The inevitable phone service question

[torquill]

I just got charged $134 for last month's cell phone bill.

Most of that was 15-second phone tag calls -- incoming, outgoing, the occasional call to check my own voicemail. Each 15 second tag cost me a minute of service time. It added up to about 350 minutes on my 100-minute plan.

I've been feeling the slack in the Nextel lines since the merger, and toying with the idea of at least switching to Sprint (they'd let me do it for free, just sign another contract and *sigh* buy a different phone) but now I really think it's time to start looking. Maybe every company does the rounding-up thing... but not every plan will charge me this much for it, nor am I yet convinced that every company will try to screw me. Nextel used to be the "nice" one, the maverick. Sigh.

I am officially looking for recommendations for a) carriers and b) plans. I'm not getting a Treo, nor do I need internet access/cameraphone/mp3 capability. Funds are reasonably tight. I don't spend all day on the phone, despite what this bill looks like, so I don't need the dee-lux we'll-shine-your-shoes-too plans. Just something that won't make me cough up $100 because my friends and I can't make connections.

I suppose this means I'll have to get a flippy-phone. I hate flippy phones. With the way I treat my phone, it'll be dead within a couple months.

Sigh.

Comments

[vaspider]

Hi. cadhla sent me your way. I've been working in cellular for a couple of years now, so I'd be glad to look at your setup and see what the best way to go is for you. It's all going to depend on your geographic location and needs; despite the fact that I work for one cellular company, I'm not under the delusion that there is one best company for everyone. (Thank God, because monopolies suck.)

If you want to email me, send an email over to my LJ address in my profile. IM is also doable; I'll pass that along in email.

[vaspider]

And, for the record, T-Mobile has won "most satisfied customers" in the wireless industry 3 years running from J.D. Power & Associates. ;) There's a reason I work where I do, and it's not Catherine Zeta-Jones, for sure. I got sick of the Giant Orange X-Wing chewing up customers and employees.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I have Working Assets, they buy services from Sprint/Nextel and I love them to itty pieces.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

So long as they use Sprint's network -- the dropped calls from Nextel are getting damned annoying.

I'll check it out.

[tiggerypum.livejournal.com]

I switched to working assets, my service has been good. I get 250 anytime minutes, free night (after 9) and weekend. I do get charged in 1 minute increments. And I do get charged 10c for each incoming or outgoing text message. That might not be enough slack for you if those 350 mins were all during the chargeable time. I went from a 100 plan to this, and it's been great, I tend to not go over - and many of my calls are those 1 minute 'I'm here to pick you up kid' and stuff like that.

2cents

[ca-snowflake.livejournal.com]

Personally, I use metropcs. I pay about $50/month and have unlimited local/long distance/text messaging. Also, I don't have a flip phone. I was trying to avoid those as well. One cost/problem with metro is that they don't cut you deals on the phones, so they can be pricier. Some people have problems with their reception/coverage area, but I don't generally. Also, you can't use it out of service area, so when I fly back east, or go to AZ to see family, etc, I am phone-less, though I hear they're working on that.

[foogod.livejournal.com]

I think you're already aware of some of my views on cell phone companies, but I figured I'd mention them again..

I've been very happy with Verizon for quite a while now. Their coverage is still the best of any carrier I've looked at, and I've almost never gotten any dropped calls. Their customer service has been pretty good and genuinely helpful on the few occasions I've needed it, and their rates aren't rock-bottom, but have never seemed particularly unreasonable to me. (I'm getting 450 minutes for $40/month)

The one area they're not ideal in is their phones (they have an annoying tendency to cripple some of the geekier features on some of their phones, and since they're CDMA instead of GSM, they don't get some of the nifty newer models (like the Razr) until long after lots of other companies have them), but since you're probably not as interested in the "newest coolest fad" or being able to use Bluetooth OBEX to sync your calendar, that may not be a huge issue for you.

Verizon also doesn't count minutes used when calling other Verizon customers in your bill, so depending on how many people you know with Verizon, that might help a lot (or not at all). I know a few other carriers do this sort of thing too, but not all of them, so you might want to take that into consideration when choosing.

Oh, and if you sign up with Verizon and do the "referred by" thing with me, they'll give me a credit, which I have no problem passing on to you directly when I get it, so you could actually get money back from the deal.

As for flippy phones, from what I've seen, non-flippys are making a little bit of a comeback (though many flippies are also a lot more rugged than they used to be).. Verizon appears to have a couple of Nokias which are non-flippy, though I don't know anything about whether they're any good or how durable they are.