'This number has been disconnected' sounds horrible to me
September 30, 2010 9:02 AM Subscribe
I reallllly don't want to change my phone number, but it would be nice to be able to use my cell phone from home...
Several little issues have caused a month of procrastination on getting a new cellphone:
I want to keep my out-of-state cell number (central new york) even though i live now in central MA. Up till now thru several moves, I've been listing my parents' address as the billing address to avoid the issue (Verizon plan). Can I stop doing that? It just seems silly, my husband particularly hates it (and is actually willing to give up his phone number to stop doing so,whereas I loathe the idea of thinking up all the people and companies who have my current #,who I would need to update...) and if we order phones online, evidently they'll have to be sent to my parents.
Further, we've found that Verizon service at our new house is useless. We are just at the end of a 2yr (actually, a little beyond it and sorely in need of new phones that we would have gotten for renewing), so switching companies is not as big a deal as it could be.
Our new neighbors say AT&T works alright here. I am nervous about just jumping into that. I hear only bad things about AT&T customer service, whereas we've never had any probs with Verizon. What if AT&T is just as bad or worse than Verizon? I wish Verizon would just fix up a tower down the street from our house.
So, please let me know your experiences with:
a) keeping an out-of-state-area code number with AT&T
b) switching to AT&T from Verizon
c) dealing with AT&T in general
I have seen this recent question and will be monitoring it,but it's not quite the same thing:
http://ask.metafilter.com/166256/VerizonVerizonFamilyATandTFamily
Several little issues have caused a month of procrastination on getting a new cellphone:
I want to keep my out-of-state cell number (central new york) even though i live now in central MA. Up till now thru several moves, I've been listing my parents' address as the billing address to avoid the issue (Verizon plan). Can I stop doing that? It just seems silly, my husband particularly hates it (and is actually willing to give up his phone number to stop doing so,whereas I loathe the idea of thinking up all the people and companies who have my current #,who I would need to update...) and if we order phones online, evidently they'll have to be sent to my parents.
Further, we've found that Verizon service at our new house is useless. We are just at the end of a 2yr (actually, a little beyond it and sorely in need of new phones that we would have gotten for renewing), so switching companies is not as big a deal as it could be.
Our new neighbors say AT&T works alright here. I am nervous about just jumping into that. I hear only bad things about AT&T customer service, whereas we've never had any probs with Verizon. What if AT&T is just as bad or worse than Verizon? I wish Verizon would just fix up a tower down the street from our house.
So, please let me know your experiences with:
a) keeping an out-of-state-area code number with AT&T
b) switching to AT&T from Verizon
c) dealing with AT&T in general
I have seen this recent question and will be monitoring it,but it's not quite the same thing:
http://ask.metafilter.com/166256/VerizonVerizonFamilyATandTFamily
Cell carriers generally don't make you change your number if you move to a new area code. Here's some discussion on Verizon's forums about that.
With Sprint and AT&T, if you have bad coverage where you live, they can send you a free Femtocell that hooks up to your home internet connection. I haven't heard any reports of anyone getting free femtocells from Verizon, but they do sell them.
posted by zsazsa at 9:17 AM on September 30, 2010
With Sprint and AT&T, if you have bad coverage where you live, they can send you a free Femtocell that hooks up to your home internet connection. I haven't heard any reports of anyone getting free femtocells from Verizon, but they do sell them.
posted by zsazsa at 9:17 AM on September 30, 2010
when i lived in Santa Monica i had my home number transferred to my cellphone account. it was a big deal at the time, but shouldn't be now. i thought that with number portability, you got to OWN your number, so that you could put it wherever you wanted... and especially from carrier to carrier. I have verizon and i am a total fangirl for them. i have had ATT for residential service and their customer service blows. (LANDLINE WTF: i live in the boonies, and cellular for verizon blows out here [on a hill, lots of trees, no nearby tower])
have you tried asking the companies themselves about porting your number to a cellphone?
posted by ChefJoAnna at 9:24 AM on September 30, 2010
have you tried asking the companies themselves about porting your number to a cellphone?
posted by ChefJoAnna at 9:24 AM on September 30, 2010
Best answer: The AT&T hate comes mainly from technogeeks, who wouldn't be satisfied if AT&T blew them every other day in the middle of Union Square. I've had AT&T as long as I've had my iPhone - about eighteen months, I guess - and they are no better nor worse than any other cell company. You'll find anecdotal evidence all over the place, no matter which network you are trying to applaud or denigrate. They also don't give a shit where you live with respect to what area code your number has (an acquaintance here in Chicago has an LA number billed to his home here for business use). But the phone you like and forget about network it's on, tell them to keep your existing number and bill it to where you actually live, and get on with your life.
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 9:26 AM on September 30, 2010
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 9:26 AM on September 30, 2010
Response by poster: just to clarify -- we have no landline, and have been using using googlevoice to make up for unfunctionable cells. I haven't asked Verizon about making my billing address local, because they haven't seemed to care all these years that the phone is never usedin the billing region and I just didn't want to bring it up.
I have asked AT&T about the porting in of an out-of-state number, but they will only say 'maybe.'
What I would like to try is just starting new AT&T accounts (new phn #) and if all is well, I will replace the AT&T number with the Verizon number. THat way I wouldn'thave to cancel my Verizon acct until I am sure AT&T will be ok. When I aked if that would be possible, I got the really non-commital 'maybe.'
posted by Tandem Affinity at 9:30 AM on September 30, 2010
I have asked AT&T about the porting in of an out-of-state number, but they will only say 'maybe.'
What I would like to try is just starting new AT&T accounts (new phn #) and if all is well, I will replace the AT&T number with the Verizon number. THat way I wouldn'thave to cancel my Verizon acct until I am sure AT&T will be ok. When I aked if that would be possible, I got the really non-commital 'maybe.'
posted by Tandem Affinity at 9:30 AM on September 30, 2010
I had no issues transferring an Oregon T-mobile number to ATT in Virginia nor from ATT to Verizon (still in Virginia, still with the Oregon number).
I really don't think you'll have an issue - if you're worried, I'd go into a store and do it rather than doing it over the phone.
posted by alaijmw at 10:02 AM on September 30, 2010
I really don't think you'll have an issue - if you're worried, I'd go into a store and do it rather than doing it over the phone.
posted by alaijmw at 10:02 AM on September 30, 2010
I have asked AT&T about the porting in of an out-of-state number, but they will only say 'maybe.'
when i switched to AT&T to get my iPhone, i brought my out of state t-mobile number with me. they had no problems with allowing me to keep it.
posted by violetk at 10:15 AM on September 30, 2010
when i switched to AT&T to get my iPhone, i brought my out of state t-mobile number with me. they had no problems with allowing me to keep it.
posted by violetk at 10:15 AM on September 30, 2010
Best answer: I live in rural-ish Vermont (but not *that* rural), and am not at all a phone technogeek — just have a regular ol' cell phone — and I can confidently say AT&T service sucks in our area. My husband and I had Unicel before, and always had great signal/service, but then AT&T came in and took over all Unicel contracts. Even though AT&T supposedly uses the same towers, we've had nothing but trouble with dropped calls, no signal, etc., especially at and around our house. AT&T customer service has been less than helpful — useless would be a better word. The whole time we've spent trying to get our problems with AT&T fixed (to no avail, as of yet), we've been stuck in a crappy contract, and forced to keep our landline. I know lots of people say they're fine and have had no trouble with service, but if you do run into issues, expect to get little to no satisfaction.
posted by lovermont at 10:21 AM on September 30, 2010
posted by lovermont at 10:21 AM on September 30, 2010
When I lived away for a year, I switched to ATT from Sprint b/c of the iPhone 3GS and had no problems. But, I moved back after about 9 months. Also, the switcharoo was made in the Apple store, and I'm sure they don't care about what area code you have. I do know lots of people who have kept their phone number while moving all around. I would expect you to have no problems, but, YMMV.
posted by reddot at 10:32 AM on September 30, 2010
posted by reddot at 10:32 AM on September 30, 2010
I had the problem when getting a new iPhone in Philadelphia that it wouldn't let me take my Sprint (Michigan) number with me. Not sure why, but since most everyone had my Google voice number, I just switched permanently to that.
posted by polexa at 12:08 PM on September 30, 2010
posted by polexa at 12:08 PM on September 30, 2010
Best answer: Last summer, my SO and I switched from Verizon to AT&T with out-of-state area codes. I have since moved even further out of state.
We had cell phones from NY state and we wanted to sign up at the AT&T store in CT, to be billed to my address in CT. There were no problems in porting over our desired phone numbers, even though the area codes were out-of-state.
As far as billing addresses are concerned, they do NOT need to match the area code of your service. I had a NY area code billed to a CT address. Then I moved, and now have a NY area code billed to a CA address. No one seems to care.
However, you seem to want to set up a new plan with AT&T to test if it will work in your house, signing up for new phone numbers before cancelling Verizon. From my understanding, this would be difficult to do, since you've essentially signed a new (potentially 2-year) contract for new phone lines. If you got the new lines and then decided you wanted to bring your old Verizon numbers over, my guess is that you'd need to terminate the new lines (incurring termination fees) and then start anew with the ported phone lines.
To test the AT&T service at your house, is it possible for a friend who has AT&T to come over and check their signal strength? I'm not sure how long you intend on testing AT&T before you decide if it works or not. If it doesn't work, it would likely be apparent within a few minutes. Alternatively, you could purchase an AT&T pay-as-you go phone.
posted by watch out for turtles at 6:39 PM on September 30, 2010
We had cell phones from NY state and we wanted to sign up at the AT&T store in CT, to be billed to my address in CT. There were no problems in porting over our desired phone numbers, even though the area codes were out-of-state.
As far as billing addresses are concerned, they do NOT need to match the area code of your service. I had a NY area code billed to a CT address. Then I moved, and now have a NY area code billed to a CA address. No one seems to care.
However, you seem to want to set up a new plan with AT&T to test if it will work in your house, signing up for new phone numbers before cancelling Verizon. From my understanding, this would be difficult to do, since you've essentially signed a new (potentially 2-year) contract for new phone lines. If you got the new lines and then decided you wanted to bring your old Verizon numbers over, my guess is that you'd need to terminate the new lines (incurring termination fees) and then start anew with the ported phone lines.
To test the AT&T service at your house, is it possible for a friend who has AT&T to come over and check their signal strength? I'm not sure how long you intend on testing AT&T before you decide if it works or not. If it doesn't work, it would likely be apparent within a few minutes. Alternatively, you could purchase an AT&T pay-as-you go phone.
posted by watch out for turtles at 6:39 PM on September 30, 2010
Best answer: You know, to test ATT service in your home, you could get an ATT GoPhone, which is their pre-paid line. Get a phone + 150 minutes of talk time for $30 at Target and give it a whirl for a week or two or whatever. You could even forward your existing cell phone to this prepaid for the duration of your test.
posted by reddot at 6:02 AM on October 1, 2010
posted by reddot at 6:02 AM on October 1, 2010
zsazsa: "they can send you a free Femtocell that hooks up to your home internet connection."
(last I heard, AT&T wanted you to pay for the Femtocell.)
posted by IndigoRain at 9:41 PM on October 1, 2010
(last I heard, AT&T wanted you to pay for the Femtocell.)
posted by IndigoRain at 9:41 PM on October 1, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for everybody's answer. THe more anecdotes, the easier it is to move forward. Anyway, we decided to just order a GoPhone ($12 at att.com online) and use it for a few days at $3 a day. I understand I could have just started a contract and then cancelled it if no good within 30 days, but watch out for turtles pointed out an issue I hadn't even thought of. THis seems like the simplest route and if we do decide to go with AT&T and get phones with a contract, our track record with phones in general means having a spare at the ready will not be a bad thing....
posted by Tandem Affinity at 11:04 AM on October 3, 2010
posted by Tandem Affinity at 11:04 AM on October 3, 2010
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posted by brainmouse at 9:11 AM on September 30, 2010 [2 favorites]