wireless carriers, phones, et al

I finally switched wireless carriers this year, 11 years with Tmobile and I was sick of them...

I got Tmobile in 2001, actually it was powertel then, but they changed names quickly.  I was mostly satisfied with the service, except where it didnt work.  Back then it wasnt uncommon for carriers not to have service in places like London, KY or in Lawrenceburg, KY but that has changed, in 2004 I noticed I had signal in London, and when I was shopping for houses I had signal in Lawrenceburg, yee haw.  Then it was the coming of the smartphone, in 2005 I got a Tmobile HTC Dash, the phone was awesome, it had windows and a full keyboard, I was High Falutin.  LAwrenceburg only had GPRS data, Frankfort in some places had Edge.. okay, no biggie, there is Wifi at home and where I was working.  Then I got an android phone, a Motorola Cliq, I was upsold on it at the tmobile store, but Motorola phones are generally pretty good.  So 3 months later when it started randomly rebooting I got concerned, Called tmobile, they replaced the phone, 3 months later same issue... called tmobile, they got motorola involved, after 6 months of dealing with tmobile trying to get a working phone the thing would reboot continuously until I would pull the battery and let it cool down, then I could get it working to send roughly 3 texts before it would reboot.  it was a known issue of overheating.  So I decided to change phones and got the HTC Mytouch 4g.  It was a top of the line phone, had every feature I needed.  even had 3g where I was working.  This phone lasted 6 months before it somehow corrupted its OS and hung in a continual reboot.  Wonderful, so I call tmobile and get a replacement.  Its working again.  But android was annoying me to death.  I had to reboot it 3 or 4 times a day or it would get so slow it was unusable.  even fresh out of the box it would do this.  No one has an answer on that.  Plus the android random restarts at least once a week, inevitably while I need the phone.

During all this time I got a used original iPhone right when the 3g iPhone came out.  Hacked it, got it on Tmobile and all was well, it was used on my spare line.  Thing is, the phone never had 1 issue, it always just worked.  That fact alone tempered my judgement, could a almost-smart phone actually fill my needs better than tempermental android.  If there is one piece of technology I need to always work its my phone.  My Cell phone is my lifeline.

So I need an iPhone, great, waht phone doesnt Tmobile have?  yeah, an iPhone.  And since Tmobile doesnt work in my building at work... time to make a change, but to who?

it stars on January Second, my odyssey into madness.

I need to switch 4 lines over, ATT is out becuase not only are they high priced, but also ranked the worst in all other fields, I have more negative experience with ATT than any company ever.

Sprint, okay I had issues with an AirCard with Sprint, but it was mostly due to my former employer ACS.  I start working with sprint on pricing and such to get 4 lines moved.  Everything is set, until they run my credit and only approve 3 lines... wait what?  I have 5 lines with tmobile, never paid late, my credit is very good, I just refinanced my house and bought a car, so its not as good as 6 months ago, but still very good.  Sprint refuses to budge... no idea why.

Verizon, whatcha got?  More expensive plans, no unlimited data, a comparable discount through my employer as they had with Sprint... Alright so I contact Verizon, get a call back in less than 10 minutes and we get the ball rolling.  2 iPhones and 2 flip phones for my parents.  no problem, the rep runs my credit to check if a deposit is needed.  Approved for 5 lines no deposit... what the hell sprint?  So we get the flip phones and iPhones ordered, flip phones show up first, then the iphones (they were on backorder).  The port ins took (and I kid you not) less than 5 mins per line.

My bill posted to the account this morning, it is within 2 dollars of what my tmobile bill was.  So I have the phones I want, on the #1 provider, and the bill is basically the same.  works for me.