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.

Comments

Family Plan All the Way...

[mageben]

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

How about cricket?

[Klaruz]

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.

My opinion of the "plethora of cell phone plans"

[0x0d0a]

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.

February Consumer Reports

[EnlightenmentFan]

The latest issue of Consumer Reports has a multi-page comparison of cell phone companies and plans. I am sure your local library has one. At the moment their website has only the January issue available online. To summarize the articles very briefly, all the companies have way more customer complaints than most businesses-- Verizon has the best customer service and Sprint the worst. The plan you want may depend on where you live. Glancing at their tables comparing plans, I see ATT at the top of them all, and it has the second-best customer service after Verizon.

Unsolicited plug: I subscribe to CR both the paper and online versions, it saves me money, wasted time, and lots of bad decisions every year.

Service and equipment is more important

[pauljlucas]

I have 300 anytime and 4000 nights/weekends from Verizon (where "night" starts at 8pm). I never come anywhere close to using all the minutes. Hence, I really don't care about plans. Verizon service has been great here in the SF bay area. Verizon does in fact have the largest network. The few calls I've had to make to customer service went well, i.e., they took care of my problem.

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.)