James's Weblog

Earlier this year, I switched my mom from a Sprint plan to a Page Plus prepaid plan. She’s the type who uses an average of about 20 minutes per month on her cell phone, which was a waste of the $30/month that I was paying for her line. Switching her to a prepaid plan seemed like an obvious choice, but even then, most prepaid plans don’t fit well to such limited usage. Typical prepaid plans ask for tens of dollars per month for hundreds of minutes that expire after 30 days. Not a huge improvement.

(That’s not to say that my mom doesn’t spend a lot of time using a phone. However, we have unreliable cell phone reception in our house, so she normally uses a landline. The landline is cheap since we get service through Ooma.)

Page Plus is a prepaid MVNO, a virtual carrier that resells airtime from another one (in Page Plus’s case, Verizon). Unlike the prepaid plans from every other provider, Page Plus’s minutes last for 120 days, and the minimum purchase is $10 for 100 minutes. This means that I now can pay about $30 per year instead of per month.

It’s been about 8 months since I switched her, and so far she’s been on track.

I was satisfied enough with Page Plus that a couple of months ago, I decided to switch myself, and I bought a contractless, unused Verizon Palm Pre 2 for cheap. I too use very few voice minutes, and over the past year, I’ve used an average of about 100 MB of data per month, peaking at about 200 MB in a month. Page Plus doesn’t have good data plans, however: their standard pay-as-you-go plan charges a whopping $0.99/MB, and their cheapest monthly plan ($12) includes a meager 10 MB. However, overages on their monthly plans cost $0.20/MB, so my average usage should cost about $32/month, still significantly cheaper than the $60/month that I was paying Sprint (normally $70/month without the VMware discount).

I figure that I can cut back on the data usage and use WiFi most of the time to bring that down to $22/month. (Thank goodness for webOS patches that allow me to turn 3G data usage on and off easily.) Discouraging me from checking email constantly is probably a good thing anyway. The biggest thing that I’ll miss is Sprint Navigation; the webOS app was implemented pretty well, and it was handy to have GPS navigation readily available with up-to-date maps. Unfortunately there’s no good offline GPS navigation software (or even online, carrier-agnostic software). I’ll also miss the Sprint Airave femtocell (from Chelmsford!) that I got only a few months ago. Verizon’s coverage seems better, but it still seems unreliable where I live.

(And yes, this means that we’re back on the Verizon network without having to deal with Verizon.)

Other notes:

• The phones that Page Plus officially supports are very limited. I initially bought my mom one of the supported ones since it was my first experience, and they only offered one basic phone (a Kyocera Luno S2100). We were not impressed with it; the font size is small and is not adjustable, and the lanyard attachment point is not a solid construction, instead using the battery cover to hold a lanyard in pace. Tugging on the lanyard in the wrong way could pull the battery cover off and drop the phone.
• Page Plus, however, does allow almost any Verizon phone to be activated on its service. The main requirements are that the phone isn’t blacklisted as being stolen or as a retail prepaid phone. (Ironically, prepaid phones that you see in retail stores such as Walmart are still subsidized.) Eventually I bought my mom a contractless Samsung Gusto 2 off of eBay instead.
• By default, outgoing calls from Page Plus have an outgoing message that tells you what your balance is. This is kind of annoying and can’t be configured through the website, but you can turn it off by contacting customer service.
• Page Plus’s website sucks, to put it kindly. It looks old, is buggy, and on numerous occasions has been down when I’ve tried to access my account. This doesn’t inspire confidence. I haven’t actually figured out how to account for my data usage through their website since they show up as calls measured in “minutes”.
• If you want to activate a smartphone, watch out if it wants to restore data from the cloud before allowing you to set up WiFi.
• There’s a $0.50 monthly service charge that’s mentioned in the fine print that surprised me.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to find my Palm Pre sitting at its initial setup screen. Sometime during the night, it performed a hard reset on itself, completely wiping out all of the data on my phone.

A few days earlier I noticed my phone acting strangely when it was sitting on its charger. It sometimes acted possessed, registering random taps and gestures that no one was making. It occurred to me that maybe my phone had been compromised, but the taps seemed too random, and I couldn’t imagine any sane attacker bothering to simulate UI interactions or revealing themselves so overtly. It turns out that other people have encountered similar behaviors, and I think that overheating is probably a factor.

I dismissed the weirdness at the time since I didn’t expect the phantom taps to get past the slide-to-unlock screen and to do anything of consequence, but I suspect they managed to do just that yesterday morning. Once at the secondary password screen, they entered an incorrect password enough times for my phone to wipe itself on the spot. Nice.

No big deal, since the Pre backs everything up to the cloud, right? Not quite. It backs up the data to the normal PIM applications (contacts, notes, calendar, tasks) but apparently not to a whole lot else. Photos that I took of visiting relatives that I never got around to copying? Notes that I took with a third-party application? Solutions and unlocked levels to various puzzle games? The 3-star high scores to all of the Angry Birds levels? All gone.

Personal lessons:

• Be proactive in backing up data. Don’t blindly trust “the cloud”. Know what’s being backed up.
• Find and install a patch to disable the wipe-on-failed-login function.

Design lessons:

• Clearly explain to users what’s being backed up and what isn’t. This is particularly important on a platform where users can’t easily verify backups.
• Wipe-on-failed-login is silly on a system that already supports encrypted file systems. webOS already stores applications on an encrypted partition to discourage piracy. The priorities seem wrong to me; I want an encrypted file system for my data.
• The wipe-on-failed-login function could be coupled with the automatic-backup-to-the-cloud function. If the system really thinks that the phone has been stolen, save all of the data before throwing it away.
• Too many failed login attempts? Do what websites do, lock out the account, and require authentication through another channel (such as email).
• Be careful what you call “backup”. I think that I would have been better off if the “Backup” application didn’t exist; at least then I would have made some effort at copying data myself.

In truth, there probably was not anything terribly important that I lost. Most of the notes I probably either wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t have looked at again anyway. There weren’t very many photos (if they were worth keeping, surely I would have uploaded them somewhere?). I can re-solve the puzzle games if I feel like re-spending the time. And yet I feel like not remembering what I lost is going to keep me up at night, which is ironic.

Some people might think that I’m crazy for complaining about free services, but squeaky wheels get grease, and I truly believe that these wheels need greasing.

Most free Wi-Fi hotspots require accepting a EULA before they can be used, and they usually accomplish this by intercepting a user’s first attempt to view a web page and by showing a web page with their EULA form instead. This isn’t so unreasonable, but pretty much every EULA page that I’ve seen sucks.

• EULA requirements disrupt service. While most Internet traffic involves the web, there are still other protocols that aren’t uncommon. Some Wi-Fi hotspots block all traffic until the EULA is accepted, but this means that things such as email and instant messaging applications can fail without providing any explanation why. Admittedly, I don’t think that this is fully the fault of the hotspots themselves since they can’t control the error messages (or the lack of them) in the individual applications. Perhaps some standardization effort is warranted here.
• Most EULA pages are not designed for mobile devices with small screens. Free Wi-Fi hotspots might have been predominantly used by laptops not so long ago, but smartphones with Wi-Fi are becoming increasingly prevalent. At least on my Palm Pre, I almost always have to zoom in and to do a lot of scrolling to find the checkbox or button to accept the EULA, and then I have to zoom in some more so that it’s big enough to tap on.
• Most EULA pages don’t automatically redirect to the original destination. If I go through the effort to type out a web page address on my tiny keyboard only to be redirected to a EULA page, at least redirect me to my original destination after I accept the EULA. Don’t make me type out the address again.

In some cases, free Wi-Fi hotspots actually do me more harm than good. Since I have an unlimited data service through Sprint, if my phone suddenly decides to use a free Wi-Fi hotspot instead of my cellular data service, I suddenly have to deal with all of the EULA nonsense (or, as mentioned before, things just start mysteriously failing).

Unfortunately, there aren’t strong economic incentives to fix issues with free things. Alas.

After four years, I’ve finally said goodbye to my trusty but beaten-up Treo 650. I started noticing screws missing from it about a month ago, and a couple of weeks ago I lost the antenna, which fell off somewhere without my noticing.

The chipped paint and smudged icons on the buttons? That’s the result of 3½ years of sharing a pocket with my keys. That weird cloud in the center of the screen? It’s dust that seeped in and collected there. That hole in the back cover? I drilled that so that I could easily access the reset button with the stylus. (I admit that it might have contributed to the dust problem.)

I actually could have tried transferring my number to my dad’s old Treo 650, but I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. No more reception was the push I needed to buy the new Palm Pre. (Sorry, iPhone, but I’m a (wanna-be) keyboard snob.) This also marks the end of nine years of using Palm OS.

The Palm Pre is nice. There are a few significant things and a lot of little things that I miss from the Treo 650, but having a modern web browser makes up for all the deficiencies. When I think about it, I realize that I was pretty satisfied with everything about the Treo except for its anemic and ancient browser.

(more…)

Several weeks ago, I received two bills from Sprint on the same day. The first was our usual monthly bill, due on May 23rd. The second was addressed to my dad’s estate. It listed no due date. (I have a photocopy of the bill as proof.) It was a bill for the unpaid balance on my dad’s account, a balance I had tried to pay when it was originally due, except Sprint closed the account on the due date, so I wasn’t able to pay it online as I normally do.

I paid both bills last week. Today I received another bill addressed to my dad’s estate with a late fee applied; apparently the previous bill was due on May 14th.

I wonder if I should bother refusing to pay. It’s probably not worth the $3, but the principle riles me.

Update:
For once dealing with Sprint was relatively painless, and they agreed to waive the late fee.

My dad, my mom, and I shared a cellular phone family plan through Sprint. The account was under my dad’s name. Not wanting to pay for service to my dad’s phone anymore, we called Sprint and asked them how to cancel that phone and transfer the account to my name. The Sprint representative told us to fax in the death certificate and to supply a contact number, and then Sprint would call us back to settle everything. Okay.

We did that. A few call-less days later, I called Sprint back and asked them what was going on. The representative said to wait about 3-5 business days for the death certificate to be processed, that Sprint would call us back when it was, and then we could go down to some local Sprint store to settle the account. Okay.

Tonight I discovered that my cell phone stopped working. My mom’s stopped working too.

I called Sprint. Sure enough, they completely closed our account without warning. The first representative said that we’d have to start a new account with a new service agreement. (No thanks, we just finished ours.) He bounced me to a second representative who was much more willing to help, although unfortunately she and her supervisor turned out to be powerless. Apparently once an account is closed, it can’t be reopened. Legal reasons of some sort, they claim, but it sounds so stupid that it might be true. She advised me to call Sprint’s credit department, which was responsible for processing the death certificate and for closing the account in the first place. Unfortunately right now it’s closed, so I have to wait until tomorrow.

Our Sprint bill was due today too. I was putting off paying for it until Sprint contacted me about my dad’s service, and I had intended to pay for it online today, but with our account closed, I’m unable to do so. If I am able to reactivate our account, I wonder if they’ll make me pay a late fee. And if I’m not able to reactivate our account, I wonder if we’ll be able to retain our phone numbers when we jump ship to another carrier.

Update (February 16):
Progress so far:

1. Tuesday night: Talked to customer service representative #1.
2. Bounced to customer service representative #2.
3. Directed to credit compliance department, which is closed for the night.
4. Wednesday morning: Called credit compliance department. Bounced to some accounts department.
5. Bounced to Sprint corporate office.
6. Bounced to customer retention center. Talked to somebody who seemed like he could help.
7. Instructed to make trip down to the local Sprint store to sign things.
8. Sprint store said there’s still something wrong with my account and the guy from step #6 needs to fix it first.
9. Spent Wednesday afternoon and all of Thursday trying to call guy from step #6, leaving messages, and waiting for him to call me back.
10. Friday morning: Guy from step #6 called me back, shortly after I’ve left for work, and no one was home. ARGH.

Update #2 (March 9):

1. Tuesday, February 20: I gave up on waiting for the guy from Sprint to call me, and I emailed the Sprint CEO. He (or likely someone on his staff) responded and told me someone would contact me.
2. Wednesday, February 21: A woman from the executive services department called me. She told me that she’s working on our case and is trying to get our telephone numbers back.
3. Saturday, February 24: Received a bill from Sprint. They’ve got to be kidding.
4. Sunday, February 25: Sprint finally got my telephone number back. They walked me through reactivating my phone. They were having trouble with my mom’s and thought it might take another day or two. They said not to worry about the bill.
5. Monday, February 26: I discovered that I could receive and make telephone calls, but my data service wasn’t working.
6. Tuesday, February 27: Sprint said they have my mom’s number back. They walked me through reactivating her phone. They said it might take a few hours for the phone to become active. They helped me fix my data service problem.
7. Waited several hours. My mom’s phone could make outgoing calls, but incoming calls were greeted with a recording from Verizon about the number being disconnected. The number was originally a Verizon number, so maybe the phone number went back to them when Sprint closed our account? I decided to wait a little longer to see if there was a longer-than-usual delay due to another carrier’s involvement.
8. Thursday, March 1: My mom’s phone still couldn’t receive calls. Called Sprint’s executive services office back to complain. Left messages and waited for them to call me back.
9. Tuesday, March 5: Sprint called me back. They walked me through reactivating her phone again in case I made a mistake the first time. They said that if it still didn’t work that there was probably something wrong with the phone and that they’d call back in a few hours to follow-up.
10. Mom’s phone still wasn’t working. Waited for the follow-up call. Didn’t come.
11. Friday, March 9: Called Sprint back. Actually got through this time without needing to leave a message. Sprint insisted that my mom’s phone must be faulty and that I should bring it in to a store to get it serviced or replaced. They said I might have to pay for a new phone. I gave up and asked for a new number; my mom hasn’t been able to receive calls in a month anyway. The new number worked immediately.

So after all that, we ended up needing to get a new telephone number anyway. Sigh. Cellular phone carriers suck. At least it’s over.

I bought a Treo 650 this week, and it’s awesome. It’s even inspiring me to do some programming for Palm OS again. Unfortunately, getting back into that groove is really hard.

I wrote a lot of great code while I was at Sony, but of course all that code is Sony-owned and outside of my grasp. To do any Palm OS development work again, I’d need to rewrite everything from scratch, which is demotivating because I’d be redoing work that I had done already and—since I’m now rusty at this—work that I had done better. It makes me feel like my life is progressing backwards.

Two weeks of arguing with Verizon over their early termination fee hasn’t gotten me anywhere. They refuse to waive it.

“It follows the terms of your contract, so it’s a valid charge,” they say.

“I’m not saying it’s not valid; I’m saying it’s not right. So you’d rather have $175 from me now than have me ever do business with you again? You are aware I’ve paid Verizon over $800 during the past two years and used barely any of my minutes, right?”

“It’s a valid charge.”

It seems that more and more people these days are drones who can’t think for themselves and who are unwilling to stick their necks out.

Verizon did indicate, however, that I could get the fee waived if I reactivated my old account for the remaining duration of my contract with no additional commitment. The catch? To reactivate my old account, they’d need to use my original cell phone number, which I already had ported to Sprint. Of course, it’d be too easy if they just let me pay them directly for my remaining two weeks, as I had offered originally. No, their highly advanced computer system required an active account with the original number.

I relented and decided to play their stupid game. Not wanting to get an early termination fee on my Sprint account too, I figured I could change my Sprint number, free up my original, and then reactivate my Verizon account.

After I changed my Sprint number, Verizon informed me that although my original number was now available, it was Sprint’s property and that Verizon couldn’t touch it. To transfer it back to Verizon, they said, I’d need to have a Sprint account using it. Unyielding computer systems win again over common sense.

To add insult to injury, Sprint won’t even let me have my original number back. (Another victory for the computers.) So now I have Verizon’s $175 charge, and I’ve lost my original, four-year old number for nothing. (Not that anyone calls me anyway.) Had I not ported my number in the first place, I probably could have reactivated my Verizon account and had that fee waived. Who knew number portability would bite me in the ass like this?

And did I mention that the Sprint phone was a gift?

I give up. I suppose I’ll pay the stupid fee.

A few weeks ago, I got a new cell phone and switched from Verizon Wireless to Sprint.

I didn’t remember when I purchased my old phone or what the terms of my service agreement were, so I went to Verizon’s website to look up my account information first.

Current calling plan:
America’s Choice 300 General .00 Long Distance $35.00 1y 0502

I interpreted this information to mean that I had a one-year commitment starting in May 2002. I assumed I was free and clear, so I switched carriers.

I then got slapped with a $175 early termination fee.

I called Verizon. It turns out that I had a two-year commitment and that the “1y” is an internal code not meant to be decipherable by users. To add insult to injury, I missed my end date by only two weeks.

There are a couple of things wrong here:

• Verizon’s website provides no clear information about what the contract duration is.
• Verizon’s website provides external access to internal information. If something is for internal use only, keep it internal. Otherwise people will assume that information is supposed to be relevant to them and is meant to be decipherable.

Had Verizon not generously provided useless but misleading information, I would have called them to find out my service agreement details. At best, Verizon is totally clueless and is too lazy to make their website usable. At worst, Verizon’s committing fraud. “1y” is readable enough to be misinterpreted but vague enough for Verizon to avoid accountability and to claim that they didn’t lie outright.

Of course, it’s not in Verizon’s best interests to let people know when their agreements expire, so what do I really expect?

One of the main reasons I switched away from Verizon at all was because I was throwing money away; each month I paid $35 for less than 10 minutes of actual usage. Sigh.

From today’s San José Mercury News:

At the Web site of the ring tone company Modtones (www.modtones.com), you can dress your cell phone up for the holidays by downloading “Silent Night.” Or if you prefer, you can simply download silence.

Customers started asking for a silent ring tone a while back, said Jeremy Xavier, the marketing manager of Modtones, although at first he did not understand this oxymoronic request. When he did, he set his developers to work.

…

The user simply assigns the silent tone to any numbers in the cell phone’s address book. It seems to callers at those numbers that the cell phone is ringing, but the call is sent to voice mail.

Xavier said the un-tone has been getting “a pretty significant amount of downloads.” He declined to specify how many, but said it was beating out certain popular music.

Awesome.