Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
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Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
 
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Gist of this is an interesting buried T-Mobile cell-phone service, inexpensive and month-to-month. No contract, no penalties. Link: Post: This is a guest post from social-media maven Laura Roeder. Laura first told me this story in January, and I used it as the basis for one of my columns for Entrepreneur magazine. Over lunch recently, she offered to write a guest post about her experience. I told her I’d be glad to share it. Secret phone plans? No contracts? Unadvertised payment plans with no interest? These are all available. But you’ll never know until you ask. I recently decided to switch carriers to T-Mobile, so I jumped on their website to start doing the math of the different plans that they offered. Just when I felt I couldn’t possibly calculate the details of one more plan, I came across a section on the website that featured plans without contracts. This section was buried; in fact, I had to be logged on a friend’s account who was already a customer to be able to see the plans at all. I was confused by what I found. The plans withoutthe contracts had a lower monthly cost than the plans with contracts. I figured there would be a premium fee to not be locked in to a two-year contract, but I was seeing just the opposite. I went into a T-Mobile store and asked about the plans. They didn’t show me any plans without a long contract. So I asked about a no-contract plan but the sales person was dismissive, saying “but you’re going to have to pay full pay price for the phone.” I insisted that I wanted to see the plan anyway, and he went to the back of the store to dig up the brochure for me. The exact same plan without a contract was $110 a month instead of $140 a month, for a savings of $360 a year. I looked for the catch, but the only catch was the no-contract plan didn’t offer the usual discount on a new phone. The phone I wanted to buy retailed at $500, but cost just $200 with a contract. (That’s a savings of $300, in case your math muscles aren’t working.) I quickly did the math: I could save $360 per year without a contract, but would have to pay $300 more for the phone. That still left me with $60 in my pocket for not having a contract, meaning no insane fees if I wanted to leave the contract or switch carriers. Plus, everything after the first year was pure “profit”. I soon learned from the sales associate that apparently no one had ever bought a phone outright and taken them up on the no-contract plan. It’s not advertised and therefore usually not asked about. They just assume that no one will want to pay more now in order to save later. The sales associate couldn’t believe that I was “baller” enough (his exact words) to pay $500 for a phone — even though I was actually saving money within a year. He even asked me what I did for a living to be able to afford such an extravagance! It gets better. When he went to ring up the phone, he asked me if I wanted a payment plan. I asked for the details and he told me that they offer no-interest payment plans so that people don’t have to shell out the full cost outright. Meaning that if you didn’t have the $500 for the phone, you could still save money by going with a no-contract plan! Again, this isn’t advertised. You just have to ask. It made me wonder what other companies aren’t telling me about ways that I can save because they assume that no one wants to pay more up front. Call your cell phone company, cable company, or insurance company today and ask if they have any other options. They might have something without a contract, a AAA discount, or other ways to save. Many companies have plans they don’t publish publicly. Check out these past Get Rich Slowly articles for more ways to save: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
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Hi
I'm hugely amazed by your post. Being involved in telecom regulatory matters (as a citizen stakeholder) in my country. I'm surprised that consumers in yours tolerate such nonsense. Just to provide some reference points In India: The average postpaid mobile commitment cost is about US$3 per month (which is instantly refunded with equivalent talk time). For prepaid it gets even better with zero (0) commitment and bonus talk times for every balance top-up. Call costs are about 1 CENT (US) per MINUTE to call anywhere within my vast country (ie. for about 1 US$ I can speak for 1 hour) All incoming calls are free. We have per second billing. At regulatory hearings I participate in, my fellow consumers are always griping that there are allegedly other countries in the world where mobile telephony is even cheaper. PS: We can buy any handset from te open market and the telco's vie with each other to connect us free (or a very nominal) charge Sarbajit On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 9:30 PM, Victoria Hughes <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
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But you have to understand several things to understand why most americans understand very little about celular telecom:
1 - Probably 80% of Friam does not understand the difference between GSM and CDMA, the two major celular protocols in the US. And that they do not interoperate. I've explained to at least 50 people why their Verizon phone will not work in Rome.
2 - "Mobile" means for americans "within 20 miles". Certainly not global. 3 - Coverage maps. I remember trying to tell an Italian about that concept. I failed utterly. It is why most folks in Santa Fe will never use GSM. I'm odd, I use GSM because I travel and won't tolerate the wreck produced by our telecom world. Color me "moral".
4 - Roaming: In most GSM areas, Roaming is required by law and is strongly enforced outside the US. Here, if you are a TMobile GSM customer wandering into a ATT area, you definitely will NOT get roaming services.
5 - "Regulatory" is a dirty word. Free markets cannot handle it. 6 - Costs: I know of few celular user who understands the cost differences between carriers. Here, TMobile (Deutsche Telekom) gives 20% cheaper costs, and allows contract-free services that are very inexpensive, and handles SMS and voice. They even offer very inexpensive phones for SMS/Voice.
7 - History: The french created GSM and lobbied very strongly for its universal adoption. We have "states" that have far less power, thus are lead by the corporate giants, far larger in income than the states. So chaos is welcomed, to our woe.
I could go on. Its a wreck. But because it is too hard for most folks to understand, thus cry out in pain, we are but pawns in the game. It is a deeply painful thing to be a US citizen who understands tech from the bottom up.
-- Owen
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 7:29 PM, Sarbajit Roy <[hidden email]> wrote: Hi ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
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BTW Sarbajit, you are a gmail user. Could you enumerate the difficulties, even immoralities, that entails? We have to be careful what we consider "free".
-- Owen
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Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Owen,
You should also mention that 1. Even if you have a GSM phone, unless you either pay a high price for an unlocked phone, have a Blackberry or are aware of the issue and find out how to unlock your phone, you are in danger of being hit with enormous roaming charges when you go to another country. Unless you have an unlocked phone, you won't be able to use a low cost SIM card that you purchase when you land or order over the web. 2. Data charges in Europe are outrageous even if you have some sort of plan. Having wifi on your phone can save you. Universal standards and regulations don't necessarily protect you from predatory charges from the carriers. Ed __________ Ed Angel Chair, Board of Directors, Santa Fe Complex Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon On Aug 2, 2011, at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: But you have to understand several things to understand why most americans understand very little about celular telecom: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Ouch! I realize that sounds harsh.
Let me be clearer. Gmail is very sophisticated. And with cleaver plugins, you can make it less noisy and have a UI you'd prefer (See Minimalist for Gmail http://goo.gl/gSAi4).
But it is not IMAP or POP. This means 100% of new users of gmail haven't a clue as to how it works. One trivial example: Sent messages. In POP/IMAP clients, these are messages that you have sent from the account (SMTP). In Gmail it is a system "label" (not folder).
Now lets suppose you send a message to a "conversation" (IMAP/POP: thread) and you later delete the thread in Gmail. It will also delete your copy of your outgoing email from the Sent label/folder!
This behavior moves users to the simpler Archive usage. Great. You keep all email you've sent or read. Ever. You do this because there is really no alternative for the behavior you'd like for our earlier Sent message behavior. Thus Google have a gold mine of preferences to use as they please.
The point I'm (badly) making is that very, very few users .. including 80% of Friam .. understand these subtleties. And it is dangerous. A few simple rules help. Never use a service that entraps your data .. i.e. you cannot pull it back out. Gmail is great that way: simply hook up an IMAP client, and it will transfer GMail messages to any new account you might create. If that stops being available, I'd leave it. (Yes, I use Gmail .. via DNS)
Another rule is to have your own DNS name. Why? Because you have a single identity on the web and if you move to a new ISP, you simply change your DNS records and no user of your identity (mail, web...) is confused.
For novice users, the two most difficult to understand events are: 1 - To get a new computer (Where'd my mail go? .. etc) 2 - To change ISPs (Holy cow, I'm now joe@gmail and was joe@earthlink .. what do I do?!)
And a third is now hot on their heels: 3 - To have multiple devices (phone, pad, TV, server, laptop, desktop) all of which need to share certain data like email. Another is to be polite .. which I screwed up and hope not too badly! :)
-- Owen
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: BTW Sarbajit, you are a gmail user. Could you enumerate the difficulties, even immoralities, that entails? We have to be careful what we consider "free". ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Ongoing cell-phone threads, esp T-Mobile
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Hi Owen,
I have both CDMA & GSM, and I can travel throughout my country and roam seamlessly (but not interoperatorably) at under 1 cent per minute. I dont have to change my operators in almost 90% of the country. At any well covered location my (GSM) handset can usually detect about 5 or 6 operators. In New Delhi we have 12 operators (all vying in our free - and excessively regulated - environment to get me to switch to their networks - and offering plans "guaranteed" to give me 25 cents per hour calling rates for "lifetime" (ie. as long as their company is in business). So if Regulation is bad I wonder why phone costs are so expensive in the land of the free. PS: I know fairly well the pitfalls of a free gmail but dont give a damn. Sarbajit On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: But you have to understand several things to understand why most americans understand very little about celular telecom: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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