Verizon Gripes

Verizon. Grrrr.

Of course they are the only major carrier that has service in the sticks (near me), but they do some evil things (in some cases for legal reasons)

1. Don't allow 4g devices to be put on cheaper pre-paid smartphone plans, even with 4g disabled. Do not have this noted anywhere on their site when you go to 'pre-paid'. Plan that allows 4g device is 40 dollars more a month.

2. They have removed the 'Tethering & portable hotspot' option from the menu list on some of their pre-paid phones, specifically the "Moto G". This effectively keeps you from doing any kind of data tethering.

3. Disallow unlocking bootloader, meaning you can't remove any of the junk apps that come on the phone, or modify the image, or.. do anything interesting with the phone.

I found out later that US Cellular has good coverage, and called and talked to them. They claimed their prepaid Moto G allowed tethering with the right plan. So i decided to change.

Not only does it allow tethering (i.e. it is not removed from the menu), but it also allows bootloader unlock using the Motorola bootloader unlock program.

YAY control of my device again!

However--

There are negatives of the situation

1. I was travelling for work when i tried to change initially, and they would not ship the phone to anywhere but the home address

2. They will not port phone numbers into their system from area codes that they do not have home areas

3. The ordering of the phone took 3 days until i was contacted and alerted that the phone was out of stock. In contrast, with Verizon the phone was delivered 2 days later.

4. Customer support took a lot longer to talk to (they ask for your number then call you back in 10 or so minutes). That said, their service folks were very, very helpful. To the point of calling a store and having the people at the US Cellular store verify that the prepaid Moto G had tethering available.

This info is also at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=51047217