All of you who know me will be aware of the terrible problems I have had with my phone lines since time-out-of-mind.  To make a long story short - AT&T either cannot or will not do what's necessary to repair these lines to any satisfaction, and it's not just for me or my area ... as far as I can tell, very few people in Hot Springs receive land-line service they're happy with.

I have been in the middle of this problem for years and years, and I've been asking questions and keeping my eyes and ears open.  I'd like to personally thank all of the AT&T technicians I spoke to - at least 30 of you have tolerated my flagging you down and quizzing you about all aspects of the system.  Your answers were the only honest ones I ever received from AT&T, and they certainly opened my eyes as to where AT&T's interests and priorities lie. And I also appreciate all the time and effort you spent trying to make my lines usable ... rearranging deck chairs can still be a noble effort even if it is on the Titanic.

But what good will bitching do?  They didn't listen to me when I was paying them $80/month for two shitty phone lines, neither of which would work half the time (and only half-work when they did) - and I seriously doubt they care that I'm going away mad or even that I'm going away at all.  But going away I AM ... at least for two years.

I knew that AT&T could sell me wireless broadband (though I'm sure the first 10 operators would have said I couldn't get it and the next 10 would have told me 10 different things), but I was damned-determined to stay as far away as I could from them if at all possible, so after ANOTHER 20-days of BOTH of my phone lines being worthless except as a perch for birds, I started doing some research - and as of tonight I'm certainly glad I did.

Verizon is ranked #1 by most sites and entities that independently rank such things, with AT&T coming in a close second.  Alltel would be everyone's winner for the simple fact that they do not impose a bandwidth cap on monthly usage!  ALL the others will charge you "overage" charges if you download more than 5-Gigabytes (5 GB) in a month's time, and these charges can get OUTRAGEOUS!  Not surprisingly (to me), AT&T is the worst offender about this, charging $0.49-per-Megabyte of overage.  So imagine this:  You pay $60 for 5 GB of bandwith, but one month you go over by 1 GB (using a total of 6 GB in that month), at 49-cents-per-megabyte, that adds up to an additional $480.00 on your monthly bill!  

That is sheer damn rape - and while I'm seldom if ever in favor of the government getting involved in anything, I predict they soon will if the carriers don't take a hint from the rioting mobs outside their doors and put another cap on the overage charges!

However, that's not a problem with Alltel because they don't have a bandwidth cap - and if there's no cap there's no need for overage charges.  But awww crap, hang on!  Alltel has been bought by Verizon so won't they be doing everything Verizon's way for now on?  Yes, they will ... but not just yet!  Until July 1st 2009 they are still officially Alltel - and still selling Alltel's packages.  Verizon has agreed to honor all of Allltel's customer contracts fully-as-written, and that means they can't change the usage or restrictions on you.

If you sign up for a two year contract with Alltel before July 1st 2009 you will continue to receive UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH USAGE for the full two years of your contract!  Folks, this is the ONLY WAY you can get unlimited bandwidth because no other company offers it!

So I guess that you can guess what I went with...  Yep, now I've got two years to use broadband wireless all I want and download all I want ... and when that time is up I guess I'll see what the lay-of-the-land is then.  Hopefully by spring of 2011 AT&T will have been bought by T-Mobil and turned into one of those environmentally-friendly "all-by-hand" sewage processing plants.

I've got a feeling that I'm not finished with AT&T yet ... but for NOW I am.  So if I'm doing a little bump-and-grind dance with my pants down and waving both middle-fingers in the air, it's directed at AT&T and I plan to do it 24/7 for the next 730 days!  And since I'm wireless, I'm going to be doing it right out on the lawn!

So to the folks at AT&T : I know you're watching and I also know that my illusionary freedom will indeed be short-lived.  You'll roll over all of us in the end because you own the lines and pull the strings (but if you had taken a little better care of the lines...)  But please indulge me and my little dirty-dance of freedom out there on the lawn...  After all these years of non-stop frustration and embarrassment, I deserve it - and you damn well deserve it too, you bitches!

Now if you'll excuse me, there are countless features and faucets of the Internet that I have just never experienced before - like uTube -  because I have simply never had the bandwidth for such things, and now I've only got two years to try and catch up.

Thanks, AT&T - for nothing.