Systemic Intertia — Mobile Phone Carrier Edition

I recently tried to switch mobile phone carriers. The goal — save money on the plan and get new phones for free. 

Spoiler alert: I really tried, but I didn’t end up switching. 

The system is set up to keep you where you are. If you’ve tried this, then you know the struggle. If you want the TL;DR, just jump to the conclusions section. 

First, will I save money on the plan? 

I made a spreadsheet that compared my plan and carrier to the other two (use ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, etc to help you with this). FYI: all three toss streaming TV services into the mix, so they go into the spreadsheet also. Regardless of advertisements, when you compare plans with similar features, including streaming services, all three are about the same. OK, $10 here or there depending on some specifics, but if you already have “the right” plan for you (ie, the features are what you actually use and need), then the one you want on the other carrier is within about $10 per month. 

For me, AT&T is about $324, Verizon is $312, and T-Mobile is $315 with 4 lines, the features we need, and the streamers we watch. 

Second, can I really get new phones with zero money and no strings?

Sort of. All three advertise free phones when you switch. However, there are always strings, but maybe those strings don’t matter to you. The big string is that you must commit to a specific plan for a specified period — typically three years. They tie that commitment to the length of the financing on the phone. Wait, they say it’s free?! In reality, you are buying the phone through a finance program (with proper credit checks), and they reimburse you for the monthly payment. You might also have to trade in your current phone, which may not cover the cost of the new phone, in which case, you don’t get it for free, regardless. 

Third, what is the process?

Start with the carrier to whom you want to switch, not with your current carrier. But what about those famous retention incentives? Shouldn’t I start with my current carrier to see if they’ll sweeten the pot, like my friend told me about? Short answer — no. They won’t give you something that compares to the switchover deal (and you’ll understand why by the end of this). You might get a little sweetener, but that’s it. 

You can go through the new carrier’s website, click the buttons, answer the questions, and, in theory, the new phones will show up at your door. When they show up, you just turn them on, and whamo, your new service is up and running. Again, sort of. This could work, but many people have had lots of problems with this. I started down this road, but I could never trust it to complete it this way. 

So the “better” approach is to call. But you already know where this is going. Calling any of these companies is an absolute nightmare. It’s the ultimate test of the human spirit. Even calling the new carrier, who wants to make it stupid-easy and frictionless for you to switch, somehow makes you want to jump out of a window. It’s torture. I did this also, and it just plain sucked. 

The best approach is to walk into one of the carrier’s stores. Let’s assume you’ll get a good customer service person (not always true). If so, you should be able to walk out of the store with new phones and everything switched over. But again, clear your afternoon. It’s gonna take a long time.

One observation about these carriers’ stores: the Apple Store seems to have downgraded the customer experience at many of these places. All of the carrier’s stores have an Apple Store-like vibe that makes it difficult to know what to do or find someone to help you. I stood in one of them for 15 minutes with zero people asking if they could help me, nor could I even discern the workers from the customers. No uniforms. No location cues. Nada. If I know who I’m supposed to talk to, I’m happy to be the aggressor, but I just couldn’t discern who that was.

Fourth, coverage.

If you live in an urban or suburban area, it probably doesn’t matter, and you won’t have to worry about it. Not true for rural areas. I live in a semi-rural area of eastern PA. So let’s name names here. Regardless of what Billy Bob says about T-Mobile’s coverage, they don’t cover my area well at all, including my house. 

To be fair, AT&T and Verizon’s coverage isn’t perfect either. I have plenty of dead spots on my normal running and cycling routes, and even at one of our regular Thursday night restaurants. But they are better than T-Mobile around here. 

It’s hard to test the coverage of a new carrier unless you have a friend who has that service. However, there are a few resources available. One is the Signal Finder app. That app will tell you the signal strength of the various carriers’ towers at your location. You have to infer whether that signal strength is good enough, but it at least gives you a relative understanding. Another is online forums, such as Reddit and your local community’s Facebook page (if it exists). Use your preferred LLM to do this search for you. If you have an unlocked phone, you might be able to use a temporary eSim to test it yourself. Be forewarned, it’s an arduous process and you will have to sign up for something from the carrier that you want to test.

So coverage made T-Mobile a non-starter. 

The bottom line is I ended up exactly where I was. No change. 

Conclusions:

1. Apples-to-apples plans across all 3 carriers are generally priced about the same. You can make one carrier less expensive than the others if you can fit into a lesser plan or meet some specific feature set that you can take advantage of. But…
2. If you overpay for your current plan, switching plans with your current carrier is just as economically rewarding as changing carriers. And much easier. 
3. You don’t switch by starting with your current carrier. Or at least, not without extra work or potentially surrendering your phone number and going without service for some period of time. 
4. Because of this, and how much more valuable new customers are over current customers, your current carrier has almost zero desire to give you a retention incentive. Since you start with the new carrier, your current carrier doesn’t even know you are canceling their service until you’re down the switching service road. Therefore, they know that most people who call to cancel their service are just trying to get that retention bonus.
5. If you want to switch, walk into the new carrier’s store and talk to a person. 
6. The main benefit of switching carriers is that you can get new phones for free or almost free. New phones for free can be true, but there are strings. Only you can decide whether they’re worth it. 
7. The process is set up to keep you with your current carrier. That’s why new customers are so important and valuable. It’s hard to switch. It takes grit, determination, and time. During the process, you will feel like something will go wrong.  
8. Does coverage matter to you? 

Systemic inertia is real. Systems are everywhere. Our culture and world are governed by them. It’s up to us to change them if we want to.