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What are the Best Cell Phone Services in the US?
James Hewfanger asks: "Cnet.co.uk has run an article on the five best cell phone services in the UK. These include a text-based service that gets you the number of a licensed cab company in London, Google Maps and Gmail on your phone, a service that can tell what artist and song you're listening to, an online service that backs up all your cell phone contacts and a text-based service that answers any question you can throw at it. What, however, are the five best cell phone services in the US?" Wirefly's cell phone plan comparison tool gives a good up-to-date look of all cell phone plans on the market.
News ...)
Driving Directions
Sports
Travel (flights, hotels,
Movies (via fandango)
Weather
All voice activated with very good support for keypad.
Historically they had free directory assistance.
at times they had traffic information, it's now 511 (run by them)
They run 1-800-555-1212 (toll free directory assistance)
Text anything to 46645. That's the only such service I use.
The only services of that type that I've seen mentioned in the US are download services for ringtones, games, etc. I don't think most Americans really use their cell phones for anything but making phone calls, taking the odd photograph, and configuring to play loud, annoying, horribly distorted snippets of Backstreet Boys songs whenever someone calls you.
I dunno, I'd have problems going with a service called Net 10. I'd be worried that their phone calls wouldn't be routeable.
And aparently i've gotten so used to reading slashdot that not only do i not read the article, i don't even read the summary. :-P
I think you all are missing the question. It's what services you can access THROUGH your cell-phone plan. NOT what cell-phone plans are good. So what services do you all access that makes your cell-phone more useful?
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...and, again...
Hearing a song and not knowing who sings it or what it's called can be very annoying. Fortunately, Shazam provides a service that lets you hold your phone up to any song playing and it will then text you back the artist and track name in a matter of minutes.
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"How does that work?", I wonder....clever stuff.
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if you have a question that you need answering, AQA is the mobile service for you. AQA, which stands for any question answered, is a text-based service that literally answers any question you can think of. We asked it 'which was better, a CMOS or CCD sensor?' -- amazingly it came back with a half-decent answer.
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In the words of Captain Darling himself, "Clever. Clever. Clever.".
I wonder if it's scalable.
Max.
Out of about 30 comments, only 3 or 4 people have even bothered to skim the story. It's not asking about cellular providers, it's actual phone-based services (location-based, web, etc.). I know no one ever reads TFA, but please at least RTF summary.
Flurry - (http://www.flurry.com) Mail and news on my phone. Also useful are: Google Local (http://www.google.com/gmm) Maps on my phone. Opera Mini (http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/) Web browsing on my phone. EQO (http://www.eqo.com/) VoIP and IM on my phone. Note that these all work with data services from Cingular and Sprint, but T-Mobile has recently started preventing the use of these services on their phones unless you buy an "unlimited" plan. Verizon either charges a few dollars a month for them or doesn't have them available in the first place. If you have Boost mobile service, you should also check out Loopt (http://loopt.com) - a service that lets you tell your friends where you are.
http://www.flurry.com
E-mail and news on y
ugh... i'm an idiot... perhaps I should read TFA before posting like a dumbass... oh well... live and learn I would plug my favorite, but Verizon cripples everything remotely decent about my phone and I'm not going to pay through the nose to make my phone do something non-phone-like.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket!??
1. Deco Mail: most of the new phones now have HTML mail and large libraries of animated emoticons and the like - wifey's has over 1,000, plus lots more downloadable free. They can also be forwarded to PC mail clients and displayed successfully.
2. NaviTime: doesn't just tell you where to go, but copes with which exit from the subway station to get, if a taxi would be faster than trains, even which carriage to board to be closest to the exit!
3. Napster: well, maybe not.
4. iPot: mobile phone in granny's kettle so you can get an email if she doesn't use it for a day.
5. Anti-bullying kiddie phones: junior points camera at bully/perv, sounds the alarm, and parent gets a photo plus GPS coordinates, etc.
Do people not even read the /. summary any more? The question is regarding the top cell-phone based services, not cell-phone carriers.
I like the "Teaching remedial math to call-centre employees" service that Verizon recently offered. I think it's got a great future.[/snark]
Cingular has the most customers. This means that chances are highest, than with any other cell provider, that when you call someone's cell they will be on network which doesn't eat minutes since on network minutes are free. The only reason I would switch from Cingular is if I moved to an area where I received poor signal. I used to work for Cingular, all be it in their network security division that had little to do with their cellular products. While working there I learned much about how cellular companies operate in general.
A good example of this is expansion of cell sites. When a cell provider puts up a new tower or rents space on a tower they only provide the latest communication protocol from that tower. The justification for this is attrition. They are making the older signals obsolete. This will have you buying a new phone and committing to another 2 year contract. Luckily I have an HTC 8125 world phone that supports all the frequencies from 900 Mhz to EDGE. So, when I am in areas with older cell tower deployments I'll get signal, maybe not the latest and greatest but signal none the less. And until they start using a more advanced protocol beyond edge I benefit with all the new infrastructure (increased coverage area).
What I see as the biggest problem in cellular communication is redundancy. Cingular builds towers and T-Mobile builds towers along with all the major carriers. Even though there may be towers within a few blocks of each other. What I see as the solution is to separate the development, deployment, and management of the towers and their respective cell areas from the service that you choose to use. This way you choose a provider based upon features and cost rather than coverage since every service would have the same coverage. If all the cell towers in the US were brought under the control of a single company and a single communication protocol was agreed upon. The towers could be redeployed in such a way that there would be no gaps in coverage nationwide. The only places you would have trouble getting a signal would be if you were somewhere truly remote like say Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the continental United States).
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
"None of the above."
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
I use my phone to call people... sorry, I don't buy into all of the extra "services" designed to get me at $0.10 here and $1.00 there....
:) $49 unlimited 3G access...
next post.....
Oh, BTW I am posting this using my Cingular data card
*head explodes*
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I just want to clear up a small misunderstanding here. ZYB https://zyb.com/ that Cnet lists in the article is not a UK service, it is a world-wide mobile backup service that also works in the US. ZYB is absolutely free (forever), but your operator will charge you for the data-traffic you use. For the first synchronisation of 80 contacts an 60 calendar events the data amount should be below 100kb. Subsequent synchronisations use around 10-20kb of data traffic depending on the amount of new information added on either the phone or on ZYB.
Runar Reistrup, ZYB
A "rail ride"? isn't that where some bloke buggers you up the arse while you're in the loo trying to spend a penny? Thanks, but no.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
are handy for people like me that don't have a 'smart' phone, or if you can't/don't want to text message:
Google Local: 877-520-3463. My favorite. You give it a city, category, and/or business name. It speaks or texts you the results, and connects you to the business.
Tell Me: 800-555-tell (8355). I mostly use it for driving directions, but it has myriad other features.
511: Traffic, public transit info (only handy if you're in the SF Bay Area or around Sacramento).
And thus we are introduced to the /. addendum to Godwin's Law:
"As the length of any thread on Slashdot increases, the probability of a comparison involving Microsoft and/or Bill Gates approaches one."
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
yes! I have had some of the same experiences! Like getting baited into a "cheaper" contract, etc.
I too used to like the durability to the phone. The first one I had was an i80s. No joke, one time I got angry and threw it as hard as I could against a concrete wall. The antenna was impacted into the phone and could not be removed, but the stinkin phone still worked! Unbelievable! They don't make phones like that anymore. But as a result of that phone, I will always get Motorola phones, regardless of carrier.
blah blah blah
You put LOTS of effort into that, and your information is both timely and accurate.
However, this article is about third-party cell phone services that you access through your cell phone provider. Sorry there.
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'