Wireless voice service ported to Verizon

I had split my wireless account with T-Mobile between my Sidekick for data and a Nokia 6100 for voice some time ago, because the Sidekick is a lousy phone. Unfortunately, T-Mobile’s network still does not provide adequate coverage where I need it. It was frequently dropping calls or providing no signal at all during my hour-long commute from my home in northern Virginia to my office in Washington, DC. This isn’t really a big deal for e-mail, but it’s unacceptable for a tech support guy to be unreachable by phone.

I hesitated for some time to switch from GSM’s clear, nice-sounding audio to the muddier CDMA, but clarity is meaningless if nobody can hear you.

I went into the Verizon Wireless store in Reston, VA after doing my online homework, and chose the Samsung a530 with the America’s Choice 300 plan. Most carriers cost about the same for national coverage now, and are allowing laptop data connections at dialup speeds for only the cost of your minutes.

I had my number ported from T-Mobile, a process which is only supposed to take a few hours. It still wasn’t working the next day, so I called Verizon customer service who promptly corrected the store rep’s mistake and had my service working almost immediately.

I then proceeded to setup my online account for auto bill payment, etc., but Verizon has a strange policy of displaying java serverlet errors rather than account information until you’ve gone through a complete billing cycle. Note to Verizon: A little error handling wouldn’t kill you.

Anyway, the cost is about the same as when I had both voice and data with T-Mobile, but I now have voice service in the DC metro area and many other places where T-Mobile’s signal simply can’t reach, and I can still use my way cool Sidekick for data.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2004 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Wireless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

One Response to “Wireless voice service ported to Verizon”

  1. Janet Tokerud Says:
    March 19, 2004 at 5:26 am | Reply

    I respond to 2 things in your post. 1) You are using the 2 devices method – both cellular – that I’ve often considered and think seriously about as an option. 2) Don’t remind me of the Sidekick. I had a color one for about 2 weeks last June and LOVED the keyboard on that thing. I wimped out at the last minute of my return period and got a Sony-Ericsson P800 instead, dazzled by the bigger screen and better phone. But I sure miss that Sidekick…

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