How do I not get screwed over by a cellphone plan?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Okay, so I’ve been living in the land of fair mobile phone contracts for about two years now. I plan on going back to the states soon though, and after a cursory glance, I hate the mobile phone plans with a passion.

To give you an idea of what phone plan I have, I pay about 6 dollars a month and about 3 cents per SMS and 13 cents a minute on calls. Data is cheap too and it’s 3G!

Now I know that I won’t be getting 3G in America anytime soon, so that’s a given. But what the hell is up with the plans? They all seem to start at 30 bucks a month! Why the hell can’t you just pay for what you use? Even the prepaid plans are the same (at least from Cingular).

I will be using my current phone. It’s cool and I like it. No need to buy a new one. I’ll probably get an iPhone one day when the prices go down and there is some sort of better internet standard in the US

But is there some way to not purchase some plan where I pay for minutes that I don’t use?

I realize that it probably won’t be the same, but does such a plan exist in any form?

I will be living in New York, btw.

2

Where did you find a standard monthly plan for only $30?

Oh, Cingular has 3G, and pay-as-you-go for as little as ten cents a minute, plus a buck per day that you use the phone. If you’re like me, and use a phone four times a month, you can have a montlhy bill of about five bucks.

3

I have a TracFone -bought for $40 (now obtainable for $20 - no contract, just prepaid cards to add time. I use it mostly for outgoing calls but works 2-way…

4

Duct tape your ass, and don’t bend over. They will all try to screw you.

5

If phone plans in Denmark are like in Germany, another culture shock will be that you get charged minutes on your phone plan for incoming calls as well as calls you place.

My brother, who lives in Germany, travels back to the US for business enough that he got a SIM card with a CT number for while he’s here, and he’s forever complaining about that.

6

Seconding Tracfone. Better rates than most prepaid providers and longer expiration periods.

7

I’ve been on T-Mobile for 3-4 years now. They dropped calls at first, (in San Francisco), but it may have been due to my phone. New phone is fine. I had a 1000 “anytime” minutes, (I think I paid $69/mo) for my business and never came close to using them all.

The plan is 300 minutes for $39, but then come the taxes and add-ons. I’m paying clost to $60/mo now all tolled. They have a “favs” deal now where calls to 5 of your “favorite people” are free. Not that I’m a pepperoni addict or anything, but one of my favs is the local pizza delivery. :smiley:

We pay by the minute because big business, especially anything connected to computers or communications, are greedy SOBs and spend some of their obscene profits buying off lawmakers–pure and simple. The public can’t get organized enough to do anything about it.

But don’t get me started on that!!

Myself

8

I have to take this opportunity to tell you, and anyone else looking for a plan, to avoid Sprint. I signed with them about a year ago and it has been one problem after another and their “customer service” people are absolutely horrid and not helpful in the least. Even when I’ve gone to the stores I have been treated terribly rudely. Their service is awful, the area-wide plan is horribly small, and pretty much anytime they say they are going to do something you can assume the next person you talk to will have no idea about it.

Argh. I hate Sprint so much it really deserves its own Pit thread, but I’ve really given them too much of my energy over the last year. :frowning:

9

Almost certainly your phone. The majority of cell phone antennae in SF are owned by the city or by independent owners, and access is leased by the service providers. Nextel owns several towers downtown, though.

10

That’s odd. I’ve had Sprint for years and have been quite happy with them. They have even called me a couple of times to say that I could comfortably downsize my plan (usage analysis indicates you’re overpaying). And when I lost my phone, they applied the $200 you get toward a new phone 2 months before schedule.

Of course, all of that was before they merged with Nextel …

11

Oh yeah! I totally forgot about this :frowning:

But my awesome company, has provided a handy dandy set of tools to look at my usage, I have included a picture of it from the webpage. They even offer it in an excel file! 3 is really such an awesome mobile carrier, I wish we had it in the US.

I ended up spending a total of 178 bucks and that equals out to 30 bucks a month. However, I also have a minimum payment of 72 dollars a month for six months until I pay off my phone. That means I get to call America guilt free. I essentially pay for my phone for six months, and anything I use under 72 dollars is free. Pretty awesome. Okay I’ll translate the diagram for you.

The first chart is calculated on the actual price of things, and the second one is determined by amount. So you see that I had 150 odd on the bottom, that means I made 150 calls in the past 6 months, not that I used 150 minutes.

So samtaler = voice calls
samtaler til udlandet = calls to foreign countries
SMS = SMS
Trafik på 3Portalen = Data usage.

here you go.

My Phone Usage

Also, I would not be calling foreign countries if I didn’t have to already pay the 72 dollars a month anyway. Also if you are wonderign, the prices are in kroner, which you divide by 5.5 to get dollars. Google can do it for you just type “396DKK in USD” and it will spit it back at you. Really neat.

SO anyway. I sent 258 SMS messages in 6 months. That’s quite a lot, but it costs nothing here. In the US, what is it? 10 cents a message? That takes up the bulk of my calls. This plan with TrakPhone seems interesting, but I don’t understand what the deal is where the price depends on the phone model that you recieve. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

I have the feeling that I am going to get raped here. But I was thinking, get a plan with 3G, incoming calls for free, and some kind of SMS deal. How does that sound? I’ve got a 3G phone already so I could hopefully take advantage of it.

12

Here’s a prepaid comparison page, if you’re interested. Prepaid Compare

13

Wait a sec… are you saying you paid or are paying $432 for your phone, plus around $30 a month?

Um, I don’t think you’ll get raped by American phone plans.

I have Alltel. I’ve had them for 2 years (my only cell phone contract), and shopped around when my contract was up to see if I could get anything cheaper. I couldn’t, even the prepaid plans, because I actually use my phone regularly, just not a lot. I use about 600 minutes a month, and send a lot of text mssages. So most plans end up being more expensive for me, or just a buck or two cheaper.

My phone cost $80 when I upgraded because I wanted the pretty red phone, but most (if not all) companies have a lot of free phones when you sign your contract. My plan is $39.99 plus tax a month, and it comes to about $50 ($50.64 I think). I get unlimited text messages and 700 anytime minutes, which in 2+ years I only went over once, the month my boyfriend dumped me and I talked non-stop to my 3 best friends. I get unlimited nights and weekends. So, for me, it’s the best plan. They also give you a one-minute credit if they drop a call, which has only happened 3 times in more than 2 years. The other great thing about Alltel is that you can change your plan without renewing your contract, so if 6 months into it you realize you don’t need 1500 minutes you can switch to a cheaper plan without having to sign another 2-year contract.

Prepaid plans, ISTM, are just as much a rip-off unless you only use your phone for emergencies. I don’t have a landline, my cell is my only means of contacting the outside world.

YMMV, of course.

14

I was going to say just accept it but make sure you use lots of lube and protection.

15

No, of course not. Here’s the way it works here.

You buy a phone. It costs X dollars. The phone plans are 6 months long. You pay for your phone over 6 months. so I will pay X/6 each month. But my usage is included in that. To put it in Danish terms, I pay 399 kroner a month. Now, if I don’t use the entire 399 kroner that’s my problem. But I essentially get 399 kroner (72 dollars) allowance for free each month. I’m paying for my phone and my service with the same money. It works like this. Each month I have to pay 72 regardless of what I use. I have to pay off my phone. But, my bill is calculated by the minutes I use for calling and the amount of times I text someone. So if I use 60 dollars of services in a given month, I pay 72 dollars, but that is also paying a part of my debt for the phone I bought. To be clear, I bought a very expensive nokia at the time. I have no regrets either. But no, I use about 30 dollars a month and I pay 72, but it’s better than paying for the phone out right.

16

Okay to reiterate. I’m slightly drunk and it’s saturday, so I’ll try again.

Cellphone company says, Phone costs X amount, so you must pay X/6 each month for 6 months.

I use my phone.

I pay X/6 each month. But it is calcualted by the minute for each call. So X/6 is equal to 72 bucks.

If I have 60 bucks in calls I pay 72 dollars. If I have 80 bucks in calls I pay 80. Essentially I am paying for my phone and paying for my service with the same money until I pass the minimum monthly payment.

17

if you were willing to replace your phone I’d say see what carrier in the US you will be calling most. Verizion Wireless has free inbound and outbound calls to other Verizion wireless customers. For $59.00 a month I have 450 anytime minutes to call anyone, unlimited free minutes to other Verizon Wireless phones (not landline) Free nights (9:01pm-6:59am) and Free Weekends plus I have unlimited SMS to any cell phone on any provider.

18

I don’t think there’s anything of the sort here. You basically have to choose between:

  1. Long-term contracts (1-year or 2-year) that give you good phones for free or very low cost. The plans aren’t TOO bad as long as you aren’t wasting minutes every month.

If you want better deals, you might want to check out Amazon.com’s cellular store. The plans are the same, but the phones are MUCH cheaper because Amazon offers their own rebates on top of the carriers’ discounts.

If you want better monthly rates, take a look at Sprint’s semi-secret Employee Referral Plan (use email address savings@sprintemi.com). That gets you a special $30/month plan with 500 minutes, unlimited nights (7pm-7am) and weekends, unlimited data usage (a big plus, since they have one of the better EV-DO data networks), and unlimited calling to other Sprint customers. Sometimes you can also negotiate with them to get free text messages every month if you threaten to cancel. Be warned, though: I HATED Sprint. Cancelled within 3 days of starting service. In my experience, their reception sucked and their customer service was beyond terrible. YMMV.

or

  1. Prepaid plans from companies like Tracfone that give you OK phones. Their plans are OK… comes down to about 10 cents a minute if you do some fancy math and buy the right refill cards (it’s just a bit complicated). The advantage here is that you can keep your minutes for a year or so without paying a monthly fee, which makes sense if you don’t make a lot of calls. But if you’re a regular caller, the long-term contracts (#1) are usually a better deal.

Oh, and yeah, the Tracfone plans can be confusing at first, but I can explain if you’d like. It took me a little time to figure out how it all worked, but I ended up getting a phone and I’m happy with it – great as a backup phone or to lend to people visiting from out of the country.

19

Forgot to mention that, in general, data usage is usually like $10-$20 a month extra for unlimited use. Pay-per-kilobyte is usually so expensive it’s pointless. However, that’s only for regular phones… if you have a smartphone (usually meaning a Blackberry, Windows Mobile, or Treo device) the prices will be SIGNIFICANTLY higher.

Text messages usually cost around 15 cents a message (the price was raised recently), but most carriers offer plans that give you a lot of messages for $5-$15 a month; some also offer unlimited text messages for a flat fee.

20

No, THAT’S odd :wink: I’ve never heard anything positive about Sprint until your post. I’ve personally known 4 or 5 people who used and hated them, and have read more than one horror story about their service or policies. Never had any personal experience, though.

Joe