Hey Roger, Well, depends on what you mean by "reasonable"!!
It's hard to compare apples to apples with cellular plans. With T-Mo, I had an old, grandfathered in plan from 1997 that gave me 3000 unrestricted minutes for $50/month. Those minutes were good in Colorado and 6 surrounding states, so long distance was effectively free to me, although I'd've had to pay ldist charges if I'd called outside that area (which I don't, much). Data was (pretty painfully slow) GPRS. I had a grandfathered in data plan that was unlimited (at 128kbps) for $20/month.Roaming was not included. I never went over on minutes. Text messages also were not included, so add another $20 to $50/month for those, depending. So, I was paying $70/month plus text messages and the interminable taxes and fees. Not bad! Enter the growing children and their cell phones. I was also paying $60/month for each of my kids' phones, plus taxes and fees. So we're up $190/month, plus text messages, unless the kids went over their minutes. Say $220/month average plus, say $25 of damnable taxes. T-Mobile: $245/month ish. 2006: Enter Verizon. I don't actually recall which family plan I have. It's $140/month for 3000 minutes, shared amongst the three of us. To that we add $10/month each for the kids' additional phones, $45/month for unlimited data and $15/month for using it with my laptop. Then we add Vcast for the kids at $15/month each, and "unlimited" text messages at $10/month/line Result: $280/month. Actual bill is around $310 with all those damnable taxes and fees and surcharges and so on. Long distance and roaming are included, so there's no additional charge on the rare occasion I call long distance or roam. Verizon: $310/month ish. So I'm paying about $65/month more. Better coverage. MUCH faster data, which accounts for about $40 of the $65. I guess if I were on Sprint that $60 would become $15, although I still can't quite believe that. Simple, yes? If other businesses had such "simple" pricing models, we'd probably all be insane by now. Cheers, Don -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Roger Prokic Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 6:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Treo] Rebates and The Single Most Important Question Don, Are your phone bills reasonable compared to Cingular and T-mobile??? --- Roger Prokic [EMAIL PROTECTED] *NEW* Moderator of Palm_Treo_680 Yahoo group Baltimore, Maryland USA -=[ This email was sent from a Palm Treo 680 palm computer using SnapperMail Enterprise Edition v2.3.7.01 ]=-
