Tracfone upgrade

Nothing philosophical or political this time, just the story of my recent experience with Tracfone for the public record.

I use Tracfone for my cell phone service. Since my phone usage is low (I prefer email), it's an economical approach. You buy units of time that don't expire, and also lease the number for a period of time. You can buy cards to do both at lots of stores. It also has the advantage of anonymity; they can't annoy me with sales pitches beyond an occasional text message.

But it has a poor reputation for customer service, and I saw nightmare stories on the Internet about attempts to transfer a number to a new phone. So when I finally decided to get a new $15 phone rather than replace the weakening battery on my old one, I was a bit worried.

My experience wasn't as bad as the horror stories, but wasn't great either.

The first time I called the toll-free number to change over, I was told that I needed the assistance of a human and needed to call back during service hours. I did that and reached someone who was quite helpful and easy to understand, though he had a strong Indian accent. He explained that I'd have no service on either phone for up to 48 hours, though I could avoid this problem by taking a different number on the new phone. I opted to keep my number, and after putting me on hold for five or ten minutes he had me enter some strings of numbers on my old phone, which made its units go to zero. Then he gave me a tracking code to let me check the progress of the update on tracfone.com. So far, OK.

A day and a half later, I checked the tracking number and was told that the transaction was complete. My new phone showed the right telephone number, but still had zero units on it. I called Tracfone service. The person I reached this time also had an Indian accent, and his voice was coming through weakly. He did speak up when I reminded him to. I explained my problem, and he asked for my name. At first he insisted he had to have my name to resolve the issue, but I stayed firm on not giving out personal information and he proceeded anyway. He asked how many units I had had on my old phone and appeared to be taking my word for it; I probably could have told him I was transfering 600 units. Again I was put on hold for long periods of time. Finally he had me enter some strings of numbers on the new phone, and the units appeared, even rounded up to the next whole unit!

It wasn't a great experience but wasn't a nightmare. The new phone is working, and those of you who had my old cell number can still call me on it. It has programmable ringtones; if you hear a telephone on the train playing "Hope Eyrie," that's mine.

Update: I discovered afterward that I lost my voice mail and had to set it up over again. Don't ask me why; the voice mail isn't on the phone.

Net nannying with a twist

Continuing the subject of bills being proposed in the New Hampshire legislature, HB1482-FN says:

All public schools and public school libraries in the state shall install Internet filtering software designed to restrict access to pornographic materials and any other sites frequented by child predators. The local school board shall enforce the implementation of this section.

In addition to the usual problems with mandating filtering software, this would target sites based not only on their content, but on whether child predators frequent them. How are the filters even supposed to get reliable information on who is using any site? Are they going to go by news stories? If reporters claim there are a lot of child predators on MySpace, then are the schools required to filter MySpace?

In addition, New Hampshire's constitution has a prohibition on unfunded mandates requiring expenditures by local governments. This is a plain violation of Section 28-A of the state constitution.

Report from the NH madhouse

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've started reviewing bills which have been proposed in the New Hampshire Legislature. There are some alarming, and sometimes downright laughable, specimens. I've seen bills to:

• Ban advertising of all "scanning devices."
• Create a constitutional amendment prohibiting spending cuts by the state on public schools.
• Take away the right of New Hampshire voters to elect presidential electors, and turn that right over to the voters of other states.

On the positive side, I've seen bills to:

• Permit tobacco stores to establish adults-only smoking bars.
• Establish a simple procedure for no-fault divorce.

It's worthwhile work to catch both kinds, even if it involves a bit of slapping my own head in astonishment.