adellelijah

To start, it just so happens that Adelle had her iPhone 4 ripped off from her while walking through the Atlanta Airport. Since then, she has reverted back to a hand me down / kindly donated Blackberry Curve suffering various withdrawls from using an aged handheld. It hasn't been pretty and it hurts me to see her not be able to play Words with Friends or check Facebook and Twitter every moment she gets. Being a "valued customer," AT&T is offering us the lower price of $399 to replace the stolen iPhone the stolen iPhone 4 but I keep on coercing her to wait until Verizon's unveiling. Hesitantly, she has agreed and now the question comes to, "Will it be worth it...what it will take and why?" Back in July, when AT&T and Apple announced the iPhone 4, many owners of the Apple iPhone 3G found themselves at a crossroad. Do I upgrade to Apple's new God phone and deal with the crappy service for 2 more years praying that it will improve or just wait till next year when Verizon and Apple announce they've copulated. I made the decision to just dive in and stick it out because honestly, the iPhone 3G experience was just getting to be awful, irritating and frustrating. Buying everything in twos, one for me and one for my significant other, I bought two new iPhone 4s online, renewed our awesome unlimited data contract which by the way still costs an arm and a leg, sold the previous models at a price that paid off the upgrade and have been feeling good ever since. Win-win right?

The experience with the phone was tremendously better but the overall network experience was still (is) lacking. With the looming prospect of a better network, I set out thinking of the economic costs. Currently, we both have unlimited data plans under AT&T which is worth the figurative bird in the hand. If I were to terminate in next February (that's about 8 months proration at $13.54/mo = $108 from the $325 gets me to about $217 for each contract), I'm guessing I can sell my iPhone 4 32GB for around $400 canceling the ETF and then I'm out of pocket another $199 x 2 plus whatever Verizon offers on their plans. Simple math, not much of a hassle and I'd assume that I'd be happier on the new network.

But what will it take? If Verizon has an unlimited data plan for iPhones, I'm in. If they are somewhat more affordable / cheaper and unlimited...I'm in. Shoot, if they pay my ETF, I'm in. I'm willing to forgo the crappy AT&T service and will even help others switch, scouts honors, but for now, we haven't seen any changes or any kind of caving in from the big V. Instead, all we have seen is their continued arrogance in being the the best and now the Rules the Airwaves Campaign? Pure crap I say. Trust me. No Droid phone or campaign you have released has wanted me to change. Its all been for naught when trying to lure others away.

If Verizon wants to capitalize on this earthquake announcement and take in the massive tsunami wave of customers who are eagerly willing to sign away their lives and wallets for two years, they can take advantage of it but the time is NOW! If I was a shareholder, I'd be bothering Mr. CEO and texting him non-stop. The bottom line is, by offering something that current unhappy AT&T iPhone customers want, we will migrate! SO DO IT ALREADY!

Just my usual rant, but hey, I'm just saying. Happy weekend!