Too much data? "Smart phones and me" or "Why I hate Alltel"

It was little more than a year ago that I switched to a smartphone. The family did it.
Dad and I have always one-upped each other when it comes to electronics. Sometimes I get the next thing first, but he usually is able to outdo me with his larger stock of funds.
Even so, when Dad got an iPhone and half the cousins had them when I went for a Florida visit, I had to jump on that bandwagon, too.
In Wyoming, the only two providers worth mentioning are Alltel and Verizon. At the time, Verizon hadn’t made that big purchase yet. How were we to know that going with Alltel was a bad plan? It was cheaper! I got myself a Blackberry Pearl. Suddenly, I had email and Facebook at the touch of a finger. Google products as far as the eye could see. Need a phone number? Don’t call 411. I’ll just look it up.
Then Verizon bought Alltel, but that didn’t take everywhere. It would have been a monopoly in Wyoming, so that big, empty state remained one of the few markets that Alltel stayed active in. Later, AT&T would go on to purchase part of Alltel there but not all of it. That was a part of the state we didn’t live in.
Then the move to Chicago! Exciting! Not for our mobile use, however, because Alltel doesn’t exist here. Nowhere to get customer service locally, and when I’d call their service line I’d get dropped 100% of the time. Good on you guys, Alltel!
Megan finally called them from work, but they wouldn’t allow us to cancel for free. 200-bucks per line. Instead, they sent us signal strengtheners for our car. Not sure why…it’s buildings that our phones don’t work in.
Not cars.
Fury. Screaming. Rage.
So we canceled part of our plan and jumped onto Pam’s (the mother-in-law’s) plan. Not many minutes but free incomming calls. That’s nice. I ended up sticking with a data plan because it’s really difficult to give it up once you’re used to it even despite being forced into Blackberry again.
Can you believe U.S. Cellular has no Android phones? They did have an HTC HD2, but that runs Windows Mobile and won’t get an upgrade once Windows Phone 7 rolls out. No use jumping on a sinking ship, though I’m not sure Blackberry is much better.
Anyhow, the new Curve is nice.
When I first got a Blackberry, I wondered if it was a bad thing. Suddenly, I was connected in so many ways all the time. Now, I’m starting to think that again. I’m connected in even more ways now cause I jumped on Twitter, AND I wasn’t able to give up data when it came up.
Megan gave it up. She went from a Pearl Flip down to a Razr. She always liked that Razr. I’ll never get it, but it serves her purposes. Maybe she just never connected as much because she didn’t know how.
Well, I do, and it may be too much.
But I can’t stop. I need the next new thing right away.
Hey! It’s like with Dad and me. Intriguing.