Me thinks I am almost finished climbing out of a technology hole in the ground. After several years of coaxing the wife she agreed it was okay to transfer the stick house land line number to a cell phone. With that as the premise, this is the circle dance that happened.
1. Went on the WWW and found a carrier called NET10. It was the cheapest around for what we needed. Their coverage area matched that of AT&T. They use AT&T towers.
2. Via the NET10 website ported our two numbers over to their phones. The wife keeps the land line number and I get the old cell number. We have had both of these numbers for years.
3. NET10 phones arrive and the porting went very smoothly. All tasks completed via the NET10 web site.
4. No DSL at the stick house. AT&T said no land line, no DSL. I could get it reinstalled with just a DSL line in a couple of weeks!
DSL without a land line costs $5 more per month!
5. Out to the coach I go and turn on my WIFI hot spot. Back in the house, by golly it worked great. This is what I used while I was in DSL jail.
6. It took about 3 days of using the NET10 phones to determine NET10 cell service is horrible. At the house, service is only out of one window on the second floor. Around town, never was able to complete a call. The service should be named Dropped Call Service. Even standing in the parking lot of the largest shopping mall in south Florida, there was only 1 bar on the signal meter.
7. Went to the AT&T store and began porting both numbers back to AT&T cellular.
8. Throughout all of this the wife got interested in the features of the various phones. Now she wants a Blackberry with all the services (voice, text, data). With AT&T these services are ala-cart. Me,,, I just need a voice phone with big buttons.
9. The total cost of the two phone and DSL will end up costing considerably more than if I had just left everything the way it was.
10. The wife's number ports to AT&T in about 5 minutes. She is up and ready to go really quick. Mauve colored BlackBerry cover and all.
11. My number ports over,,,,except I can not receive calls, I can make calls. When the number is dialed, the NET10 phone answers. The short story is it takes AT&T 2 days to get whatever the problem is straightened out. My phone now works as advertised.
12. FYI, the AT&T signal is available anywhere in our stick house and throughout the area, inside or outside.
13. I decided to donate the Net10 phones and accessories to the Sheriff's Dept. They use the phone for a variety of reasons. Besides, I have the receipts and will get back about 28% on our taxes. The wife says no way, the phones will be returned.
14. So I follow the process to return the phones to NET10. It cost $23 to ship them back to NET10.
If I ever see a refund, the difference in just donating them and what I will get back from NET10 was not worth my time.
15. DSL was reinstalled and is operating today.
This was not without additional punitive work AT&T made me do. It is called re registering. Because my DSL equipment is over 10 years old, this was not as easy as it sounds. Fortunately, I got a super tech support person at AT&T. He took on the challenge and I was up and ruining in about 30 minutes.
The bottom line is the wife is happy. Between her iPod, iPad and Blackberry I now communicate with here via one of those devices. The stick house number now will travel with us. No more having to call voice mail to retrieve calls when away from home. And me,,,,well I got my very first cell phone. If ya'll think my brain was damaged before I got the phone, just wait and see what happens now.
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