Every now and then someone I know suggests that I get a cellular telephone; and of course I’ll buy something at Radio Shack or a similar place, and the sales clerk will tell me about a cell-phone sale or special offer. However, I can’t help but sense that these people are not telling me the whole story.
These are what I perceive as the kinds of cost:
Buying the cell phone itself.
Getting a number–much like getting a regular telephone hookup with my local phone company.
Cost of local outgoing calls.
Cost of local incoming calls.
Cost of long-distance calls.
I suppose there are other fees, but the friends–and the salesclerks–never mention them. And I don’t like them to stack the deck.
What kind of costs (that I did not include above) do Dopers who have cell phones pay, and what are the amounts? Do they vary from region to region (I live in Los Angeles County, CA)?
In my case:
Cost of phone: Motorola Talkabout, a cool looking flip phone that does everything except make the chirp-chirp sound like the original Star Trek communicators. Don’t know why they didn’t think of that. They were selling it for around $170 at the time I bought it, but after $125 worth of rebates, that comes to $45.
Getting a number: No extra cost, it’s part of the initial service activation, the fee (if any) for which might be waived if you opt for two years instead of one.
Cost of local outgoing calls: None, unless you exceed your maximum plan minutes. I got 300 minutes for $30 per month. Or maybe it was 350 minutes… doesn’t really matter much because I seriously doubt I use any phone more than 100 minutes in any given month. So you will pay a fixed monthly rate unless you exceed your “free” cache of minutes. After that, calls are like 30¢ a minute. I believe you can get plans that offer a thousand minutes or more per month (with a correspondingly higher monthly fee of course). Restriction: Calls must be placed & received within your home calling area. That means you need to look at a map of the calling areas for wherever you plan on using your phone. If you place a call from outside of your home calling area you will be billed at the 30¢ (or whatever) per minute rate.
Cost of local incoming calls: Same as above. You use up your minutes whether you are the calling or called party. So does whoever’s calling you. Isn’t that a kick in the head?
Cost of long distance calls: TMV here again. This depends on how many carriers are needed to handle your call. Some plans include free long distance so it comes out of your minutes & there’s no charge until you use up your allowance, and other plans may include perks like free weekend long distance. If you are going to be making regular long distance calls on a cell phone, I would suggest a national plan.
Other fees: None, at least on my plan. If you subscribe to X number of minutes per month & don’t go over, and don’t go outside of your home calling area & don’t roam, there are no extra fees. If you’re talking about the mystery fees like those that appear on your home phone bill like these:
• Federal Excise Tax
• Federal Universal service Fee
• Federally Ordered Subscriber Line Charge
• Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge
• Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge
• Public Rights-of-Way Use Fee
• DCE911/311 Fee
• Federal, State & local Surcharges
There aren’t any on a cell phone bill (at least not on mine). BTW, those charges are all real- I got them right off my land line bill.
It’s tought to make a general statement about how much wireless plans cost because the extra perks & rebates are constantly changing. Go to Point.com and take their little questionnaire. They are supposed to do the comparison shopping for you & tell you which plan is right for you out of those available in your area.
One good thing is that the neat-o features that you normally pay extra for on a land line phone (caller ID, voicemail, etc.) are included at no extra cost in wireless plans. And don’t forget the “standard” things that even a basic cell phone can do like store a hundred or more phone numbers & addresses. I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t place a monetary value on that. There’s even text messaging if your phone is so equipped.
Happy shopping!
I go through Sprint PCS. Except for the occasional outages, it’s a great service. Here’s what I pay
$50 for 1500 minutes - that’s 500 anytime and 1000 nights and weekends.
For a one year contract I also got free long distance and the beauty of SprintPCS is that as long as you’re in any SprintPCS calling area accross the nation, you’re not roaming. I could be in LA or NY, it would be the same.
For my extra option (you have a choice of three) I chose wireless web, which means I can check my AOL mail, IM people, look at movie times, see what bands are playing where, look up restaurants etc all from my phone. I dig it.
The phone itself cost $150 dollars, but I got a $50 rebate from Circuit City and $50 service credit from SprintPCS. So the way I see it I paid $50 for the phone. Sweet.
The phone is also incredibly clear, as long as the signal is at least at half-strength. My phone is voice-activated, so if I want to call home all I have to do is open the flap and say “home” and it dials it for me. Great for when I’m on the road. I spent a lot of time researching the different cell phone companies and SprintPCS was the only one that had everything I wanted for a decent price.
Downside? Customer service. They’re pretty rude over there. And it takes forever to get ahold of someone :o(. Oh, well.
I use my moms cell phone or a friend’s cell phone, at no cost to me at all. 
… I use Powertel GSM for my phone service.
I got a Nokia 5190 (a bit outdated now) for $50 when I signed up. My service plan now includes for $60 a month:
600 minutes of talk time
No roaming charges
No long distance charges in the USA
Unlimited reception of short-text messages from GSM phones
Free call forwarding
Free voice mail
Free call waiting
No charge for first minute of incoming calls
For $3/month I have short text messaging send ability and for $5/month I receive e-mail on my phone as well.
I have good coverage throughout the US courtesy of companies like VoiceStream and OmniPoint - I’ve heard a lot of people complain about Sprint’s sketchy coverage outside major cities. I tend to have coverage anywhere there is a GSM provider and a major highway.
I went to this website, but I didn’t see a link to click on for a questionnaire. How do I find it? Thanks. 
–dougie_monty
Click on “service plan locator” at the top of the Point.com page. They ask you to put in your zip code, and when I did that I got 102 plans arranged by price & carrier in the left frame of my browser window, and in the right frame I got a questioniare that looks like it is supposed to help me narrow in on the right plan if I input some specifics like “how many minutes per month do you expect to use?” an so on.
BTW, if you have a choice between analog & digital, go digital. You get better QoS and improved hardware performance for the same price or possibly just a few dollars per month more. Also, some digital plans offer “free first minute of incoming calls”, which allows you to tell the caller that you’ll call him back if you think it’s going to be a lengthy call. Then you can go to a pay phone & call them back for 35¢ without burning up your minutes.
Thanks. I did that and got a series of plans, mostly by Verizon (which I insist on accenting on the first syllable. Don’t ask me why.)
I’ll mull over this for a while and make a decision later…
With our upcoming childbirth, we decided to get one…
A local outfit gave a promotion to my wife’s workplace…basically we decided to get 2 phones, because they (Nokia 5190 I think) ending up costing us $5 a piece.
My wife gets 45 minutes/month for $15…I get 20 min for $10…obviously we are not heavy users…mostly for shopping situations or road emergencies…
Our plan covers toll free calls in Iowa & Illinois (we live in Davenport, Iowa)
For our limited needs, it seems like an ok deal…