Some Choice

I got an "offer" in the mail yesterday informing me that because I am a $Mega_IT_Company employee, I qualify for a free phone, 25% off the monthly rate and 50% off the regular price of additional hardware. The offer came from Cingular Wireless, the company that bought out AT&T, my wireless provider. Here is the story:

I signed up with AT&T, got on a family plan (me and my wife share 800 minutes with unlimited weekends and free mobile to mobile calling), and AT&T gave us 2 free LG phones. All I had to do was sign up for a 1 year contract. Being and employee of $Mega_IT_Company, I was eligible for 25% discount, bringing our total to about $65 a month, tax included. Not bad for two phones and all those minutes.

Cingular buys out AT&T and now I am getting gently pressured to switch over to a Cingular rate plan. To use a new plan, I need a new phone (so they say) and if I get a new phone, I cannot use my AT&T SIM in the Cingular phone. You see, the phones are locked to only work with one providers SIM's, unless you can get your hands on the unlock codes from the phone manufacturer. You can find the codes posted online if you want to do this yourself, but there is a chance that if you make a mistake entering the code, the phone is locked out permanently. But I digress.

Okay, I look at the rate plans for Cingular. They offer less minutes (in my case 700 instead of 800) for the same money. They do however, offer rollover minutes. Any minutes you do not use "roll over" to the next month. If they those are not used, they roll over again, and so on. Sounds mice, but we have not gone over our minutes yet. I only got this level of plan because it is the smallest one with unlimited weekends, which is the time we use the most minutes.

Now if I decide to bite for these rate plans, I have to get a Cingular phone. The choices they are offering me for free are not great. The first is the Samsung x497. It is a clam shell style phone (the only kind I care for) that is silver and black. It has mostly good reviews (3.5 out of 5) and the major complaint is crampness of the keys and the speaker phone activation sequence. A few people stated that the external display is not very clear when viewed in bright light or at night. That would be a problem, since I use my phone as a watch and need to see it everywhere. It does support mp3 ringtones and replaceable wallpaper. A data cable is available (for a nominal fee of course!) to allow this to be done via PC.

The other is the low end Nokia 6030. Nokia's are know for great quality, but I am not sure about this one. Reviews have not been great and it is not a clam shell style phone. I am not a fan of regular "stick" phones.

The offer we received says "a free phone", but initially they gave us two. I am not sure if they will do this again or not. I guess I am going to have to call and find out. I hate talking to customer support. They be willing to play ball if they want me to move away from the AT&T rate plan.