Any options besides spending gobs of money or waiting?

[carstairs]

I'm on a rooted HTC Thunderbolt (Thundershed v1.6, CM 7.2), and like many others I'm having serious issues with 4G coverage. When 4G is first turned on, it'll work, but it'll soon drop its connection, requiring a switch to 3G or letting it stay on 4G to no avail/returning a few minutes later, slaughtering my battery life in the process. This has been going on for probably two months now and is a fairly common problem judging by threads on various forums, including Verizon's.

Relevant but unrelated, the Thunderbolt has a cracked screen. Cosmetic, works fine. I'm eligible for an upgrade in January, and part of a share everything plan so I haven't had unlimited data for a while anyway.

Because of the cracked screen, I'm guessing that I can't send the phone in to them for a replacement? It'd cost $150 to repair it through HTC, about the cost of a used one anyway, but I'd rather wait for my upgrade. But this connectivity thing is ridiculous, I bought the phone for 4G, and it's only usable on 3G. If I complain politely enough would I be able to get an early upgrade? I'm more than happy to drop $100 for a Galaxy Nexus and hack it to hell. But Verizon seems to think the connectivity is a device issue according to the forums, and they'd either tell me I can't return a phone with a cracked screen or make me pay an absurd $300 for a damaged device. Would I have any luck asking for an early upgrade?

 

[Satires]

My wife has the htc thunderbolt, it doesn't have connection issues. It's all stock. When we did have it rooted with a custom rom and kernal, we had some troubles.

And yes, maybe you can get an early upgrade, I had a lot of trouble with my htc rezound, and they wound up giving me an early upgrade. It was tech support that gave me the offer.

Just tell them the phone is unusable and politely make the point you are paying for a service that you're not fully getting, hence, a bad user experience. It doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[AntimonyER]

Welcome to AF, carstairs! Sorry to hear of your connection issues. I know my thunderbolt would cycle through connections, but that was due to poor signal at my desk. Although if it is a ROM issue, maybe try a different ROM to check it out. If it is no better just flash back to your old config via Nandroid.

As far as sending it in, I wouldn't. As another thread on here makes clear, Verizon charges an insane damaged device fee, and a cracked screen would certainly fall under this.

 

[carstairs]

If anyone's curious about resolution, after talking to a few tech support reps and following their instructions, a very sympathetic rep told me that while I was too far out to get an early upgrade, I could send in the Thunderbolt and get a Nexus as a replacement. I explicitly asked about the damaged device fee and she put a note on the account saying that the damage was unrelated to the issue and not to charge the fee. My instructions were to go to a store, confirm the notes, then call CS back and have the Nexus shipped to me.

However, two stores and a new tech support rep told me that there was no way for a $299 fee not to be levied to my account if I sent in the Thunderbolt, and that I could pay the fee, buy a CPO device, or pay full retail. I am livid that I have notes on my account saying that the damage is unrelated after I asked about the fee yet Verizon is telling me that it is impossible, and sees no issue in a damaged device fee that is 2-3x the value of a used Thunderbolt and double the repair quote HTC gave me.

I will be terminating my Verizon service immediately, buying an unlocked Nexus from Google, and going contractless. T-Mobile's $30 per month for 100 minutes/unlimited texting/5 GB of 4G before throttling (I'm aware it's not LTE but I have wifi at home and it's more than I use in a very heavy month anyway) is good, and Straight Talk has similar options for $45 per month. Both are much less than the $60 portion of a share everything plan I have now. I'll be using Google Voice for calls and texting anyway, I really only need data. I will not miss Verizon after this, among the other bad experiences I've had with them.

 

[AntimonyER]

Good luck with your new provider, and enjoy your new phone. Nothing wrong with speaking with your wallet.