I was blissfully enjoying a relaxing Spring Break, when suddenly an RSS feed informs me that AT&T has inked a deal to eat T-Mobile. Not happy, not happy at all.

Currently, I have 500 daytime minutes and unlimited data and messaging for $60 a month with T-Mobile. That's on an Android phone that I own outright, without a contract, with free roaming (inc. data), and with rooted tethering. Who here thinks I can get anything resembling this from AT&T? Me neither.

To replace my current plan with the closest thing from AT&T would cost over $80 a month, except for the first month, which would be over $120. T-Mobile charged me no such start up fees. They even rushed a SIM card to my house for free, whereas AT&T charges shipping. Also, I've called T-Mobile a few times for tech support, and I have always talked to someone who knew more about my rooted phone than I did. I have had very few tech experience like that with other companies.

Needless to say, one formerly happy, now bitter, T-Mobile evangelist will be holding on to his plan as long as he possibly can. While coverage may improve, I'm far more interested in Android experimentation, cheap data plans, and customer service. If I just wanted a big, expensive network I would have bought Verizon. Somehow, I do not see T-Mobile's geek-friendly policies as being the ones adopted if this deal is approved by the FTC. I also do not see AT&T in any particular hurry to push new ROMs or adopt awesome phones like the Galaxy S when they would rather sell iPhones. I see caps, stupid plans designed to force you into a tier with too many minutes, and impersonal call centers. I also see the end of T-Mobile's blind eye to willy-nilly modification and cool stuff, notably tethering.

We can only hope the FTC kills this in the interest of the consumer.

On a more positive note, I accidentally kicked the power cord out of this PC while writing this blog, and Firefox 4 brought everything right back, including the text. It took me a few minutes to tweak the UI back to sanity, but I'm starting to love the speed and grace. I don't believe Chrome will take over the world after all. Oh, how come 64D doesn't allow SVG's in the