BDx13 - 3-9-2009 at 04:31 PM
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/128255
How much are you paying for cell service? Would you believe $3 a minute?
Mon Mar 9, 2009 11:56AM EDT
Shocking headline? You better believe it. Like most consumers, I feel like I'm getting a pretty good deal on my cell phone service, paying about 40
bucks a month for 450 minutes worth of talk time, including unlimited nights and weekends, rollover minutes, and all that good stuff.
The problem for me -- and for most of the free world, it seems -- is that I don't use anywhere close to 450 minutes a month on my cell. And when you
take an average of a few hundred cell phone bills, dividing how much the users really pay vs. the minutes they really use, you get some shocking
figures indeed. According to a study from San Diego's Utility Consumers' Action Network, the average cost of a wireless call is, in reality, a
shocking $3.02 per minute.
Wow.
Why so high? The average customer uses only 32 percent of his minute allotment, and some customers pay up to $100 a month (not including all those
unadvertised fees and taxes, which push the costs even higher) for unlimited service, making for an even worse deal in the end. (Take out the worst
outliers who pay a lot and use no minutes and the average is still around 75 cents a minute for cell service.)
The numbers are better, but still bad, for land-line long distance, where consumers pay an average of 55 cents per minute for long distance, when all
fees are truly accounted for. It probably doesn't help that, according to the study, "90 percent of AT&T and Verizon phone bills are improperly
taxed."
The goal of the UCAN report is to raise awareness of what consumers are really paying on their phone bills by quantifying their expenses in detail,
while also questioning whether deregulation has lived up to claims that it would save customers money in the long run. (The report's claim is that it
definitively has not.)
How much are you really paying in phone service? Take a look at your bill to see how many minutes you actually use and compare that against what you
really pay each month. You might be shocked by what you find.
defstarsteve - 3-9-2009 at 04:51 PM
My plan for 2100 minutes for 2 phones is 100 a month before fees and such
but all verizon to verizon calls are free...
so my calls to my wife and emloyees are all free, (in western pa you have verizon or you don't have cell service...)
we use about 2000 minutes in free air time a month
and use about 1500-1900 of our paid minutes (wifes friends and customers)
we have no other phones fuck a land line
so for our 100 a month we use about 3500-4000 minutes
I am paying less .02-.03 cents per mintue
and since my phone makes me money as part of my business I can write it off as a business expense
when and if I ever do taxes
XHonusWagnerX - 3-9-2009 at 05:33 PM
I use basicly none of my minutes, but I use the shit out of my data plan!
BDx13 - 3-9-2009 at 05:38 PM
i don't use mine as much as i used to, but i definitely use 350-400 of my 450.
most work calls are on a dedicated vonage line now.
my wife has a pre pay account w/ virgin which is perfect for the occasional call.
costs about $5/mo.
random - 3-9-2009 at 06:11 PM
i'm with steve. i used to use almost none of my "minutes" when i had a monthly plan in the US, but i used the shit out of the free nights and
weekends. so i'd have about 60 minutes of "paid" time, and several 3-4+ hour long distance calls during the free nights. so the $40/month plan
wasn't utilized so much, but the extra "free" perks (which is what i was really paying for) added up. it definitely came out much cheaper than doing
a pay-as-you-go plan where you actually pay for every minute on the phone.
edit: oh yeah, and verizon-to-verizon was also free
Discipline - 3-9-2009 at 06:23 PM
Cell phones are evil. Never had one, don't want one.