I think it's only fair that they tell you, upfront in the webpages, that
you are going to be charged for entering the stupid contest.  Read
carefully the next text message that comes in and reply to it with End or
END, whatever it tells you to stop the messages.  Be very careful to reply
with the exact case the message says, too.  Mine stopped as soon as I got
it right with the right case.

I came from Verizon after being on that system since the day it opened as
Cellular One of Charleston.  I was their 6th customer, ported over from the
old "Carphone" IMTS VHF rotary-dial radios.  Everything on the system
worked great until GTE bought it and ruined it with CDMA and they started
lowering the antennas and toyphone power levels to increase revenue-per-
square-mile.  AMPS was a great service, considering we only had 3W
bagphones on 800 Mhz...which was quite a reduction in service, especially
out-of-town, from IMTS Carphones with big power car transmitters.  But,
from the original two cellular towers at 500' Cellular One installed lots
more towers making AMPS a much cheaper alternative.  After GTE bought it,
improvements stopped for a long time...er, ah, except office and sales
floor improvements.  The network department got nothing.  Then the lies
started....God, I hate being lied to!

Alltel has tried to BS me, too, their local office reps reading the company
line.  They're not very good at it, not professionally-trained liars like
VZW's reps are...(c;  I don't play contract games just to get a cheap
toyphone.  Screw me and I'm shopping for yet another carrier.  I had a
fiasco over $5 I doggedly fought when I first came aboard.  They ported my
VZW V60i over to Alltel BEFORE they told the damned billing computers I had
700 minutes/month on the SC/NC plan.  So, the computer was charging me full
roaming charges for the first day's calls, including my setting up my
voicemail.  NOT!..(c;  It took FIVE MONTHS to get that charge off the
bill...fighting tooth and nail all the way.  I'm expecting to waste a pile
of their TSR's time for my 70 cents overcharge on this stupid contest.  I'm
a patient fighter with corporations...(c;

Now they refuse to put the new LG brand fully-GPS-enabled Verizon phone a
friend who went to Nextel just gave me, on Alltel.  Alltel will no longer
let you put another company's phone on their system....EVEN IF THEY SELL
THAT PHONE!  You gotta buy a new one from Alltel so they can try to boost
you with the damned contracts to prevent churning.

Damned FCC in their pockets doesn't give a damn about the consumers....
Alltel has dropped free roaming to Sprint PCS and Verizon in all parts of
SC except up in the mountains around Greenville.  They roam to both free up
there where their coverage is spotty, I'm told.  I don't come to NC very
often, so didn't pay much attention to what the PRL analysis said up there.

I'm MUCH happier with Alltel, even with its faults, than Verizon's
fractured coverage in Coastal SC.  VZW bought some rinkydink PCS carrier in
Myrtle Beach as the A cellular band has always been licensed to a small
carrier up there and he refuses to sell it to them.  This includes
Georgetown down to the Charleston County line inland to past Andrews.  
South of Charleston, Verizon finally did buy the rinkydink 800 Mhz 'A'
carrier to South of Savannah.  Alltel bought the whole coastline 'B' system
from 360 Communications in their merger so the coverage is much more
mature, one-system and much better planned and implemented.  Alltel
switches to its Columbia 'A' 800 Mhz system almost exactly as you cross I-
95 going west on I-26 towards Columbia.  They bought Bell Atlantic's A
system upstate above I-95.  The switch when you are on the air is seamless,
unlike Verizon's which always dropped the call because its Charleston old
Motorola switchgear doesn't interface with Columbia's newer system well.  
The Verizon operators on 611 had no control of Charleston's Motorola switch
from the Columbia office.  You used to have to call 888-483-5445 in
Columbia after 10PM to get a live operator on Verizon because their 611
service ended at 10PM to 6AM, here...another really sore point I used to
hound Todd Schumacher, the Verizon network boss up in Greenville, about.  I
still have all the Verizon secret switch numbers I used to call when I
found a dead cell or screwed up transmitter.  Their network center is in
Charlotte.

I find Alltel much more responsive to 611 calls.  So far, I haven't needed
to farm out the secret network numbers...so far...(c;

Ok, the joke's over.  What have they done with my Bell$outh IMTS?

Won't work in Charleston.  Turn off Text messaging and you get no voicemail
notification.  You're on the old Bell Atlantic system, I think.  Charleston
is on the old 360 Communications system Alltel bought up....probably a
whole different switch manufacturer....

Thanks for the ammo on my next call to Alltel 611....(c;

There's no place for county sales tax, here, either.  I think we're paying
for their county BUSINESS license....over and over and over?

Hope WalMart doesn't discover it can add on all its business expenses to
the price of a toaster like this!