Locked and Unloaded

Two weeks ago I was a T-Mobile user. I had been a T-Mobile user since 2003, and I’ve been reasonably happy. Fairly decent coverage, international service, etc. Over the years I’d had Cellular One, Sprint, and T-Mobile; and all things considered I was happier with T-Mobile thatnI had been with previous carriers.

Two weeks ago I bought an iPhone. I transferred my number from T-Mobile, and off went my old phone. I rather like my iPhone. Every the thing the iPhone does it does well, even though I feel it lacks some rather basic features. (Hint: If you are going to send me an SMS to tell me that there was an undeliverable MMS could you at least link the message into Safari so I can easily retrieve the damn picture? Of the five SMS messages that told me how to retrieve a MMS from a web page, none of them have worked!)

Today, I landed in Roatan Honduras. This place is incredible. I’m already thinking of buying a condo here. But… My fracking iPhone, locked to AT&T, doesn’t work. All my friends, who have T-Mobile, have working phones.

So, there is another thing the iPhone does NOT do well: International travel.

Frak. (Updated. Thank you Luis.)

Update: Turns out it was partially my fault, partially AT&T stupidity. I needed to call AT&T and turn on international service before I left for my vacation. The part that seems stupid to me is that AT&T doesn’t have it set it up so that customers that are not subscribed to international service could at least dial 611 and turn it on.

You are warned: Be sure to turn on international service before you flee from the coming police state.

-Chris

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