T-mobile subscriber with a CHICAGO 312 or 773 area code phone number? You're screwed right now for travel, REVISITED

As it stands right now, Chicagoans and transplants, we're all still screwed when it comes to call receipt in Phoenix. This is my theory: there's some unwritten new corporate policy that says a subscriber must have a phone number in the market where their billing address is.

Yesterday I called them asking for followup. All they told me is: No notes in the trouble ticket since the 15th (I.E. I was getting total bullshit from the Snottsdale Fashion Square store manager about how they are diligently working on it) - and here's the kicker:

Their tech support guy said "I will be happy to transfer you to our department which will help you port your number elsewhere."

Honestly I'd rather have to clean up after my dog with my bare hands than become an AT&T customer... Sprint's billing system is as stable as an Italian coalition government and they have 500,000 fewer subscribers to show for it. Verizon is a possibility - but Sprint and Verizon are CDMA. NO cool international phones exist for CDMA - well not unless you speak Korean... but Sprint or Verizon will probably STILL not activate an imported CDMA phone since it probably won't have software that complies with E911 requirements.

T-mobile: all I want is to be able to take any of my seven or eight (I lose count) GSM handsets with me most anywhere in the world and I might even throw ya a few minutes of roaming traffic before I get my grubby mitts on a local SIM card and GPRS/EDGE parameters for that network. Oh, and I want calls to my Chicago number delivered in Phoenix - which has not been a problem (other than in the last month) for YEARS. I don't want to do business with the deathstar.

I vowed in 1994 when I closed my last personal deathstar account I would never use them again and that was SOUNDLY reconfirmed by my experience working for an employer who used the AT&T deathstar for voice and data traffic across five states. My personal problem with deathstar was billing related and for the 3 1/2 years I worked for that company who was yoked with a deathstar contract we never got an accurate bill. We were flat out LIED to by our billing representative a number of times.

So in short: what T-mobie is doing is quite annoying for me and for 350,000 other subscribers who are listed on that trouble sticket. But I travel internationally! Am I to THROW my CDMA phone at a passing police car in an emergency? And I've made it plain why I will not sign up with Deathstar.