As I was conversing back and forth between a potential ride, I noticed that the flight attendant completed her company standard speech about our safety and convenience about flying. I couldn’t remember hearing anything about shutting my mobile phone off, so I continued to send text messages.

After a brief walk-thru, she made her way back to the front of the plane to take her seat. I received and sent another reply on my phone which was hidden from plain view. Our plane began rolling in reverse, away from the hangar and slowly into the tarmac leading to our runway.

I received another text message. The plane turned to the left, then turned left once again. The acceleration swiftly began since we were the one and only plane in line to leave.

I sent one more text message as the plane lifted from the ground before a minute passed with one more received message. We were at least a few hundred feet off the ground when I sent my last text message successfully.

A couple of minutes after the plane ascended to a few thousand feet, I noticed the service bars disappearing. I received no more replies after the last message.

For the next 10 minutes or so, I watched my service bars go in and out. Sometimes they’d be at three bars, sometimes at no bars, sometimes at two bars. Anytime there was more than one bar, seconds later it would go to no bars. The rest of the flight was spotty like this with no chance of there being real service anywhere so I entered my phone into flight mode for the remainder of the flight.

About 10 minutes before landing, I wanted to see if I could once again get service while in the air. I took flight mode off and noticed the same pattern of shifty and sudden drops in bars. It was unlikely that any consistent service was received.

So, that kinda took care of my curiosity about cellular phone usage on flights, confirming what I pretty much assumed anyway.

Here is an experiment similar in nature to my test.

Remember when I was talking about switching over my plan to a better plan? Well, as of this evening, I have everything I had before and as well as a bunch more. Let me break this down to you as it is.

$30 $40/month
$10 4G tax
500 Anytime Minutes
150 Additional Courteous Anytime
National Roaming and Free Long Distance in America
Unlimited Nights and Weekends at 7pm 6pm as of 07/06/09
Unlimited Mobile to Mobile
Unlimited Data & Internet (yes, even in the middle of nowhere!)
Unlimited 100 SMS as of 05/23/07
Unlimited Picture Mail as of 09/06/11
GPS
First Incoming Minute for Free
Pick 3 as of 4/15/08

So what does it take to get this kind of plan? Patience and Persistence. I’ve been a customer for over 5 years. I forked over big money for my previous phone, which is the PPC-6700. But, if I’m fortunate, I will have this phone for the same amount of time I had my other phone. About 4-5 years (I only had it for 3 years :) )

But to get everything I got, I found an exceptional deal from an employee and then called over and over and worked over the customer reps so that the right people finally gave me what I asked for. Now that I have this, I could try to push my luck and get more but there’s no reason for that right now. I have everything I want and will be satisfied for the term of my contract for the next two years!

I am not sure if it’s possible to get this kind of plan with all carriers but if you ever find a deal that seems too good to be true, take it. And then be persistent about getting extras. Why should you settle for less than it’s possible to get exactly what you want?

Please call me soon. I have a new phone and must enter your digits into it. I will go into detail about my plan after January 28 when my new plan kicks in, but let’s just say I got almost exactly what I wanted…

Sincerely,
Micah

I am working on/with Sprint to get a new package deal but am trying not to lose certain features and gain access to others. Getting exactly what you want is not an easy task unless you know the right people or talk to the right reps. Sprint has been notorious for giving out insane plans to customers and that’s why I won’t switch to other providers.

Here’s what I’m shooting for:

$30/month
500 anytime minutes
unlimited weekend/nights at 8pm
unlimited mobile to mobile
unlimted email and IM – AOL;MSN
unlimited Picture Mail
Unlimted web access
free nationwide long distance
First Incoming Minute Free
50-100 Text Messages

This would basically be paradise for me right now. But unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll get the 8pm (although I can get 7pm for an extra $5) and no text messages or FIMF either. Everything else is included in this one plan that I know about. I’m crossing my fingers that something awesome will work out!

Times have changed. Every year comes out new technology, and every year I make at least one big technological change. In July of 2000, I bought a Qualcomm 2760 from Radio Shack and signed up for Sprint PCS. I wasn’t sure if I’d have the phone for more than a year since I could barely afford the monthly payments. But, as time went on and I used the phone more, I realized my needs had changed and using a cell phone was a necessity. To this day, I still use a Qualcomm 2760. Not the same exact phone I bought 5 years ago (I had to give it up last year because it was just falling apart) but one I bought off eBay last year for $15. But, I think the time has finally come that I need to spend the big bucks to upgrade. I can’t receive normal text messages. I can’t go online. I can’t turn my phone to vibrate. My battery life is only about an hour, if even that.

There comes a time when you have to realize and give in to the technology that overwhelms your life, and my time has come. I think my biggest fear about this change is that when I get the new phone I’ll be tempted to pay extra money for text messaging service, and possibly even Internet. Which raises my monthly bills. I already pay lots of money for other things, but the fact that I am so dependent on a cellular phone is scary. It’s my only means of vocal communication to the outside world which is not a PC. I do not directly pay for a landline and have no plans to anytime soon.

And now, I shall show you my lust.

This beast allows you to do anything and everything. Not only can you connect to the phone network, you can take this phone and surf this web on your home wi-fi connection, just like a laptop! It has just about any feature I’ve ever wanted in a phone. Except for the price. It’s about $600. I’m almost willing to make that purchase because I know I’ll make it last for years. And I’m not willing to go with a cheaper phone with less features.

Merry Christmas to me… :o)

*myphonenumber*@messaging.sprintpcs.com

Obviously, I’m not going to announce my phone number on here but if you know it, send me a message! If you want it, e-mail me and I’ll give it to you.

If you know of other people who might want to e-mail others via the Internet, here’s what you need to know.

T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
Cingular: phonenumber@cingularme.com
Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com

phonenumber = 10 digit number

Send me some love!