Verizon, Billing and Cellular Data

[Owen Densmore]

God, I can't believe yet another dog fight with Verizon!  I changed to automatic billing but they skipped a month because I set the automatic withdraw date to be 4 days after I signed up for automatic, and that was too close for their system to manage.  So then I get a weird sci-fi automated phone call telling me I'm close to loosing my service!  Holy cow, how do they stay in business?!  I could whittle you a better system than they have.

BUT while going through this weirdness (which got settled by their suspending the auto, paying manually .. over the phone .. for *2* months, then picking up the autopay in April!!) I started looking at my account and data plan.

I appear to pay less than most folks.  My monthly is $68/mo: 

$30 voice (450 min)

$30 data (2GB)

$0 txt (pay as you go)

$8 Tax & services.

I recall from earlier conversations many of us pay a lot more.

But what amazes me that I don't use anywhere near that amount of data, even tho I've started using the phone for radio (NPR, BBC, etc) quite a bit.

Do you folks use 2G/month?  I gotta presume the only way to do this is to start using it for video -- TV & Movies.  Is that right?  Maybe games?

I know there was a huge ballyhoo over the lack of "unlimited" data but apparently 2G *is* unlimited for primitive me!

   -- Owen

============================================================
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

[Russell Standish]

Wow - even $68 per month seems a lot. I'm paying AUD 30 (with the
Aussie running roughly 1:1 with the USD ATM), and I get a 200MB and
some fairly large amount of included calls that I don't go anywhere
near, unless the phone decides to call out by itself for a few
hours. And it also includes an Android (admittedly old now) phone paid
off over 24 months. Works for me.

I was paying another $10 per month for my wife's basic 2G phone
service - but she's decided to join the smart phone revolution, and
it had to be iPhone with Siri. So I'm up for $48 per month on that,
including the phone :).

Cheers


On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:11:07PM -0700, Owen Densmore wrote:

> God, I can't believe yet another dog fight with Verizon!  I changed to
> automatic billing but they skipped a month because I set the automatic
> withdraw date to be 4 days after I signed up for automatic, and that was
> too close for their system to manage.  So then I get a weird sci-fi
> automated phone call telling me I'm close to loosing my service!  Holy cow,
> how do they stay in business?!  I could whittle you a better system than
> they have.
>
> BUT while going through this weirdness (which got settled by their
> suspending the auto, paying manually .. over the phone .. for *2* months,
> then picking up the autopay in April!!) I started looking at my account and
> data plan.
>
> I appear to pay less than most folks.  My monthly is $68/mo:
>
> $30 voice (450 min)
> $30 data (2GB)
> $0 txt (pay as you go)
> $8 Tax & services.
>
> I recall from earlier conversations many of us pay a lot more.
>
> But what amazes me that I don't use anywhere near that amount of data, even
> tho I've started using the phone for radio (NPR, BBC, etc) quite a bit.
>
> Do you folks use 2G/month?  I gotta presume the only way to do this is to
> start using it for video -- TV & Movies.  Is that right?  Maybe games?
>
> I know there was a huge ballyhoo over the lack of "unlimited" data but
> apparently 2G *is* unlimited for primitive me!
>
>    -- Owen

> ============================================================
> 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


--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics      [hidden email]
University of New South Wales          http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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============================================================
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

[Robert J. Cordingley]

It's kind of hard to break out the charges but for 3 phones (2 smart phones and 1 vanilla) January was about $210 (which includes $25 of fees and surcharges).  So $70/ea on avg. - sort of close?  Includes:

1400 Shared Minutes ($92/mo)
3 Line access ($30/mo)

1 Android phone
email and web unlimited ($29.99/mo)
unlimited GB/mo
unlimited messaging
device insurance ($7/mo)

1 iPhone
data plan ($30/mo)
2 GB/mo
unlimited messaging
no insurance

I never seem to get near the 2GB but don't play games or watch videos on the iPhone either.  More than 1/2 the time it's on wifi as well.  Note the iPhone cost me $100 since it was on my primary number. Another would cost $200 and ostensible increase our bill by $30/mo for the third data plan (+s/c and fees).

Thanks
Robert


On 2/23/12 12:11 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

God, I can't believe yet another dog fight with Verizon!  I changed to automatic billing but they skipped a month because I set the automatic withdraw date to be 4 days after I signed up for automatic, and that was too close for their system to manage.  So then I get a weird sci-fi automated phone call telling me I'm close to loosing my service!  Holy cow, how do they stay in business?!  I could whittle you a better system than they have.

BUT while going through this weirdness (which got settled by their suspending the auto, paying manually .. over the phone .. for *2* months, then picking up the autopay in April!!) I started looking at my account and data plan.

I appear to pay less than most folks.  My monthly is $68/mo: 

$30 voice (450 min)

$30 data (2GB)

$0 txt (pay as you go)

$8 Tax & services.

I recall from earlier conversations many of us pay a lot more.

But what amazes me that I don't use anywhere near that amount of data, even tho I've started using the phone for radio (NPR, BBC, etc) quite a bit.

Do you folks use 2G/month?  I gotta presume the only way to do this is to start using it for video -- TV & Movies.  Is that right?  Maybe games?

I know there was a huge ballyhoo over the lack of "unlimited" data but apparently 2G *is* unlimited for primitive me!

   -- Owen

============================================================
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

============================================================
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