Comments on: You’re probably paying too much for your cellphone

By: Two Geeks and a Blog :: Geek News :: Quick Hits: Mar. 8 - 14

Two Geeks and a Blog :: Geek News :: Quick Hits: Mar. 8 - 14 — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:17:27 +0000

[...] You’re probably paying too much for your cell phone – CrunchGear [...]

By: Cellphone bills average $3.02 per minute, study says - Christian Science Monitor | Utility Compare . Com

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:29:27 +0000

[...] account to $37.15 today. However, “cost per minute can be outrageous,” says the …You’re probably paying too much for your cellphone CrunchGear No topics for this [...]

By: Josh Hyde

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:02:03 +0000

I second the rollover minutes caution. It’s funny how AT&T won’t let customers set up an alert to tell them when they are getting close to your limit. I got stung by going over my minutes last year. Now, I log in to check them every week.

By: Spanky

Spanky — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:54:36 +0000

Be very, very careful with the roll-over minutes. The whole game is rigged AGAINST you. My wife and I had two months of heavy phone use and we blew through the rollover minutes in month one and then got jackhammered in the doo-doo hole in month two. There is nothing worse than getting a bill that is $600 over the massive bill you were already expecting.

If this should happen to you, and I hope it never does, the ATT rep will offer you some relief from your screwed sideways situation. You will be allowed to get some relief from the massive bill by upping your account to a higher rate plan provided you stay on the higher rate plan for no less than 6 months.

So, for two months of excessive gabbing you wind up with six months of a higher bill in order to pay down a portion of your pound of flesh payment.

By: Ricky Cadden

Ricky Cadden — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:44:42 +0000

It’s tough to accurately determine how much per minute you’re paying, specifically with cell phones. Does that factor in the Unlimited Nights and Weekends, or the unlimited Mobile 2 Mobile that pretty much all of the carriers now offer? I mean, I’m on the 450 plan with AT&T, have been for years, but with Rollover and the aforementioned features, I could talk all month long if I needed to and never go over my minutes.

By: Screen Sleuth

Screen Sleuth — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:24:47 +0000

Prices will drop very soon, as cell phone access is overpriced (remember Sprint’s unlimited plan for $100 a month; I don’t consider that cheap unless i’m on the phone a heck of a LOT, as in I LIVE on the phone).

By: Keron Calame

Keron Calame — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:21:40 +0000

Really now, i kinda thought of this all the time but didn’t have any proof to back it up

By: Ankit Gupta

Ankit Gupta — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:21:18 +0000

You know what this means? Prices will drop soon enough.

We’ve started seeing some of those unlimited data/voice plans, and that’s just the start in my opinion. At some point, those prices will fall, and/or we’ll get a cheaper unlimited data plan for wireless use, at which point some kind of VOIP software would do the trick. Think an independent Skype wireless phone.

Also, I’d say that this is very common. People probably don’t need much, but if your consumption is limited, you’ll think about it too much and that isn’t enjoyable. In the ISP/datacenter businesses, they routinely oversell what they actually have because most people won’t use it. Example – they have 1GB of space, but sell it ten times, because most people use very little. The same thing applies to bandwidth – have 10mbps, sell it 10 times, because most people won’t even use 1mbps.

I think it’s going to follow a trend like the datacenter businesses and we’ll see prices fall. The biggest difference obviously is that there are fewer wireless carriers and so it would take another competitor or two, maybe someone like Clearwire.