They're taking a chance on the fact that no one remembers the 70s-80s ads: "Five o'clock, five o'clock, just can't wait til 5 o'clock, 'cause out of state or out of town, five is when the rates go down!"

This info is buried very deeply. It took me like 20 clicks to find it on the ATT site.

Yeah it's dirty pool. It gets tiresome, life is now an endless cycle of either fighting various cartels or being crushed by them. I just went through my customer agreement and found it in some hidden small print. I feel like an ass now, but my dreams of human sacrifice live on.

They can be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, if you like.

The wall is getting pretty full. We really need to keep track of who goes first. Once the revolution comes, we'll have to create our own bureaucracy for putting folks against the wall. At which point, I imagine the cycle starts again. New coup, new wall, new rules, new coup, new wall, new rules, etc.

I'm thinking more along Aztec lines. Pyramid altar, ceremonial dagger, big stone bowl full of hearts, steps awash in the blood of corporations.

welcome to why I'm happy with AT&T. I was a pissed-off Verizon customer for years. They all suck equally, IMO. At least my bills are comprehensible with AT&T and don't contain a shitload of tacked-on inexplicable "fees".

The unlimited rollover is nice too. I started out on a plan with 450 "anytime" minutes, and unlimited data. Since I use email on my iPhone way more than voice, I quickly rolled over to so many minutes, I'll never use them.

ymmv.

I gave up my cell phone.

You heard me.

(When my Cingular phone magically turned into an AT&T phone some time ago, coverage in my usual haunts went from poor to virtually non-existent. After a while, I realized I was almost never using the darned thing, and I gave it up.)

(I remember it being 9pm since HS.)

Surprisingly, my Verizon cell phone has been decent for me. Cingular (right before they became ATT) stole my fucking Motorola POS phone after upgrading me from my brick Nokia (since I wanted a flippy) and so I've been of the mindset of not pissing on them if they were on fire for a while.

Verizon DSL can suck it. Lying motherfuckers. Comcast may be more expensive, but they actually showed up on time and I haven't had any problems with the service whatsoever. *knocks on wood*

life is now an endless cycle of either fighting various cartels or being crushed by them. I had typed up a too long history of my misadventures with phone companies, but it was real boring. Rise up and fight back, Consumers! Raises fist in power salute!

First up against the wall when the revolution comes:

AT&T Execs
Dick Cheney
Aaron Spelling
My Jr. High School guidance counselor
Augusto Pinochet
Billy Joel

I think Sprint might have had 7pm evening hours (who knows nowadays), but the rest have been from 9 since when I got a cellphone (about 5 years ago now).

I suggest being more addicted to the internet.

lfr: I totally agree on the unlimited rollover thing and since I've converted to being a mostly text and face-to-face conversationalist, I never run out of minutes.

OTOH, my bill is about $110 a month, including unlimited data/text messages, but I prefer that to worrying about sending too many text messages or using my web browser too much.

I guess I should have known the timings, but I recently switched services trying to find something that wasn't a gouge -- now I have only voice/text service, since the Blackberry was an albatross for this unemployee -- and I was mostly disappointed to discover how difficult it was to find information on when I can make the calls I pay for every month, which they like to call "free."

I guess five years isn't what I call a long time anymore.

I probably should pay more attention to my growling stomach, though; when I start dreaming of a blood feast, it may just mean I'm hungry.

I'm the same as lonefrontranger. I've got an iphone with a 450 minute plan, and I have so many rollover minutes, they're constantly expiring as they are almost never touched.

I almost had to laugh when I dropped my Verizon plan when I got the iphone. I had a 450 minute plan with Verizon as well, and I don't think I ever used more than 150-200 in a month, so I never went over. When I quit the plan, some retention specialist called me and tried to coax me back to Verizon by offering me (I think) 1000 free anytime minutes. I literally laughed at him, and asked him if he'd actually looked at my account before calling. If he had, he'd have known I had no use for more minutes.

Of course, at this point I was talking to him over my iphone, which I had signed a contract for two years for, and the idea of going back was at this point pretty much moot.