My Verizon Wireless (VZW) cell phone contract was up for renewal in August. I thought I might want an iPhone, so I kept resisting the repeated calls asking me to renew my contract early. I figured I'd wait until my contract was up, and then switch. After reading and watching Tom Yager's and David Pogue's iPhone coverage at the end of June and beginning of July, I was quickly cured After reading and watching Tom Yager’s and David Pogue’s iPhone coverage at the end of June and beginning of July, I was quickly cured of most of my iPhone lust: AT&T-only? No memory card? No GPS? Sealed battery? EDGE, not 3G? $500 to $600? Nope, not for me.I should explain about the AT&T issue, since that was the real kicker. For years, the only cell phone carrier that had decent service in Andover was VZW. That was certainly true when my oldest daughter got the first cell phone in the family, and it was still true when my second daughter and I got the next two phones. Verizon is also the only carrier with decent service at the University of Rochester, where my second daughter is at school, so almost all her school friends are on VZW. My son-in-law and my second daughter’s boyfriend are also on VZW. For good measure, my second daughter has given up on land lines: the only ways to reach her are email and her cell phone.Given the cost structure that makes cell-to-cell conversations within a single carrier free, and causes cross-carrier conversations to consume scarce daytime minutes, I pretty much had to stick with VZW or cut myself off from my kids and their significant others. No matter how much I like the iPhone user interface, and how crummy the interfaces are on the phones and smart phones VZW offers, VZW has me locked in because of its long-term investment in infrastructure and its “IN calling” strategy. In the end, I got on the VZW Web site and took advantage of my $100 “new every 2” credit and an online “buy one, get one” offer to upgrade two lines to the LG VX8300 phone and media player shown at the upper left, for free. OK, I blew 30 bucks on a USB cable and stereo ear buds, and another $21 on a 2 GB microSD card, but that’s a tenth of the up-front cost of the iPhone.Yes, the user interface is Baroque, and yes, the Windows Vista drivers for the USB device won’t be available for another week, and yes, it doesn’t have anything like the coolness factor of an iPhone, but it seems like it’ll meet my needs. Not only that, it actually gets service in my house and office. Imagine, a cell phone you that can use where you are most of the time. Software Development