Cell Phones and missed opportunities

[Merkuri]

Can you not use a smartphone with a pre-pay plan? My wife uses her iPhone and just tops up £10 per month or so if she needs to.

In theory, you could buy a smartphone, sign up for a plan, dump it as soon as the contract expires and then use that smartphone with whatever plan you want, but some phones require you to "jailbreak" it to allow it to work on other networks (which voids the warranty).

I had considered doing that with the iPhone when it first came out, but I crunched the numbers and figured out that, with the price of the mandatory plan I'd have to sign up for to get the phone, I'd end up paying something like $700 for the phone. Not worth it.

 

[Umbran]

In theory, you could buy a smartphone, sign up for a plan, dump it as soon as the contract expires...

Yes, but the usual minimum contract is 2 years. Given how quickly the technology is moving, it isn't like that's going to be a win.

 

[coyote6]

Yeah, US mobile carriers handcuff handsets, of all sorts. My current phone natively accepts any mp3 as a ring tone, but Cingular/AT&T modified it to only accept mp3s of a specific length as ringtones. Thus, you either have to get mp3 editing software, or buy ringtones from someone.

I read an article a while ago that talked about how the carriers had realized that they were no longer making most of their money off minutes (and, more to the point, overage minutes), so they are providing more unlimited minute plans, and cutting back on unlimited data and text plans. That's where they aim to make their money now.

I'm tempted to just buy an unlocked (Android) smartphone one of these days, which would be way more expensive, but at least I wouldn't be stuck with whomever's limits.

Or just wait and get a tablet of some kind to do the computing, and keep my phone as a phone.

 

[Croesus]

Problem: My provider does not allow one to activate a smartphone without paying for the data plan.

I don't have a smart phone myself, but I work at a telecom, so I asked around. I couldn't confirm this officially, but it was suggested one reason for requiring a data plan is because US carriers can't stop you from using certain smart phone features, whether or not you have a data plan.

We tend to assume that telecom carriers are like our cable company - we select a cable package, the company flips a few switches, and voila, we only get the channels we pay for (usually ).

US telecoms, however, are a disorganized lot. You have your wireless carriers, with cell towers, but usually using wireline backbones to connect the towers to their networks. You have LEC's (Local Exchange Carriers) who are allowed to bill other carriers access charges to connect calls to/from the carriers' networks, tandem operators who carry traffic, VOIP (for which no one seems to know what the rules are), and so on. And now we have all sorts of cool data offerings, most of which were tacked onto the existing infrastructure.

Just blocking calls to/from a number, or canceling the long distance carrier for a customer can be a nightmare, involving not just the customer's carrier, but a LEC or other carrier. And if anyone in that chain drops the ball...

This is what we get for having a single phone company, split into multiple companies, with other entities, some of which have merged back together, with various charges allowed/not allowed between the parties, tacking on wireless, number portability, VOIP, and the kitchen sink. Basically, all of US telecommunications is one big kludge, regardless of which carrier you choose.

 

[Janx]

AT&T only required a dataplan for iPhone. My friend bought the same model BB Curve my wife had and did NOT get the data plan. He got it because the keyboard was nice for texting.

 

[ssampier]

If I were to get a Smart Phone, I'd probably be an Android. I've been super impressed of the ones I've seen people get.

Maybe Smart Phones will completely replace desktop PCs, but that's a way's off, for sure.

I am a tech junkie, but I use my cell phone so little that I cannot justify getting anything expensive. I've got a $20 phone with a pre-paid plan. I have to put $20 into the account every 3 months to keep it active, and that money just piles up until I use it. I also pay around $.25 a minute for calls, but I use it so little that I've got over $100 stored up in the phone's account.

So either I pay $20 every 3 months for a basic phone or $60+ a month for a smartphone with bells and whistles (plus the cost of the phone itself). The price is really NOT worth it for me, no matter how much I drool over an iPhone.

I was doing that, too, until I realized it's cheaper for me to pay for the $100 1 year plan. My Verizon cards are only good for 1 month.

Plus it's kinda fun remembering when people used pay phones and they were only $.25 a minute.

 

[Merkuri]

I was doing that, too, until I realized it's cheaper for me to pay for the $100 1 year plan. My Verizon cards are only good for 1 month.

Plus it's kinda fun remembering when people used pay phones and they were only $.25 a minute.

It's not for everyone, but the pre-paid plan I'm on is cheaper than that for me. I never use more than the required $20 for three months. So a year of my phone is only $80. Some cell plans cost that much a month. I have not needed to pay more than the minimum for years because I have so much saved up in my account. I think the company hates me.

 

[Umbran]

I don't have a smart phone myself, but I work at a telecom, so I asked around. I couldn't confirm this officially, but it was suggested one reason for requiring a data plan is because US carriers can't stop you from using certain smart phone features, whether or not you have a data plan.

Huh. Interesting.

 

[Janx]

It's not for everyone, but the pre-paid plan I'm on is cheaper than that for me. I never use more than the required $20 for three months. So a year of my phone is only $80. Some cell plans cost that much a month. I have not needed to pay more than the minimum for years because I have so much saved up in my account. I think the company hates me.

the pre-paid plan seems like it would work best for someone with limited usage (and usage they can reliably control, ala a single person on the plan and not the primary phone).

My wife and I are on a family plan for 1400 minutes with roll-over. We use about 900 minutes per month. The next lowest plan is 700 (and going over minutes is how they wallet-rape you).

The roll-over is virtually useless, as I'll never exceed 1400 minutes in a month to access the roll-over minutes. And they claim I lose them if I cut my plan back (to intentially go-over limit and use the roll-over).

this is part of how the telecom's screw customers, by making plans in extreme increments (doubling) such that you can't actually buy a plan that would fit. Or by charging an actual reasonable rate that they could just charge by the minute and reach a monthly price that is fair for each person's usage.


Our cell-phones are our primary phones. It would be stupid to get a land-line or VOIP line for a phone that I'm not going to be near most of the time. Whereas my cell phone is almost always on my person.

Plus having to hand-out multiple numbers for people.

As I also telecommute, I carry a seperate work cell-phone as my office line.

the odd thing is that I don't talk to that many people on my personal phone (never have, its mostly my wife talking to people). Whereas, with my work phone, I spent 25-75% of my day on the phone with people. Lucklily, I'm not on-call, just busy during the regular work day.