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Why are phone plans so expensive?

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DaWhim said:
Prepaid FTW. most of you people will pay more in 1 month for cell phone service than me in 1 year.

traveling in south america at the moment. in peru, the prepaid sim card cost about $9, the internet plan cost $.3 for 10mbs a day. i was paying $1.5 a day for tmo if i want data on my phone.
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My girls can rack up 3000 a month talking between each other.
Having them on the same plan w/the same carrier keeps those costs to nothing.

Well worth it.


Much just depends on how much one uses the phone either by self or as a family.
Even within the same carrier; one can ask about options that may save money. The carrier is not going to tell you about them; you have to ask.

Also, retention due to threats of leaving the carrier can save $10-30 / month
 
ATT, Grandfathered plan, 5 lines, 700min
$60 for the service
$40 for $10x4 additional phones
$30 unlimited sms/texting for all lines (free mms for the data plan phones, others get charged if they get mms)
$20 for data unlimited for 2 'non-smartphones' (they are actually smartphones using EDGE, no 3g, it's a loophole)
----
$26 for the people without data plan
$36 for the people with a data plan

After taxes, runs around ~$28/$38 per person per line per month. The people on our plan aren't blabbers, so it is easy to keep within the means every bill.

If we wanted 3G service, two smartphone users have to front $15 more each for a total of ~$52. Not worth it to me.
 
Zebo said:
How many minutes? need a lot, I talk 12,000 a month & back before unlimited....$500 bills were common.
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With Spring you can call any mobile phone from any carrier in the country without using minutes. You'll only use minutes if you call a landline. That's why I'm on Sprint. I talk a ton too.



OP can go Metro PCS or Virgin Mobile and save a lot of money.
 
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gaidensensei said:
ATT, Grandfathered plan, 5 lines, 700min
$60 for the service
$40 for $10x4 additional phones
$30 unlimited sms/texting for all lines (free mms for the data plan phones, others get charged if they get mms)
$20 for data unlimited for 2 'non-smartphones' (they are actually smartphones using EDGE, no 3g, it's a loophole)
----
$26 for the people without data plan
$36 for the people with a data plan

After taxes, runs around ~$28/$38 per person per line per month. The people on our plan aren't blabbers, so it is easy to keep within the means every bill.

If we wanted 3G service, two smartphone users have to front $15 more each for a total of ~$52. Not worth it to me.
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You can just slap your SIM in a 3G capable phone. You're not "paying" for 3G service. It's not a switch they flip on because you pay for all of a sudden.
 
I personally don't think it is expensive. As much as I use my smartphone, 90$ a month is a pittance. Its basically my primary tool, I would go without my car before I would go without my smartphone.
 
Doesn't really seem expensive to me. Back in the 90's, I was paying at least $40 a month on Sprint and had maybe an hour or two of talk time and that was it. Now my phone is about $90 on the family plan and I get free nights/weekends, in-networking calling, 10 favorites, unlimited text and unlimited data. Add in the fact that I get a phone for 1/2 the full price and I can see why the cost is there.
 
DLeRium said:
You can just slap your SIM in a 3G capable phone. You're not "paying" for 3G service. It's not a switch they flip on because you pay for all of a sudden.
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Yeah, I know. So far, I hadn't had it work the way I want. Once they automatically find out I'm on 3g from their IMEI sweeps they will bump it up. I have to revert back to a razr IMEI each time to get the $10 plan back.
I've been experimenting around for phones that can use ATT's 3G bands but not get detected, no luck yet. I've been reading that G2X may have recently been added the list, as all flagship droid phones do.

The Nexus 1 was an example case of this, from T-m users who swapped over to ATT and ended up getting billed $30 instead of $15 for a 'smartphone' even though they couldn't use 3G because the N1 is on TM's 3g frequencies.
 
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Lean L said:
I'm currently on a family plan with att.

2 lines
700mins shared
200 txts on one
200mb data on the other

This shit adds up to around $120 a month? How have wireless telcos been able to continually rip everyone off like this?

What can I do to lower this?
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Don't be retarded. The cost per minute of telecommunications service has always and will always continue to fall. It has never been cheaper to own and use a phone than it is today. The fist long distance calls between New York and San Francisco cost $21 for 3 minutes, in 1915 dollars. That's roughly $300/minute in today's cost. You now get several months worth of calls for that amount. The cost reduction is staggering really. To arrive at your crybaby perspective requires extreme myopia.
 
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prepaid is the way to go IF you don't talk on the phone a lot and you don't need to be connected to the net constantly. tmobile has web day pass for $1.49, i'm happy with that for emergency use. $100 (1000 min) usually lasts me a year. i probably save $1000 annually.
 
Noirish said:
prepaid is the way to go IF you don't talk on the phone a lot and you don't need to be connected to the net constantly. tmobile has web day pass for $1.49, i'm happy with that for emergency use. $100 (1000 min) usually lasts me a year. i probably save $1000 annually.
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Virgin Mobile is unlimited data, text, 300 minutes for $25/month
 
Verizon is ungodly expensive. But my wife talks and texts incessantly, and I use almost a gig of data a month. And we can do all that from the middle of nowhere. Can't do that with Virgin or Boost.
 
SphinxnihpS said:
Don't be retarded. The cost per minute of telecommunications service has always and will always continue to fall. It has never been cheaper to own and use a phone than it is today. The fist long distance calls between New York and San Francisco cost $21 for 3 minutes, in 1915 dollars. That's roughly $300/minute in today's cost. You now get several months worth of calls for that amount. The cost reduction is staggering really. To arrive at your crybaby perspective requires extreme myopia.
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His previous name was "Iamidiot" or something like that.
 
the same reason why cigs are so expensive .

People have a addiction for cell phones and they can charge whatever they want and chances are people will justify the purchase .
 
JimmiG said:
Pay for the phone upfront. It's cheaper unless you change phones every 12 months, and you get an unlocked phone without any of the crap carriers load on to phones.

Also don't buy pre-paid minutes. It's a trick to make you pay for more than you need. On those rare occasions when you do need more minutes, they'll make you pay ridiculous sums to add hundreds more, when all you needed was perhaps 45 more minutes to make it through the month.

This month my bill is $29. This includes phone calls, data and texts for the past month.
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I have T-mobile pre-paid, you can buy refills from $15-$100 and any refill I get the minutes last an entire year. The more minutes you buy at once ($100 vs $30) you get more minutes per dollar. The key is to keep conversations short, if someone starts rambling I just invent a reason to end the call..
 
The fact that north america has by far the highest rates in the world leads me to believe there is price fixing going on. I don't see any good reason why we should pay 2x what europe pays
 
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