Is Your Cell Phone Service Gay-Friendly?
I’ve been doing a lot of research lately about cell phone providers because my contract with AT&T expired several months ago. I want to find the best deal possible, but I also want to make sure that the money I pay the phone company each month isn’t going towards political causes that hurt the gay community.
A recent issue of Consumer Reports rates the four major cell phone providers in the US in terms of cost, service coverage, and overall customer satisfaction. Verizon rates the highest in terms of customer satisfaction and cost. AT&T is the best in terms of smartphones and internet accessibility. Sprint and T Mobile are at the bottom of the barrel in every category. The article also compared the major service providers against pre-paid cell phone services and found that for customers who simply want phone service without any of the bells and whistles, pre-paid service is a very suitable option.
The article did not, however, factor in the question of politics. Queercents readers have often been asked if they would boycott a company if it supported anti-gay causes, regardless of whether or not they were cheaper than a gay-friendly company. The feedback has been mixed, but pretty heavily in favor of boycotting anti-gay companies.
The HRC Corporate Equality Index has pretty detailed feedback about the major cell phone providers, although T Mobile is not listed in the Corporate Equality Index. Verizon has a 70% rating. They provide domestic partner benefits for their employees, and sexual orientation is included in the company’s nondiscrimination policy, but gender identity is not. They also don’t provide any sort of training for managers about LGBT employment issues. And they are not listed as an LGBT philanthropic group.
AT&T has a 100% ranking. They include both sexual orientation, and gender identity in their nondiscrimination policy. AT&T provides domestic partner benefits for their employees, and transgender health care is fully covered under the company’s plan. AT&T also provides training for managers on LGBT employment issues, and they are a financial supporter of LGBT causes. I would be pretty shocked if they weren’t, though, seeing as AT&T is the only provider that supports the iPhone, and gays seem love anything that comes from Steve Jobs.
Sprint also has a 100% ranking. In my experience, though, Sprint has terrible customer service. I don’t care how many rainbow ad campaigns they might have, I would never sign another contract with them.
What about you? Are you concerned about how your cell phone company is spending the money you give it? Or would you be willing to go with Verizon simply because they have the best rates and higher customer satisfaction? I’d love to hear your opinion.
Just so that you know, Verizon Wireless sponsors Gay Pride events. That sounds “philanthropic” to me.
Sacgary – fair enough, I was going on the HRC rankings. Let me ask you this – would you consider Budweiser or Bacardi to be gay friendly, simply because they sponsor pride events? I would vote no – pride is a cash cow, pure and simple. Now if that money was returned to the community in the form of grants to community centers or to political fights, I’d say yes.
Serena – The HRC is not the know all be all of knowledge bases. Not being an employee of either of these 2 companies, I am not qualified to comment on Budweiser or Bacardi. I can however comment on Verizon Wireless.
For reasons I cannot determine, Verizon Wireless chooses to not blow their own horn when it comes to community action and diversity.
They have an organization called Verizon Foundation that performs a lot of services. The 2 that I am discussing here are relevant to this conversation.
First off if any employee contributes 50 hours of service to a non profit and logs those hours, Verizon Foundation will contribute $750 to that organization. Any employee can qualify for 2 of these each year to the same charity or to different ones. This can and does include GLBT efforts.
The 2nd function relevant to this discussion is that any employees that participates in fund raising activities for a non profit, Verizon Foundation will match the contribution up to $10,000.
Because of internal regulations barring disclosure of company information outside the company I am limited in information I can share without prior approval, but suffice to say that Verizon Wirelesses focus going forward is on Diversity and Diversity Awareness.
I would suggest that you look outside the HRC for a more balanced view of this company as well as those whose virtues you have stated.
Sacgary, I’ll be the first to concede that the HRC isn’t representative of the entire queer community. I always find it ironic that they grade companies based on their inclusion of gender identity in hiring policies, but they won’t get behind a version of the ENDA that includes gender identity.
Thanks for sharing the info about Verizon – I didn’t know that.
My family’s cell service goes through AT&T business due to the discount my partner’s employer offers. While I have heard complaints about their residential services – their business customer service has been extraordinary. I’m quite happy with the service – we’ve been with them for years.
I am very happy with tmobile, and I won’t change providers, if for everything in life i decide to boycot then i would be no different than those that boycot furs,and try to ram everything, their causes on the rest of us, and for the iphone and Steve Jobs and do not care about either. We cannot stereotype the gay community and say we all like iphones, stereotyping is not good no matter what. oraldo garcia
Thank You. I suspected that T-moble was the only acceptable cell phone provider. With the help of sites like yours, I’m finding this to ring true. I like good rates too. However, I wanted to make sure that the money I paid the phone company each month DID NOT go to political causes that SUPPORT the gay community! Trust me, I’ll be dropping att and taking the whole family to T-Mobile just as soon as I find some more recent info. After that, we’re dropping comcast. I appreciate your efforts. Again, Thank you.
Sincerely,
Seth.
Here is a cell phone company that gives back!
credomobile.com/Mission/Progressive-Social-Change.aspx
There career is Sprint, but they are there own provider. A percentage of your monthly bill goes to social justice.. Here, the customer gets to give back, as well as the employee! 🙂 check it out.
I’m with you, Seth.
Verizon in my city is homophobic and transphobic.
I am a transgender woman. They are rude and abusive towards me and will not answer my questions. The owner of the store will not answer the complaint I filed.
I contacted Verizon via online support and they told me to call their corporate number. I called the corporate number and was on hold for 20 minutes and had to leave to meet another obligation. I got on their Facebook page and filed a complaint and they told me to PM them, I did multiple times and NOTHING!
This is the worst LGBTQ supportive cell company I have ever had involvements with! Before I transitioned I had not one issues with Verizon.
I will be considering other options.
According to Forbes ATT donated 2,755, 000 to anti gay polititions.
ATT was the sole supporter of OAN news. I can’t imagine anything LESS gay friendly or more anti-american in general. I’m leaving them after 20 years because of their OAN support. I told them so and they don’t really care