Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)
After 8 years of absolutely loathing Verizon (yes, as far back as when
it was still Bell Atlantic Mobile in my neck of the woods) for the
horrible experience and treatment I got from them back in the day, I
actually *gasped* am considering switching back.
I left Sprint about a month ago, after coverage began degrading
significantly in my area for unknown reasons. The only two events I can
coincide with the degradation is the Nextel merger, and rollout of EVDO.
But that's neither here now there. The fact reamined that despite
haveing service with them for nearly 8 years, signal levels became
unacceptable and I had to move on.
So I ported my number to Cingular. And Cingular is... well, acceptable
I guess. The RAZR is indeed a nice phone, but their website and
customer service are lacking, and while I have to place my phone in
certain spots at home to get a workable signal, it's still better than
no service at all, which is what I ultimately got with Sprint all of a
sudden. And Cingular does a good job blanketing all the other non-home
areas I frequent (work, friend's houses, etc) with coverage, so that's
certainly good).
But then, after being somewhat annoyed with the accomodations I have to
make in order for Cingular service to work (not tilting my head certain
ways, not walking into certain rooms of the house, and not crossing from
one half of the house to another while in a call or else it'll drop), I
decided to bite the bullet and give Verizon a try.
Now, with a Motorola E815 in hand, I'm utterly shocked. I'm actually
getting quite good in-house coverage with Verizon. No dropped calls,
very good signal strength, excellent call quality no matter where I end
up going. Sadly, Verizon appears to be the only major cell carrier that
covers my house well. So, I may have to *gulp* port my number over to
them and stick with it. The fact that my employer offers a 15% discount
on Verizon service is kinda sweetening my bitterness to Verizon, as well.
An interesting thing happened this evening, though. When I was getting
the phone activated and was signing up for service, I noticed the sales
rep seemed to be having an awful lot of trouble setting up my account.
I wasn't really able to see what he was doing as I could barely peek
over the edge of his computer screen (LCD), but it looks like a lot of
warning and dialog boxes were popping up and he was summarily dismissing
and overrding all of them. He spent a good 5 minutes just doing this.
I thought nothing of it considering the phone works, vcast is fine, and
all was good. UNTIL I had a question to ask customer service later in
the night. Specifically, I wanted to know if VCast and EVDO were based
on an MOU kind of arrangement, or if they were unlimited.
My question was answered by the rep I reached on 611 (no MOU, data is
unlimited with the $15 VCast pack), but as she answered, she paused, and
asked me "wait, you started service today?" To which I answered yes.
She wanted to know what plan I signed up for and I told her. Then she
said something that raised eyebrows.
"Hmm... whoever signed you up put you on a really old promotion. Let me
switch that over to the current promotion, America's Choice 2. Your
price plan or minutes won't change, I'm just bring it more up to date...
just a second..."
Then it hit me. The sales rep at the store, for whatever reason, worked
REALLY hard to get my account provisioned under the old America's Choice
plan without telling me. And I went and botched up his efforts by
asking a stupid question.
I don't know the details about the difference between AC1 and AC2, but I
have been scanning his newsgroup long enough to know that people were
griping about the switch. Does anyone know what exactly I lost, feature
or coverage wise? I know that AC2 is a "no-roam" plan, in that I can't
roam outside of Verizon's extended and home areas, as opposed to AC1
which lets you roam at $.69/minute. But did I lose any "home" coverage
area as a result?
FWIW, I have NOT actually ported my number to Verizon yet. I
specifically wanted to check coveage first before settling on my
decision, so I COULD always be "dissatisfied" and cancel service before
the 15 days, and then re-sign with the same sales rep to get AC1 back if
it's really worth it to have. I just want to know if it's worth the
hassle, or if I should leave things be.
--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.
After 8 years of absolutely loathing Verizon (yes, as far back as when
it was still Bell Atlantic Mobile in my neck of the woods) for the
horrible experience and treatment I got from them back in the day, I
actually *gasped* am considering switching back.
I left Sprint about a month ago, after coverage began degrading
significantly in my area for unknown reasons. The only two events I can
coincide with the degradation is the Nextel merger, and rollout of EVDO.
But that's neither here now there. The fact reamined that despite
haveing service with them for nearly 8 years, signal levels became
unacceptable and I had to move on.
So I ported my number to Cingular. And Cingular is... well, acceptable
I guess. The RAZR is indeed a nice phone, but their website and
customer service are lacking, and while I have to place my phone in
certain spots at home to get a workable signal, it's still better than
no service at all, which is what I ultimately got with Sprint all of a
sudden. And Cingular does a good job blanketing all the other non-home
areas I frequent (work, friend's houses, etc) with coverage, so that's
certainly good).
But then, after being somewhat annoyed with the accomodations I have to
make in order for Cingular service to work (not tilting my head certain
ways, not walking into certain rooms of the house, and not crossing from
one half of the house to another while in a call or else it'll drop), I
decided to bite the bullet and give Verizon a try.
Now, with a Motorola E815 in hand, I'm utterly shocked. I'm actually
getting quite good in-house coverage with Verizon. No dropped calls,
very good signal strength, excellent call quality no matter where I end
up going. Sadly, Verizon appears to be the only major cell carrier that
covers my house well. So, I may have to *gulp* port my number over to
them and stick with it. The fact that my employer offers a 15% discount
on Verizon service is kinda sweetening my bitterness to Verizon, as well.
An interesting thing happened this evening, though. When I was getting
the phone activated and was signing up for service, I noticed the sales
rep seemed to be having an awful lot of trouble setting up my account.
I wasn't really able to see what he was doing as I could barely peek
over the edge of his computer screen (LCD), but it looks like a lot of
warning and dialog boxes were popping up and he was summarily dismissing
and overrding all of them. He spent a good 5 minutes just doing this.
I thought nothing of it considering the phone works, vcast is fine, and
all was good. UNTIL I had a question to ask customer service later in
the night. Specifically, I wanted to know if VCast and EVDO were based
on an MOU kind of arrangement, or if they were unlimited.
My question was answered by the rep I reached on 611 (no MOU, data is
unlimited with the $15 VCast pack), but as she answered, she paused, and
asked me "wait, you started service today?" To which I answered yes.
She wanted to know what plan I signed up for and I told her. Then she
said something that raised eyebrows.
"Hmm... whoever signed you up put you on a really old promotion. Let me
switch that over to the current promotion, America's Choice 2. Your
price plan or minutes won't change, I'm just bring it more up to date...
just a second..."
Then it hit me. The sales rep at the store, for whatever reason, worked
REALLY hard to get my account provisioned under the old America's Choice
plan without telling me. And I went and botched up his efforts by
asking a stupid question.
I don't know the details about the difference between AC1 and AC2, but I
have been scanning his newsgroup long enough to know that people were
griping about the switch. Does anyone know what exactly I lost, feature
or coverage wise? I know that AC2 is a "no-roam" plan, in that I can't
roam outside of Verizon's extended and home areas, as opposed to AC1
which lets you roam at $.69/minute. But did I lose any "home" coverage
area as a result?
FWIW, I have NOT actually ported my number to Verizon yet. I
specifically wanted to check coveage first before settling on my
decision, so I COULD always be "dissatisfied" and cancel service before
the 15 days, and then re-sign with the same sales rep to get AC1 back if
it's really worth it to have. I just want to know if it's worth the
hassle, or if I should leave things be.
--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.
LjNe.113603$5N3.78040@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Yup, I have *exactly* the 
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