Semi Forced Upgrade

[JEBar]

they say change is inevitable and in one more case, that has proven to be true ..... yesterday, we went to our local Verizon store where they deactivated my flip phone and after a good bit of activating and adjusting I left with a new iPhone .... up until this summer in Estelline, SD I was perfectly satisfied with using my flip phone for calls and our Verizon Mi-Fi for internet service .... prior to this year it had worked well for us but something changed this year and I still do not know what .... I do know there isn't anything wrong with the Mi-Fi .... in a visit to the Verizon store out there we learned Maureen's iPhone can be used as a mobile hot-spot .... they took care of the mechanics and it worked perfectly .... from that point on our internet service was exceptional .... the only issue was, when she was away from the camper I had no internet service .... that motivated our decision to look into me changing phones .... bottom line, dropping our Mi-Fi service, adding a third phone line (which makes no sense to me) and taking out a 3 year service agreement,our payments only change a few cents per month from what we've been paying .... I've already had to go back to the local store twice to get them to help me and I'll be the most surprised fellow around if I don't end up going back several more times .... as a side note, when we talking all this through, we decided to check out going with other companies .... we learned that in our case switching wouldn't save us much money and we are happy with the service/assistance we've received from Verizon over the years

[BigAl52]

Im glad you are happy with their service. Im not unhappy with their service Im not happy that they keep raising their price on items. They are trying to get me to switch to one of their new My Plans. So they are taking away part of my direct billing discount to get me to switch only so they can charge me more money. Since they just spend 20 billon for the buy out of Frontier Im sure they want to increase their rates. They say you get a better deal because of there bundle packages with streaming certain streaming programs like Disney and ESPN+. I could personally careless about the streaming of those programs I just want reasonably priced cell phone coverage. Im eventually going to switch to Consumer Cellular as their prices are much better than Verizon

[daytime dave]

I have had Verizon for many years also. I haven't upgraded my iPhone in many years as I used to, but it works fine. In the last month or so, I had noticed a real problem at home. No cell service in the house unless I used WiFi calling.
I recently contacted Verizon to complain about it. After a lengthy text chat with a tech, there isn't anything they can do but offer me a free range extender. That's on it's way. It should give a little more coverage around the house. We will see.
I looked into upgrading to one of the better new iPhone 15 phones on line. It looked like it was going to raise my monthly bill 2.5 times higher than now. I didn't do it. I will do what you did Jim, I'll see someone to look into different ways. I don't want to pay more for rotten reception. I can't figure out what changed to make my cell service disappear at the house. I walked to the top of my pasture yesterday and got three bars of service. Who knows?

I hope you like your smart phone Jim.

[Mags]

... After a lengthy text chat with a tech, there isn't anything they can do but offer me a free range extender. That's on it's way. It should give a little more coverage around the house. We will see.
...

Same happened here. We had great indoor/outdoor 4G coverage and then it went away. Verizon sent us an extender and it works well throughout the house. However at my expense I had to buy a GPS repeater as with a metal roof the extender couldn't see any GPS signals. Verizon uses GPS to verify that the extender is being used at the authorized location.

At the time I had a lengthy discussion with Verizon CS about why our 4G service went from great to zip. I was told it could be for a number of reasons, wind tweaks the tower antennas and techs are sometimes adjusting them to give better coverage to areas where they get a lot of complaints. I suppose being rural my complaint got out voted by a higher number of urban complaints. Verizon was also rolling out 5G at the time, so maybe that was a factor too. I don't have a 5G signal where I'm at and the extender is also only 4G. Outdoors barely have a 4G signal and the extender doesn't reach to outdoors.

[CT_Shooter]

In the mid-eighties, my late wife got our first cell phone, a bag phone to use in case of an emergency on her long commute to and from work. A few years later, we added another one for me, but the account remained in her name.

When she passed away in 2017, I contacted AT&T to cancel her phone number and change the account billing to my name. They wouldn't allow it. They required me to open a new account in order to keep my phone active. Since, my credit had been frozen since the mid-nineties and I wasn't up for trying to figure out how to unfreeze it after all that time, I declined. I was grieving and struggling with probate. Didn't need another project.

Instead, I bought an unlocked Android phone and a T-Mobile pay-as-you-go SIM card from Amazon and I've had that service ever since. I bought a newer unlocked phone this year ($180 Motorola Moto G 5G ). My CC is automatically billed by T-Mobile; $15 plus tax for unlimited calls and text and 3 gigs of data per month.

I've never used any of their network data since I also have Xfinity home internet and their WIFI network is available almost everywhere I go.

[dave77]

I had the opposite reception issue with my T-Mobile service. Couldn't get a cell signal in the house and barely got one outside, they upgraded the tower awhile ago and I now get a good signal inside although I still use wi-fi calling when home.

Earlier this year Spectrum ran underground co-ax up my road, subs told me they were paid $15,000 for the job. Didn't make a lot of sense to me as it's a dead-end road with only 3 residences and all three have PUD fiber. Talked to the Spectrum guys who were hooking up my neighbor who apparently requested the service and they said Spectrum will spend up to $6000 to acquire a new customer. I'm now getting a signup letter from Spectrum about every couple of weeks but I'm happy with my fiber. When I moved onto my property 40 years ago my neighbor and I asked the local cable company for service and they said we would have to pay the entire cost of running it up the road.

[BrokenolMarine]

While in VA I had a Verizon Contract for nearly 20 years. It was an amazing LE locked in contract and I didn't plan to give it up. I had a slide out keyboard phone and was happy with it. It did everything I needed to do. It made phone calls, I could send and receive texts, and it took really crappy pictures. It didn't have internet, and it wasn't smarter than me.

LG Slider 2.jpg (598.23 KiB) Viewed 806 times

When we moved to Oklahoma, Verizon didn't have service in our area and we had to switch to the only provider who did. They didn't accept the old slider, and in order to get the contract for the new phones, I had to get a Smart Phone. The phones worked really great for about three months, then we didn't get service at home any more. We found out their tower that serviced our strip of the county died and they had a repair order in, but were putting it off in deference to areas with higher population. A year later, we still had no reliable service in our area and when we threatened to take them to court, they released us from the contract.

We went to another major provider, and got decent service for two months, and they got in a contract dispute over use of THEIR towers... and lost the use of the towers that covered our area. No service. They didn't have a contract, so we cancelled. We now have straight talk and surprisingly... Tina has really good coverage most of the time, but I have sporadic coverage, but mostly no one calls me anyway.

We live just outside a ghost town, and there are about 600 people in our area, so no one is rushing to put up a tower.

Our phones work GREAT if we drive a half mile toward town up to the top of a hill.

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

I believe I mentioned this a short while back, but we had what eventually became Verizon for about 30 years. We never had a reception issue but when we went to upgrade one of our 2 phones, the prices pretty much knocked me over (phone itself and the cost to use it). Finally checked into Consumer Cellular which had been sounding great to me anyway with all their advertisements and we now have that upgraded phone, cheaper than we did with our 2 old phones. Service is just about flawless by the way and Customer Service, like they state, is also great.

Verizon wants us back with all kinds of discounts, lower rates, rebates, etc, but it's too late now, they had their chance. But even with all they want to give us, they still can't beat Consumer Cellular. For us it was a Win-Win-Win.

[BigAl52]

Verizon is so big they dont care. I did read something a while back that their revenue was down because they were losing a lot of customers. Gee I wonder why.

[JEBar]

Im glad you are happy with their service. Im not unhappy with their service Im not happy that they keep raising their price on items.

Im eventually going to switch to Consumer Cellular as their prices are much better than Verizon

decades ago we were with AT&T which was OK .... when cell phones started getting popular we went with Alltel and were OK with them .... when they became Verizon we went along and have been with them every since .... I've heard some comments that said Verizon raised their rates and they understandably weren't happy .... in our experience, the only times our rates have gone up have been we added new services .... in fact, several times over the years we've gone in and asked to have our coverage reviewed, we've come out with more/better coverage for the same or less payment .... Boost and Consumer Cellular were two other companies we planned to take a look out .... taking a close look at Boost I found way toooo many comments from folks who said so long as all was good, they were a good company .... that wasn't the case when things didn't go smoothly .... in taking a look at Consumer Cellular we found much the same thing but not as strong as with Boost .... in looking at the areas where we spend the vast majority of our time (central NC and east central SD), Verizon has stores where we have been able to walk in with a problem and walk out it it fixed .... with this being my first "Smart Phone" I have no doubt that I'm going need a good bit of help during the learning curve .... that reality proved to be the deciding factor for our decision to stay with them .... we have decided that once our phones a paid for we will take another look and make decisions based on whatever we find at that time

[JEBar]

Verizon wants us back with all kinds of discounts, lower rates, rebates, etc, but it's too late now, they had their chance. But even with all they want to give us, they still can't beat Consumer Cellular. For us it was a Win-Win-Win.

glad you have found a company with a program you are happy with .... we were told that Apple controls the prices companies can charge for their phones .... don't know if that is the case with other brands .... once our Apple phones are paid for, we believe we will take a look at programs offered by other companies

[Cowboy Gun Fan]

We were also with Alltel in the beginning before it became Verizon. I wanted to add more goodies to our Land Line and got a package deal along with our Cell Phones for a price so cheap, I really did not believe it. I had to call again to get a different person to talk to, to finally believe it. Then, through the years, the prices went up, up and up. Also did not like their Customer Service and would complain about it. Although it didn't seem to do any good. It took 7 or 8 leaps and jumps to get a real person. When the Cell Phone part of it separated, the over all monthly bill was no where near what it was in the beginning. But what did it was the upgrade prices as mentioned. They really did us a favor. Once you are ready for a change, I would give Consumer a try. I believe you can even cancel anytime with no problem.

[Mags]

.... Boost and Consumer Cellular were two other companies we planned to take a look out .... taking a close look at Boost I found way toooo many comments from folks who said so long as all was good, they were a good company .... that wasn't the case when things didn't go smoothly .... in taking a look at Consumer Cellular we found much the same thing but not as strong as with Boost .... in looking at the areas where we spend the vast majority of our time (central NC and east central SD), Verizon has stores where we have been able to walk in with a problem and walk out it it fixed ....

We're with Verizon. When it last came time for us to renew, I saw similar service reviews for Boost, Consumer and other lower tier providers. Also when looking into coverage, where we are it's here, but not along our remote route through Nevada to Arizona, nor the small remote community in northern California where our grand kids live.

The only problems we've had with Verizon is when we renew along with getting new phones. They've botched it every time. The last time I upgraded, mine went fine. A month later when we did my wife's phone, they put both our phone numbers on her phone (phones can now have more than one number assigned) and deactivated mine. After the first landline call to Verizon, nothing worked. They finally got it right on the 2nd call after an hour.

With autopay, Verizon knocks $20 off our monthly bill.

[cooperhawk]

We tried several providers but Verizon is the only one that works where we live and we've also found
that since we travel a lot, the only one that works most of the places we go. They're more expensive,
but that's life.