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WSJ: Americans' Phone Bills Are Going Up
There's been some positive news in the last year (and the last few) for American cellphone customers: certainly there's more visible competition for their business among the largest players in the market. Nonetheless, the Wall Street Journal reports that while more competition may translate into some more attractive service bundles, flexibility in phone options, or smoother customer service, it doesn't actually mean that the customers are on average reaping one of the benefits that competition might be expected to provide: lower price. Instead, the bills for customers on the major wireless providers have actually gone up, if not dramatically, in recent months — which means U.S. cell service remains much more expensive than it is in many other countries. The article could stand a sidebar on MVNOs and other low-cost options, though -- I switched to one of these from AT&T, and now pay just under $40 for one version of the new normal of unlimited talk and text, plus quite limited (1GB) data, but still using AT&T towers. Has your own cost to talk gone up or down?
It's still a lot cheaper than Canada. Here we're dreaming of having something as good as American plans! As a single parent I just can't afford what they charge here...
Landline sound quality in 1975 was better than any mobile phone sound quality in 2014.
"Hi, I'd like to get directions on how to mmmRAWWWWW BOAWWWAAHH URRRBBEE URBEEE BUMPH RAWWWWLLLL at the corner of Park Street. Hello? I said, I want to get dir--fwwwwzzzzEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE URPP *crackle* ffffffFAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ EEEP Park street."
The telecom companies raise prices, pocket the money and let their service rot, and the customers just keep shoveling cash at them.
My bill with Verizon dropped 40% after I threatened to switch carriers. Cell phone plans are a beautiful example of how prices are set based on the market's willingness to pay, not on the actual cost of the good or service.
Expect prices to continue to rise as companies employ more and more psychologists and statisticians to extract the absolute maximum amount of wealth from their consumers.
I haven't taken a look at plans in the past year, but a year ago I looked at all of the plans available to find the cheapest possible service for someone that doesn't have many needs. I ended up with TMobile pay as you go plan. They had a unique feature that if you put $100 on your account, the money would stay in your account for 1 year. $100 a year for a cell phone service is hard to beat. This obviously won't work for someone that uses their phone quite a bit, but it is perfect for someone that can mostly use land lines and wireless internet. It's also perfect for a child whom you want to give a phone, but make them responsible for their own account balance.
I don't understand how businesses are allowed to tack on fees to bills without disclosing these fees in their prices. Somehow they can't quote these fees when you are booking the service, but they can calculate them when billing for the services.
That's right, this should definitely be illegal. Airlines played those games for years and years ($50 ticket fee, but with taxes it works out to $100 or maybe even $300). A rather recent regulation had ended that crap
There are options from most of the carriers. I'm doing the Republic Wireless $10 unlimited talk and text, but with no data. Having a 4G phone with no data sucks, but the price is compelling, and I should be able to add a prorated data plan for the times when I expect I do need it. Having WiFi calls when I'm at a place with no cell reception is also nice. However, counting the phone, my bill is higher than if I had been able to keep my dumbphone on somebody's T-mobile family plan.
Ting is a great choice for Sprint, Airvoice is a great choice for AT&T, PagePlus is decent for Verizon.
One interesting option is FreedomPop, but they seem to be in beta. Earlier versions of FreedomPop phones had poor performance and very poor voice quality, but they're supposedly improving. It would be interesting to see if they go anywhere with that.
Have a nice time.
I beat an auto repair shop on an extra fees scam some years ago. Got a quote for a muffler replacement, and used it. After the work, they tacked on this extra $15 fee for "shop materials". That shop materials fee seems to be a common scam in the DFW area. When I objected, they trotted out the tired old justification that everyone does it, it's standard practice, etc. Also tried to claim it was a government requirement. EPA, you know. I pointed out that they had not included this cost on the quote, and they should have. That backed them off, and they dropped that extra charge.
It's relentless. Just because a business is big and well-known is no assurance they won't stoop to outright theft and try to pass it off as necessary or customary. Once had AT&T try to charge me a fee for dropping long distance service while keeping local. A fee for dropping a service? Ridiculous! When I complained to them, they tried to tell me that a particular law said they were allowed to charge this fee, so tough. I told them I didn't give a rats ass what some miserable obscure law said, as they'd doubtless pushed it through with bribes and lobbying, and warned them I would complain to the FCC if they didn't back down. They didn't, so I did. Evidently the complaint worked. AT&T responded by refunding the fee in the interests of "customer relations" while in no way admitting any fault.
The problem of ripoffs and poor service always seems to crop up wherever competition is lacking, and telecomms companies in the US certainly do not have enough competition. Ma Bell was an evil monopolist until their forced breakup in 1984, which it turned out, didn't help much. Today, telecomms in the US are still uncompetitive, price gouging, regulatory capturing, sluggish, backwards scum.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
AT&T got absorbed by Southwestern Bell Corporation (SBC) in 2005. Which is pretty much the worst of the baby bells split off from the original Bell System. They adopted the AT&T name, in part because theirs has a rather bad reputation, but the underlying company is SBC along with the bits of AT&T that they kept. So it is really SBC that is buying up everything not the company formerly known as AT&T.
My recollection of the old Ma Bell isn't as rosy as yours. You used to have to rent the telephone from them. You were not allowed to work on the phone wiring in your own home. I can remember being charged a non-trivial amount to have a phone line in my parents home repaired. Because it wasn't allowed for me to do it and unless you bought their in home wiring insurance policy you had to pay Ma Bell to come do it. Before the break up I can remember it costing something like $2 a minute to call my grandmother in Illinois from Virginia. My dad used to stand there while we talked and time the call because he could only afford so much time per month. Before the break up my father wanted a new phone Ma Bell quoted him over $200. We didn't get it because it was so costly. A couple of years later after the break up that exact phone was sold under the AT&T brand name for $19.99.
The break up may have allowed many questionable practices but it also brought costs for the average person way down. The worst practices seem to be more related to the industry consolidating than to the initial breakup.