My last cell phone bill was over $100. My phone is a few years old. I need a new rate plan and phone.
Objective:
To find the most efficient rate plan and effective phone.
Features:
Required (Deal breakers):
- Ability to call people and receive calls
- Mobility. The ability to have high signals on frequently traveled areas.
- A reasonable rate plan.
Preferred (In order):
- Consistent signals in a stationary area. Right now my signal could go from full bars to empty then back to full, all without moving an inch.
- Ability to have high signals in remote areas.
- Durability. I may drop it. If that happens, I don't want it to break.
- Intuitive interface. Right now, editing a number, adding a number, and removing a number are all in compliantly separate menu sections that have nothing to do with each other. This should not be the case. Manipulating names/numbers should be grouped in one section, changing ring tones/volume should be in another, etc.
- Size. Small is good, but I assume that's a given at this point.
I don't care if it is in color, plays games, or can fetch the newspaper. I'm looking for a phone.
As for the plan....
I generally use around 400 minutes a month. Sometimes I use very little, sometimes I use a lot.
I don't want to have to wait for nights and weekends. Most of my calls are during peak hours.
I drive/fly around a bit, but I almost never leave the country.
My current phone uses "old" technology. I was told that there is new GSM technology. I was told that no plans currently support my phone's antiquated technology. I'm rather ignorant of the difference between them. I was told that there are no more hybrid phones and that the old hybrid phones look for the old technology before the new ones and therefore produce weaker signals, even if they have a wider area. Since I am placing high signals in local areas above the ability to get signals in remote areas, this is not an option.
My contract expired years ago. It's with Cingular.
I have that same problem with the standing there in one spot and the signal goes on and off. I think that has alot ot do with interference of the number of other people using the phone in the area at once, i think every company has that problem, but I could be wrong.
Last time I was going to change phine plans I did an ass load of internet research, took notes, and made tables. It helped, but I ended going back with cingular anyway so i could get a family plan and not pay for my phone. *grin* So, if youre up to it, give it a try, it helps to have things laid out for you.
The way I see it your best choice is Sprint. As far as the phones I'll disagree with Naimah, I sell Sanyos a lot, and so far no problems. On top of that I OWN a Sanyo MM-7400, and I love it. It has exactly what you describe as far as the interface. It's probably a little overkill for you, though because you don't want the Multimedia pack, and stuff like that. So for you, if you want something that can take a beating I might reccomend the Sanyo MM-7300, or Samsung A840. Both are good phones.
As far as the rate plan, Sprint has Fair & Flexible. The way it works is that there are 3 tiers of rate plans, and based on your usage you pick one. The nice part is that the minutes are adjustable in that each of the 3 tiers has a "range" of minutes associated with it. The price scales based on your usage.
Tier 1: Base Price $29.99 a month
BASE minutes: 200, unlimited nights and weekends (starting at 9pm).
Addons include 7pm nights for $5 a month, and 6pm nights for $10 a month.
$5 for every 50 minutes over 200.
200: $30
250: $35
300: $40
350: $45
400: $50
450: $55
500: $60
Tier 2: Base Price $34.99 a month
BASE minutes: 400, unlimited nights and weekends (starting at 9pm).
Addons are the same as above.
400: $35
450: $40
500: $45
550: $50
600: $55
650: $60
I won't even list Tier 3 because those are plans that are for people talking upwards of 1000 minutes a month, generally. So if you talk about 400 minutes a month, Tier 2 is great for you. Keep in mind what's listed above are peak minutes only. So with that plan, you would have a minimum monthly charge of $34.99, and then if you do happen to go over, you're billed in 50 minute increments, and each minute is only $0.10 a minute (as opposed to normal overages which are $0.40 a minute).
Secondly is roaming. If you travel to remote areas, or even areas where most phones typically don't have a signal, roaming is important. Sprint phones have 3 methods of operation. Sprint, off-network digital roaming, and analog. Sprint is obviously when you're connected to a Sprint PCS tower. Off-network digital roaming is when you're using another CDMA tower such as Verizon, or any of your local CDMA carriers. Analog is the reeeeeally old-school technology. It's good that a lot of phones can use it, though, because even if your signal isn't the BEST while roaming, you can do it.
T-Mobile and Cingular are always advertising their no roaming feature. The thing about it is, their GSM phones are physically incapable of roaming. The only mode of operation they have is GSM. Sure they can use another carrier's GSM tower, but if you're somewhere where you're not getting signal with your carrier, chances are.....
Now as far as billing goes, roaming is typically expensive. However if you ever see that being a possibility of using it, do yourself a favor and get the $5 a month option which gives you unlimited roaming minutes (they still count towards your plan, but they're not billed extra like normal).
You can also do Verizon, but I really wouldn't reccomend them as much as Sprint. I don't care for their phones that much, and their rate plans aren't fair and flexible, so if you do have a month where you talk way more than normal, you're going to take a huuuuuge hit on your bill.
I dunno, I sell phones for a living, and that's my $0.02, so there you go. If you wanna know more just ask, 
THe new phone also drops calls in my room, so I go to a Verizon store to see if something's wrong with the phone itself. They mention that cel-phone signals don't go through a dense amount of electronics very well. It's then I realize that I started dropping calls right after I relocated all my computers/videogames/screens/laptop, etc. to my room.
In any case, they tell me how sorry they are about me dropping so many calls on two of their phones, and they'll let me renew my 2 year plan now (5 months in advance) to get a better phone if I want. (Hopefully it won't lose signals like the old model did) Every two years you can renew a contract with them and get $100 off a new phone if you want. I'm a consumer whore when it comes to electronics, so I ask for an LG 9800 VX model phone. The retail price at the store says $750, but after some haggling and them looking over the past complaints I had about the dropped calls, and the $100 discount for renewing my plan, they sold it to me for $300.
Anyway, the phone now lets me watch The Daily Show, play Kingdom Hearts, download MP3's with stereo sound; and doesn't drop calls in my room. 
quote:
A sleep deprived diadem stammered:
Features:
Required (Deal breakers):
- Ability to call people and receive calls
Personally, I've always found this to be the only reason telephones (both cellular and normal) exist....
Go Go Random Quote generator!
I've had 2 Nokia phones, a 3350, and now a 3220. I've dropped them both on occasion, and they never skipped a beat.
As for carriers, all I add is: Vodaphone FTW.
Note: Above may only apply in Australia. If it does, go cry in your coffee, but don't come bitching to me. Cavalier- fucked around with this message on 10-13-2005 at 08:21 AM.
2. Mobile to Mobile is usually a big reason customers pick a provider (free calls within the network at anytime as long as the cell is on the same network).
3. To me this is the most important question: What city do you live in??
Every cell company has its strength and weakness.
4. ALL CELL PHONES ARE CHEAPLY MADE. PERIOD. I dropped my Nokia and Suzy dropped her Motorola and it survived!! Means nothing other than you got lucky.
Don't overlook ALLTEL:
500 national minutes / voicemail / callerid / longdistance/ 1000 mobil to mobil/1000 night weekend. $39.99
ALLTEL does not place its rate plans with its contracts. Thus you can change your service plan at anytime for free and "without" extending your service agreement
I can tell you where the Alltel network is strong .. Shoot me a PM
quote:
Bacon369 had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
1. GSM holds nothing over Digital if you are a non traveler. By traveler I am speaking about someone who is out of their home area for more than 5mths a year.
you said that you just needed a basic phone. Same as asking whether you should go with Pentium or AMD for a basic computer. I live in Tampa, FL which is a HUGE Broadband area for cell (Alltel , Verizon , Cingular ) I have a GSM Nokia from Cing and it sux ... horribly ...2. Mobile to Mobile is usually a big reason customers pick a provider (free calls within the network at anytime as long as the cell is on the same network).
3. To me this is the most important question: What city do you live in??
Every cell company has its strength and weakness.4. ALL CELL PHONES ARE CHEAPLY MADE. PERIOD. I dropped my Nokia and Suzy dropped her Motorola and it survived!! Means nothing other than you got lucky.
Don't overlook ALLTEL:
500 national minutes / voicemail / callerid / longdistance/ 1000 mobil to mobil/1000 night weekend. $39.99
ALLTEL does not place its rate plans with its contracts. Thus you can change your service plan at anytime for free and "without" extending your service agreement
I can tell you where the Alltel network is strong .. Shoot me a PM
He is good at his job...
But Alltel ftw in most cases 
Simply put if you have Cingular now, you are probably best off staying with Cingular. Of all the GSM carriers in the US they have the largest footprint and coverage area. Due to the merger with AT&T Wireless they have a ton of overlapping coverage in most heavily populated areas, in other words they have more redundant towers than any other carrier GSM or CDMA.
Second, quality of signal is as much a phone issue as it is a tower issue. Stick with Nokia, Sony/Ericsson, and LG for the best signals. Avoid Samsung, Siemans, Sanyo, and especially Motorola. All have less than stellar reputations for reception, and Motorola has major quality issues reguarding software and durability. Personally I would recommend a Nokia 3220 for a non flip or a Nokia 6100 series for a flip phone, both are full featured camera phones which are EDGE enabled, more on that in a bit.
Now for the infamous GSM vs CDMA argument. This is a fun one, because much like Mac vs PC you have rabid believers on both sides, but the simple fact of the matter is that GSM is the world standard. Sprint/Nextel and Verizon are the remaining major CDMA carriers in the US and for that matter pretty much the only remaining big CDMA carriers in the world. The telephony technology is good and at slower speeds, sub 256k, data transfer rates are outstanding, not to mention CDMA towers are super cheap to construct and maintain meaning that network coverage is usually pretty good. The downside is of course lack of protability, want to use your phone overseas, forget it. Want to use your phone with a different carrier, forget it. Few things suck more than spending 300$ each on a pair of phones, then moving to an area without good coverage and realizing that you now own a pair of 300$ bricks.
GSM, on the other hand, is the world standard, nine out of the top ten major carriers world wide are GSM. This means the technology has a huge development base and in the long run is more robust than CDMA not only because of it's support but because of the technology. Telephony technology, in the US at least, is not as good as CDMA right now. It is prone to more static, echo, and dropped calls mostly related to the MSC software controlling most tower clusters. It requires a lot of maintence and is overall more expensive to setup and keep running. The good news is, this is all going to change as better GSM technology already developed in Europe and Japan are ported over and used to upgrade existing US GSM networks. Another big perk for GSM is wireless data, EDGE technology is here now, which allows data transfer speeds up to 256kb sec. In the future 3GSM will be comming, it is already avaliable in Japan and Europe, which will provide broadband speeds fast enough for streaming audio/video, video confrencing, etc. As for portability GSM carries the day, on a basic level any GSM phone can be used with any GSM carrier world wide, excluding Japan and South Korea. Many carriers lock their handsets, but unlocking the phones is a simple matter for the most part. In reality it is not quite that simple as with all technology there are some glitches in the system, mostly related to phone compatiability issues. The basic rule is that you never brick a GSM phone just because you need to change carriers.
Now for carriers, if we are only looking at GSM carriers then the major players are Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States. Cingular, as stated before, has an HUGE base coverage area with many of those areas having redundant tower setup. The down side is draconian contracts, poor customer service, and EDGE technology has only been opened in selected major markets. T-Mobile on the other hand has a much much smaller coverage area, with much of that coverage footprint being roaming partners. The upside is better contracts, vastly superior customer service, and EDGE technology enabled on over 90% of their coverage area. Rate plans between the two companies tend to be pretty compareable with T-Mobile giving a little more in the 40$-80$ range.
For CDMA, in the past I would have recommended Nextel, as their reputation was amazing, now after their merger with Sprint I am just not sure. Sprint had some big customer service issues in the past, and the jury is still out on how the merger will effect them. If it goes as poorly as the Cingular/AT&T merger, ugh I would pass. Verizon on the other hand has amazing customer service, and a very large base network. Their rate plans tend to not be as good as Sprint/Nextel but they allow really good rates if you bundle together your landline, DSL, and mobile service all together in a single package. So if you already use Verizon for your home phone and DSL it is probably a good bet that their cell service is probably going to be a pretty good deal.
Qualifications, earlier in the year I took a position at a major US GSM carrier as a network engineer. I still work at EBGames part time, but I was tired of the hoops retail management makes you jump through. Mobile technology is a pretty exciting field, and I wish I had gotten involved in it a long time ago just to experience how it matured into the stage it is at now, and the good news is "You aint seen nuttin yet!"
In a nutshell to answer your question, go with who has the best reception in your area. The fact that you are not looking for a "Bluetooth" gen phone and want something basic leaves you with the option of all carriers in your area.
Just about any company will work in major city areas. The U.S. is not known for its ability to "upgrade" quickly when it comes to major changes in technology. Right now in the U.S. Verizon is the leader when it comes to high data transfer options (they use CDMA). The verdict is still not out on CDMA vs GSM. While GSM has more "potential", I highly doubt we will see any of the goodies anytime soon. Little group known as the FCCmakes sure of that.
Just test the phone out at a local retailer and get the one you feel the most comfortable with (applications / add&remove phone book info, ect.)
If you are looking for coverage, go with Alltel or Verizon. They have Roaming agreements with one another and are the Two largest Networks (square miles) in the U.S.
quote:
Xyrra had this to say about Punky Brewster:
Cingular in Tampa absolutely fucking sucks.
QFT and Bacon will concur, he is still stuck with that demon.
I've been on Sprint PCS for almost three years now, with one of the Sanyo picture phones,and though I can't tell you about billing (since I'm a freeloader and my mom pays for it)I've been nothing but happy with their service so far.
diadem fucked around with this message on 10-13-2005 at 08:27 PM.
quote:
Bacon369 had this to say about Knight Rider:
[QB] The U.S. is not known for its ability to "upgrade" quickly when it comes to major changes in technology. Right now in the U.S. Verizon is the leader when it comes to high data transfer options (they use CDMA). The verdict is still not out on CDMA vs GSM. While GSM has more "potential", I highly doubt we will see any of the goodies anytime soon. Little group known as the FCCmakes sure of that.
QB]
Greetings,
Just an FYI on this, both Cingular and T-Mobile have already rolled out EDGE technology on their networks. Cingular in major metro areas and T-Mobile nationwide, and EDGE enabled phones are starting to become avaliable now. EDGE is faster than anything CDMA can do, and the only thing limiting the speed right now is avaliabity of good phones and the FCC. When it comes to potential, we are only speaking of what the future WILL bring, not what it COULD bring. EDGE and later 3GSM technology have already been developed and are in production overseas. Only time, not technology, is between it and a roll out here in the US.
Again I will not say anything bad about CDMA's telephony abilities, it is very very good. The future of CDMA wireless data is the big question, it just is not being developed outside of the US because no one else worldwide is bothering to use it. Combine that with the complete and utter lack of portability throws off big alarms in my head saying buyer beware. While it might take many years, unless there is a major paradigm shift in the industry, CDMA is headed the way of the Betamax. GSM is the global standard, simple fact, no matter how you slice it.
Oh and I agree on the FCC, bunch of 
the whole lot of them. For example it took them ten years to set a nationwide standard for GSM frequencies, and when they did decide on one they picked the one that no one else in the world uses. Thus ensuring that cell phone prices will remain high because manufacturers will continue to be forced to make tri and quad band phones. This combined with intentionally crippling wireless data transfer speeds over mobile networks, for no good technological reason to boot, just makes me want to go rip some throats out.
