Early Termination Fee worth it?

[jtedford]

I live in an area with decent Verizon reception, however, my place of business has very poor Verizon reception indoors. The institution does, however, have a contract with AT&T, has AT&T wireless repeaters throughout the buildings, and AT&T offers employees at my institution 18% off their bill as a perk of working at the institution I work at (due to the contract the institution has with AT&T). Is it worth paying the ETF's on a 2nd line (my line is up in 4 weeks) to switch and get the discount and better reception? I'm thinking it is, but am wondering if I'm missing something. Currently my wife and I both have smartphones with 2 GB of shared data which is plenty for us at this point. I currently pay $145 (ish) per month after taxes and fees. I think a similar AT&T plan would be about $120 plus fees/taxes so about the same price, but I'd get the 18% discount which would bring my monthly fee to about $117 and I'd actually get reception in my office and classrooms. What am I missing? Should I call Verizon and try to negotiate or should I just make the jump to AT&T? Thanks!

[B33]

Well it Depends on how at&t is for service in other parts of the city and your home if the service is Quite better you may do your self a favor in switching.. my cousin take for instance he was a at&t customer for years he wanted this certain phone but at&t did not have it verizon did he switch but realized what he had was better so he returned the phone dropped the contract and went back to at&t and when he done this verizon had great service in his area but there were other parts of it he didn't like compared to what he had.. he said one of it was customer service.!

So I'd say just think about maybe over the weekend see if you can borrow one of your friends at&t phones to do some test calls,  send some messages, ask the owner if you can use the internet on the phone and if you see a remarkable difference then it a no brain-er go with what make you feel good inside   Hope this Helps..

[vzw_customer_support · Accepted solution]

We certainly don't want to see you leave, jtedford. Installing repeaters inside a building is a great solution to help with indoor coverage barriers, but those repeaters from another company may also be hindering your ability to get our great service you're use to in other places. If your company would be interested in discussing our business Network Extenders http://vz.to/1uK9bmm or other options, please have them give us a call at 800-922-0204. That way you can enjoy the same service you have at home. We also have single line plans http://vz.to/1sYlQVE that can reduce the bill for your lines without the need for additional discounts.

 

JenniferH_VZW

Follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/vzwsupport

[jtedford]

Thanks for the reply, Jennifer from Verizon. Unfortunately, I have no sway over my company's phone service. We have over 300 employees and 2500 students on campus and are strictly an AT&T campus to my knowledge. I am not permitted to install network extenders in my building and your suggestion that I should change my plan is really beside the point. As much as I would like a lower bill, I really am interested in service that works in the building. Some people have said that newer phones get better reception, but some of my colleagues have the latest iPhone and Galaxy S5 and their reception is minimally better than mine. I may call Verizon just to talk about my options, but am more and more convinced that I will have to switch to AT&T so I can actually use the phone that I pay a significant amount of money for my wife and myself to own. If you have other suggestions, I'm open to them including a discounted phone price on new phones or plans without switching to Edge (not interested in that) but those new phones would have to get better reception than my droid razr m.

Best,

Jeffyt20