I am:
* Porting my number to Google Voice.
* Getting a voip "landline."
* Getting a new number with the cheapest possible wireless plan + dumbphone. Sprint still not evil?
* Routing my calls using Google Voice to the landline/dumbphone, depending on where I am.
Frankly, I'm sick of paying $120/mo and getting fucked around every corner. I dont NEED this you know; the non-phone part of this phone is a convenience, not a necessity.
I'll let the market/regulators figure this out. In the meantime, I'll be fine not checking my email every five minutes and staring at yet another screen when I'm not in the house/office.
If anybody has recommendations re: my plan of action, I'm all ears.
I have been monitoring my usage for the past year. I have an iPhone. I've slowly been weaning myself from my emotional attachment to it. Much exposure to WP7 and decent Android phones has helped tremendously. I use an average of 150 voice minutes a month, 20 texts, and ~170mb of data (although most of it is me diddling around, checking Google Reader, FB & Twitter, my device checking and downloading emails and notifications when I'm not near wifi). I'm always within wifi at work and home.
I'm going to start by getting a T-Mobile Pay As You Go SIM. If I can port my # to the SIM, great. If not, I'll port it to my Google Voice account. If I actually need data on the go, in a pinch, I can grab a Web Day Pass for $1.50. But for 11/12's of a day, I'm around wi-fi and so I'll get all my blessed Twitter/FB/G+/GTalk notifications.
I figure 2000 to 2500 prepaid minutes, costing me $200-$250 over the course of a year, should cover my voice and texting for a year. In actuality, I'm lazy at work and often don't use my desk phone, so I expect my wireless minutes usage to plummet. I should see savings of at least $650 a year from what I pay on AT&T.
If this all fails, I will probably look towards the $30 or $50 Monthly4G prepaid plans on T-Mobile (http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans) and go from there. Even if I went the $50 route, I'd still save $300 yearly.
The straw that broke the camel's back happened before today's txt plan news, but it's just becoming harder and harder to participate as the victim in this swindle.
1.) You can port a number into a T-Mobile To Go prepaid account. However, if you go to a brick and mortar store, they'll likely tell you that it's not possible. I've had two stores tell me this. I called the T-Mobile toll-free number and requested a port to T-Mo2Go and it was not a problem in the least.
2.) You can utilize the Wi-fi Calling feature on supported BB and Android phones (any current phone). It will use your minutes. It's now automatic, if you connect to wi-fi. You can shut this off. It's much more robust on Android than it was a year ago.
It's also becoming more and more difficult to find non-smartphones with the big contract companies.
Virgin might be it for me. I was looking at them before, but was traveling a bit at the time. Verizon was really the only option.
I pay $25 a month from Virgin Mobile for unlimited text, unlimited data, and 300 minutes of call time, with a pretty good android smartphone. (It would be $32 a month if you amortize the price of the smart phone, which I had to buy up front). I use easytether to hook up my laptop, no problem.
$60 for 900 min
$30 for unl. data (lucky me)
$10 for 500 texts
$17 in taxes (NYC)
Tether might still work, for now: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/verizon-blocking...
Just a different perspective. I'm not actually one to be particular about having the latest and greatest phone, and at most I will upgrade once every 18 months. Switching to Virgin Mobile was one of the steps I took while unemployed to cut down on bills. It's actually been the easiest and most effective way to reduce my monthly living expenses without much sacrifice.
Luckily, I'm out of contract on AT&T, so I don't have an ETF to pay. My only issue is deciding which phone to go for.
I'm trying to decide between the Defy, $299 off-contract and durable, Sensation, and G2x.
I'll probably through Cyanogenmod on whatever I buy ASAP, can anyone comment on the above phones? I'm particularly wondering if a Cyanogenmodded Defy will meet my responsiveness/battery life needs. I don't play games, I just hate laggy UIs, which unfortunately seem to plague Android.
It seems that the right strategy for AT&T to pursue would be to follow the natural decline in the cost of these services by offering a better plan-- say $5 for 2,000 messages a month. As they lower the cost of an individual SMS, the usage should go up dramatically, and since SMS has network effects, this might slow the shift away from SMS as the messaging service of choice.
Assuming your conversation partners can keep tabs on what system to use. Your Android pals can't iMessage you, and using Google Talk or another IM service on an iPhone has always felt a little kludgy.
Sounds to me it's designed to drive you to one of two choices: either pay $20/month for a service you don't need, or cut it out altogether and pay 20c every time you get an SMS from someone who can't use iMessage/Twitter/Facebook messaging.
At 20c/message it doesn't take long before you end up paying as much or more than you would've been paying under an SMS plan.
Until recently, I could pay about US$4 plus the US$0.04, but they switched the SMS credit to expire after a month instead of after six months, so I have to buy a new SMS card every month.
(This also includes a limited amount of voice calling.)
It seems to me that a competitive market in a country like the US, where very few people have text-only plans, ought to make this service considerably cheaper than in Argentina. The marginal cost of delivering a text message is something like a thousand times lower.
With At&t and Verizon controlling 80% of the U.S. mobile market, I'm not so sure it's competitive. Is there only a single provider in Argentina or is it structured differently?
Buenos Aires is definitely one of the most affordable cities I've been to (c. 2003), but I do recall being astonished at the prices for electronics.
I think the economics here might be a little different (aside from possible collusion between the operators) because such a large fraction of the population uses only SMS. If the providers have to put up new cell towers to provide SMS to an area, the economics are a little different.
Argentina in 2003 had just collapsed. Things cost three times as much here now, or more. On the plus side, that means the taxi drivers can afford electronics and other imports.
SMS at current prices is going to go. It can't compete with internet-based solutions like iMessage and BBM, especially in regions with many small countries like Europe or Asia where international fees can be quite restrictive. (This is why Skype became so popular in Europe.)
iMessage still uses SMS whenever you send a message to somebody with a non-iOS 5 device. I don't know about you, but I communicate with tons of people who don't have iPhones or even data plans.
This move is ridiculous gouging whatever way you look at it.
Nope. Now the only option is $20 for unlimited texting.
no contract
300 minutes
unlimited texts
5GB/month of data(it gets slower but not stopped or overcharge after that)
I'm not sure why its not more popular. Oh and I can tether.
NOTE: just checked and it looks like the plan is advertised as $35/mo now
If you are on the road a lot, you might run into problems.
20c per message would be a better deal than $20/month for me.
At&t doesnt ask for you to just bend over, but also says "prepare for it deep". And the government wont do a damned thing because they grease palms on both sides of the aisle.
On Verizon, this was a $10 one-time charge.