I signed up for my first plan with AT&T Wireless in the spring of 1999. Service was excellent up until July 2003. I now regret singing their praises for the past four years.

In July 2003, my service that had always been wonderful turned to horrible. There were hardly any signals available in Wellington - and when you got a good signal, you could be assured that it would die halfway into your call. I called to question what was going on with my service.

I was told that AT&T was now only concerned with "Next Generation Wireless" which they didn't support in my area. I was told by the operator that due to this concentration AT&T had let their contracts with roaming providers lapse. It was explained that AT&T never had any towers near Wellington and that I had always been served by a tower from another carrier. The problem was that AT&T let the contract with that other carrier lapse, so now the only signal I could get was an AT&T signal - from a tower about 20 miles away - far out of normal range.

I said to the operator, "So, what you are saying is that AT&T has left us high and dry?"

The operator's response was, "Unfortunately, yes sir."

So, I said to the operator, "I guess AT&T doesn't care about or want my business anymore then."

His response was, "In that area, no sir."

My next step was to start looking at wireless providers. I immediately ruled out Sprint due to horror stories from friends. T-Mobile and Northcoast PCS were also ruled out because they don't serve Wellington either. My parents have had problems with Alltel in the past, so they were not an option. I looked closely at Verizon and Cingular - both of which have towers right in Wellington, assuring me of good service. After careful consideration, I chose Cingular because of their wide calling areas and rollover minutes. I have had only one minor issue - the automatic payment that is supposed to be charged to my debit card did not work. Other than this, service has been wonderful.

Now the problem is that everyone has my AT&T phone number. Over the past four years I have given it to many friends, co-workers, family members, and business-related contacts. This makes it very difficult to drop that number. Instead, I just have it set to forward all calls to my Vonage account. The problem remains that I am still paying AT&T about $50 a month for next to no service.

I just got off the phone with the nice people at AT&T again. I first spoke with Jeremy, a very nice associate did his best to help me. He was able to take off the phone insurance that I was paying $4 a month for. But he couldn't change my calling plan to a smaller one because I live in an area that they no longer serve.

I asked to speak with Jeremy's supervisor because if nothing else, I would at least feel better complaining to someone even slightly higher on the food chain than the operator. When the supervisor came on, I explained that all I wanted was to drop down to a smaller calling plan and call it a day. I explained that I don't care about their service anymore, I just want to forward the number to another phone number and told her that I thought paying $50 a month for that was nuts. She told me that there was no way to help me. The system would simply not allow anyone to change my calling plan because they no longer serve my zip code.

So the situation is this, I still have to pay the $50 a month for my service to keep my number. But they don't really serve my area, so they won't let me change calling plans to lower my monthly bill. After four years of my business and having people referred to their services because of me, they will now face me trying to drive business away from them for the rest of my life. My plan will be cancelled in the next few months (after notifying enough people about the change in numbers). Cassie's plan runs out next month and won't be renewed. And I sincerely hope that you will think about my story the next time you see an AT&T Wireless ad or consider using their services. Their attitude about long-term customers speaks for itself, they simply don't care about any of their customers. AT&T Wireless is NOT the wireless company that is right for you!