New Phones

It was finally time.  Everyone on the family needed a new phone, and I finally went ahead and replaced them.  We have been an AT&T family for somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years.  It is probably more like 16 or 17.  I think we switched when I started my job at Krueger Bearings.  We have been with them since before they were AT&T, they were still known as Cingular Wireless.  So that tells you how long it has been.  But at first it was just me and Kris.  Then we added a phone for Sarah when she started middle school, and the same for Ali, though I think we may have gotten her phone when she was in 5th grade.  But they were always add-ons.  It was never a whole sale replacement of phones, mainly because of the timing and cost. 

Since I contacted AT&T to see if we could get a deal on phones since we have been customers for so long, but they couldn't do anything for me.  Amazing that if I were a new customer, I could have gotten four new phones for the price of two, but because I have been a loyal customer for 15 plus years, they said, sorry.  Well I said sorry too and decided to change carriers.  Verizon had a BOGO deal going so I took it.  And we pretty much end up paying the same amount, except for the monthly charge for two of the four phones.  I guess I'll have to start playing "the game" of switching services every few years now to get the newest phones for the best price.

There was a small problem though when I picked them up last night.  The girl at the Verizon store asked if I had ported the old number.  I thought that meant transfer, so I said yes.  And then when I got home Kris informs me that all of a sudden, no one had any service on the old, existing phones.  My plan had been to set them up one at a time, making sure to transfer everything and ensure the new phone was working properly before deactivating the old one.  That plan went out the window and I spent the rest of last night setting up Kris's phone as well as the girls.  And what a mess, because first they wouldn't transfer, then I found out that the sim cards in the phones were mixed up, Sarah had Kris's number, Kris had Ali's, and Ali had Sarah's.  I also found out that the version of iTunes on Kris's desktop was not compatible with the newest iOS.  Which meant before transferring data, I had to set up profiles on my laptop for everyone, sync their phones (which took about 60-90 minutes each) before I could get everything transferred to the new phones.  I spent a total of 9.5 hours doing it so everyone had their phone set up for when they woke up in the morning.  The only one who didn't have a phone was me.  Luckily it still worked over the wifi, so I could text if I needed to, plus I actually just got a new phone for work, so I could use that one until I got my phone set up.  So now we should be good for the next 2-3 years.