With the announcement by Verizon of the end of the unlimited data plans, on the heels of AT&T and T-mobile’s announcement of the same. This leaves Sprint as the lone major carrier still offering unlimited data. The big draw of the SMART PHONE, is the unlimited data plan. Instead of unlimited they propose you pay by the GIGABYTE. I suppose most of you know exactly how many gigabytes you and your family will use each month. I’m not that smart. It is sort of like when you go to a pre-pay gas station for a fill up. You have to guess how much your tank will hold. I can’t guess that close. So I don’t buy my gas there. For me it will be the same if I have to make a guess of how many gigabytes my family and I will use during any given month. We rely on this plan for a lot of things. But do we use 2 gigabyte. or 10 gigabyte a month. Like I said in an earlier post “I HATE CHANGE”. This move only complicates my life. If it comes down to having to guess how many gigiabytes I use I will just go back to using my cell phone for phone calls. I did that for many years, and I can do it again. Of course it will be harder on the teenagers, on my plan. But think of the money I’ll save. At least $1200.oo a year. So shall we lay to rest our smart phones? YES!!!! I will. I don’t need my life anymore complicated. As for those of you who are so addicted to your phone, may your wallets get deeper so you can pay the higher cost involved. But you can fight this by doing what I will do and “Just say no!” To a pre-pay per gigabyte plan. If everyone does this. Guess what the companies will most likely do. That Is How I See It. Views: 412
Tag: Sprint
NASCAR Sponsors
Before I begin let me say I know about competition in the business world. Advertising is what drives the business. But now with NASCAR losing more and more sponsors, shouldn’t their be limits set. Winston was the Corporate Sponsor, (the main sponsor who buys the naming rights), for 32 years, (1971-2003) Winston Cup rang in all NASCAR fans ears. Although they were not allowed to advertise their own product on racing cars, they continued to just use the name WINSTON CUP, still the name was linked with cigarettes. With R.J Reynolds owning the naming rights, non R.J. Reynolds cigarettes were not allowed to sponsor cars. This was before the ban of CIGARETTE advertising from being on Racing vehicles. From 2004 to 2007, Nextel held the rights and a special exception had to be made to allow Cingular/AT&T to run out their contracts. Beginning in 2008 Sprint has been the naming rights owner. What we end up with is in reality advertising censorship. Verizon’s sponsorship is up and will take their approximately $17 million dollar motorsport budget to the IndyCar series. This because of a clause in the naming rights contract that prohibits any company competes with SPRINT from sponsoring a car. I understand that because we are not talking pennies when we talk about naming rights. But let’s look at other sides. CRAFTSMAN sponsored the truck series for years. Yet I saw other wrenches being used. I think I even saw a SnapOn sticker somewhere. Should not all trucks have used CRAFTSMAN tools. No other names like on tool boxes, etc. The Corporate Sponsor’s name is the most prominent name. Just as SPRINT is the prominent name. To tell you the truth I didn’t even realize VERIZON sponsored a car. If the USPS (United States Postal Service) were to become the Title Sponsor, we would lose UPS (United Parcel Service), and FED-X. I know I’ve been all around the subject. Now to the point. In this economy owners are scampering to find sponsors to keep their cars competitive. We have less cars trying to qualify. Less cars means less competition. Less competition means less interest, etc. I can give you an excellent example of sponsorship. I played Softball and coached softball for many years. Our city has a population of about 15,000 people, counting the children. At one time we had; I want to say about 7-9 men’s leagues. Women had 5-7 leagues. Each men’s league had 7-10 teams. Each women’s league had 5-7 teams. We had no problem finding businesses to sponsor our teams. They paid our league fees and bought us shirts. Sometimes they paid for us to play in tournaments. As time went on our league fees went up. Now we are lucky to have 4 men’s league with maybe 5 team each. The ladies are way down too. Now we buy our own shirts with the sponsor’s name on it, and have to pay our individual memberships, and usually make up the difference for team sponsors. Ours is not that we have a Title sponsor. It is the cost has gone up so much, business is down and can no longer afford this little gesture of community involvement. Big business is in the same boat. Why handicap the racing teams by eliminating sponsors. We have what 5-6 Cell phone companies that even if they could afford to sponsor a car is barred from doing so. Less sponsors, less cars, etc. Many of the cars are using multi main sponsors for different races. Can NASCAR afford the loss of revenue? That Is How I See It. PS. Excuse my rambling this is a hard subject for me to put across. Views: 145
Re: AT&T Customer Service
Consumer Reports, and customers are finally finding out what I discovered years ago. AT&T/Cinglular, customer service really sucks. It didn’t just happen it has been that way for many years. Example 1: Many years ago, before they became AT&T, I decided I no longer needed my mobile phone, as I was no longer on the road as much. I paid 3 months in advance to fulfill my contract. I told them to stop service when my contract was up. Did they heed my instructions? NO!! About 3 months after they were to stop service, I got a notice saying they were shutting my service down for non payment. Non Payment?? I didn’t even have a phone any more and did not sign a renewal contract. What was a non payment of. To make a long story short after trying to talk to CUSTOMER SERVICE, I decided, because I couldn’t afford an attorney, to pay what they called “LIQUID DAMAGES”, that is what they called it. The 3 months of service would have been $90, but they said I owed $300 for terminating services early. Now mind you I paid my contract in full, and told them I no longer needed their service. Example 2: I purchased the “insurance” for my phone. Yes I went back on the road. Anyway, my phone got smashed. I had hung my coat, with the phone in a pocket, on a post and a truck backed into it and demolished my phone. When I took it to the local office for replacement I had to pay about 1/3 of my phones original cost. About a year later I found out they replaced my phone with one that had been outdated. It looked similar to my old one. I trusted them. Then I was back working close to home and a phone at work. I no longer needed the cell phone. No problem this time. They shut off the service when they were supposed to. Example 3: Back on the road again. I needed a cell phone again. Every thing went fine. Until I realized that I could save money with their family plan.. Before I renewed my contract and purchased a new phone, I asked about adding the additional phone. The other phone was on its own plan, as they didn’t have the family plan when I added a 2nd phone. Now they did. I was assured I could add the phone. I signed the contract. Then I was told the other phone had 3 months left on that contract so we would have to wait another month before they could add the phone to the family plan. OK. The month passed. They told me I would have to wait until the full contract had expired, But would be able to transfer the phone then. Finally the 2nd contract expired and I went in to move the phone to the family plan. Guess What. Can’t do it. “We don’t offer that plan anymore.” I talked to the local representative, with no satisfaction. I called AT&T “customer service” We talked about a half hour. I was told they would check to see what could be done, and call me Monday. This was on a Friday. Know what I’m still waiting for that call. As soon as my contract was up, I switched to Sprint. I have better coverage. SPRINT, really does believe in taking care of the customer. I have had no problems with them. They are always eager to help me, no matter how long it takes. I can never see returning to AT&T. As always this is just my experience, and may have happened before the name changed to AT&T. I’m not sure when the name change occurred. Although I not sure a name change means much when it come to customer service. I do know people who have AT&T who jumped through hoops just this summer to get “CUSTOMER ” service. I’m sure from what I have heard the weren’t very satisfied. That Is How I See It. Views: 130
