A friend of mine has a saying:
“Some companies are so big they stay in business despite themselves.”

My wife and I have the original iPhone and we are thinking about upgrading. I don’t really care anymore if we get another iPhone and won’t get into the details. But what I really like is that if you had an original unlimited data plan and get an iPhone 4, you can keep the unlimited data plan, no tiers. That is important to me long term.

So before I began studying this afternoon I went to the AT&T store to inquire about a microcell. These little guys are basically a cell phone to VOIP router and are advertised as a mini cell phone tower for your home.

Stated another way, AT&T has such poor coverage in our area that we are willing to pay for what is essentially a small cell phone tower for our home in order to use our cell phones at home without having to walk to the second floor. That’s fine, I don’t mind providing back haul service for my own phone calls or a few of my neighbors, but AT&T wants to charge me for the service.

$20. Every. Single. Month.

You read that right. AT&T offers such poor service in my area that I was willing to pay for a microcell for my home, but they want to charge me $20/month or every minute you talk on your cell phone using the microcell is charged to your account, no nights and weekends, no free minutes within AT&T nothing is free.

Looks like we’re moving to Verizon. The iPhone is no longer that much better than the competition to compensate for the poor coverage AT&T provides.