Verizon Cell Phone Management

Well, they finally stuck it to me. Now on top of my other regular duties, I now manage the 50(?) or so company wireless devices, PDAs, Wireless Cards and Cell phones. Technically, I don't mind managing and maintaining PDAs and Wireless cards since they actually use PCs to operate--however I am not to fond of managing Cell phones. "Oh stop whining!" Some of you may say that, however have you ever managed 50 cell phones? In reality it really *is* a pain in the butt! The actual hardware itself is the easy part! The hard part of managing these cells is keeping track of ESN numbers, warranties, technical support calls with Verizon, voicemail passwords, resets, updates and programming.

Also, if your cell or PDA comes with a "data package" it makes things that much more difficult! When we recieved our XV6700 Pocket PCs they all came with an unlimited Data Package (Internet Access.) We figured out later that not all of them needed it since they dont need to get online, only me and another guy. So we removed it from the others--and later after removing it we find that in order for them to recieve pictures or videos, THEY NEED INTERNET ACCESS. WTF?! Talk about scam.

"uh....it should work."

We also have a Treo 650 that is able to recieve pictures and video fine over standard phone service JUST like a cell phone. I called Verizon to get some answers, "why do I need internet access on my Pocket PC and not on the Treo to get pictures?" All they could say was, "uh....it should work." So I said, "yeah I KNOW it should work! :..." So then they said, "well..uh....the Pocket PC is different from the Treo." And I said, "YES I KNOW THEY ARE DIFFERENT!" So they replied, "well so I *guess* the Pocket PC needs to access the internet to download pix." I said, "Gay."

So anyway, I get moved to their "Level2 Support." I figured their English would have at least gotten better :-O. Anyway, after "walking" me through a series of steps to "diagnos" to see what the problem was (after I had already told him what the problem was) he "determines" the Phone is not operating--rather, "functioning properly." Gee--you think?

So he has me delete all settings pertaining to internet connections on the PDA. He guides me to re-create one. Ok, I hit connect. And I get a call on the phone, and Im like "wtf?" So I said, hold on, someone is calling me, let me hit ignore. So I do. Then the connection fails. So I think to myself, "self, well I guess the call interrupted the connection, lets try again."

I hit connect again, a fwe seconds into the connection I get another call. This happens like 5 times in a row and I am pulling my hair out because people "are calling me while I am trying to connect!"

After spending about 2 hrs with support I finally say, "forget it, I will call you another time, just give me a CASE #." After I got off the phone I played with it for a while, and I figured out that for SOME REASON the "new" "re-created" internet connection was calling my phone. :-\....yeah...I dont know, thats a new one on me. Its been about 3 weeks since I talked to support, I dread calling them again--I will keep you updated on this issue....yeah so we can get charged PER KILOBYTE for PIX downloads.

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