My phone is stuck on SOS

I have an IPhone 13 Pro, purchased through ATT. My extended family & I have been ATT wireless customers for close to 7 years now. With part of my family also being home phone, internet & TV service too. To be clear here my spouse has Verizon through work and NEVER has a problem. 

Well not for long, planning on making the switch for 6 lines, after the holiday weekend to TMobile, unfortunately not Verizon as they can compete with TMobile military discounts and whatnot. 

Yesterday was the last straw, my phone was stuck on SOS all day again this month. I lost out on several $100’s on my Airbnb rental because I was not able to see the request & respond to a potential guest due to my phone being SOS. I also had to ask to use a strangers phone because I had my 9 year old sons friend staying with us and I was supposed to check in with his parents yesterday afternoon.  Not to mention I couldn’t get gas nor pay for groceries (again both apps). Yes I completely understand that there are other forms of payment, which I had to use. But it cost me more $ for these items because I couldn’t use my memberships that’s are connected to my apps. 

Over the last 2 years issues with this service have been increasing. and until yesterday I have been blaming my phone, my home internet, “dead zones” ect.. for missed phone calls from my spouse and a few friends who also call me often. I get texts from all saying “why are you not answering your phone??”  I’m always like, what my phone is on! My ringer is on, it seems like I have a decent signal, what the heck what am I doing wrong here!?  It’s like I’m being gaslighted by ATT.  Then there are times when text messages that I write that are not sending either at all or right away, which do not even show the red icon with “undelivered” so half the time I am not even aware of the issue right away. Or when I’m in a call and I seem to be the one always dropping the call or it shows “call failed” on my screen. Or on a call in my home with high speed internet connection and the person on the other end saying they can’t hear me well that I’m cutting in & out.  Again I make excuses for ATT all the time saying, sorry it must be me, my WiFi/iphone/blah blah. 

So what is the point of paying for this service each month for years if it is consistently having issues? 

I even went to the ATT store yesterday only to be told..again there is nothing that they can do. Except to upgrade my plan. The ATT employee looked my account up, as I couldn’t because I was still stuck on SOS.  He(ATT employee) stated that because I was on the “Unlimited Starter SL Plan” that was most likely the reason for all my issues.  I was baffled by this. We have been on this plan for almost 7 years, and NOW it’s becoming an issue for service!!!?? He further explained that because that plan places us on a 3rd tier of priority that when never there is congestion, outages, weather ect that us lucky Started SL plan folks are basically screwed do not have services and oh well we still have to paid the bill each month.

So he advised me to upgrade to the Premium PL Plan for an extra $11.25 per month/ per line on our account on top of our monthly service/installment pmt/phone ins./ ect.  By the way this amount is based on us for our military discount. This would obviously be more for another customers. Which I believe is $55.99 per month normally.  Oh and best part guys!!! There is a middle (2nd) tier here. Yup!! They even offer and who the (Edited per community guidelines) knows if this will work plan called “Unlimited Extra EL Plan”  which is normally $45.99 per month (for us it would be $3.99). I feel like I’m paying for each additional ingredient in a salad besides the mediocre mixed greens they are so happy to provide for a premium cost. 

On that note, let’s just mention the extra $5.00 per month that I was suckered into while going into the ATT store because I was having issues a little over 2 years ago. The extra $5.00/month is called “Next Up(SM) plan”  it is a cell phone upgrade feature add on. Basically entitles the customer to upgrade their cell phone early at the half way point within in the 36 months of installments. Mind you at this time I was nearly 6 months in with my brand new iPhone 13 Pro. I was basically told that with the iPhone 14’s coming out any day now and that newer technology would work better/faster/ and have better connectivity. So get on this extra $5/month now while I am here with issues with my current “phone” which was really the Service!! But I have to be honest it all made sense at the time. Newer tech is usually better. So I did the math and it made sense to not pay the full $1100 for my iPhone 13 Pro and wait 36 months for an upgrade. Oh and if you having already figured out that Yup the iPhone 14’s came out and so have the 15’s and yup I still have my 13 Pro. Why didn’t I upgrade?? Honestly two reasons, first being a very busy working parent and and secondly forgetting that I had that option. Because whenever I’m thinking that my phone was the issue for which ever problem I was having with my phone I was never in the position to be like “oh let me drop everything and go spend 2 hours in an ATT store for a new phone”. When all I wanted was my service to work. Also let’s not forget how brilliant this is because they would just have me upgrade to a new phone for a new 36 month term of pmts, oh plus the $5.00/month upgrade fee because, it worked out so well in the first place, right? Ha! Of course unless I’m willing to pay $999-1200 plus taxes up front. So you can see it would be a never ending cycle. To point out that if your paying installments on phone with or without the extra $5.00. And you decide you want to leave ATT. Well my friend you would have to pay whatever you owe on that phone upfront. Which is obviously due to the phone should be rightfully paid for you be owed by you to then decide whether to use for trade ins, eBay special, whatever it is you want to do with it. I’m only stating here that you can easily get caught up with the ongoing commitment here with ATT. Because not everyone just has that kind of $ at times to just spend like that.

I must say that this company could and should do better as a whole. Being more transparent, not to À la cart their customers, please give more training to store employees, please streamline their processes over the phone without having your call transferred to “Someone else’s who can better assist you” loop. Maybe just have great service for ALL your customers and not mold your company into looking like all these other guys who have agreements with big name wireless companies to use the same tower signals but with Waaay less priority (like the cable guys, prepaid, and government funded wireless services) as customers who actually pay for services with the big names. Honestly it’s has completely “cheapened” ATT appearance to me personally. And now that my good old iPhone 13 is officially paid for in full. I will patiently await the up to 48 hrs for my phone to be unlocked and released from ATTs claws and this coming Tuesday is looking like Christmas morning to me with TMobile.