One bourbon, one scotch, and one mav

See, you think this is going to get less awesome at some point but it never does.

It’s been a fucked-up last few days. Adding to this fucktardedness is the fact that last week I decided to get a phone from T-Mobile. I figured the only way I could get a real feel for how their service works is to get a phone and try it out. The problem is, of course, that you only have 21 days (regular ones) from the time you order it to try it out. And you’ll need 5 (business) days to send the damn thing back if it doesn’t work.

I got a Blackberry Curve, and I really like the device itself. Blackberry reminds me of the days of Unix, pre-open source. Everything is kinda pricey and kinda proprietary. There’s not very much free software out there. Even themes cost money. The software’s kinda ugly. It takes a while to learn. But it’s insanely fucking powerful, runs really fast and never crashes. And that’s a very compelling thing.

I got it last Thursday and took it out to Beta’s this weekend for our 4th of july celebration (which turned into a whole ‘nother story by itself - I’ll want to tell that one in person) but the really depressing part is that I couldn’t roam onto Edge/ATT out there so no signal. I could have used UMA but they didn’t have Internet. Plus there’s the minor little detail that my grand scheme pretty much depended on the ability to roam onto AT&T in the areas where T-Mo coverage sucks (read: anywhere that’s not inside TF.) Anytime I was in Beta’s basement or tried to choose the Edge Wireless network manually

I decided on a whim tonight to take a drive south and see what happened signal-wise. I was curious what happened when I simply ran out of T-Mo signal area entirely. And a curious thing happened. Outside of T-Mo coverage area, I was able to roam onto Edge without any effort whatsoever. South of Hollister the damn thing worked great, all the way into Jackpot and back. But as soon as I got back into T-Mo signal range, if I manually selected Edge, no go, SOS mode only. So that’s not going to fucking work.

I called support but their answer was there must be something wrong with signal coverage in Filer. I disagree - it says on the coverage map it might be a little sketchy, I just figured with the free roaming thing that I’d be able to roam onto AT&T at least to get texts and phone calls, if not BIS. They said they would look into it and should have an answer for me in 2-3 days, but I’m working against the clock here, and this seems to be some sort of systemic problem, not just Filer. I can’t roam into Edge towers in significant portions of the coverage area, and it seems likely to me that this problem could be encountered anywhere without rhyme or reason.

So as much as I hated to do it I called and canceled. I hate making decisions a lot and I hate going back on them even worse. I always feel like I should have tried harder, worked with them more, whatever. I really hate whatever’s miswired in my brain that makes me dwell on thoughts like this. I want so badly to get rid of it. In the end though, I got it done.

I’m probably going to get a phone through AT&T. They’re the 2nd fastest carrier I tested in TF (when you’re in a good strong signal area, like work, T-Mobile was by far the fastest carrier I tested.) I’m not real happy about this but I’m sick to fucking death of Sprint. Their network is so goddamn slow and horrible I might as well be sending transmissions to Mars.

I will say this: with one exception, everyone I talked to at T-Mobile was absolutely friendly, courteous and knowledgeable. I honestly expected to have some sort of crazy annoying retention person yammer in my ear about why I shouldn’t cancel while I was within my trial period, but the lady I spoke with seemed genuinely concerned about my problems and wanted to solve them. And if I’d had more time, I would have given them a try, but 21 days isn’t very much time and a $200 ETF is not something I want to risk. If they ever can straighten their roaming and signal issues out they would absolutely be a viable carrier here. Hell, if you very rarely stray outside of the TF city limits or the freeways, they’re absolutely a viable option now. And they have the best prepaid service I’ve found so far.