I Went To Dallas & DC And All I Got Was This Stupid Post
Have you heard of ShopSavvy? Yeah, so has pretty much everyone else in the Android universe. So when the developers of ShopSavvy (Big In Japan) walked into a Dallas, Texas T-Mobile store you would think they would be treated like royalty. Afterall, ShopSavvy is prominently place in promotional literature and signage all around T-Mobile stores specifically to help promote Android and the Market:
But alas, they were not treated like royalty… they weren’t even treated like REGULARS. They were treated as T-Mobile outsiders who aren’t allowed to pay any price for the T-Mobile G1… No. Matter. What.
The clerk indicated that we couldn’t buy a G1 unless we were ‘current’ T-Mobile clients. WTF? Why have a national launch on the 22nd, but refuse to sell the phone to customers like me? I complained and gave my card to the manager. Ironically, we are hosting AndroidDevCamp and we won’t have any phones.
The saga continues and is still continuing, with a national rep saying one thing but a regional manager saying another and poor “Tameka” from the mall retail location kind of stuck in the middle. We’re sure this will all get figured out and I’m guessing T-Mobile and/or Google reps will overnight them the necessary hardware if the locals give them any more trouble.
I mean sheesh, you try to take a lovely vacation to the T-Mobile store and spend some of your tourist green on a shiny new phone and what do you get? A stupid blog post.
Washingtonians (the city not the state) are feeling the pain as well. The Washington Post featured an article complaining that while the G1 was available nation wide, and you could play with a G1 in a Washington DC area store, you still couldn’t buy one. Talk about a TEASE!
T-Mobile does not yet have 3G connectivity in the DC area but it WILL be included by the year’s end when 120 American cities are covered. Just not now. In an interesting turn of events, the reason that DC does not yet have T-Mobile’s 3G network up and running is because the government (Defense Department & Others) was seemingly squatting on it:
The federal agencies occupied the valuable spectrum T-Mobile bought for more than $4 billion two years ago to build out its 3G network. Since T-Mobile bought the spectrum, the Bellevue, Wash.-based company has had to force local governments and the federal government off the spectrum, market by market.
“This is first time we had to move federal government systems from spectrum,” said Kathleen Ham, vice president of Federal regulatory affairs for T-Mobile. “They were not slow to move, but were surprised how fast we wanted to move.”
Folks in DC have a solution though… travel an hour north to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and stop by the store in “The Galleria” – the downtown mall where I bought my phone (assuming they are still in stock). Sign all the dotteds and drive your G1 back to the nation’s capital!
To be honest, I wouldn’t even recommend this: I’ve spent a decent amount of hours in the non-3G Washington area since buying my G1 and compared to Baltimore’s 3G speeds its almost not worth the hassle. Just wait. Applications cease to amuse you when you’re banging your phone against the wall, hoping the download won’t timeout. Of course you still have WiFi!
Fear not, fellow Americans… T-Mobile’s 3G network is on the move and if its not already generously covering your area, it likely soon will. And trust me, you’ll be much more happy you have the G1 when the slow speeds don’t restrict it from doing what it’s supposed to do.
[Thanks Svetlana]