Big news first! I am no longer beholden to Verizon! 9 years ago I switched to Verizon because I wanted off AT&T because, well they sucked, but more importantly it's what I had with X2. I wanted to distance myself from anything she had. I was so happy then because it was new and exciting and not AT&T. Then Verizon became even more evil than them. At the end of the day I have come to terms with the fact that all telecom companies are evil entities and that's just that. But it feels like Verizon is truly evil. How many of you saw that they recently throttled the data speeds of firefighters to 1/200th of their expected speed? This is a fact, not urban legend. Verizon has admitted it. They say it was the case of a bad employee (aka a non-US call center employee) not understanding the situation. I, and the 22 attorney generals filing a lawsuit against them, say it's pure evil. In the middle of a fucking fire they demanded they upgrade to get their data back. Fuck. You. This is the result of net neutrality repeal. Welcome to your world. But you know, her emails. Oh and while we're on that topic, apparently South African farmers are being destroyed by evil black folks. Oh yes, that's his latest conspiracy. Even though that came from a white supremacist group originally. Yeah so great when the leader of the country is an old racist white guy. Good fucking job. But aren't we Great Again?! Woo look at how great.
Sorry, I digress.
Back to the main evil of this story, Verizon. Do you know how much we paid for our Australia trip? Our phone service cost us nearly $400 for the 'privilege' of having phone service while overseas. Yeah. And I didn't make a single phone call. That's just text and data. Bastards. I have wanted off for a while, but where do you go? Telecom #1, #2, or, oh wait, that's it. Darn.
Not anymore bitches. Let me introduce you to Google's Project Fi. $35 flat rate for 2 users for calls and texts, then you pay $10 per gb of data. With a fucking cap at $100 for 10gb. At 15gb you will see a reduction in speed. Pay for what you use. We average about 2.5gb per month. Our bill should drop down to about $70. On average we will save $50-$60 a month. Service shouldn't be impacted as far as call quality or data network. Why? Because they are essentially piggy-backing off everyone else's towers. No need for their own. Exploit what's there. This also includes international. SAME plan no matter where I am in the world. I could go back to Australia tomorrow (which might happen, no, not tomorrow, but before the end of year), and there'd be no change in cost. No more 'do you have the deluxe super duper international plan?'.
Look, I am not an idiot (I know, debatable), I am now beholden to Google. But I would rather be attached to a tech company than a telecom. Small, stupid distinction, sure, but in my head it's better. One is actually interested in technology, the other in making old white men rich.
The downside? It only supports a limited number of unlocked phones. We are fortunate to have Google Pixel 2 XL phones which are by default unlocked and work perfectly. Took me about 15 minutes to switch over via an e-sim. B's phone proved a little trickier and I needed to call support. Which btw was professional, in the US, and actually knew what they were doing. Had to reset some settings and clear the cache and update her to Pie. Once that was done, bam, phone numbers transferred, service started, done.
Suck it Verizon.
Other than that, paid bills, cleaned house, packed boxes, did a webinar, answered emails, made tacos, ran errands. A full day for sure. Today should be a lot of the same. The heat has broken which is nice. The weather is finally at a point where we're not dying. Windows open and a breeze a flowing.
Two more days until I leave for SoCal and deal with that hellhole.
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