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Lunch » Tags » At&t » Reviews » Cell Phone Rate Hike

Cell Phone Rate Hike

1 rating: -4.0

Rising prices of a perfecting technology

Tags: Verizon, At&t, Sprint, Tmobile, Rate Plans

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content...03546.html?hpid=topnews

1 review about Cell Phone Rate Hike

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Unbelievably Anti-Competitive Cellular Companies

Jun 18, 2009

by viethoaitran

Rating:

-4

Every time I take a look at cell phone bills, it just boggles my mind how much people are paying for their service. Over the past year, all across the board, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T have raised prices on all in the United States. They've not only raised prices on rate plans, but also on additional services that we, as consumers, are taking some advantage of.

#1:
Text messaging. Ridiculously overpriced like a house in Malibu that's barely held up but foundation poles. (Smells like disaster is going to arrive with current water levels and global warming *another blog later*) Can you actually believe that texting with an iPhone costs more than it costs to text with a cheap flip phone? I'm talking about the price difference between a regular phone and a smart phone plan internally. This also goes with other smart phones such as Palm Pre, T-Mobile G-1, ALL Blackberry phones; it is ridiculous how much people are actually paying for these plans. Where is all our money going into? Definitely not R&D. If it was, they'd figure that letters over the cellular network, is little to none on how much it uses.

#2:
Minutes. Granted that these prices have gone down with technological improvements from analog to digital, but when is America going to wake up and find out...*No service* yeah, that cell phone service areas, still is less than desired even with new cell towers. They simply don't work well. Don't blame it completely on the phone, blame it on old technology of cellular service. We've grown since, and I believe T-mobile has gotten something pretty nifty. T-Mobile @ Home. I'm not advertising it, but I'm just amazed that we can use our phones for VOIP over our current high speed internet. Why are we still paying an arm and a leg for minutes? I still *Dropped call*

I still believe we are always improving, but not at this rate. Some people don't even realize this new revelation from another past article, "Hey, um, who's going to maintain these satellites that's been up there for, um, three decades now?" It's just impractical to shoot up some people to repair them, just costs too much. It doesn't make any sense to send up more clutter in space. We can barely manage to keep our satellites from hitting each other causing them to be broken into bits and dropped back onto Earth.
The amount of money I'm spending on cell phone service, I am hoping that they wise up and figure out a way quickly to drive prices down before the public gets rowdy and WILL cause a ruckus. It only takes one person to shout it loud enough for others to hear and follow.

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drifter51 June 26, 2009

Great topic. You state the problem very well here. I used to sell Cingular and T-Mobile. What many people overlook is all of the taxes and fees that are tacked on each month. Seems like whenever the government wants to raise money they just raise the taxes on cell phone or add on another fee. I don't use the phone that much so now I just have T-Mobile prepaid. The only tax I pay is the 7% state sales tax on the card. I am saving lots of money.

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viethoaitran June 18, 2009

Luckily I have just the normal family plan with family unlimited texting, but I've always decided to go about on my own and to keep my iPhone. The most affordable package with minimum minutes and unlimited text, it would be around $85 a month. Unbelievable.

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angelodignacio June 18, 2009

Hey Viet, good points you've made here. I totally agree - along with everything you've pointed out, data plans have skyrocketed and customer service has dropped through the ground. You wouldn't believe what happened to @jrjohnson after he went on vacation and found out how much he was charged for his AT&T Wireless International data plan. What service are you using? I know each one has totally got their ups and downs.

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