Poor AT&T.

A few months ago, I switched to AT&T for its unlimited U.S. and Canada calling plan. The company rewarded me with $50 in credits.

Whenever I checked my bill online, AT&T urged me to sign up for paperless billing. I consistently ignored this invitation. But then AT&T threw in an incentive--if I signed up for online billing exclusively, I would get a $20 credit from Amazon. So I signed up.

Three days later, however, I saw that MCI was offering the same package for $10 less per month and would reward me with a $50 credit for signing up. So I switched. Then I used the AT&T credit to buy Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews CDs.

I'm happy with MCI so far. It's tough to distinguish one commodity service from another, but MCI provides voicemail existence indication services--my telephone's "new call" light flashes when a message is waiting. (AT&T was unable to provide this service without a $10 display add-on.)

Now I'm on hold with AT&T one last time. I just received email welcoming me as an AT&T customer. This was a technical error because its system did not process my migration to MCI correctly.