Dreaming of things that never were

The quest for a Qwest cell phone

Man what a stupid catch 22 to get caught in. My cell phone died and I now need to get a new cell phone. My problem is that I want to shift to a different carrier then Qwest. Problem is we have 3 cell phones with Qwest on contract till next May. If I cancel early there is a $200 per phone early disconnecting fee per phone. So I have to hang out till May.

So what is the problem? All I need to do is get a new used phone. Except in the last few years almost all the cell phones have moved to using smart chips or SIMMs. Qwest does not support this technology and are stuck in the old CDMA phones using ESNs only.

So if I want a new phone it is pay FULL price (which is highly inflated to prevent someone in this situation from getting out easy). The crappiest phone is $189.95. Qwest is more then willing to give me one of the $19.95 phones (which is any phone they have just about) but only if I renew for a minimum of 2 years.

If I switch to a new carrier I can get 3 new Razor phones and save $40 per month while picking up a few extra features for our combined cell accounts. So in short that means I do not want to renew with Qwest.

Hence I need a cheap Qwest only cell phone to get me from here to May 2007.

As Qwest does not support smart chip phones they will not activate any phone that is not made specifically for their network. I have already had 5 phones from friends. 4 were smart chip phones and the 5th had an ESN that was connected to an account that was closed with some fees left on it and until the owner of that phone called Qwest and cleared the balance due they would not switch it over. When I asked how much was due (figuring if I could just pay it as the phone itself was free) they wouldn't tell me because I didn't know the name and SSN of the person whose account the phone belonged to.... SIGH

If only Qwest wasn’t so behind the times. Then practically any phone that could be unlocked would do. I’d save the activation fee as they'd give me a duplicate Smart Chip for free. Plug it into the unlocked phone, or your proper provider-locked phone, and presto, problem solved.

posted by Leeland @ 10:32 PM