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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
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.
"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
seriously, i pay less than 1/3 of that and i get unlimited wireless data now. and i havent gone over my minutes since getting the phone. not because im a minute-miser mind you, but because i just dont use the phone part all that much now that ive got all the data i need. sprints coverage may suck, but their data (vision) plans are quite cheap compared to the competition.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
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.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
At least link to the Userfriendly comic strip, will ya?
Am I the only one who's concerned with the health risks involved with all these increased dosages of electromagnetic radiation exposure?
...
Of course not. That is why I, like many slashdoters, avoid that big bright producer of electromagnetic radiation in the sky whenever possible. As a side benefit, my pasty white completion will soon be white enough for me to qualify as a white body and as such, EM radiation will just bounce happily away from me.
Note: Intended as a joke and I haven't had a physics class since High School so
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.
For some people, accumulating wealth isn't their reason for existence.
Advanced users are users too!
The only reason the landlines still worked had to do with what they did to get the reliability.
They've got huge banks of 48 volt lead-acid or better batteries that hold 48-72 hours of juice
minimum for the entire system at "normal" usage levels. If the mobile phone towers had that
level of backup, the mobiles probably would have worked as well.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
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.
Your math is a little off, I think you meant to calculate for the entire month, not just one week.
6 am to 9 pm is 15 hours, or 900 minutes. Multiply by 5 weekdays and you get 4500. Multiply by 4 weeks (lets calculate for February just for the sake of simplicity) and you get 18000.
That said, it is indeed possible to burn through 4000 minutes and I know a "road warrior" technician that uses his phone for work who has broken that amount.
[sig]you really dont want the answers, trust me[/sig]
I too live in a rural area with spotty reception.
OK, I'm old, and when I was a kid I used to watch "Green Acres." One of the running gags was that by moving to the country this lawyer from New York had to go outside and climb a telephone pole to receive a call. I guess it seemed pretty outrageous at the time.
40 years later I see people standing outside of buildings all the time, in all kinds of weather, trying to improve their mobile phone reception.
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.
One by one we're loosing land lines, the agents are shutting us in!