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Cell Phone Plan Recommendations for 2003?
scubacuda asks: "What do techies think about the plethora of cell phone plans out there? (While accompanying a friend at the Sprint kiosk, I couldn't help but dissuade several people from signing up with Sprint.) When I told a friend about my new AT&T "minutes w/o limits" plan ($99/mo for unlimited ANYWHERE minutes), he talked to Nextel and had them match the plan. What plans do you consider to be the best, and when have you been successful in negotiating your plan down?" Ask Slashdot did a similar question during November of 2000. It's amazing how fast cell phones have been adopted by people worldwide, and I think it would be interesting to see how much more you can get for your buck now, as opposed to then.
We get free nights, free weekends, and free calls between family members. When you've got 2 teenagers and one of them's a geek who dosen't like sunlight and the other only calls home to say she's going to be late, we never use anytime minuts, even though we get like 300 a month to share. We got all three phones for free and we pay like $80 per month for all the service on all the phones.
All this from Cingular Wireless.
(discalimer: my father works for SBC Ameritech which owns Cingular but still I think it's good deal any ways)
-Code
---PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE---
"Now, where's the damn 'any' key?"
It's unlimited local calling for $33. I travel too much much to use it (their network is only in certain cities) but I have alot of friends that like it. It's a good replacement for a home phone, even if you talk alot. The bonus is, telemarketers can't call you.
http://www.cricketcommunications.com/default.asp
Me? I've been a sprint pcs customer for over 4 years. Their rates don't seem to be keeping up with their competitors though. If they don't have the ability to have unlimited local minutes and nationwide roam (for an extra fee of course) by next nov when the cell number portability law (finally) goes into effect. I'll switch. Till then, I'll hang on.
I studied these plans, too, until selecting on that seemed more-or-less like what we needed. I know some enjoy the probability analysis and projection involved in picking the best deal, but I don't. And of course many of the plans seem calculated to lure you into paying too much for less than you expect.
.95; (2) people (certainly Americans) hate being nickled-and-dimed to death, preferring even flat rate plans that cost more; and (3) the merchant wants to tempt you to overconsume even for a small incremental profit (i.e., get you to buy a large soda for just 20 more even though you wanted a small).
What I'd like to know is whether there is a secret plan to rule all plans? Is there some published business school game theory logic to the design of these things? Are they arrived at with the same guesswork that we use to choose the plan? Obviously there are a few hard numbers in the actual cost of carrying the calls plus overhead, but beyond that what marketing (il)logic takes over?
If we had that information as consumers, think of valuable insight.
The only rules I know offhand are (1) people like prices ending in
i think in general most cell phone providers are the same, however, if you are looking to extend your cell phone usage beyond talking (i.e. SMS, WAP, MMS, etc..), providers vary.
Earlier this year, I chose Verizon and here's what lead me to convert from Sprint.
1. SprintPCS at the time didn't have coverage where my parents live so I would ROAM. ROAMing is one thing that you don't want. ROAMing is premimum and it would cost me like $.25 just to talk for a minute. (check coverage area)
2. I wanted WAP and SMS. ATT has SMS but not WAP. SprintPCS was already eliminted because they didn't have coverage. (check phone func.)
3. I wanted free long distance. ATT and Verizon non-peak minutes start at 9pm so I have to wait til then to make a majority of my calls. SprintPCS allowed me to make calls at non-peak calls at 8pm. (check rates)
4. Lastly, I wanted a cool phone at the time the Motorola v60 was a kick ass phone. It was smaller than my other phone and supported SMS and WAP. (check phone)
I never considered the other providers like Nextel.
Hope this helps.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
What do techies think about the plethora of cell phone plans out there?
My honest opinion? They all suck. They're a huge number of deliberately convoluted systems designed to part you and your money in any way possible.
And the phones themselves are a pain, too. Toss your cell phone in the trash and be free of people being able to bother you at any time of the day.
The biggest social problem today is stress. Studies show that stress *plummets* when people know that they can't possibly get hit with communications. If they aren't getting 50 emails a day, they're much more comfortable. Same goes for phones.
I mean, there are a couple jobs where you're just screwed and have to be on call, with a pager or cell. Some doctors, sysadmins, some emergency workers.
But why harness yourself with more worries and obligations if you don't have to? And *paying* a phone company for the privilege of people being able to bother you at any time is just silly.
May we never see th
Myself, I've been really happy with Verizon's service.
*ducks*
No, really. I mean it. I've gone all over the country and almost have never had a problem getting service, and since they use other people's networks I don't run in to the problems that Sprint or Cingular or AT&T people that I know have had getting service. So go figure. *shrug*
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
Pro: $69.95 gets me the family plan, which is up to 5 phones sharing 800 minutes however we see fit. For small/normal family usage (i.e. no business, no teenagers) that's fine for us. An extra $3/month gives me email and net. There's a fair variety of phones available, most of which have the customizable ring tones and all the usual nonsense. Apparently they even have picture phones available. AND, I like their web site, where you can do everything from pay your bill to check your email to see a fullpage version of the customized content that's normally delivered to your phone (i.e. sports scores, horoscope,local weather, and so on).
They also have a variety of internet device options, if you want to go that route. There are a couple of Wince devices that are T-Mobile branded, but I can't anything about them one way or the other.
Con: Coverage sucks. If you're not very near a major highway, then you're pushing your luck. There are plenty of times when I'd expect roaming to kick in, but it doesn't and I just get no service. :( I can go to San Francisco or Chicago (from Boston) and get roaming no problem, but to go to the town 10 miles away where my in-laws live, I get nothing. Also, I think the "no contract" thing is no longer relevant. It's never been a question for me because I assume I was grandfathered in from Omnipoint, but I was recently told that T-Mobile has contracts for new customers.
That's my two cents. My wife was on Verizon when we got married but I switched her over to the T-Mobile family plan, but that was primarily for consistency in paying the bills, not because there was anything about Verizon that I didn't like. (Ok, their web site's a little weak.)
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
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Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
A friend of mine had a cellular plan through whatever Baby-Bell services Florida, and he was getting fed up with what he paid. His solution? He called in, and told them about the offer that AT&T had made him, which included unlimited evenings/weekends, tons of daytime minutes, all sorts of perks (voicemail, etc). The catch? It was all BS. He'd never even spoken to an AT&T rep. The result? He got the best cellular plan I'd heard of (still beats mine, actually, and this was three years ago).
So, if you want good service, find a national carrier, or one with decent roaming agreements anyway, and like like a bastard, and hope they believe you. Keep it realistic though.
--Dan
I currently have the Kyocera 6035 and it works perfectly with Verizon: 2-way SMS, free POP3/SMTP access, web. I'm waiting for the Kyocera 7135 that will be offered on Verizon probably within a month. It's a very sweet phone/PDA.
I can strongly recommend against Sprint. Sprint has the largest all-digital network, but it's still smaller than Verizon's digital + analog network. The upshot is that if you're on analog on Verizon, there's no roaming charges since they own the analog towers; with Sprint, any time you are on analog, you are roaming by definition, and pay roaming charges accordingly. Note how Sprint never mentions this in their commercials. Anyway, Verizon is all-digital in cities and is converting the rest.
I was in downtown Sunnyvale, smack in the middle of Santa Clara ("Silicon") valley, and was roaming with Sprint. Also virtually no signal on the bay side of 101 in Mountain View; same on the north end of downtown Santa Cruz.
Sprint doens't offer true 2-way SMS; they never worked right with the Kyocera 6035 (*2 was broken a lot), and no free e-mail/web access.
Sprint does tend to have some cooler phones (and some dumb ones with silly features like screensavers), but do you want a phone that looks cool or works well?
(No, I don't work for Verizon.)
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
I too use Verizon. I definitely concur on the coverage: I've been covered from Rocky Point, Sonora (NW Mexico) all the way to Toronto, and from San Francisco to Boston, with significant gaps occurring only in national parks.
As you may have guessed from that description, I have not only travelled a lot, but also moved a couple of times. And THAT is where Verizon is a nightmare. You have to know the deep history of Verizon to understand its structure; the west coast section is basically a different company from the southwest section, is different from the east coast section; all they really share is a logo.
For about a month after you move, you'll be billed from both divisions; it will take at least 30 minutes on the phone with customer service to resolve this. A month if you're lucky, 30 minutes if you're lucky. At one point I accidentally failed to get mail forwarded from one address (my fault, I admit) and instead of calling my phone or emailing or anything, they sent me to collections over a fraction of a monthly bill. Fortunately, my service wasn't affected since the two parts of the company don't know about one another.
That said, if you *live* in one place and simply travel a lot, verizon is a great plan. Coverage is great, and the $35 for 350+1000 minutes (or whatever - more now?), roaming included, is quite sufficient for my needs. But when my contract is up, if I'm considering moving, I might just switch carriers to avoid THAT hassle again.
if you, like my wife and I, have abandoned cell phones after the 2 year contract ran out (just can't justify expense), you may be interested that you can STILL call 911 for free. It's the law.
We just charge them up periodically and keep them in the glove box. Don't pay for emergency service. Also, If I try to make a call I get a prompt to "welcome to cingular roaming." I'm assuming I could enter my credit card in a true emergency. I haven't tried it and I have no idea what the rates are...
the downside? Since everyone has cell phones now, pay phones are harder to find. In my local mall, they have banks of five phones in serveral places, but four of the five are disconnected in all of them (I guess to save money?).
Anyway, I don't really miss the phone.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Cell phone plans are confusing intentionally. That means there is NO BEST plan that can be recomended for everyone. DO you own research.
Some companies have email, sms, wap, paging, or several other features that I can't even name off hand. Sometimes voincemail is free, othertimes it costs extra. Decide which you will use, and consider that when choosing a plan.
No company has coverage everywhere in the world. Some have no coverage off of major hiways and cities. Some have cheap roaming plans for those times when you are outside your home area, often at no extra charge. Others have no raoming at all. So you MUST consider where the service area is, which not only includes home, but also work, relatives, friends, favorite parks/lakes, and everywhere inbetween.
Also what do the people you call use? Nobody can do construction today (in service area) without a NexTel phone, because everyone else in that buisness has one, and the mobile-mobil minutes are so cheap (That two-way feature). Most other companies offer similear plans of reduced rates when calling another customer. And of course there are family plans that allow shared minutes, and/or unlimited calling between family members.
One last consideration: Who do you want to call you. With the availability of no roaming/long distance plans (AT&T and Verizon) I know several people who have a phone number that is local to the area where all their friends live, even though they don't live there aremore. This is a little hard to work out, you have to lie to them, and get the bill sent to someone who you trust to forward it to you. Great for those who have moved.
I personally do not find email, SMS, WAP, and such features useless. Your milage WILL Varry. I wouldn't be surprized to say at some point in the future that some of the above are my most used features.