How Many AT&T Service Reps Does It Take ...

... to upgrade a cell phone?

Five. One to greet us at the door and assign us to another sales rep. One to mess up the accounts and assign L's phone number to my phone, and mine to hers. A third to tell him how to fix it, a fourth to figure out that the second had dropped all the extra services (like unlimited family text messaging and unlimited data pkg for my phone) and to add an incorrect text message service to my phone only. The fifth service rep appears to have set things right, finally, after four hours of in-person and phone conversations and questions.

In the process, I managed to lock my online account, so Rep #5 also graciously re-set my PIN.

So - we're back in communication again. L can again both hear conversations and be heard. Text messages are again flying from phone to phone, both within the family plan and without; I can surf the 'net from my Blackjack again, I have a new PIN, and it looks like things are just peachy ... until the next time we have to upgrade a phone. But I'm NEVER going back to the AT&T store in the K Street Mall again!

DSL Honeymoon

It doesn't take long for the honeymoon to be over. My brand new wireless broadband connection has most inconveniently been dropping out for a while and then reconnecting. But its newest trick is to show that there is a strong signal, but none of the browsers will connect to the Internet. I finally called AT&T tech support tonight and the technician showed me how to select a different channel and power setting. So far, everything's working, and I also changed the name of the network from the default to a word that means "lightning" - only somewhat facetiously, since my DSL connection isn't as fast as the wireless cable signal we'd been "borrowing".