antinomian.com

It may go without saying, but most cellular and landline telephone companies have really, really, really bad customer service! Why do we put up with it? Well, mainly because they have something we really need. Numbers. In “these modern times” a phone number can be as important an identifier as, oh… I don’t know, a *name* or something! Switching from one provider to another means giving up your “name” and tracking down all your friends, family and associates to inform them of the change, thereby inconvienencing them and potentially missing important calls. So, seeing as how people are justifiably unwilling to part with their telephonic identity, these guys have the American public by the short and curlies (in a manner of speaking =) and are damn well not going to do anything about their piss-poor customer service and embarrassingly behind-the-times technology. Recently, however, the tide has begun to turn for consumers. Number portability is on the horizon! Starting November 24th, all cell (and landline) providers will be required to allow customers to take their numbers with them when they move to a new provider. Can you say “competition”?! So… it looked like things were getting ready to change for the better, until… in a shocking (ok, not really…) display of fuck-you-itivness, the phone companies got together with their buddies in Congress and started drafting legislation that would allow them to circumvent number portability! If you’d like to join me in telling these guys where to stick it, there is an online petition available, that will automatically generate emails to your elected representitives asking for their continued support of number portability. Will it work? Who knows… If not, maybe we can just go throw eggs at the Capitol building while shouting, “Can you hear me now?!” That might be fun… =)