Last night I was writing the second draft for an upcoming story about 1983 and then I heard the usual feedback-interference noises on my noise-reducing headphones. This is normally AT&T’s wireless network doing something, probably an incoming call. Instead the phone made “ding” noise similar to when I reboot it after letting the battery go to zero. When I looked at its display, it said “Insert Sim.” Foolishly, I figured the connections were bad.
By the time I looked up my Sony Ericsson on AT&T’s support site (to troubleshoot it the smart way) I concluded that either the card was bad or the connections in the phone were shot. Somara willingly loaned me her sim card to narrow down the failure. Hers worked, mine gave the message in her phone. The better surprise was everybody’s numbers still being present on my card! Phew! Course the failure just so happens on a Sunday evening when all the stores are closed.
There is an AT&T Store within a mile of our house and I was the first customer in. As soon as I stated the error, the manager immediately knew what happened. He stated how AT&T’s current upgrades (possibly for the upcoming iPhone 3G?) are being shot across the network and some sim cards are getting trashed. Around 50 last week in his area. Good thing it was free, I was ready to pay.
I think the next step, when I get about an hour to do this, will be transferring all the numbers I really want to keep on my MacBook.
I have started to load up my address book with all my phone entries so I am ready for the new iPhone. My crappy motorola razr has been acting up for a while now too. Glad to hear you did not loose contact info.