After swearing that I’d never own one of these I finally succumbed 
Realising that I was missing loads of calls while I was out, the time came today when I caved in and gave way to technology.
How the fuck did I ever manage without one 
Heh. I read that as “mobile home”. I have mobile phone in my mobile home. Funnily enough, except for work, errands and the occasion trip, I’m not very mobile at all. I’m a homebody.
It is still weird to me to take a phone call while I’m walking the dog in the woods. I grew up with 4-digit dialing (yep, dialing, not pushbuttons) and a party line. Now I can surf the web on my phone. Lotsa changes.
Shame you didn’t call me Chowder. I sell the dam things and I still owe you for that porn you gave me.
I bought my first one about ten years ago when my father was dying. Afterward I used it for long-distance calls because they didn’t cost any more than my monthly subscription. The weird thing was that even though I lived in the West side of L.A., I couldn’t rely on a signal in my living room. I replaced it with a digital one eventually, and I still could not rely on signals. When I moved to the rural Pacific Northwest there was like one spot in the house where I might get a signal. Or else I’d stand in the yard, but that wasn’t much better. I got a Motorola flip-phone about three years ago. There were two places I’d use it: At home, or at the studio. Wanna guess where I couldn’t get a signal?
Coverage is better now. Only I don’t really have anyone to call. One friend disappeared, one is being sent to Iraq, my best friend is a bit of a Bohemian who may or may not be in the country at any given time, and my landline long-distance service is very cheap so I use that when I call my friend (ex-fiancée) down in Oregon. For some reason my sister, when she calls, always calls me on my mobile.
But I can’t get rid of it. I’ve needed it when the car broke down, I use it when I have to be available to businesses or employers, and it’s good to have for piece-of-mind.
What would really be useful is an iPhone, since I mostly communicate through email.
hehehe, and I got loads more free sites since last I :ahem: donated
I don’t talk much on the phone and only get or make about one call a day. Nevertheless, I was a pretty early adopter (one of the first of my friends) and cannot live without a cell phone. It really limits your social life without it and is indispensable when you are traveling. I just don’t blab on it all the time and keep my phone calls pretty curt. I am rarely accused of being rude because of my cell phone.
I am thinking about getting one, but from poking around I found that all major carriers have a per-month cost of at least $40. Does anyone know of any way to get a plan at significantly below that cost? I expect that I wouldn’t use up many minutes, but will probably get/make at least one call per day, so prepaid plans aren’t much cheaper.
Congrats, and welcome to the mid-90s!
I think there are several Dopers with usage habits similar to yours, and they use pay-as-you go services or prepaid with rollover (you don’t lose your minutes at the end of the month). If you don’t get the answers you want here, consider starting a new thread asking about pay-as-you go.
I looooove my Tracfone. I just upgraded to a nicer phone (a Motorola W370, $30.00 at K-Mart, though that sale is probably over) which comes standard with double minutes for life. I don’t use a phone often enough to go with a monthly plan, so this works perfectly for me, and Tracfone has exceptional service (both cell service and customer service).
If only I could figure out how to get my own home-made mp3 ringtones on the thing, it’d be near perfect.
I do want an iPhone, but not enough to lick AT&T’s behind while stuffing money in their pockets.
I hate cell phones. I don’t want to be in contact with everyone 24/7. I hate talking on the phone. However, I drive almost an hour to work on back country roads with high mileage vehicles. Just a few months ago, I finally joined the modern ages and got a cell phone, just in case I break down. I do use it more than I thought I would, but that still works out to about 3 or 4 minutes per month.
I use T-mobile and their pay as you go plan. It ends up costing me about 10 bucks a month when you average it out (I buy the $25 card which is good for 3 months), which is fine by me.
Well thank you. Actually mine is just a phone, doesn’t take pics, tell me the height of the clouds,what time it is in all capital cities etc, etc.
Just a phone is all
I loathe cell phones. I finally got a Tracfone, but I hide it and never answer it except when I’m alone. Because once people know you have one, they want the number and your time is no longer your own. I work freelance for a lot of different customers, and e-mail, voice mail on my home phone and a text pager are more then enough different avenues of contact. All those have the advantage of not being immediate and not taking me out of what I’m doing at the moment - which (if I’m lucky) may well be making money working for someone else. If I had to answer a cell constantly, I’d be reducing the value of the work I’m doing for another customer. The only way I’d have a cell number that I’d give to all my customers is if it had a 900 area code and I was getting as much more my time as I would get if I were at there place in the flesh.
Also, my brother (who is my Briggs-Myer obverse) regularly consumes more than 9000 minutes of cell service per month. Having a per minute plan helps keep his calling to a minimum.
I got a plan- not sure if it is still available- where I pay nothing a month but have slightly higher call charges. I need to make one call a year to keep it active.