R.I.P. My Sweet iPhone

Some of you already know that my iPhone went by the way of the wind yesterday. I've been depressed every since. As I let my iPhone connection die, I cried and I curled into a little ball on the floor of my computer room while sucking my thumb for a bit. Well, not really, but I the thought DID cross my mind for a moment.

It's been months since I received consistent phone calls, voicemails, and emails that actually had a connection attached to them, and since Julian's fall from a skateboard that resulted in a concussion a short time ago, which I ranted about here, that moment was the last straw for me. AT&T can screw with me, but NOT with my kids in an emergency!

I had only a week and a half to go after that incident before my contract with AT&T ended. My pleas from my son that day did not fall on deaf ears anymore as I made my plans to sever my ties with AT&T, thus ending my self-made addiction to my iPhone (well.... there are the apps and iPod I can still use).

I am deeply, deeply in love with my iPhone, as I am with practically everything Steve Jobs invents from those brain cells that have not been affected by his recent ailments which include pancreatic cancer. He is my techo-God these days! But his major blunder was getting into bed with AT&T and a lot of iPhone users have suffered from it.

If they didn't, then tell my why the epidemic of unlocking and jailbreaking iPhone's is going on. It's so bad that they hired a hacker who was responsible for starting the first iPhone "worm". Keep them enemies closer dude!

I admit that I made a major faux pas regarding last months bill. Instead of marking November 1st on bill pay for my bank accounts bill pay to pay the phone bill, I inadvertently scheduled it for December 1st instead. Maybe my brain was already on the Christmas holidays and how much I was gonna drain from the bank accounts this year in order to make the rugrats believe all is normal in la-la land and the economy is really not coming to a screeching halt into dead zone and we're all gonna die cause we can't shop at Whole Foods anymore!

My fault - me bad!

But what was so damn ironic is that they cut the phone off (which was turned back on yesterday when the automatic payment hit them), and suddenly there was the phone call AND the voicemail from 2 FREAKING WEEKS AGO, that my phone bill was past due.

The brick wall of frustration hit me at that point. Divorce was imminent!

So I did the unthinkable; I went to the "Dark Side" of cellular service. See, every since I saw an episode of Clark Howard (a.k.a., "Superman" of everyday consumer economics), on CNN a few weeks ago, I have been completely intrigued/so excited I could pee in my pants, about Wal-Mart's new cell phone that has unlimited minutes, texts, and data service for a rock bottom price of $45 a month! That's a deal I could live with! So I did the unthinkable!

"She didn't!"

"She did."

"She did NOT!"

"Oh yes she did."

"She did?"

"She DID!"

I did by gosh! I was so infuriated by that phone call lost in fiber optic AT&T space about my missed payment AND the emergency phone calls that never reached me after Julian was injured, that I got in my in my half-defunct Odyssey and drove myself into enemy territory: WAL-MART TERRITORY!

I grabbed my basket and headed right down the aisle to..... the hair care department. Since I was there, I might as well go ahead and snag myself a bottle of SunIn cause it's my hair color of choice every since a year of highlights fried my hair to extra-crispy and this stuff seems to do the job without creating hay out of hair and one could hear its crispy texture from across the house during styling moments.

NOW I was on my way to the electronics department to ask about this unbelievable deal on a cell phone plan. It's as simple as Clark Howard says: pick a phone between $39 and $99, purchase a $45 card, and I'm good to go! Now at the first of the month, I pay no more than that $45 and I can yack to anyone just before my lips fall off without worrying if AT&T is gonna be standing behind me with a stopwatch monitoring every second that I use while calculating the profit as they go.

I miss my iPhone tremendously right now, but the peace of mind that has been replaced has lifted a huge communication burden off my shoulders. Now I know that when the kids call, their call will actually get through to me. I know cause I've been testing it like crazy since yesterday afternoon!

Now came the call to AT&T to explain the why's and reasons that I was breaking up with them after a long and painful relationship. Never talk to just a "Customer Representative"; you gotta ask/demand for the supervisor right from the beginning on this one. Screaming helps sometimes too, but luckily, it was not necessary today.

I explained my long horrid story. I explained the months/years of abuse I had received at the hands of AT&T (where's the shelter for people like us?), and I finished off with the story of my son laying on a concrete tennis court unable to reach his mother in his time of need because of their lousy service.

I said that AT&T should actually pay ME for all the abuse I've suffered. She replied that she would immediately erase my bill for the month.

NOW I get service! Well, at least some service.

If she did this AND could personally guarantee that I would receive phone calls/voicemails/emails from here on out, I would have stayed. But she's just a supervisor of many and even she has her limitations in this corporate monstrosity.

It may not be an iPhone with all the bells, whistles, and addictions I'm accustomed to these days, but at least my kids can be rest assured that when they call Mom, they can actually "Reach Out and Touch Someone" this time.

AT&T and iPhone - A Divorce That Needs to Happen NOW!

Dear AT & T,

(actually, there is NOTHING "Dear" with the way I feel about this letter),

Though I am totally in love with my iPhone and have been since they day it arrived on my birthday exactly 2 years ago, because of your consistent and unreliable service, it and I are about to part ways.

For months I have overlooked the voicemails that arrived sometimes 2 days after they were left. I grumbled in annoyance in the many calls that would be dropped 2 or 3 times before I could actually get through and talk to whomever I was calling. I even managed to grit my teeth through the many phone calls that seem to be coming in (especially from my daughter's friends and the hubs as he drove hours to get to and from work), but didn't get through because of your inept network capabilities since taking on the iPhone.

I tried re-booting, reseting my network, fixing the Wi-Fi (which is also unreliable at this writing), and troubleshooting everything. Nada! I had been pretty patient over the past fews months waiting for you to fix the issues on your side.

All that changed last night when I was faced with an emergency with my son. See, my son fell and hit his head so hard that he was left unconscious for nearly 5 minutes. He had a cell phone with him, which by the way, is NOT on an AT&T network, and I was called ten times but the calls never came through on YOUR network.

Since I've been accustomed to this aggravating issue of calls not getting through, I frequently have to check the phone to see if anyone has called. All this was happening during my trip to pick my daughter up from choir. Upon my arrival I checked to see if there were any calls first. There sat the ten calls that never got through to me in my son's time of emergency and need. I called home where the hubs promptly told me what had happened to my son.

Because of your lack of service to my iPhone, my son laid on the ground surrounded by his friends, a stranger who happened to be a nurse, but his mother could not be reached in order to be by his side and comfort him through an event which I know scared the 12 year old to death. It was his friend's grandfather that finally brought my son home to me. That's what your "innovative" company gave me yesterday evening.

When I got home, there sat my son, whom could not get in touch with me because of your crappy service, dazed and confused on my sofa and in a great deal of pain. After noticing his pupils were not dilating properly, he was promptly rushed to the ER where he underwent a battery of tests and was later diagnosed with a severe concussion.

I laugh in disgust at your commercials proclaiming reliable and accurate services more so than ever. Since Steve Jobs went to bed with you 2 years ago over the iPhone deal, it has been a marriage made in hell ever since. Your words of "constantly seeking out ways to improve its performance and reduce costs", is a BIG stinking crock in my book.

I never signed up with AT&T originally. Since you merged with CellularOne just over 2 years ago, my service has gone downhill and my bills have skyrocketed to where my last bill sat at $500 when I normally paid just over $80 when under CellularOne.

When iPhone was introduced, I blindly followed the masses to stay by your side because I'm a greater lover and believer in Apple's products and services. But since you were given sole ownership over carrier's rights with the iPhone, it has been nothing but misery since. I own one of the most expensive phone's in the world and I can't even make and receive phone calls with anything close to accuracy because of your "networking" abilities.

You claim on your website that your focus is on "Connecting people with their world, everywhere they live and work." You tell this same line to my son who was lying half paralyzed and in a concussion on a concrete ground needing his mother who could not be contacted.

"You Lie!". AT&T! Because of it, I am now turning to some other carrier who can at least get my phone calls through in case another emergency arises and my children need me in the process; like when they are sick at school and the nurse can make one phone call to me instead of 5! Hey, I hear Wal-Mart has super deals at $45 a month for unlimited calls and texting. That should make you sweat in you boots a bit. For once, I like Wal-Mart now! At least THEY didn't leave my son without his mother at his side in an emergency!

Please, don't go blaming Apple and my iPhone for my missed calls. The phone has been checked several times and it works just fine. The issue is your company and it's widely known inability to keep up with system(s) that run iPhone. I read not too long ago that you "blamed" iPhone users for all these inconsistencies because they wanted to use all the features that iPhone was built to do.

Bawhahahahaha!!

You are such a lame an incompetent company that it's only by the grace of the politicians that you paid off in Washington that you're still even a half-functioning company. Haven't you been historically the biggest donor to Congressional campaigns of any company? Maybe if you would take some of that money and upgrade your services, you might not have to complain that you don't have the funds available to handle iPhone users demands.

If my son had died on that concrete, would that have been enough for you to find the money so that people COULD contact one another in an emergency even if they had to use their iPhone to do it?

Until Steve Jobs and Apple end the exclusive carrier contract with AT&T, my iPhone is going to be used just for iTunes and Apps, and a more reliable, less expensive company will be my phone service of choice. Hell, Magic Jack would be better at this point than using the "services" of AT&T!

I would say "Shame on you AT&T", but in the long run, I realistic know that you neither care about this situation nor any other's, just as long as you can squeeze every last available cent out of a customer like Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob Squarepants. Problem is, Mr. Krabs has far more integrity and honesty in just one of his claws than your whole company does.

I would say good luck with your systems updates, but truth is, I hope your company is someday picked apart piece by piece by the rest of the vultures standing by waiting to watch you die so they can actually offer a service that you so sorely lack at this time and date.

Meanwhile, I'll be waiting for a phone call that actually gets through this time.