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The Greatest Moral Question of Today: "Mobile Carrier Ethics?"

San_Pellegrino

San_Pellegrino

the eternal dreamer
is a Team Rater Alumnus
There is an undeniable craze over smartphones, whether it be the recent Samsung Galaxy SIII or whatever newfangled iphone comes out in a few months or so - and mobile phone carriers have capitalized on this growing trend. I remember the days when mobile phone service was only $40 and you could get great service without paying for high premiuims (notably Verizon and its pushing of the Share Everything plan). Understandably, the rate must go up because of all the new technology - and it is a lot - that carriers need to maintain to offer the service, which I'm fine with - these guys still need to make a good living. But $60+ for basic plans with some data?

Give me (and all us cell phone users) a break, I'm staying with my trusty antenna phone thank you very much.

It would be cool to hear your guys' thoughts on this.
 
I work at an AT&T callcenter during summers so I know a little more than the average person about mobile phones.

They are ripping you off. Big time. Something like 50-60% of their income is profit.

The biggest problem with US mobile phone service providers is that there's a pretty big monopoly going on with the big service providers. It's impossible for anyone to start new service providers because of how costly it is to setup the infrastructure, even in one city.

If you want to get a lower rate, phone in say you want to make your bill lower and if they can't help you threaten to switch providers. At at&t we transfer you to customer relations and they are essentially your bitch.

In Canada, we have some big service providers but we also have some smaller ones with very competitive rates. I pay 40$ CAD per month for unlimited talk/text/data and I got a free smartphone for no term contract. They pay off my tab for the phone within 3 years of service too (standard contract length in Canada compared to your 2 year)
 
There have been various constitutional challenges to the carrier monopolies in existence in America, all to no avail. So everyone can thank that jerkoff Rehnquist and the bigger jerkoff Roberts for their ridiculously high phone bills. Yay "capitalism"!
 
Government allowed (and, occasionally, enforced) monopolies have done about as much damage as actual monopolies, but have received far less press over it. It's a real shame.

I think there's some other carriers out there that do good "pay as you go" plans, but I don't know the exact specifics.

Out of all the major carriers, T-mobile is probably the most customer friendly. Thank God that that AT&T deal fell through.
 
Wind/Koodo/Mobilicity are all doing great things for the market in Canada, its a shame that its near impossible for business like these to be set up in america.

Like Itchni said, threaten to ditch your service provider and they will cut you some slack.
 
And here are some AT&T specific tips:

If you act nice the agent will feel more compelled to give you credits. If that doesn't work then say you will call back and get another agent. They will hate that and give you what you want (within reason). upgrade/activation/restoral of service are exceptions though. We really aren't allowed to credit those.

There is something called a reduced rate suspend. If you ever lose your phone or job and can't pay your phone bill ask for it. It's something like 10$ a month rather than paying your full phone bill.

If you REALLY want something waived just say someone at the store said you would waive it for them. We can't argue with it and will most likely waive it for you.
 
The best "deal" i have is 4gb of data a month for $20.

My fiancee and I share a phone bill of 180$

Hooray smartphones. I just need a few kids and I can drop it to 100$
 
I'm stuck in a contract with bell and pay around $70/month right now for my smartphone. It is way more than I should be paying but it gets me what I need for now, I plan on going down to a very light plan soon though, since a lot of my bill is paying for data i rarely use
 
find friends and get on a plan together... i pay $55 a month for unlimited everything on sprint, along with two other guys.

itchni's advice is fantastic, i hope someone gets good use out of that, even though i won't. thanks bro, love when people on the inside help the rest of us. :]
 
Might have to look into that, as my wife and I pay $160 for our plan per month with Verizon, which isn't even unlimited (not that we reach our text limit anyway since almost everyone uses Verizon in the first place). I'm to the point where the next phone I get isn't even going to be a smartphone, just a flip phone with calling and texting capability. Losing the interwebs will be an adjustment but I think I can deal with it.
 
At the same time though, T-Mobile offers a $35+$10 basic plan (500 min or something) that includes 2 GB data as long as you provide your own phone - which actually pays itself off in comparison to the 2 year deadlock which has you paying around $60-70 a month netting $240 or more over the course of that time - which is when they try to lure you with another upgraded phone to keep earning money on a preyed consumer.

Itchni's advice is absolutely topnotch, if only more people could put it to use!
 
Itchni: my boyfriend is thinking about getting a new phone, not an upgrade, but one of those 99 cent iPhone 3GS/old Android phones. His local AT&T store however is charging $37 in "taxes" off the original price. I think that's bullshit, are my suspicions correct? Is it possible that if he bothers them enough, they'll waive it? Anything else he can do about it?
 
Age of Kings said:
Itchni: my boyfriend is thinking about getting a new phone, not an upgrade, but one of those 99 cent iPhone 3GS/old Android phones. His local AT&T store however is charging $37 in "taxes" off the original price. I think that's bullshit, are my suspicions correct? Is it possible that if he bothers them enough, they'll waive it? Anything else he can do about it?
Click to expand...

Complain to your state legislature about the taxes thing. Nothing the carrier can do about that. I take it you live in California or one of the small number of states who charge taxes on the unsubsidized price of the phone.
 
Seeing how my family never complains about phone bills (mostly because I'm a total loner with almost 0 friends who rarely texts people), our plan must be fitting our needs nicely.

I get a very good data plan with covers me for a good two weeks until it's replenished. Since I use my phone mostly for Twitter/FB, and I'm not really on it that much, my bil is substantially low.

And this is with an iPhone 4, mind you.
 
me/mom/sis/aunt on a family plan

700 peak minutes unlimited m2m/nights/weekends
unlimited texts
shared^
2gb data for me, personally
60 dollars a month, on an iPhone from Verizon

a little steep but even with me on the line we're never gone over 700 minutes and ive never even touched half a gig of data. the price is manageable and pretty good compared to other ones i think
 
I got a 29 dollar a month, unlimited text/data/calling plan and a 0 dollar (Wind Tab) Nexus S on Wind last year.

Switch to wind if you are in Canada this September when w/e the new Student Plan is gets announced.
 
I've been on Virgin US for the past six months or so and it's undeniably good. All you do is pay for the phone (I have a Motorola Triumph that cost me in the neighbourhood of $200) and then I pay $35/month for unlimited data / text and 300 minutes per month. You can go up to unlimited everything for $55. No contracts or activation fees, they just charge your card the day before your new month and you're home free. Runs off the Sprint network. It's the fucking bomb.
 
600 minutes, 3.5gb download limit, unlimited browsing+texts, and didn't pay for a handset worth £150

£11/month

aka the best deal on the planet
 
moot said:
I've been on Virgin US for the past six months or so and it's undeniably good. All you do is pay for the phone (I have a Motorola Triumph that cost me in the neighbourhood of $200) and then I pay $35/month for unlimited data / text and 300 minutes per month. You can go up to unlimited everything for $55. No contracts or activation fees, they just charge your card the day before your new month and you're home free. Runs off the Sprint network. It's the fucking bomb.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is pretty good. I am lucky though b/c I am grandfathered into their previous $25 a month :)
 
DM said:
There have been various constitutional challenges to the carrier monopolies in existence in America, all to no avail. So everyone can thank that jerkoff Rehnquist and the bigger jerkoff Roberts for their ridiculously high phone bills. Yay "capitalism"!
Click to expand...

This makes me pretty uncomfortable actually. I was hoping within the next five years a new phone company would show its face and actually rise up to AT&T + Verizon (both suck cocks) and open up the market for new phone companies.

Makes me wonder how we, as a people, could actually make such a thing come true.
 
Snkz said:
Wind/Koodo/Mobilicity are all doing great things for the market in Canada, its a shame that its near impossible for business like these to be set up in america.

Like Itchni said, threaten to ditch your service provider and they will cut you some slack.
Click to expand...
Koodo = Telus.

And yeah, threaten to quit. That's how I have my $30 plan with 6GB data / 2500 texts / 200 mins.
 
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