Talking Car Project Entry #7: Temporary Failure

Today I had a package come in the mail I had been waiting on. To sum it up, I wanted to try and prevent having to tether my phone to the car for internet access.  I wanted to give the car its own 3G access.  I purchased a 3G USB stick that has a slot for a sim card.

I got the idea in my head to buy one of these devices.  I figured I would just buy another SIM card from my carrier so I can essentially give my car 3G access without being tethered to my phone.  I ordered the device and waited.  In the meantime I had gone to my carrier and asked them a few questions.

They told me that they did not allow that sort of thing.  I noticed that this carrier is kind of touchy when it comes to their SIM cards.  It was really odd.  When I say touchy I mean they are not quick to give customers new SIM cards and ask for the old SIMS back if they can get them.

Having said that I had an idea of just going in and purchasing a new SIM without providing my older one.  So when the 3G USB device came in the mail, that was exactly what I had done. However when I bought the new SIM card and put it in my phone, it did not work.  The employee at the carrier told me, "It probably won't work with this phone since this phone is not originally from our company".

To be honest it annoyed me because he was talking to me as if I did not know anything.  I told him "Interesting, I wonder how in the world I have been using it for the passed year."  He did not say anything.

He then said "Sometimes it doesn't work with rooted devices.  You have to bring your phone back to it's original state".  That equally annoyed me and said "Yeah, that isn't happening."  I took the phone home to try and figure it out for myself.  Upon arriving at home I couldn't get my mobile network to work with my new SIM card in my phone so I decided I was just going to chalk it up as a loss and popped back in my old SIM card.  It appears that SIM did not work either.  So even if I had gotten the new SIM to work, it deactivated the old SIM card so the initial idea would have been doomed to fail from the beginning.

I took my phone back to the cell phone store and asked them to reprogram my old SIM card.  The condescending employee informed me that once a SIM is deactivated, it can never be reactivated again.  So I said "So now what?  I am left without a working cell phone?"  He gave me a "It isn't my problem" kind of looks.  By this time, my annoyance was really high and the employee did not make matters any better.  I would have been understanding the situation being what it was, but him being condescending to me really made me angry.

I will have to figure out my phone situation tomorrow.

So I have temporarily failed and now instead of spending the little time I have working on the project on a weeknight, I am fixing my phone issue.

This project is delayed but not dead in the water.  I figured the risk of doing all this was worth it.  In the end, I am out $10 and a working cell phone at the moment.  Still, had the idea been successful, the risk would have been worth it.  I will no doubt resolve my phone issue tomorrow, it is just an unnecessary thing I have to do.  Oh well, that's what I get for thinking outside the box.