So for the past month I've been shopping for cell phone plan/service. Here's the landscape:

I am a current T-mobile customer on month to month(contract is up) GSM
My wife is a current ATT customer on month to month(contract is up) TDMA

My goal.... 2 new phones and a family plan with an additional line.
- bonus to a nicer phone and less for phone is better
- bonus to staying with a current provider as both ATT/Tmobile have family plans and I don't want another credit check(hoping to buy real estate soon)
- trying to keep both phone numbers intact(hate that hassle of telling everyone you know about a new #)
- would like to only buy 1 yr contract if I go to a new carrier

ATT:
So my wife can upgrade her phone to GSM, and I can buy a new GSM phone and add to the family plan as well. Seems however that ATT GSM service is kinda crappy in my area... bummer. Also turns out that their phone prices change by the week... and that they are pretty far behind the ball with regards to porting numbers one way or another. What WAS going to cost me about $100 out of pocket to get her a new phone that she liked (T616) and for me to get a cool phone (NEC 525) turns out to be more like $200 when I go back to the site to order.... along with the fact that everyone at ATT I talk to says that porting a number takes an indefinite amount of time right now. this is all on a 2 year plan.

Tmobile:
So I thought I had it in the bag here... Amazon was running some crazy deals where they were giving huge rebates. You could activate a new plan for $30/month and buy a T610 through them and after rebates it was looking like almost $200 BACK TO YOU!!!!! I could get 2 of those... and come out $400 ahead!!!

oh wait... but I can't. because Tmobile says that they can't port numbers from Tmobile-->Tmobile. I can't open a new account and port my number over. And at the same time..... they want to charge me $150 for the same phone that comes out to a $200 credit from Amazon. In order to keep my number and have Tmobile, I have to go to another carrier for 90 days, take my number... and then bring it back.

So I guess my rant is that cell phone carriers are lame.... I don't think they have taken into account right now the effect that porting numbers has on their installed user base. All make it(with the exception of Verizon... they are just plain expensive all the way around) much more attractive to leave and go to a new service than to stick with what they have. I was NOT going to pay a difference of $600 over 2 phones to stay with Tmobile.

Lameness....anyone else have problems like this crap?

 

Been with SprintPCS since they started serving my area, and havent looked back since.

My current phone is the unbelieveable Hitachi G1000 communicator. Does EVERYthing I want it to. Talk about digital covergence.