What Has Number Portability Done For You? 756
Coldeagle writes "Number portability has been around for a few days now, I was wondering; have any of you fellow Slashdot readers switched carriers? How was your experience, and have you seen any price warring since it went into place?" Or is number portability so far more hype than happenin'?
Painless? Hardly (Score:2, Insightful)
However, for most of us who don't change our phones with the changing of the seasons, it just means it costs us more!
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:5, Insightful)
you haven't tried to move your number, you're just pissed about choosing to sign a 2 year contract.
Why would you say it's a gimmick when you just don't have option to use it because you were stupid enough to sign away two years of money for what sounds like awful service?
what gimmick bought your money?
Re:Is this the response you're looking for? WRONG (Score:5, Insightful)
Stream, you are countless numbers of revenue streams....think you're not. Think it at the gas station on your way to work, think in line at the grocer. Think it at Tax time...LOL 'citizen'...nope not today, citizen = revenue stream.
Re:I was able to use it to get a better deal.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I have been outside my contract with sprint for over a year and I have refused to change my plan just to avoid getting into a new contract. Now I have the freedom to say to sprint (Or any other provider) "I am sorry but I feel that I am getting better value elsewhere". I was never rude, I simply told them the exact deal I am being offered elsewhere and asked if it was possible for them to match or beat it and they did.
If I was willing to agree to a new contract I would have gotten a $99 credit for a new phone but to keep my options open I did not sign up for a new contract.
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I did... (Score:3, Insightful)
The law vs. reality (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance, when switching from AT&T to Verizon (while keeping your number the same) in my area you are forced to carry both your old phone and your new phone until May 2004. You place calls on your new phone but you still receive them on your old phone.
Call me crazy but I'll wait a good year or so until it's at least a bit more customer friendly.
The only thing keeping them from making it worse is that no one wants to get the worst press. So it appears they're going to drag their feet and make things as difficult as possible for as long as possible, and they're going to do it just up to the point that they can't get slammed any worse than anyone else in the industry. Like some inverse version of competition.
Q-"How poorly can we comply?"
A-"What are our competitors getting away with?"
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:5, Insightful)
Number portability is great, and needed. It's not a gimick. Here at the office, it is most welcomed. We recently reviewed our cellphone planes. Cingular was just bending s over a sink. We wanted out. We shopped around, looked at different carriers, and picked the one that best suited us (Sprint).
Of course, this was several months ago. After switching carriers, we had to distribute all new phones, everyone had to learn new phone numbers, we needed to update business cards, and then try and update all our contacts.
What if someone we met at a conference six months ago though, hey, you know so-so's product would work for us real well here, I think I even have his card. He calls a sales reps phone... nope no answer. He can fall back and call the main office number, but thats not good. It gives the appearance of being unprofessional.
If we had number portability, the transition would be seamless for the users.
Bitching about 2 year deals is dumb. You can find PLENTY of one year plans. Also, there are TONS and TONS of per-use plans for people who don't like long term plans. You can go to Best Buy and pick up a Virgin mobile phone that is pay as you go.
Your complaining seems like sour grapes to me. Looks like you chose a bad plan and carrier and now are completely upset with the cellphone world.
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason you're locked in is because your carrier pays a large subsidy upfront for your expensive cell phone. If you walk in with your own phone, no one is stopping you from getting a no-contract service.
The commercials seem to point at the fact that you can now have your home phone number moved to a cell phone. While I do use my cell phone more than my land line I must say that having an actual phone plugged into the wall not really requiring any batteries, chargers, or antennas is nice.
But for those people that never had a cell phone until now, the number that all their friends and family have known for years are now portable! That's convenient.
Honestly, it's just a gimmick.
The 6.7 million people living in my hometown (Hong Kong), would like to disagree [slashdot.org].
They look fantastic until you pull up their coverage area... Here in the Twin Cities Metro area they have great coverage... Problem is I routinely travel outside of the metro area into western and southern MN along with western WI. No coverage there.
Caveat Emptor. It's not really T-Mobile's fault if you decided to pull up their coverage map AFTER being locked into a 2-year contract with them from having them subsidize your pricey cell phone.
I recently relocated to Bay Area, switched to AT&T GSM from T-Mobile because coverage is much better (no penalty since my T-Mobile contract expired a year ago), and I'm happily locked into a 2 year contract, because I got a free bluetooth camera phone that costs $300-400 retail in Europe/Asia.
Until my cell service is mandated not to drop calls, not to require as much recharging, and not to have locked in contracts of 2 years, it won't do me any good.
What really won't do you any good is if you walk into any long term contracts without evaluating the quality of service it offers. Do more research next time.
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like an excellent reason to use number portability in two years when your contract is up. That's what I did. GSM carriers get shitty reception in my building. Verizon gets perfect reception. My contract was already up. I got a Verizon phone two months ago so that I could make calls from my apartment, and now that number portability is here, I'm going to switch my old number onto my Verizon phone. (Yes, I've been paying for two cellphones for a few months now.)
Worth it for me. I've kept my number and I've got excellent reception in my house. No local phone necessary.
My only question is how are we non-cable-watching non-land-line-phone-using people supposed to get broadband internet access. Fortunately my roomie feels the need to have a land line, so I can piggyback DSL. I've got a bunch of friends that just don't have internet access 'cause of this.
we switched, not too nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i've been trying to (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I did... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why exactly do you say that this is a scam? It doesn't seem like one to me, i'm not going to get screwed when I leave my current carrier that i've been with for 6 years for someone else. The only thing that's going to happen to me, is i'll probably get better service... I wish more scams had effects like that.
I'm the guy you're talking about, though, I've had millions of 'opportunities' (more like urges) to switch carriers due to insufficient coverage and piss poor customer support. Sometimes it's good, but often enough it sucks, so I want to switch to someone new. Why did I put up with it you ask? Because 4 years into my service when I started shopping around, I had already given my number to several people and I didn't want to have to either A) Call several people and update my number with them, or B) Say fuck 'em, i'm switching. Now that number portability is available, I'm jumping ship after the hollidays (and after my bankroll recoups from the holidays).
Just as a sidenote... does anyone have any suggestions as far as carriers that you've noticed that have above average coverage? Or customer support? My girlfriend has T-Mobile, and while the coverage isn't always top notch, she will never run out of good things to say about their customer support.. I myself have Verizon at the top of my list as far as potential carriers to switch over to, they seem to have some of the best coverage maps i've seen, and their customer service at their stores seems outstanding... Any opinions?
-matt
Here is what it means to me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:3, Insightful)
FWIW, Sprint PCS will do the same thing for you. Not that it matters much to me... with my low usage, I currently have a plan that is cheaper than anything offered. By anyone, in fact.
However, I'm hoping that number portability will lower prices and improve services all around. Despite mediocre reception at my last residence and my current job, I've stuck with Sprint as it has allowed me to keep the only mobile phone number I have ever had; I'm sure others have put up with poor service for a consistent point-of-contact. Now that people can jump ship at will, service providers should be tripping over each other to improve their competitiveness, both with better quality and lower prices.
Re:It makes me laugh... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I work for a call phone company (Score:5, Insightful)
Until consumer rights laws which:
- Disallow SIM Locking on cellphones
- Disallow lengthly contracts
- Disallow Price fixing on handsets
- Disallow Price fixing on roaming
are passed, the cellular providers will all win. The above bulleted items are only allowed in north america, and only because of hard lobbying by the providers.
In any other continent, you go to a cell phone store and buy phones OUTRIGHT, no plans to go with it, no contracts, you simply BUY the phone (at usually half of US MSRP price), then you call up a carrier of your choice start service. They give you a SIM and you stick it in your phone, boom, instantly it works. if you don't like their service after a few months, switch providers. Swap your your SIM card with a prepaid card from another provider, go to another country? Buy a prepaid SIM from that country and pay 5-10c/minute insted of 2$/minute.
Around here, cellular providers lock the handsets to their SIM card so you cannot take a handset from one provider to another, even if they use the same exact handset. Don't be fooled by some salesperson's claims that "the radio is 'optimally tuned' to our frequency" because that is just a load of BS. if you are using a GSM phone in the United States, consumer rights laws basically say you will get assraped by your provider. If you go overseas with a GSM Phone purchased within the United States, you can be sure that it will be useless because of the SIM card lock in place on the phone. You will be required to pay $2+/minute roaming charges for usage on your US Provider's sim card.
Number portability isn't gonna do anything except give cellular providers more revenue (they add 2$ to everyone's bill, on top of all other fees and taxes already being charged) and more customers. People won't be switching cellular providers fast, they will simply stay loyal to the providers that have been assraping them for their entire cellular lives.
This whole number portability has been a joke, whoever wrote the law must be in the pockets of the big 5. Free revenue, with negligable costs added in database management. there is NO network upgrade requirement. They don't have to go to each tower and hang new transmitters. they simply add a few tables to a fucking database sitting in their corporate bunker. and it costs them $2/month to do that per customer? perpetually? until the end of time? Just wait until they pass laws which disallow SIM locking, is that gonna cost us another $2/month regulatory hidden fee?
note: this is a rant, but facts presented are true.
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:1, Insightful)
I dont sign a contract for my home telephone, I dont sign a contract for my power, gas, or cable tv. (yes sattelite does ONLY for when you get the free box+free install, have your own gear? month to month baby!)
Cellphone companies need to stop this bullshit and start doing it normally.
alot less people would have the bullcrap color-game-camera-sexual prealusr device gee-wiz phones if they had to actually pay that $500.00 for it.
Re:Is this the response you're looking for? WRONG (Score:3, Insightful)
Its much like the argument that there is no such thing as altruism. Sure, maybe theres no such things as altruism, that we do things purely for self, including helping others in seemingly selfless ways. However, if society as a whole accepts that there is no such thing as altruism, its behaviour changes. People stop doing things for other people, since they figure, as long as we dont expect each other to be selfless, they may as well stop doing the things they used to do for other people. The perception is that if you're helping others to help yourself, why not just help yourself and skip the 'middleman'? The punchline is that unless you can prove that acting selfishly is inately 'cheaper' and better for society than acting selflessly, changing the way people think about themselves and their actions causes their behaviour to change - and in this case, I postulate, not to the benifit of those participating in said society.
If companies want citizens = maximum possible revenue streams, its probably not in their best interest to flaunt the equation in front of us. People have a way of resisting expected behaviour when they suspect they are being manipulated to act in the interests of somebody else. It is entirely possible (and this is what I believe) that the more self-aware people become to their true 'roles' in the economy, the less they act in the interests and wishes of companies. It poisons the natural social dynamics people exhibit in a capitalist market, and weakens the ability of the system to serve its intended purpose
Re:Is this the response you're looking for? WRONG (Score:1, Insightful)
I believe the word you're looking for is consumer. Customer service is dead because there are no more customers -- only consumers. The customer is always right. The consumer is a replaceable commodity.
Re:All I know... (Score:2, Insightful)
They started charging that to me too last month or the month before. I didn't even realize I had used this "service" yet. Yet another tax passed on to the customer. When is the government going to learn it can impose all the idiotic mandates it wants on big businesses, but they'll just pass on the cost to the consumers? I frankly don't give a rat's ass if my number is portable or not. It should be an optional cost.
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:2, Insightful)
One last point... it's been a week or so? don't expect a whole lot of substantive change for awhile. Companies are trying to get you to lock in now, just off the hype/dissatisfaction of this initial press, as the months go by better deals will emerge in order to keep up conversion/retention rates.
Cynic (Score:3, Insightful)
You are assuming that just because the (valid) problems you listed above are true that somehow lifting this other (valid) barrier to switching isn't going to shake up the market and lead to increased competition?
How often do you hear people saying, "My Sprint (Verizion/Cingular/etc.) service is a joke..." People want to switch. Now they'll start shopping around. Providers will start doing things like improving customer service or offering incentives to get people to switch. Competition will lead to a better customer experience.
Besides, people like buying cool new phones with cool new features. If your old number can switch to a new phone with a new provider -- great. You have your rationalization to upgrade to a new phone.
You may have presented some facts about SIM card locking, but given the frequency with which people buy new cell phones (computers, shirts, etc.) in the USA, it really won't hit that many people. They won't feel a pinch so I suspect your "problem" may stay the way it is for a while. But to say that people won't switch providers because we've "only" allowed them to keep their numbers is willful ignorance on your part.
Re:AT&T Completely Fails in Portability (Score:2, Insightful)
I went in last tuesday with the intention of porting my number from AT&T to verizon, and was told to wait 3 to 48 hours, since that time has elapsed I have called every day to determine the problem and resolution and have received the same responses from Verizon: AT&T's system is failing to verify numbers submitted to their system.
I went as far as to contact AT&T's port customer service call back number and talk to someone there who told me matter of factly that their systems are completely fine.
I personally find it interesting that providers such as Verizon and T-Mobile are having such issues transferring numbers FROM AT&T wireless, however anyone transferring TO AT&T wireless has not had a problem at all. It seems to be almost a tactic to hold off transfers for existing customers to see if they can get them to stay while bringing more unsuspecting buyers into their systems.
I have had it in for AT&T for almost a year now, and there is no way I will settle for this insanity a moment more than I have to. I'm tempted to file a formal complaint with the FCC against AT&T if I thought that would do any good.
(And yes, I'm one of those people that ACTUALLY tattles on the damn telemarketers that violate the Do Not Call list, I don't like putting up with bullshit)
My old AT&T number held hostage, day 7... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, good sir, (or madam) since you are with AT&T, you are S.O.L. I tried leaving AT&T for T-Mobile and taking my phone number with me. They didn't cough it up. AT&T is in violation of the FCC order mandating number portability.
More details here. [slashdot.org]
Re:nada, and it never will... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, it comes down to this: make sure you buy the right phone for the right carrier. I'm not going to cry for you when you want to change carriers (or OSes
Right?