I am no longer an AT&T customer. My iPhone is now useful.
I consider myself lucky: I was let out of my contract after a several-month long dispute over AT&T’s quality of service (or lack thereof). Look above; that picture shows what I saw every day: zero to one bars of service within a 1-mile radius of my office. Anyone who’s been on the phone with me me has earned the purple-heart-of-patience award for tolerating my dropped calls (sometimes as many as 2-3 times per chat). And this phone is my only phone, the one I depend on to run my business.
I expect I’m not the only one with this problem. I’ve spoken with you too; your reception sucks.
How did I do it?
I don’t mean for this to be a how-to for those who wish to sneak out of their contract. Mine was a legitimate problem of poor service. If yours is too, here’s what you can do:
- Call AT&T (1-800-331-0500 or 611 from your wireless phone).
- Ask them to open a support ticket. It’s important that you start documenting your problem.
- Remind them that they have the data to confirm this issue: call start/end times and dropped call logs. (Updated: Thanks, Paul)
- Wait at least a month. Let them try and resolve the problem—it’s only fair.
- If they can’t resolve your problem, demand compensation or to be released from your contract.
Seems like common sense, eh? It is.
An open support ticket is the key; it’s your documentation that there’s a problem, and proof that it hasn’t been resolved in a sufficient period of time.
Remember: it’s reasonable to expect that your service works; reasonable to ask someone to repair it if broken; and reasonable to leave if it can’t be fixed.
Good luck.
Does the visual voicemail still work?
Ah, that’s the part I forgot to mention. No, visual voicemail doesn’t work; neither does 3G (T-mobile is on a different 3G frequency than AT&T).
It’s sad to see those features go, but they’re made up for by the fact that I can consistently place/receive calls; I’m saving ~$40 a month on a comparable minutes/data plan; and I have no contract with T-mobile, it’s month-to-month. Plus, AT&T’s 3G was rarely available, so it doesn’t really feel like I’m losing the speed.
Nice work, Scott. My wife is a consummate customer-service-get-things-out-of-er, and she’d be impressed
One thing for others who are contemplating following this advice to consider: if your main complaint with AT&T is about poor service, you may get push-back on that, because that’s so subjective, right, and what proof do you the lowly customer have? You’re just trying to get out of your contract, you lousy sonofa. The thing to remember is their systems software knows each and every time your phone makes a network connection with a cell tower. And of course they know exactly when your calls began and ended. Therefore they know — or could easily figure out, if they correlated these two pieces of data — exactly how many dropped calls you’ve had! It’s unlikely they make the network handshakes data available to their CSRs, but you could use awareness of this info to push back with.
Did you have to *jail break* your phone to use on t-mobile?
I was wondering if you had given up on the iPhone when you mentioned you were no longer with AT&T. Considering how many meetings we’ve had where you’ve dropped off a conference call, I completely understand.
I think this is fair and good on AT&T for letting you switch.
Just get a phone that works on Tmob’s frequencies and you’re in business.
Paul: Excellent point. I’ve updated the steps above.
Cocoa326: Yes, I believe that someone would have to jail break an iPhone so that it could be used on AT&T.
Naz: Those meetings were exactly the reason this was escalated. You’re a saint for tolerating so many of them.
What if the problem is not that I get dropped, but that I have NO SERVICE (or SOS service) in areas where the coverage map on their website indicates I should have spectacular service? My calls aren’t getting dropped, I just can’t make any because my phone is telling me I have no service!
Isn’t it amazing? I did this too, and I can’t believe how much better my service is. I don’t even miss 3G (or visual voicemail, for that matter). For the most part I find that Edge is fine for checking email, getting directions/maps, and looking stuff up quickly. I’m usually around some wi-fi anyway, so it’s not a big deal.
My phone bill is SO much lower now too, mainly because of the my faves plan plus Google Voice. I use GV as one of my faves & then give everyone the GV number instead of my cell number. I’ll never be tied to a provider again! I have (tried to) use my iPhone here in Atlanta and in SF when I lived there, and service really stunk both places.
Kate, I had the same problem here in Atlanta (plus dropped calls or calls sounding like I was underwater, too). There were many places where I had absolutely NO service.. places in high density city areas, even… I live 20 min from downtown ATL for crying out loud!
I saw a blog post that said Apple *expects at least* 30% dropped calls on average with AT&T. It is here: http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/09/30/sign.of.poor.att.coverage
Amazing. I can’t believe that is acceptable to them!!!
Kate: Yes, that’s a very good reason to contact AT&T.
Stacy: Wow. Adding Google Voice as a fave? Brilliant!
I know this is now an old thread (great post, btw), but I just called AT&T in attempt to resolve some service issues. AT&T customer care specialist Austin assured me that could he could not check for dropped calls. He also said that Chicago — and my area specifically — gets the best service available.
I’m not the type of dude to lose his temper over, well, pretty much anything. However, I almost felt like he was goading me. It was bizarre.
And my first call to AT&T was dropped midway through.