Goodbye AT&T, Hello T-Mobile

Less evil, saved a buck.

AT&T has been my cell phone carrier longer than I can remember. The service worked as well as I needed it to and I was not inclined to spend time shopping around.

Then I learned that AT&T would be making a major donation to TFG’s inauguration. I also noted media references that AT&T may have also donated to election-denial candidates, so I dug a little further. AT&T’s CEO is John Stankey; an OpenSecrets donor search reveals that he contributed overwhelmingly to Republican candidates in 2024, plus the AT&T, Inc. PAC. The OpenSecrets data on the PAC shows that it consistently contributes more money to Republicans than Democrats.

I am not necessarily going to cut off every company that interacts with TFG. Major companies have long made contributions to both parties to hedge their bets. Sadly enough, TFG’s upcoming term is going to be openly pay-to-play, and that will be the economic reality for these companies. But AT&T’s contributions were too imbalanced toward the red for too many years for my taste. It was time for a change.

I had some negative experiences with Verizon in the past, so I began my research with T-Mobile. The T-Mobile USA PAC spends about the same on each party; some years more red, some more blue, but averaging out about the same. The CEO, Mike Sievert, contributes uniformly blue.

I went down to the local store to see if switching carriers would make economic sense for me. The first thing I noticed was that the signs were all in both English and Spanish. One of the two employees working there was bilingual. I was impressed as my local AT&T did not cater to customers in that way.

It was busy; there were several people ahead of me and more came in after. When my turn came, the employee gently tried to upsell me, which I expected and politely declined. The process was easy. The plan I signed up for, which was comparable to my previous plan, would cost significantly less each month than AT&T. Win-win.

As consumers, we have immense untapped power. Our dollars are the lifeblood of the economy. Companies expend enormous efforts to convince us to buy what we don’t need, to convince us to shop for emotional fulfillment (which doesn’t work and only leads to more shopping), to make spending a habit.

Don’t make a New Year’s Resolution this year. Make a New Life Resolution to claim your power as a consumer. Make considered decisions. Will the purchases you make improve your life, your family, your community, the country, the world? Rarely will the choices be perfect, but it’s a start.