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Unlimited Wireless Plans Coming
An anonymous reader tells us about a BusinessWeek story claiming that in a few years most wireless plans will be unlimited. And pretty costly: unlimited cell calling, SMS, and data for on the order of $115 - $150 a month. Sprint is conducting a trial of such an offering in San Francisco, with the intent of rolling it out nationwide, and other carriers are said to be sure to follow suit. An interesting claim in the article is that in 5 years time, 40% of the US population will be untethered from landlines and using their cell numbers exclusively (vs. 15% now).
I already get unlimited wireless in Pittsburgh for $44/month from Cricket.
Sugapablo
I've got to say that I'm definitely skeptical. What does the business model change to if you have everything included? Though I suppose getting 150 a month from each of their clients wouldn't be such a bad thing.
And can I get unlimited data included with this plan?
All men can fly, but sadly, only in one direction--Down.
how many people out there will wreck their finances this way?
Amazing, just a few years ago most people didn't think they had to have a cell phone, let alone use it all the time. Yet these days I know some families that have gone over the top with them.
Sorry, but having a $50 to $100+ new monthy expense is not my idea of progress. What is truly amazing is that the Cell providers marketing worked so well. Pay by the minute? I guess unlimited coming so expensive makes sense because people will convince themselves they are getting a deal.
We have unlimited local calling on some plans in the Atlanta area and a few give you unlimited national calling too. These plans are regularly less than $50 a month but the only hang up is limited local coverage even though they piggy back on another network.
Now unlimited high speed data "might" be worth it. Might be because for the most part people don't need it. Businesses and self employed might need it. Say going to a client and making a presentation and you need stuff from outside at the last minute. Regular people? What, watch YouTube on my phone? I guess some will.
$100+ a month for voice - not for me, I can put that $100 to far better use. Kill yourself with monthlies and keep moaning about how you don't get paid enough - I won't
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
regular calling? I don't need SMS, I don't need Internet connectivity. I'm one of those rare freaks out there that actually uses the cell phone for *gasp* emergencies and quick phone calls. I don't text message people under the table during dinner (I engage in what some people call conversation with friends and family face-to-face), I don't browse the Internet (that's what I have a wireless work laptop for), and I stick with one of the pre-installed ringtones (ever notice how many people use Jingle Bells as their ringtone at Christmas?). Great, create the unlimited calling plan for $150, just don't leave those of us who only need about $25 worth of that plan in the dust.
Get rid of my land line? Cell coverage in my neighborhood is spotty at best. The quality of a call is never as good over a cell phone as it is over a land line. Never. Yes, I have a cell phone for convenience, but it is not going to replace my land line until the call quality goes way up.
Broadband? Sorry, my DSL line provided excellent service for years, and now my FIOS line is even better. With Verizon rolling out FIOS and the cable companies entering the market with triple play solutions to the home, I cannot see people abandoning either of those two services to have a mobile only connection, not in significant numbers.
The one place that mobile may have an advantage is the rural areas between cities that are covered by 3G services, where there is no other wired offering.
If people are going to be paying that much for unlimited wireless data, with no option for 'some wireless data', then they'll be cancelling their home phone lines in order to scrape some money back. Low broadband users might scrap that too and use their phone for internet!
Which is a big wet dream for the mobile service providers.
Consumers, on the other hand, don't have a limitless supply of money, especially these days where everything is getting more expensive across the board. It will be hard for them to justify >>$100 a month, even with a free fancy phone.
Am I the only one who's concerned with the health risks involved with all these increased dosages of electromagnetic radiation exposure?
I'm pretty sure that we're all the Guinea pigs of tomorrow.
Soon enough we'll start comparing the cellular industry with Tobacco industry.
Sigs are for the weak.
How else could this companies charge for a service that is all intrinsically the same? It is all wireless digital data transfer. It is hard to imagine a different option. Some won't sniff your data, and those are going to be the winners.
MeTheGeek
"Our customers have unlimited bandwidth, but some are more unlimited than others!"
Now that we know how ISPs have chosen to implement 'unlimited', we should expect similar from the cellular companies. It won't be long before they've all merged together anyway.
The FDA requires food products that contain no actual cheese to refrain from using the word 'cheese' in their names. And so you get things like 'cheez whiz'. I say we require ISPs and Cellular companies to do likewise. Then we'll know when our plan is truly 'unlimited' versus merely 'unlymited'. :)
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
...now I am generally curious. Seeing as I don't use a cell phone right now, and I pay on the order of about 39.99 a month for unlimited long-distance calling, and that money goes toward... you know... actual infrastructure... where is my $115 bucks a month going? Wireless removes a lot of the overhead (no wires, no poles, no digging up the fsck'ing road to bury said wires) and simplifies it enormously (buy small parcel of land, rezone, and plop tower on it...), why such a significant jump? Is it simply because people perceive cellular phones as so mystical that they think "surely this must cost a fortune to run? Or is it the phone company saying.... well, they pay 60 bucks a month for 500 minutes, they should see this as a deal!? And on a total sidenote... How do they intend to deal with emergencies. Landlines are capable of deaing (better) with overload during crisis, but cellular systems just go pft!
Ruin financially?
Yeah, perhaps in the early days I had a cellphone. That would be in 1996. These days, I have this nice plan: pay for what you actually use. No base fee (as in 0€), and only pay 0.09€ per minute (or per SMS). (No, it's not a prepaid card) Sure, when roaming it gets a bit more expensive, but not the end of the world. I set apart exactly 10 per month for cellphone calls (meaning nearly 2 hours calling) and I never break that barrier.
No way a cellphone is going to ruin me... The reason is evident: just look at the currency I use....
I pay 24 dollars a month with unlimited wireless through AT&T. After Cingular purchased aquired them, They wanted to rob me for 74 a month only if I decided to change or "upgrade" my phone. I still use my siemens s56 with infrared, bluetooth, which I still connect to my bluetooth laptop or my zaurus C-3200, C-1000, C-3100, SL-5500 for unlimited data. HELL I even still listen to the shoutcast player on itfor hours on end at times when I'm stuck somewhere. I been doing this for I think 5 years already?
When we had the great power outage in 2003, our land phone lines continued to work, but the cell phones were hosed. My wife's greatest concern has always been the reliability of the land lines, even though they too can go out. This is probably the last main reason we haven't switched to all cellular or at least to cable phone.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
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Today I have one land line exclusively for the 'unlimited' aspect of the MCI Neighborhood plan because that line accrues 4-5,000 (thousand) minutes a month. It costs $72 including taxes. I also have an AT&T CallVantage VoIP line for work and I believe its 'unlimited' is actually capped at 5,000 minutes/month. But before you all tell me to discard MCI landline let me tell you that it's orders of magnitude more reliable than CallVantage. If I had to pay for AT&T VoIP, I wouldn't. It sucks. Then I have 5 lines on a shared minute Sprint plan. 2,500 minutes/month. So if Sprint wants to give me 'unlimited' minutes it has to be an additional 5,000 minutes per month and it can't cost more than $50/month plus all the garbage taxes. So the price has to come down by at least half. Compared to crappy VoIP for $25/month 'unlimited' cell would have to come down in price by 3/4ths.
How can they charge so much? In Finland, you can in example get 3G phone packet from Saunalahti that includes a 3G phone, 3000min/month to all GSM and wired phones, videophone-calls for 3000min/month, 3000 sms/month, 3000mms/month and 3G-, EDGE- and GRPS data connection with max 384 kbit/s speed and that only costs 57,95euros which already includes sales tax. To me paying 57euros from that packet is little bit expensive, I would definitely get it if it would cost 30 to 40 euros... charging 115 to 150 dollars from basically the same deal that Saunalahti offers is just crazy, I wouldn't accept it.
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OP has a valid point. Monthlies will kill your finances if not looked at wisely. What if you took $100/month and invested it in your retirement or even just a normal stock portfolio? THAT is how the smart build wealth.
But if you spend $100/month on your 'essential' unlimited trendy cellphone (never the $29.99 or free basic phone, right?), another $80-100/month for cable television, $299 + $150 insurance/month for your leased car, $50/weekend to hit the bars and see a movie to unwind....do you really wonder why despite the good job you can never really get ahead?
Wireless is reasonably expensive and still charged per minute in the US.
There are people for which $150/month would probably be a good deal.
On the other hand, if Sprint or others change such that $150/month is the default plan, my cell phone goes out the window.
In the future there will be service for a little cheaper they are saying. Nextel plan with 2000 minutes for a blackberry with unlimited data is about $150. So this will just be taking it the next step, just like the current plans are a step beyond what used to be.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
40% of the US population will be untethered from landlines
Tethers need not be visible. In this case people will simply be exchanging a small one for a big, thick, heavy one. Anyone remember ye good ole days, when you had to purchase phone hardware exclusively from Ma Bell? We went through that crap once before the government stepped in and forced them to allow us options. Now we're going through the same thing again with the cellular industry - except its worse. We've got phones that should be capable of doing all sorts of fantastic things, but can't (or won't) unless we buy our software from the carrier, pay the bandwidth fees to them to transfer it (because we can't just plug our phone into our PC and transfer software that way), then continue paying subscription and bandwidth fees if we want to continue using our software. We have to sign 2 year contracts just to get a phone at a reasonable price. They offer insurance that, after 6 months, isn't worthwhile because the cost of the phone has plummeted, and it's cheaper to buy a phone from a 3rd party than pay just the deductible.
Right now I think we're entering a phase in which carriers are not really trying to compete with one another. Have you ever noticed how you can go into a town and every gas station's prices are within a couple cents of one another, and go down the road a few miles and all those stations prices are 5% cheaper? That's because they aren't competing - they're consorting together (indirectly) in their micro-market to set the prices they want. Well, that's what's going on with cell market. You shouldn't have to pay $100 a month network fees for a single cell phone just for decent service, and unfortunately that's where we stand today. Enough people have been bit by an over-minute cell phone bill, with obscene per-minute rates, that the carriers can now extort people to pay a much higher flat monthly fee simply to avoid the risk.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Maybe you don't pay attention to exchange rates, but by the time these services are launched, 58 euros will be 150 dollars!
My plan is through Alltel, and I get unlimited calling to 10 numbers plus 1000 anytime minutes for $60. I think that is pretty good since those 10 numbers account for about 90% of my minutes anyways. There is no way I would pay $100 for "unlimited."
For some people, accumulating wealth isn't their reason for existence.
Advanced users are users too!
cellone in MI has had unlimited plans for four years maybe at 50bux/month, I had one for two years. Switched to alltel for a better deal on two lines.
25/month for 3.6Mbits unlimited plan, wireless all over Stockholm. At the moment there's no problem with it at all. Though I wish I could configure it to automatically switch over to my WLAN when I'm at home, now I just continue to surf on the 3G network..
It's useful for more than watching YouTube on your phone. You can use your phone as a modem in a lot of cases. And if you are doing that and the speed is fast enough for actual internet access, this bill could allow you to combine your cell phone bill and internet bill. (3G speeds and above I bet would be acceptable to most consumers) So when you look at it as 100-150 a month for unlimited cell/unlimited internet, that's not so bad.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
You'd have to use your cell phone a lot to justify spending $100/month, or even $50/month. I have tmobile prepaid at 10 cents/min, and I certainly never use enough minutes to justify switching to an unlimited plan. You'd have to use more than 500 minutes a month to make it worth spending $50 on a plan that gives you more talk time.
40% of the US population will be untethered from landlines and using their cell numbers exclusively
Tethered? That should mean not going far from it. We always leave our landlines at home. Hence, untethered. We carry our cell phones with us, so we are never far from them, hence tethered.
Further, when moving, land line numbers change, and we accept that. For cellular phones, we now have laws that let us take them with us even when changing carriers.
Land lines are also cheaper. The main advantages of cellular phones are convenience, and no monopoly.
If anything, there is more freedom with a land line. Just ask anyone with a cell phone.
Have you read my journal today?
No, monthlies do not kill your finances: they enable you to plan ahead. What you need to do is proper financial planning, a.k.a. making a budget and then see what is really not valuable to you. Example: you pay 100/month for cable (frankly, that sounds like a lot... it's 80€ bi-yearly for me) and that is because you have some premium movie channels. Do you really watch that much TV? Isn't it cheaper to rent a DVD from time to time if you fancy a movie? Based on the answers of these questions, you cancel your cable (or the premium package) and save money.
Welcome to capitalism, where the "invisible hand of the market" decides everything.
you'll just moan about how other people get killed with monthlies. wierdo.
Correct, but those people are to the first to ask for a handout when hard times come along.
You guys have this all wrong. Have work pay for it. Problem solved...
I just checked plans on Verizon, and they have a 4000 minute plan, with free nights/weekends for $149.99. That is basically unlimited, since your core minutes would only be used M-F, 6am - 9pm, which is roughly 4500 minutes. Considering "In" calling and the unlikelihood that your phone would be constantly "talking" 6am-9pm I would say one might even get away with 2000 minutes at $99.00. So in other words, wheres the news. Let me know when they claim unlimited plans for like $75.00/month.
And can someone explain the 6000 minute plan, maybe it is for people that can't do math??
Only in America would this pricing scheme seem like a great deal.
Sprint offers the plan and gets new subscribers. It drives up profits and the other wireless carriers follow suit, but offer the service $5 less than Sprint. Sprint customers, locked into contracts, bend over and hand Sprint the Vasoline until one of the competitors makes an offer like paying your early contract termination fees. One year from now, these unlimited plans will have dropped to $50 (or less).
Eh. I would like to see the following wireless plane exist: you have a phone. there is no monthly fee. pre-paid minutes NEVER expire (without forcing a customer to pay for 1,000+ minutes).
I only want a cell phone for ONE purpose...an emergency phone to keep in the car. I have researched all of the non-contract phone plans and I find them all lacking. I certainly am not going to $120 per month. That is what I am paying for Phone + DSL + Satellite TV COMBINE.
Ultimately, I am not the target market. Thus, my opinion won't matter to Sprint et al. They will still make billions and I will continue waiting for the perfect emergency phone plan.
Bearded Dragon
For true emergencies, any working cell phone can still make 911 calls (or cellular version thereof *999 - whatever). That's free - no carrier, no bills. In many areas, the local police or cell phone stores will take donated old cell phones to give to local women's shelters and to shut-ins for just this purpose.
Look around the house, find a phone from a provider you no longer use or whatever, and charge it up and give it to her. The biggest hassle is usually the battery - those lithium batteries have a 'shelf-life' of about three years before they can hold no charge at all. They hold their existing charge quite nicely on the shelf, but their capacity is what goes down.
it would be fun to have unlimited internet/txt messages on the go, and not be limited to 2000 txt a month.
How much can you talk before you get a letter saying you talk too much and are affecting the network?
Are they any better than the cable companies?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - H. L. Mencken
Part of the problem is that we are attempting to create a public utility from what started as a luxury service. We simply want to be able to talk on the phone, we're blineded by the bells and whistles, and the providers are used to being able to charge through the nose for phone calls that - as I've said before - are seemingly carried by gold-encrusted fairies on a steady diet of caviar.
Same on a lesser scale for TV services, and the reverse is true (at least in deregulated Connecticut) of thet existing public utilities like the power company, which is fast becoming a luxury industry. Their stock price doubled, dividends up 50% in 3 years - pretty amazing moneymaking for a utility. I realize they have to answer to investors, but they also have to answer to the people who pretty much have no other way of keeping the lights on, as this happened at the same time our electric rates - and actual bills - nearly doubled.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I completely agree with your post. I have a 400 minute plan right now and I typically use only about half of it. What I need is for us to go in the other direction. I want cheap per minute access. There's no reason I should have to pay for so much service when I don't really need it. $50 is definitely the most I would ever want to go. If that changes I might have to find a wireless symbian/skype enabled phone like one of those nokias.
From TFA "...plus unlimited mobile broadband access.".
Isn't this just marketing? The last I'd read, mobile data access in the US could hardly be called "broadband".
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How can we as a society on our own free will determine it's better to go with a service that has no regulations on quality or uptime? It's now a daily occurance that I or someone else I'm talking with goes through the "are you there? you're breaking up..." routing. 99% of the time when someone calls me on my cell, I ask them if they can call me back on my landline either my desk (if i'm at work, VOIP) or at home. At that point i've never had the connection "mysteriously drop out". I just don't buy the 40% of the population number. What percentage of the US doesn't have a cell phone at all?
In 5-10yrs, I want my cell phone to determine that I'm in my house (or at work) and act like a 'standard cordless phone' and connect with a baseunit in my building/home instead of trying to reach the tower a mile away. There's just two much truth in Verizon's "are you there? Good" advertisements. Not truth about Verizon, but the scary truth that cell phones are not just reliable enough. And no I don't want a tower hidden in every bellfry, office building, or "fake tree" on every corner.
I for one would love an unlimited wireless plan. I know that a lot of smaller companies offer unlimited plans now, but they stop working about 15 minutes from the center of town. I travel a lot and my cell phone is my connection to my customers and my family. Right now I pay $110 for my phone from Verizon. If I could pay another $5 and never have to worrry about overage charges I would.
As the article says, this could also force costs down. If every company offers an unlimited plan it is easier for the majority of the population to determine were you get the best deal ($90 vs $100 for unlimted minutes or $60 for 900 minutes vs $70 1200 minutes). This should force companies to lower costs until they are at a reasinable place. Again I for one would be happy to sign up for a nationwide unlimited plan.
Cingular/AT&T wants $299.99/month for a voice only family plan with 6000 minutes.
Verizon wants $199.99/month for a voice only single person plan.
Sprint/Nextel makes you call to get rates for plans over 2000 minutes.
In all three cases, SMS and data are extra charges (unlimited SMS typically runs $20 and unlimited data is in the realm of $45, but requires cell company provided equipment).
By comparison, $115-$150 would be a tremendous price drop for the US market!
They do have something like this. It's called UMA. Currently, Tmobile has this in beta testing and should roll this out nationwide this year (called Hotspot@Home). This technology lets you connect to your wireless router at home with your cell phone. The change will be seamless between your router and cell towers.
"End of Line." - MCP
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.
What country are you from? This is America. We don't do proper financial planning or even basic financial planning. Financial planning means figuring out how to pay for the $100/month cell phone bill out of our next paycheck because we're so overextended in debt. In fact, a recent suvey showed that 40% of those surveyed said they were living paycheck to paycheck, and that included people making over $100K/year.
If the people of this country were truly concerned about financial planning, check cashing companies would be out of business and the economy would tank because people wouldn't be spending money on useless things like a $100/month cell phone plan.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I am already paying $115 CDN for my BlackBerry voice and data plan through Rogers. What do I get? 350 minutes during the day (rounded UP to the minute, no per-second billing), unlimited evenings from 6 pm to 8 am, and umlimited weekends.
I also get one of Rogers' unlimited* data plans for the BlackBerry.
*Their unlimited data plan is actually just 25MB, with fine print reading "Rogers has the right to charge for excess use over 25 MB".
My friend has a mobile phone service from the US but lives in Canada for about a year now. She has LOTS of long distance voice and data included for roughly $60 USD - no roaming charges. Similar plan from Rogers, most cost-effective? About $300.
Canada sucks, because the big 3 mobile telcos have an oligopoly that nobody cares to regulate.
If we EVER get an unlimited plan, it will be in the neighbourhood of $150+ for voice only. Data? SMS? I'm sure it'll be over $200. Unless companies like Solo Mobile or Virgin, the small guys, start offering some competitive plans.
Or, also in Finland, services starting from 37.70 per month with 1000 minutes and 100 messages per month.a _palvelut/gsm/hinnat_dna_urho.shtml
a _palvelut/gsm/hinnat_dna_onni.shtml
http://www.dnafinland.fi/yksityisille/liittymat_j
Or, also in Finland, services which cost 0.66 per month [not a typo] with less than 0.07 per minute/message for calls.
http://www.dnafinland.fi/yksityisille/liittymat_j
Cellular customers are really ripped off in the US.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
yeah, my girlfriend lived in Europe for a few years after college; and was shocked about how much cheaper cell phones are there. My thinking that part of the reason is that it's easier to change cell plans there without changing your phone; ie don't you just need a new crystal(transmitter card) and all? I think that fact, that you need a new phone here, is part of the reason they've been able to keep prices up.
Oh well...
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
Tiny country in Europe... but yes, you're right. I completely forgot even though I saw this some time ago.
Personally, I don't think that the economy would crash when everyone had more financial responsibility, but hey... I'm not an economist.
Well,
$50/mo, Unlimited local, long distance, text, picturemail, web browsing. Add on $2 for unlimited 411. And, no contract. Downside.. price for phones.
Amp'd, which uses verizon's network (a MVNO), $119/mo for unlimited voice and data... and you can use it as a modem for your laptop, using the verizon network (as compared to dialing into an ISP at 14.4). It goes up to $150 if you need unlimited text.
OMG... I have a sig?
This reminds me of those travel channel shows where they show these obscenely expensive homes and say "more and more americans are buying homes like these".
is this guy daft? he sounds like the cloistered elite that run sony when he talks about this price point... i think he actually believes the average person can afford that!
my immediate family income is quite a bit over median and if $100 a month were the only option we'd go without.
so... unless we'll be getting cost of living increases in aggregate, then that price point simply will not fly.
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That my 5 phone (4 add a line) 2500 min/month, + 60 bonus minutes per phone per month, plus "Vision plan" with 500-600 SMS/month per phone on 4 phones and unlimited SMS on 1 phone, plus internet, email, voiceSMS and unlimited nights starting at 6pm runs $196/month. Yes it's steep. Which is why I'm sensitive to the 'just a few dollars more' pricing scheme. For $100-$150/month more they would have to throw in free wireless broadband unmetered rate.
Considering how dependent the U.S. economy is on people continuing to spend money, even to the point of having a negative savings rate, any substantial increase in savings will have a detrimental effect on the economy. In fact, since that report came out, the savings rate has doubled to -1%.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Using text messages doesn't mean you have to be rude. Quite the contrary, a text message can mean that you're not interrupting the receiver with a phone call about something quick, and instead sending them a quick message that they can read at their leisure. Nobody is forcing you to use it under the table at dinner. Since the advent of text messaging it is nice to no longer have to deal with the formalities and interruptions of a phone call for quick things like "Can you pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work?". Additionally, it can actually bring you closer to your friends and family with less interference into daily life than a phone call, which may not be acceptable during the day. Checking a text message is significantly easier than checking voicemail, and it isn't any less personal.
It's also nice to have the data package so you can do things like phone book lookups without powering up a laptop and finding a hotspot. Really, when you're walking around, who wants to carry a laptop anyway? I'll admit, though, that it is purely a luxury, and 4 out of five times you can get the information you need from Google SMS anyway (reason enough to have text messaging, if you ask me...).
I agree that $150 is insane though. Especially considering that I currently get (from Sprint) unlimited Nights, 750 daytime minutes (of which I never use all of since SMS), unlimited text messages, and unlimited data for $55/month. I think that these plans are meant for the theoretical people who spend hundreds of dollars on land-line long distance every month. To somebody like that I can see how it would be attractive.
And turn off the damned ringer. It isn't any less annoying because it's stock. Your phone has a silent/vibrate mode for a reason, and if it can't be near your body, then use the "beep" mode.
Its only a matter of time, long distance calling on landlines was per minute up until about 5 or so years ago. Now most plans are unlimited long distance. Cell phones are just a few years behind. Competition drives innovationa and eventually leads to the lowest common denominator type solution, like unlimited calling.
I am currently paying $40 x 2 for phones. I have no wired phone line. I have Cable Modem which is $39 for 3MB/s down. If I didn't have Cable with them also, add $10/mo.
So that is $119/mo for two cell lines and a cable modem, or $129 if I drop cable.
I can currently get unlimited Internet access through my Cell phone for an additional $29/mo by hooking the PC up to the USB cable and then that to my phone. But that gets about 115K/s
If I can get unlimited high speed Internet closer to the 1MB/s range through my two cell phones for $150/mo and drop cable, that might be worth it. But if we are talking about $150x2=$300/mo, then there is no way.
The downside is that I couldn't access my home PC from work if I did this. I'm not certain I'd give that capability up.
That nobody has mentioned Sprint's SERO plan.
You're supposed to get it with a new account, but I switched after being a Sprint customer for four years.
I pay $30/mo. for 500 anytime minutes, unlimited data, video mail, picture mail, nights and weekends starting at 7pm, sprint mobile to mobile, long distance. Its pretty much a full package. If I need more minutes, I get 30 more for $5 up to 800 minutes. The only thing it doesn't have is unlimited text messaging, but I got that for $10/mo.
If you feel like signing up, the email address holiday@sprint.com worked last time I checked.
Or unlimited like this.
Errr.....aren't those about the minimum common monthly expenses most everyone has?
Except for the leased car, I think most people still try to buy them.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/07/veri zon_unlimited.html/
"Unlimited" means 30G per-month.
Sprint, Cingular/AT&T, etc. aren't much different.
Wireless companies in the US play similar games with "unlimited" roaming and, in fact, abusing "unlimited" roaming is said to be one of the sure-fire ways to get out of the contract without an early-termination fee (but good luck trying to take your number with you) because it often prompts *them* to drop *you*.
Right on. My Verizon contract just expired, and I promptly moved to prepaid. I'm saving almost $30 a month. Prepaid phones are great if you don't use many minutes. My particular phone has ridiculously good deals for data and texting if I were interested in that.
Presumably you have a contract. Once it is up, the best thing you can do to tell the cell companies you want cheap per minute access is to sign up for a pay as you go plan that charges by the minute. You lose access to the minutes you are currently not using, but unless you have some amazingly cheap plan, you wouldn't pay more at $0.10 a minute anyway.
(the cell companies aren't really competing very hard for per minute people because they are 'low end' and there aren't that many of us. Up the numbers and change the low end perception and prices might go down.)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I'm currently a Sprint customer in FL. I already get unlimited data, unlimited SMS, 2 phone numbers and more shared minutes than I can use for $125/mo. I use SMS extensively for quick messages that don't need an immediate response, and also use a lot of data on my PDA phone (because its cool, and I can. I do find extensive use for it though, like google local when I'm on the road and can't find a place. Cheaper than 411 and provides a map)
What you'll likely get is what you get now, a pay-as-you-go plan that requires you generate around $10 in revenues every month at a minimum (or, in other countries with caller-pays, charges the usual rip-off rates for calls to mobiles but requires a lower commitment), with unlimited being an option for those who can afford it.
That said, I don't think any operator is going to even try to claw $150/month from its regular customers. The evidence so far as that around $50 a month is the "sweet spot" in the US for a mobile phone customers use in place of their landlines. What you might see is customers encouraged to buy other services that bring the total up to $150, but this would off-set those customer's expenditure on those services obtained from rivals. ie a cellphone that can also act as your broadband Internet access point (perhaps even with a built-in Ethernet adapter), that can also use W-USB to transmit DVR'd HD content received using DVB (a DVB receiver and DVR in your cellphone) to your W-USB HD TV. Cable TV, the Internet, and phone service, all in one tiny unit.
That's probably what they're aiming at, but it'd be interesting to see how practical such a device would be in practice, given the general incompetence of most operators.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
which was effectively a tax that the cell phone providers must collect from their customers. Most Americans are too economically illiterate to understand that though. Heck, there's $8.10 in taxes listed on my cell phone bill in addition to the hidden taxes.
I read an article about a rural cell phone company that's providing cheap phone and cellular Internet access. They can do that because the big companies weren't all that interested in serving the area and thus the feds couldn't extort much money at the spectrum auction.
A land-rush model would have worked better than an auction model for divvying up spectrum, as recommended in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
10 a month for unlimited 3G access (384kbps)
:p
and
36 a month for unlimited 4mb/1mb adsl
USA is so far behind
Imagine it: +1 Insyghtful, +1 Informatyve, +1 Interestyng, and um... +1 funni.
This post contains over 95% good ol' fashioned humour.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I get unlimited everything with my helio. 85 per month for 1000 minutes with unlimited data and texting/internet access. I can send video and receive video as part of the plan without penalty. Why is this such a big deal if its already happening?
Not at all: I made the choice to spend only $14/month for basic cable antenna service, about $5/month on prepaid cell service, and about $150/week on groceries which I use to cook my own meals. Our cars are 7 years old, but are well-maintained (I hope to make them last at least 10 years each). The tradeoff is that, by foregoing these luxuries, it's possible for me to work and for my wife to stay home full-time and raise our two kids. I know many other people in my situation, especially in the tech field where many salaries (mine included) have not recovered to the levels they were at before the tech bubble burst.
I have definitely thought about doing this. I'm pretty sure my contract expires soon and this is definitely an option. I just need to compare rates with my average times from the last few months to make sure it is worth switching.
I only want a cell phone for ONE purpose...an emergency phone to keep in the car.
If your emergency phone will be only used to dial 911, you don't need service at all. All cell phone networks in the U.S. are required by law to connect any cell phone to an emergency call center when someone dials 911. In that case, simply buy a cheap working phone with charger, from the newspaper classified ads, auction web site, etc.
Without the 2nd Amendment, the others are just suggestions.
"For true emergencies, any working cell phone can still make 911 calls..."
No all emergencies require the police. Calling a tow truck for a flat tire is one such example.
Some have opined that they believe Apple will get into the cellphone business when their exclusive deal with cingular ends.
I could see Apple offering 2 plans...
$99 a month unlimited calling
or
9 cents per minute
...just google for "3G auctions." AFAIK the total recovered by governments from sale of the 3G spectrum was substantially higher in Europe than the US (One 2001 source quotes $190bn for Europe vs $17bn for the US.)
- Why should I pay for those towers if I'm not using them?
I have Sprint mobile, and no land line at home.
I have unlimited data on their EDVO network.
I have unlimited nights and weekends.
No charges for calling anywhere in the US.
And I have 350 anytime minutes... far more than I use in any given month.
All of this is only $57/month when totaled with all the taxes and fees.
So why would I pay $30/month for just local dialing on a land line? And why would I spend $150 for unlimited mobile service when my needs are completely met for 1/3 the price?
But a better question is why has it taken the mobile industry so long to figure out what it took the ISP industry a very short time to do?
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
One by one we're loosing land lines, the agents are shutting us in!
I would be definitely more interested in unlimited data compared to unlimited calling.
In calling you have much more control on how many minutes you spend on a call and usually you are in control which information, important or not, comes first by steering the conversation w/ questions, interruptions, etc.
In getting data from Internet you never know how much the page is going to weigh and you are in no control of what kind of ad crap is going to get to you first before you stop downloading.
So, yes to unlimited data (not for $150, of course), no to unlimited calls (I happy w/ my 450min/month plan).
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I hate cell phones! And yes, I'm a conspiracy theory nut about big brother tracking and listening to our cell phones. Actually, with an old Bearcat scanner and a digital converter I'm able to still listen to many cell phones in use today. Amazing what people talk about openly like that.
:-)
At any rate, why do some people feel the need to be that connected to people and technology. I love geek toys, but cells and Smartphones are my enemy!
The problem with using a cell phone that doesn't have a service provider is that you lose the 911 locating functionality, very nice to have when you do need to call 911.
Important as well, you still need to upgrade the phone every few years to keep up with the changing technologies. Good luck with an old analog phone, and I'm not sure the old Sprint PCS GSM phones will work on the existing GSM carriers.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Sorry, but having a $50 to $100+ new monthy expense is not my idea of progress. What is truly amazing is that the Cell providers marketing worked so well.
That sir, is the MIRACLE of marketing... Water falls from the sky yet people pay handsomely for it... Not only has a massive cellphone industry quickly sprouted up, but it will likely also succeed into conning people to pay 2x as much as they currently do for something that they don't truly *need* in the first place. I bet some bigshots in accounting/marketing/management will get nice bonus if this idea of "progress" succeeds.
I don't really understand why people need so many minutes. I spend the daytime during weekdays at work, not yakking on the phone. I talk to friends and family on mainly weeknights or on the weekends -- i.e. mostly when I'm NOT at work. Am I that weird?
Some carriers are now moving their "unlimited nighttime" cutoff to 7pm instead of 9pm... Before 7pm, I'm too preoccupied with getting home and eating than I am talking on away the phone.
I would be in favor of halving my minutes if it halved my phone bill. Unfortunately, the cell phone companies don't see it that way.
The main question is: is this sustainable in the long run?
Sure, starting to save again would probably bring a crash in the economy, but after a couple of decades the economy will adapt. I think so at least. Of course it sucks to be in that couple decades, but if it's better in the long run...
I get unlimited wireless now... how is SF a test market?
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
In Europe incoming calls have been free for ages, in some small countries, like Hungary, population 11 million, there is no local or long distance call within the country. And there is excellent reception in the subways systems, unlike in some major North American cities, like Toronto.
Hey...seriously, if you're happy doing all this, more power to you. But really...the job market out there is MUCH better than that!! Get out and look around, you may have to move, but, that's really just a fact of modern life these days.
If you're good and skilled...incorporate yourself...look into getting into the contract circuit...or at least be a contract employee. If you're a citizen, and can pass security checks, you are gold.
I shop and cook for myself, but, man, I drop about $100-$150/week easily. I like to cook good, and have a good bottle of wine...especially if I have a date.
But really....while nothing being wrong with being moderately frugal, and saving and not going into debt...the excuse that there aren't any well paying jobs in IT isn't really the case. Get out there and look....
It is pretty easy to find, if you just break out of that old "same job for life in the same town" way of thinking.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Swim in my frosty piss. Bitch.
First, keep in mind that it's possible to get unlimited service through smaller mobile providers in the area of $30-$70/month. This article is just about one national provider's offerings.
I assume that Finland (like most countries in Europe) charges more to call a mobile phone from a landline. AT&T (landline) tells me that there is a $.12/min surcharge to dial a mobile phone in Finland versus a landline.
These charges don't exist in North America. Mobile phones are numbered exactly the same as landlines.
So even if you have an "unlimited" plan in Finland, presumably your friends dialing from a landline are paying around 5 euro/hour to talk to you. An unlimited plan here is completely unmetered for both incoming and outgoing calls. Don't forget to figure the cost of both sides when making a comparison!
If you're a light cell phone user like me, this is probably the way to go: Virgin Mobile prepaid service allows you to buy a $20 "top up" as infrequently as once every 90 days.
If you agree to have your credit card automatically charged once every 90 days, the rate drops to $15. Voila, $5 per month cell phone service.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
640 minutes is all anyone needs.
how many people out there will wreck their finances this way?
I can't tell you how many people I know who have run up their cell phone bills into the $300-$500 range because they simply are not able to control their texting/minute usage. The horror of finding a cell phone bill 3x what you normally budget is what wrecks people's finances.
Regarding the $120.00 plus price for unlimited calling: Prices in the US are already too high. If you account for the fact that people here pay for unused minutes on any calling plan, the price is closer to $0.50 per minute. Compare that to India where the cost of a call is $0.02 per minute and yet the telcos there are profitable.
Yup, they sure figgered out how to suck you dry. Bastages.
We got our cellphone plan back in the 80s at $24.95 a month unlimited usage that includes all current and future services (except fax services, text-to-voice, fallback services and automated voice answering services). I already get unlimited data/calls and shared cell/land-line, I don't see a reason to upgrade. The cellular companies are just an evil group of conglomerates that have made a novelty into a life requirement.
And the ant and the grasshopper is rediscovered.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_ and_the_Grasshopper
You took the words right from my mouth. The only addition I'd make is make sure it's a GSM or CDMA phone. There's tons of used amps/namps (analog) and tdma phones out there but coverage for those older phones is shrinking and will soon be non-existent. Furthermore, with a GSM phone, make sure you get a quad band for better coverage. With CDMA any dual band digital or tri-band digital+analog phone will do. I bet you could ask around your neighbors, friends, family and/or coworkers and find quite the selection to choose from which they'd most likely give you.
Just garbage. Most plans already have unlimited nights & weekends... they might try, but nobody would pay that much.
I like to cook good, and have a good bottle of wine...especially if I have a date.
So can we assume you don't have kids? Children change everything. They are expensive and your priorities in choosing where to live usually shift towards their benefit. Most people will do anything to make sure their kids have the best chances for success in life, even if that means having reduced job opportunities for yourself.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
For people like me, this would be a great deal. I use about 3000 minutes a month. Currently, I have a 4000 minute per month plan from Verizon. With the addition of unlimited data plan, I think my company pays out a little more than $200/mo for my cell phone. This would certainly be attractive for us.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
I don't really understand why people need so many minutes. I spend the daytime during weekdays at work, not yakking on the phone. I talk to friends and family on mainly weeknights or on the weekends -- i.e. mostly when I'm NOT at work. Am I that weird?
I, and most of the people I work with, use cell phones quite a bit while at work for work related calls. The managers/executives do this most often because they spend their day wandering from meeting to meeting. I've disabled my desk phone and just have it forward to my cell because I'm rarely at my desk. Of course, my employer picks up cell phone bills for anyone that uses them for business related calls, so no one minds. This has been the case at every company I've worked at over the past 5 years. So, in my experience, yes, you're weird.
A couple of very weird notes about just how ridiculously high data pricing is in Canada:
- It's cheaper by the byte to hook your cellphone up to an acoustic coupler, dial a number, and transfer data at 2400 baud than it is to use a data connection (at any rate).
- Data plans are so overpriced in Canada, you will save 50 - 80% by buying a phone with a US provider and paying roaming charges for the data service in Canada. This is akin to it being cheaper for me in Canada to three-way call two people in the same US city than it is for them to talk to each other. Bloody ludicrous.
- One provider in Canada (Fido) offered unlimited data for $50 a month a few years ago. Rogers, unwillingly, offered the same plan about a year later. A year or so after that Rogers just bought Fido. Now neither provider sells unlimited data plans.
- Sometimes you will find people selling "plans" that have been grandfathered from a long time ago (like the unlimited Fido plan) on eBay for a (of course higher) takeover fee because pricing has become that damn high now. Can you think of any other industry that's such a rip-off this is actually profitable for customers to do? I can't...
This is coming from, of all places, Canada's so-called Technology Triangle. You'd think we'd have the best prices, wouldn't you? HA!
For a phone you don't use a lot, check out Virgin Mobile. I pay $15 every 3 months, and it all accumulates in my account balance, which gets charged 18cents/minute and 5cents/test-message. Since I hardly ever use the phone, my current balance is over $50. You do have to buy the phone, but they have basic models for $10-$20.
Unlimited plans are nothing new.
::insert expletive here::
"Back in the day" I was a sales rep for Nextel and we sold an unlimited plan for $199.99. This was changed if i remember correctly about 5-6 years ago, when the plan was dropped.
I might be blind, but I couldn't see where the article stated that "most wireless plans will be unlimited... and expensive." It did suggest that those plans would become more popular for a current niche market. It does not say that the sky was falling and the wireless carriers were out to rob us blind. How rediculously sensationalist.
Does anyone think wireless carriers in their right minds would try to pull that shit? No, not when customers are able to add kids to current plans for just $10 and spend under $100 a month for several lines. Strictly from a competitive standpoint, the wireless carriers are primarily battling for pure number of subscribers, and prize "new activations" above all else. (They do also strive for high ARPU-Average Revenue per Subscriber, but this is second to getting the subscriber!)
Adding an 18yr old kid that can pay $40 per month plus shell some extra monthly cash for text messaging is fine by them. Any beliefs that plans will be costly and one size fits all are completely bunk.
So why is this news... and why on Slashdot? I've seen some articles of questionable validity, but this is pure sensationalist crap. Honestly, crap crap crap. Wise up already...
No words of wisedom here.
Cricket Wireless is doing this in many areas now, and on the cheap. Unlimited everything for $50/month and no contract. Why do the "big boys" think they need to charge hundreds of dollars for similar service?
Jeremy Logan's Website.
A cellphone dude was at work and he claimed in 6 months time, cell phone air time would be down to a penny to half a penny per minute.
Doesn't T-mobile have such a plan? $100 for 1000 minutes, and "no hidden charges". I haven't used it, so I can't verify if they're being truthful about the no hidden charges.
60 euros? What is that right now, about 80 bucks? So you're saying that a maybe 30-40 buck difference for a (data-wise at least) superior service in the US is horrible? doesn't seem that bad to me.
The CDMA networks in America--notably Sprint+Verizon--that are currently both rolling out next gen EVDO give you SUBSTANTIALLY better speed that your 384 Kb/s. I believe the RevA evdo can give a max of around 3mbps down, 2mbps up.
My parents have gotten rid of their cable modem connection at home, and gone with Verizon data plan. It's not cheap--I think the unlimited data adds $60 a month, but the speeds are about the same as they were getting on cable modem (and more than they need for vnc, rdp, www and email!) and available many places in the US.
It's nice to see some good things come out of the american wireless systems, though there are still areas needing improvement!
Well 30 to 40 dollars can make a yearly difference of 360 to 480 dollars. Also to mind is that mobile operators still have with these prices quite good marginals, so from the point of view of a consumer 30 to 40 dollars difference can be a difference between fair price and robbery. To be noted that in my original message I thought that the fair price for the service should be more like 30 to 40 euros. In the future I think that the price can actually fall to that, if consumers put enough pressure to operators. To note also is that in article 120dollars is the price of unlimited phone, sms and data services, when you pay 30dollars more you also get mobile broadband, in another words more speedier connection. Same actually in here, if you pay 9,95 euros more you get max 2mbit/s speed.
I personally think that mobile broadband is a nice idea, but I wouldn't never replace my primary net connection with it. At least in here you get 2mbit/s speeds only in towns bigger than 30k and in more densely populated country side you get EDGE connections (236kbit/s) and in totally rural areas only 53kbit/s.
PS. About networks...
EV-DO can achieve 2.4 Mbps with Rev. 0 and up to 3.1 Mb/s with Rev. A.
UMTS can achieve 384 kbit/s for R99 handsets, and 3.6 Mbit/s for HSDPA
EV-DO Rev B can archive 4.9mbit/s
If I would live in US, I wouldn't be satisfied to what network operators are offering, and would seriously complain about the offerings and pricing. It should be also noted that my point was not to promote Finland nor lay a finger, just to inform you on how things are in other parts of the world so you wont be fooled by untrue sales pitches. The best way to put pressure in sales people and companies is to question their offerings and pricing to achieve better prices and offers.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
And will they give us the functionality of the phones in Europe?
We pay more now and get less than the rest of the world, I should think that that must change. There really has been no good reason for not offering unlimited service for the past few years.
And when will they stop selling "mobile" phones based upon where you live, rather than where you plan to use it?
How about phones as originally designed which can be moved easily from one service vendor to another? Like, wasn't that what a SIM card was designed for?
How about getting rid of all the extra costs and "services" and offering TELEPHONE service.
And, of course, for the current crop of electronic communication addicts, they should just integrate the phone into the user's head (SuperGlue anyone?)
Myself, I have a phone so that I can call out, not so that people can annoy me with what is important to THEM. I've noticed that the "cell" generation cannot seem to function without a phone attached to their head--is MS aware of this market...? Thankfully, MOST phones work better than Windows....
And what about viruses? Phones are potentially much more vulnerable than other electronics...it ius now time for your telephone to self-destruct. Of course, cheap phones make pretty good remote detonators too.
wizodd
to lazy to log in....
Pocket communications. $28/month. Unlimited calling, no contracts. $37/month for Unlimited voice, data, picture, text, no contracts. Only works in South Texas, but I never leave South Texas.