[rfearns]

I worked for AT&T for a short time after the breakup. Trust me, that feeble old lady's best days were long behind her.

Ed Whitacre was the CEO of SBC and he bought the broken down remains of the old AT&T and merged them into SBC. By the time Whitacre got his hands on the original AT&T, all that was left of value was the name of the company.

This was more the case of the baby nursing the mother than the mother nursing the baby.

Given you were there and I wasn't, I'll take your word that the breakup did in deed occur. Having spent years in the telecommunications field before the bottom fell out, I have developed a huge mistrust in the truthfulness of big companies. That has grown to include government agencies in the past 10 years. At this point in time, I don't think there is truely any organization that has the best interests of citizens and their quality of life as their reason for being. Before this thread is hijacked and turned into a political discussion, I will get off my soapbox.

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[aredman]

I'm going to the cell phone store tomorrow afternoon to take a very close look at the Pearl and the 8800. Research time for me.

After all the consolidations and buyouts, your overall choices are pretty limited in general:

GSM: T-Mobile and AT&T/Cingulbar

CDMA: Verizon and Sprint and Alltel (probably soon to be gobbled up by Verizon)

iDen: Nextel

That's it. 5 1/2 choices (Sprint and Nextel being one company with 2 different networks).

IMHO, the FCC should have never allowed AT&T and Cingulbar to merge. The more mega mergers there are, the less choices there are for consumers. The FCC is suppose to protect the citizenry. HAHA, allowing mega mergers is good for big business. The benefits to the citizenry are far less apparent.

Well you might as well consider it only four posibilities. 2 for cdma and 2 for gsm. Iden is dead or will be at the end of the year and sprint is SLOWLY! trying to convert the nextel phones over with BAD, again I repeat BAD phones. The worst phone experience I have had since 1992.

Anyway, what did you think about the pearl and 8800? I am thinking about jumping ship for a year until Sprint gets it's act together and I am looking at a Pearl.

[theme_guy]

It's annoying to hear people complain about a company because of a bad experience. Most of the time because they just dont understand. No matter what company you goto you will need to get a data plan for your blackberry. you cant compare a data device to a cell phone.

I have worked for two of the leading providers in Canada doing Data support and trust me when I say this 85 percent of the population are lost. They should not own a cell phone much less a Data device. They ridicule the company because of their lack of knowledge and lack of patienece to learn how to use the device.

People ge a grip and stop crying about providers that are ripping you off. Each company is out there to make money from you now come on.

[ttannenbaum]

Hey there. I love my pearl. Previously I had the 8700 and didn't think I would get used to the keypad on the pearl. But its really easy once you get used to it. The only problem I am having now is downloading themes. They seem to download ok, but when I try to activate them I get an error message. It makes me so mad I want to scream. The sad part is I work for a wireless carrier. Nobody has been able to offer any suggestions.