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Frontier Communications will pay one smartphone addict $1,000 if they will give up their device for one week and rely on a 1990s-era obsolete flip phone instead. The cringe worthy challenge, soaked in irony, is brought to you by a phone company that delivers late 1990s-era DSL to a substantial number of its customers.
Frontier:
If you’re chosen, you’ll be responsible for using a flip phone in place of your smartphone for seven full days (that’s 168 hours!), and we want you to log your experience. We’ll have you track (don’t worry, your info stays safe with us!) how long it takes you to do basic tasks such as texting and checking email, how many times you wish you could Google something, how many hours you slept, how your productivity changed (or didn’t!), and even if you were late to appointments (after all, how does anyone get around without Google Maps?). Was your experience #TheWorstThingEver? Did you find new freedom? Either way, we want to hear about it.
Applicants can register until July 8, 2019.
What’s in it for you
$1,000 in compensation
Boredom Buster Swag Bag (i.e. your survival kit) including:
- An actual, physical map (yes, those still exist!) to make up for your GPS.
- A pocket phonebook, because who memorizes numbers anymore?
- A notepad and pen to make grocery trips a little less painful.
- A couple ’90s CDs (think Britney and NSYNC) to soothe your Spotify withdrawals.
- Remote work environment as you earn your $1,000—no heading to an office at 8am for this job!
- No drug testing or background check required.
- A unique social experiment and a chance to go back in time . . . or, well, something like that.
The goal of the experiment is “to help us understand how much we rely on smartphones and how that affects day-to-day life. (Our hypothesis? A lot.)”
It is too bad Frontier didn’t embark on an experiment to determine how much customers rely on high quality, 21st century internet access. They could quickly learn that for many of those stuck with Frontier’s DSL service… they can’t, because Frontier does not provide it.
Really?
Frontier should challenge somebody who has cable to use Frontier DSL for a week and see how they like it.
Whoever got the idea for this promotion should be fired right away. Or is the message that you should just give up your Frontier landline and just use a cell phone?
It’s not actually Frontier doing it, and depending on where you live, Frontier’s service can be fine.
I used it for years and it was okay, though I did have more tech problems than I’ve had from other providers.
That’s a distinction without much difference considering they did not run this without clearing it with Frontier.
If you are in a legacy copper service area, chances are better than even you are dealing with pretty poor DSL service. Their acquired FiOS and U-verse areas do better, if you don’t mind chasing the fine print for gotcha charges.
What about a new promotion that actually pays you $1000 to use a fiber connection instead of a crappy DSL connection if you do have one still? Then it logs how well you enjoy the fiber connection over the DSL connection, which will actually prove it worthwhile for companies to upgrade customers to it. While also giving data to the ISP on other things as well. Clearly beneficial both ways. Oh yeah, that’s right. Frontier would never do that probably. Ever. Too expensive and would benefit customers too much. But seriously, who comes up with this kind of crap? I… Read more »
Yeah, I use Windows PCs and iPads way more than my phone. I could go back to a basic phone pretty okay.
To be fair, it’s not actually frontier. It’s a frontier reseller.
I thought about entering, except I’m iffy on what they might require you to do.
And it all seems sort of meaningless…I mean I’d have my other devices I use more anyway.
I have two 4 Mbps connections from Frontier and a load balancing box that works pretty well; it’s almost as good as an 8 Mbps connection but not quite.
If I lived down the road a mile I could get Spectrum, pay about the same, get at least 100 Mbps and also some cable channels.
These days my connection is pretty reliable and when there is a problem repair service is responsive. That hasn’t always been the case.