About 11:30 this morning, I arrived at Alltel to discuss our
ongoing data disconnect problem with my Moto E815.  Last night
300 yards from the tower at Hardees staring through the window at
it with -65 dbm of phone signal, I got dumped 6 times in 30
minutes while eating a hamburger.  Getting home and leaving it on
the cell, instead of my wifi, it dumped me twice in an hour as I
connected to webpages to test it.  I'd had enough....(c;

A new employee was unlucky enough to take my case at the local
Alltel company store.  Bluetooth was what you connected headsets
to the phones with, was his limit of knowledge.  DUN meant
nothing to him.

So, he took the E815, my second unit dropping data calls, into
inner sanctum where, I'm convinced, heavily robed individuals
whos names are as secret as the owners of the Federal Reserve
Private Bank Corporation, held some kind of seance over it.  
Someone "back there", as Clara Pell used to put it on Wendy's
commercials, said ALL E815 PHONES HAVE A SOFTWARE ISSUE CAUSING
DATA DISCONNECTS!  That's what the "new guy" said as he came out
of the secret, cypher-lock-protected, sacred chamber.  So, it was
decided by the bishop-in-charge, I needed my brand new E815 #2
replaced by the "Only phone they will replace it with", he
declared in his most authoritative voice....a Motorola V3A Razr.

He took away my DEFECTIVE MOTOROLA PRODUCT (store that
momentarily) and unboxed a new V3a, putting it on my account for
free as the DEFECTIVE MOTOROLA PRODUCT I had purchased on a 2-yr
plan, was "tits up", so to speak.

UNWILLING to "take their word for it", and damned glad I didn't,
I tried pairing the Nokia N800 internet tablet, the reason I was
there in the first place, with the V3a.  It DID pair, it really
did!  BUT THERE WAS NO DUN (Dial Up Networking) and NO EVDO
SYMBOL on its cute little display.  Oops....I went from:

INTERMITTENT INTERNET CONNECTIVITY

TO

NO INTERNET CONNECTIVITY!

I'd need to see the manager, who was out to lunch in inner
sanctum, to do anything more, "Will you wait until she returns?"

YES, I WOULD!

While I waited for Her Majesty's luncheon to complete, I took the
liberty to call from one of the DEMO PHONES (never call from your
own cellphone) to 611.  FIVE different people down a long line
later, I was handed to the "Data Support Department".  (STORE
THAT KEYWORD!  IT'S MAGIC!  It hypnotizes the clones answering
the phones into connecting you DIRECTLY, later on!

The nice man in Data Support was a natural born American, very
knowledgeable and had resources at his disposal to tell me,
"That's crazy!  The V3a ISN'T AN EVDO PHONE!  It's an old 1X and
it will never connect over DUN to your tablet."

Her Immenseness came in the back way through the cave and "my
guy", the new guy, was passing by out of her office when I asked
him if she was back yet.  Unable to ignore me in "swing range",
he took me to his desk and I told him what I had found out that
HE SHOULD KNOW ALREADY.  So, this time, undaunted, I FOLLOWED HIM
to the PORTAL....and was told to "wait here, please", again in
his most authoritative TS voice...not impressive.

Her Emminence had relented and said I could have a Samsung SCH-
R500, a cool little toyphone they're dumping because it's old and
noone wants it any more for $39 (contract price).  They're
willing to let me have one to replace the unusable V3a.  Back to
the desk for another phone swap, install my phone book again, try
to pair it with the Nokia N800......NO GO!

If I pair the phone using the Nokia to call it, the phone reports
DUN, SPP, FTP, OPP to the Nokia's call.  Great!  It has DUN!

But wait, NOT SO FAST!  Go to the PHONE and look at what the
PHONE thinks the N800 profiles are and it says:

OPP (Push) ONLY!   NO DUN, NO FTP, NO SPP
DAMMIT, I NEED DUN so I can connect using the phone!  WTF?!
By this time, I was starting to get "ignored" having been there
for nearly 5 hours.  It was getting close to quitting time!  Is
he still here??!!

So, I took the Samsung home and booted up for more research.  I
called Alltel-1 back, got the Data Support from ONE person, gave
them my magic number so they could pull up my sad story and
account.  "We don't support DUN so there's nothing I can do."
from this new guy.  It must have been his quitting time, too!  I
got Samsung's support on Skype, waited my time and talked to a
Philipino lady who, Eventually after taking down my life's
history, sent me to "Level 2"...AN AMERICAN IN ENGLISH!  HE told
me, "we no longer support DUN connections as it's so hard to get
them to connect from so many different places."  He really said
that!  We tried a couple of things he knew about, but Samsung
couldn't help me connect their CURRENT MODEL with my tablet,
something my E815 did the first time I tried it.  NO FUN, NO JOY!

I called Nokia's N800 support.  "I think that Samsung is BT Ver 1
something.  Your N800 is BT ver 2.0 under OS 2007.  That may be a
problem.  The N800 is FULLY BT2.0 DUN compliant.  You need to get
a newer phone than that old one they gave you."  We tried a few
things and NO JOY trying to talk to this little Samsung I really
liked.

It was 7PM and I hadn't eaten since breakfast.  I also had an old
friend ask me to come hook up his DVD player to the monster LCD
in his living room, so that ended my Alltel Support Day 8 hours
after it started.  Now I have NO SELLPHONE INTERNET CONNECTIVITY!

I'll be at Alltel, first thing in the morning, after my last
1800alltel1 call on Skype.  She said I should try the ROKR I
should have been given in the first place.  It's BT 2.0 and
EVDO's latest revision so it won't crawl along like a snail.

I need a fine English Ale before I BREAK THIS GODDAMNED SAMSUNG
IN HALF.....

Larry