OT: Customer retentions advice for Brit AT&T customer

So I have left my homeland of the fair isles and am now in USA with
AT&T. When I was in UK, I used to use the old "can I have my PAC Code as
I want to go to another network" trick to get a better offer on my
contract and even get the ol' phone thrown in for nowt.

Has anyone had any success with getting a better deal on an AT&T
contract and can share the info/insider tips with a Brit newbie in the
USA?
Thanks very much.

©® wrote:
> So I have left my homeland of the fair isles and am now in USA with
> AT&T. When I was in UK, I used to use the old "can I have my PAC Code as
> I want to go to another network" trick to get a better offer on my
> contract and even get the ol' phone thrown in for nowt.
>
> Has anyone had any success with getting a better deal on an AT&T
> contract and can share the info/insider tips with a Brit newbie in the
> USA?
>
>
>
I don't think there's as much of that in the US - the most I've ever
been able to do, was to get a very slightly lower price, when buying
three phones and changing over to ATT's GSM service from their old CDMA one.
Most/all current ATT plans charge you for both incoming and outgoing
calls and texts.

"S Viemeister" <firstname@lastname.oc.ku> wrote in message
news:6hblgfFkl64cU1@mid.individual.net...
> ©® wrote:
>> So I have left my homeland of the fair isles and am now in USA with AT&T.
>> When I was in UK, I used to use the old "can I have my PAC Code as I want
>> to go to another network" trick to get a better offer on my contract and
>> even get the ol' phone thrown in for nowt.
>>
>> Has anyone had any success with getting a better deal on an AT&T contract
>> and can share the info/insider tips with a Brit newbie in the USA?
>>
> I don't think there's as much of that in the US - the most I've ever been
> able to do, was to get a very slightly lower price, when buying three
> phones and changing over to ATT's GSM service from their old CDMA one.
> Most/all current ATT plans charge you for both incoming and outgoing calls
> and texts.

This is normal in the USA as all mobile numbers look like regular NANP ones.

Funny how the Yanks could come up with their numbering plan over 60 years
ago, and it is still going strong now with only minor tinkering (like
splitting overfull codes), so a number in New York might have been 212 xxx
yyyy in the 1950's and still would be and is likely to manage another decade
or two, whereas in the UK we started years later and have had continual
change as the plan has run out or anomalies corrected

London Oxford Cardiff Dollar (no STD till
later)
01 0092 xxxxx 0222 xxx
0865 xxxxx 2xxx
071/081 0259 742xxx
0865 x1xxxx
0171/0181 01865 01222 01259 742xxx
0207 02920

No doubt this chaos will continue...

R. Mark Clayton wrote:

>
> "S Viemeister" <firstname@lastname.oc.ku> wrote in message
> news:6hblgfFkl64cU1@mid.individual.net...
>> ©® wrote:
>>> So I have left my homeland of the fair isles and am now in USA with
>>> AT&T. When I was in UK, I used to use the old "can I have my PAC Code as
>>> I want to go to another network" trick to get a better offer on my
>>> contract and even get the ol' phone thrown in for nowt.
>>>
>>> Has anyone had any success with getting a better deal on an AT&T
>>> contract and can share the info/insider tips with a Brit newbie in the
>>> USA?
>>>
>> I don't think there's as much of that in the US - the most I've ever been
>> able to do, was to get a very slightly lower price, when buying three
>> phones and changing over to ATT's GSM service from their old CDMA one.
>> Most/all current ATT plans charge you for both incoming and outgoing
>> calls and texts.
>
> This is normal in the USA as all mobile numbers look like regular NANP
> ones.
>
> Funny how the Yanks could come up with their numbering plan over 60 years
> ago, and it is still going strong now with only minor tinkering (like
> splitting overfull codes), so a number in New York might have been 212 xxx
> yyyy in the 1950's and still would be and is likely to manage another
> decade or two, whereas in the UK we started years later and have had
> continual change as the plan has run out or anomalies corrected
>
> London Oxford Cardiff Dollar (no STD till
> later)
> 01 0092 xxxxx 0222 xxx
> 0865 xxxxx 2xxx
> 071/081 0259 742xxx
> 0865 x1xxxx
> 0171/0181 01865 01222 01259 742xxx
> 0207 02920
>
> No doubt this chaos will continue...

And you help contribute to it: the London code is 020, the Cardiff code is
029.

Chris

On 2008-08-24, R. Mark Clayton <nospamclayton@btinternet.com> wrote:
> "S Viemeister" <firstname@lastname.oc.ku> wrote in message
> news:6hblgfFkl64cU1@mid.individual.net...
>> Most/all current ATT plans charge you for both incoming and outgoing calls
>> and texts.
>
> This is normal in the USA as all mobile numbers look like regular NANP ones.

I don't know that this is a consequence of the numbering, and you can
certainly find plans (just not from AT&T) which don't charge for
incoming calls and texts, e.g.

http://www.uscc.com/uscellular/Silve...=f_calltextpix
http://www.sprintpcs.com/common/popu...omingFree.html
http://www.metropcs.com/

It is the case, however, that the policy in the USA has been to shrink
intercarrier call termination charges to as close to zero as possible,
so while US phone companies are free to charge their own customers in
any way the market will bear they don't get to charge other companies'
customers for calls.

Canada also has a low-settlements policy, but some of the NANP countries
in the Caribbean do charge the caller for calls to mobile phones, and they
seem to manage to do this within the numbering plan. The numbering
seems to work okay no matter what the policy.

> Funny how the Yanks could come up with their numbering plan over 60 years
> ago, and it is still going strong now with only minor tinkering (like
> splitting overfull codes), so a number in New York might have been 212 xxx
> yyyy in the 1950's and still would be and is likely to manage another decade
> or two, whereas in the UK we started years later and have had continual

Yes, in fact the current NANPA exhaust date estimate is "beyond 2038".
They (it was actually AT&T in the days when they were a near-monopoly)
engineered this pretty well.

Dennis Ferguson

Well, OP, I am sure you are aware that there are only two GSM carriers
here, and AT&T is the most expensive of both. Folks in howardforums.com
have posted their succes stories with getting very good deals with AT&T.
Check the AT&T forum there. I myself have unlocked 4 phones from them
freely within the last year, and my 17% monthly discount through my
job, that's about it. AT&T will unlock your phone no questions asked if
you have been a customer in good standing for more than 90 days.

Bottom line, just contact them and see what you can get. Just say
tmobile is offfering this and that and see if they will give in.




--
mrcamp

> Bottom line, just contact them and see what you can get. Just say
> tmobile is offfering this and that and see if they will give in.

Thanks!
Yeah...I realised I am stuck with choices as my prerequisite is network
must be GSM as I want the SIM card option.