Changed Cell Phone Service

Today we drove into Ellsworth to the Verizon dealer and switched our cell phone service from AT&T to Verizon and got new cell phones. We also bought a broadband modem for our laptop. We had to wait until our AT&T contract ended on June 10 - it would have cost us $175 to cancel our contract early (they don't pro-rate the cancellation fee). When we were traveling out west last year we spent several weeks without cell phone service. We would see other people using their cell phones when we couldn't use ours & most people had Verizon service.

Verizon was giving rebates on the phones we got ($50 each phone) and a $50 rebate for the broadband modem. The rebates will help lower the cost of having to get new phones. The staff there transferred our contacts from the old phones to the new ones and set up our voice mail for us. We also added a Canadian calling plan to our Nationwide plan because we'll be entering Canada on Saturday.

We also added OnStar as a third phone - we have OnStar on the Vue & OnStar uses Verizon (which is another reason we switched to Verizon). We had let our OnStar subscription expire because the cost of their minutes was so expensive and we called today to restart our service with them.

We were told to not use the broadband modem while we're in Canada because we would be charged roaming fees and that it would expensive. So we only have today and tomorrow to use it.

We stopped by the computer shop and picked up our laptop. There was a setting that was interfering with our getting on the internet and they fixed it. We tried it out before we left the shop and it works fine. They didn't charge us for fixing it (which is good, since that wasn't the reason we took it in there to be repaired).

It was really nice to get back to the campground and have cell phone service!!! And, the broadband service is great - it is an extra monthly expense ($60), but we've sometimes had to drive 40 miles to find some place that has wifi & if it's a coffee shop/restaurant we always buy something. The savings of not having to drive somewhere to wifi may not offset all of the $60 monthly fee, but the convenience is worth it.