How many users actually benefit from $99 unlimited?

SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> amazed us all with the following in
news:47be0c0b$0$36374$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>> In article <47be02c7$0$36402$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
>> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I find it amusing to see all the news reports of how the $99.99
>>> unlimited plan is a "price war." Yeah, it's a price war to get
>>> subscribers to increase their monthly expenditure for wireless.
>>
>> I work with a guy (salesman) who, last year, had a 2000 minute plan
>> (don't know with whom)--and every month he was 1000 minutes over.
>>
>> Let's see, that was probably a $125/month plan, and $0.25 overage, so
>> he was probably $375/month.
>>
>> No, I'd say plenty of people will eat this up.
>
> Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of sales people that would benefit,
> but for the vast majority of subscribers, I don't believe that it's
> much of a deal.
>

The answer to this question is amazingly simple- look at ARPU for each
carrier. With voice ARPU generally being in the $55-60 range, $100 users
are going to represent the upper end of the scale. With the influx of
lower creditworthy customers on all networks over the last three years,
there will be more customers on the network below that line than above it.

At 21 Feb 2008 18:27:55 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> > I find it amusing to see all the news reports of how the $99.99
> > unlimited plan is a "price war." Yeah, it's a price war to get
> > subscribers to increase their monthly expenditure for wireless.
>
> I work with a guy (salesman) who, last year, had a 2000 minute plan
> (don't know with whom)--and every month he was 1000 minutes over.
>
> Let's see, that was probably a $125/month plan, and $0.25 overage, so he
> was probably $375/month.
>
> No, I'd say plenty of people will eat this up.


Agreed. My cousin, a consultant back east who uses 3000 or so daytime
minutes a month is still on a grandfathered ATTWS GSM Charter plan (a $99
unlimited plan they originally used to con suckers from switching from
their excellent TDMA/analog network to their, at the time, very crummy GSM
one.)

Since the merger he's been stuck buying unlocked handsets to upgrade since
the "new" AT&T can't sell him a subsidized phone that'll accept his blue
"old" AT&T SIM, and won't switch him to a "new" orange AT&T SIM unless he
takes a new plan.

Ironically, I'll bet he'll probably switch to Ve izon- Verizon has a little
better reception in his neighborhood, and he uses a Verizon EVDO laptop
card for mobile data- it works on his boat, where the AT&T 3G card he tried
first doesn't always reach- (apparently "Extended UMTS" didn't make it to
Rhode Island!) ;-) IIRC, Verizon will knock the PC card rate down from
$79 to $59 if you also have a voice plan. The $20 savings didn't justify
dumping the AT&T Charter plan, but when Verizon offers the $99 unlimited,
he can port over and save the $20/month on the data card.

At 21 Feb 2008 20:41:32 -0600 The Bob wrote:

> The answer to this question is amazingly simple- look at ARPU for each
> carrier. With voice ARPU generally being in the $55-60 range, $100
users
> are going to represent the upper end of the scale. With the influx of
> lower creditworthy customers on all networks over the last three years,
> there will be more customers on the network below that line than above it.


True- the question is what percentage of customers are actually above the
$99 mark now- I suspect it's not too big a percentage, and can you con
enough $60-80 users to jump to $99 to offset that.

Maybe he should try extended GSM.

"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in message
news:aYsvj.37$OB5.33@fe127.usenetserver.com...
> At 21 Feb 2008 18:27:55 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>> > I find it amusing to see all the news reports of how the $99.99
>> > unlimited plan is a "price war." Yeah, it's a price war to get
>> > subscribers to increase their monthly expenditure for wireless.
>>
>> I work with a guy (salesman) who, last year, had a 2000 minute plan
>> (don't know with whom)--and every month he was 1000 minutes over.
>>
>> Let's see, that was probably a $125/month plan, and $0.25 overage, so he
>> was probably $375/month.
>>
>> No, I'd say plenty of people will eat this up.
>
>
> Agreed. My cousin, a consultant back east who uses 3000 or so daytime
> minutes a month is still on a grandfathered ATTWS GSM Charter plan (a $99
> unlimited plan they originally used to con suckers from switching from
> their excellent TDMA/analog network to their, at the time, very crummy GSM
> one.)
>
> Since the merger he's been stuck buying unlocked handsets to upgrade since
> the "new" AT&T can't sell him a subsidized phone that'll accept his blue
> "old" AT&T SIM, and won't switch him to a "new" orange AT&T SIM unless he
> takes a new plan.
>
> Ironically, I'll bet he'll probably switch to Ve izon- Verizon has a
> little
> better reception in his neighborhood, and he uses a Verizon EVDO laptop
> card for mobile data- it works on his boat, where the AT&T 3G card he
> tried
> first doesn't always reach- (apparently "Extended UMTS" didn't make it to
> Rhode Island!) ;-) IIRC, Verizon will knock the PC card rate down from
> $79 to $59 if you also have a voice plan. The $20 savings didn't justify
> dumping the AT&T Charter plan, but when Verizon offers the $99 unlimited,
> he can port over and save the $20/month on the data card.
>
>

> Also, in natural disasters, often the wireless networks are overloaded
> or go down, but landlines still work.

Actually, just the opposite is true. Granted, as usual you showed an
exception to the rule in order to pass it along as the rule. However,
during most natural disasters it's the landlines that go down first.

Janet Wilder wrote:

> Since so many of the people we call are also Verizon users, the IN
> calling saves gallons of minutes. We hardly eat in to our paid minutes
> with nights and weekends and IN. It would make no sense for us to go to
> "unlimited"

Yes, I have a feeling that between off-peak and MTM, very few
subscribers will benefit from a move up to $100 unlimited, while nearly
_all_ of the heavy users (not using smart phones) will move down to $100
unlimited. I notice the same scenario as your's around here. Most of my
relatives, friends, and co-workers have Verizon so I don't even use up
my measly 300 peak minutes.

The carriers also better hope that the heavy users don't find out about
the ways to get unlimited use at much lower cost. PagePlus offers
unlimited for about $75 per month, and that $75 isn't burdened with
extra fees and taxes like the $100 unlimited plans are. With Sprint and
Voicestick, unlimited is $52 plus taxes and fees paid to Sprint, and
Voicestick offers a lot of other advantages as well.

SMS wrote:
> George wrote:
>
>> But frankly I find the business model of raping customers when they go
>> over just plain wrong. Just imagine if other services operated in a
>> similar fashion. Say you needed to cross a bridge every day and you
>> could buy a monthly pass that cost say $50 that entitled to cross once
>> each day. You are a loyal customer and have been using the bridge for
>> years. Some event happens where you need to cross more often and they
>> charge you $7 for each additional crossing. I doubt anyone would put
>> up with it.
>>
>> Cell phones are no longer something magical. The days of having to
>> accept whatever is offered are winding down..
>
> Well I hope that the winding down doesn't mean moving to an unlimited
> model at $99 from a metered use at various tiers. I don't like the model
> of high overage charges either, but the alternative may be worse for
> relatively low-usage users.

It seems that is the direction it is going.

I am sure that the tiers will be just as disingenuous as the various
current ones are now. I imagine the "cellphone buffet" when I read the
prices. This month's special is one serving on a 3" plate for $9 or
unlimited for $10.50 .

I am a heavy user but unlimited is of no value to me because of free
m2m. All of my family and most of my friends and associates are on VZW.
So an unlimited package would cost me even more.


>
> If I were a new low-usage user then I wouldn't be a postpaid customer.
> T-Mobile and PagePlus offer reasonable per-minute rates (5.3-8.8¢). The
> downside is no free nights and weekends, but in reality the only reason
> people talk so much on their cell phones on N&W is because it's free.
> They could get a 2¢/minute long distance service and still be better off
> in most cases.

Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>
> "George" <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:m4idnREMiOSZdyDanZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
>
>> Can I suggest that isn't much of a test? I think every carrier has the
>> PA & Jersey pike lit up.
>
> True, but in many ways, that's sort of the point. I'll be the first to
> admit that my T-Mo phone doesn't work "everywhere." But it works where
> I am 99% of the time. Since I pay T-Mo $72/month for what would cost me
> $150 on Verizon, the real question, for me, is what is that last 1%
> worth to me in terms of cost? (And the answer to that, apparently, is
> "$2.50/month" since I activated an eBay phone on PagePlus as a glovebox
> backup just in case! So far I've used 0 minutes on it since activating
> it in November.)
>
>
>
I need my phone to work when I am out so it isn't worth it to me. There
are just too many places where tmobile lacks coverage as soon as you
leave the core city area or go away from the highway.

SMS wrote:
> 4phun wrote:
>
>> I think that with a low enough price point that unlimited becomes
>> useful for those who want to drop a landline and go all cellular all
>> the time.
>
> Yeah, unless: a) you want to have DSL, in which case you may as well get
> a landline anyway since the price difference between naked DSL and DSL
> plus a landline is minimal, and b) you have kids or seniors that need
> the 911 service of a landline.
>
> Also, in natural disasters, often the wireless networks are overloaded
> or go down, but landlines still work. During the bad hurricane season a
> few years ago, we also saw that a lot of wireless sites had no back-up
> generator, only batteries, so they went down pretty quickly. Cingular
> had 25% of their sites with generators (according to their own press
> release), while Verizon had 80% with back up power (Verizon claims to
> have a generator at every site where they are allowed to have one).
> Cingular's goal is to have enough sites up to provide complete coverage,
> but to sacrifice capacity, "We will sacrifice the capacity piece to try
> to attain blanket coverage as much as possible."
>
> "http://telephonyonline.com/mag/telecom_signal_end_storm/"
> "http://news.vzw.com/news/2006/03/pr2006-04-04a.html"
>

I bet many people don't realize how Mickey Mouse some carriers are.
Tmobile doesn't believe in generators and at least in my area the old
AT&T TDMA/analog sites had generators but now the GSM stuff just has
battery.

George wrote:

> I am a heavy user but unlimited is of no value to me because of free
> m2m. All of my family and most of my friends and associates are on VZW.
> So an unlimited package would cost me even more.

Maybe part of the carrier's plan is to eliminate M2M and off-peak.
They've reduced off-peak times in the past, eliminating holidays.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:46:21 -0800, SMS wrote:

> The
> downside is no free nights and weekends, but in reality the only reason
> people talk so much on their cell phones on N&W is because it's free.
> They could get a 2¢/minute long distance service and still be better off
> in most cases.

Or go with VoiP and pay no long distance charges (assuming you have
broadband).

George wrote:

> I bet many people don't realize how Mickey Mouse some carriers are.
> Tmobile doesn't believe in generators and at least in my area the old
> AT&T TDMA/analog sites had generators but now the GSM stuff just has
> battery.

Verizon claims to have generators at every site where generators are
permitted (80%). AT&T claims to have generators at enough sites to
provide complete geographic coverage, but at reduced capacity. This may
be why Verizon tends to do better in blackouts and other disasters where
power is interrupted.

I couldn't find any information on Sprint and T-Mobile's back-up power
infrastructure, other than Sprint's press release of installing
generators at some sites in Florida and Texas. Just looking at some of
the strange places that Sprint and T-Mobile have had to install sites in
order to get complete coverage, where generators aren't allowed, there
is just no way they could equal the AT&T and Verizon coverage in a
prolonged blackout.

CellGuy wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:46:21 -0800, SMS wrote:
>
>> The
>> downside is no free nights and weekends, but in reality the only reason
>> people talk so much on their cell phones on N&W is because it's free.
>> They could get a 2¢/minute long distance service and still be better off
>> in most cases.
>
> Or go with VoiP and pay no long distance charges (assuming you have
> broadband).

VOIP isn't free either. You can purchase a yearly plan or get MagicJack
and hope they stay in business, and hope they keep the price at $19.95
for subsequent years. SunRocket tried $200, then $100, and couldn't make
a go of it.

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article <47bedd2a$0$36348$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, I have a feeling that between off-peak and MTM, very few
>> subscribers will benefit from a move up to $100 unlimited, while nearly
>> _all_ of the heavy users (not using smart phones) will move down to $100
>> unlimited.
>
> I can see the carriers dramatically changing the non-unlimited plans,
> making them very expensive relative to the unlimited plans. They could
> also reduce/eliminate off-peak and MTM. The idea would be to move
> people off their $70/mo plans and up to the $100/mo plan (plus
> "regulatory fee recovery" charges, natch).
>
> On the flip side, it moves many over to the prepaid side of the house in
> one way or another--which is no doubt what the big carriers want.
>
> It'll just turn into an even clearer definition between prepaid and
> contract, that's all.

Yeah, so far the carriers seem to have been willing to continue the
contract terms of the original contract on a continuing basis, even
though they really aren't required to do so. I'm keeping my
grandfathered plan simply because if I drop it I can never get by 8:01
p.m. off-peak back, nor can I get back off-network roaming, nor can I
get my sub-$30 monthly cost back.

At some point the carriers may tire of continuing to provide service to
those of us with those $30 ARPUs. They can also decide to cut off the
low-priced MVNOs to eliminate that escape route for those that don't
want to spend a lot.

M.L. wrote:
>> Also, in natural disasters, often the wireless networks are overloaded
>> or go down, but landlines still work.
>
>
> Actually, just the opposite is true. Granted, as usual you showed an
> exception to the rule in order to pass it along as the rule. However,
> during most natural disasters it's the landlines that go down first.

Don't cell phones eventually connect via landlines? It seems to me that
it's cell phone to tower by air, tower to central office by wire,
Central office to central office by wire, central office to tower by
wire and tower to cell by air. For wire, you may substitute fiber
optics, if the local phone company is REALLY up-to-date.

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> M.L. wrote:
>>> Also, in natural disasters, often the wireless networks are overloaded
>>> or go down, but landlines still work.
>>
>>
>> Actually, just the opposite is true. Granted, as usual you showed an
>> exception to the rule in order to pass it along as the rule. However,
>> during most natural disasters it's the landlines that go down first.
>
> Don't cell phones eventually connect via landlines? It seems to me that
> it's cell phone to tower by air, tower to central office by wire,
> Central office to central office by wire, central office to tower by
> wire and tower to cell by air. For wire, you may substitute fiber
> optics, if the local phone company is REALLY up-to-date.

Yes, this is why landlines are usually more reliable in the event of a
natural disaster (unless of course the wire to your house is knocked down).

At 22 Feb 2008 10:07:32 -0500 George wrote:


> I need my phone to work when I am out so it isn't worth it to me. There
> are just too many places where tmobile lacks coverage as soon as
> you leave the core city area or go away from the highway.

That certainly may be true in your area, but it also could be that you just
may not be aware of the improvements made in their coverage over the last
two years or so (mostly through roaming agreements.) Rural coverage in
particular has been greatly improved. Some carriers, even small CDMA
carriers (like Alltel in some areas) actually operate small GSM system
overlays just to skim roaming revenues from AT&T and T-Mobile.

While I'd never suggest T-Mo's Coverage is anywhere near as extensive as
Verizon's, they've come a Very long way since I first used them in 2001.
(Back then I used them for their 3000 minutes/$49 regional plan as a
business phone, and kept a seperate Cingular TDMA/AMPS phone as my personal
phone, which doubled as a much-needed backup for T-Mo's piss-poor coverage
at that time.)

I still keep a backup phone (prepaid, these days) for T-Mo to this day,
mostly out of habit, but rarely need it. In fact I went without a backup
for most of 2007, since Beyond Wireless TDMA shut down last March, and I
didn't activate a phone on PagePlus until Thanksgiving (still unused
despite a lot of travel to various Colorado ski areas this winter.)

You might be surprised at how much they've improved. Don't let
preconcieved (but correct!) notions of how crummy their coverage was
several years ago cloud your opinions.

At 22 Feb 2008 06:36:09 -0800 SMS wrote:

> Yes, I have a feeling that between off-peak and MTM, very few
> subscribers will benefit from a move up to $100 unlimited, while nearly
> _all_ of the heavy users (not using smart phones) will move down to
> $100 unlimited.

But, to be fair, Mrs. Verizon didn't raise any stupid children. While we
all probably know a guy who knows a guy who uses a jillion minutes and
spends $654/month, the reality is those customers are very rare, and
lowering their rate to $99 won't noticably affect ARPU, even if they don't
con folks like you or I into upgraging to the unlimited plan.

I agree with George, however, that the bigger fear will be further plan
consolidation. In the last couple of years w 've seen the virtual
elimination of the $30 and $35 price point, so $40 is now "entry level" for
wireless. How soon before they have only have 2 plans? Say, $50 for 1000
minutes, and $100 for unlimited. It's a slow but standard pattern in
wireless- make a mid-tier plan a "good value," then use it's heavy adoption
as the excuse to drop the low end plan because "no one was taking it
anyway."


> The carriers also better hope that the heavy users don't find out
> about the ways to get unlimited use at much lower cost.

They won't care- they'll just find ways to plug the holes if they become a
problem.

> PagePlus offers unlimited for about $75 per month, and that $75 isn't
> burdened with extra fees and taxes like the $100 unlimited plans are.

It's also not burdened with being easy to find, buy or refill! ;-)

I can see the Fortune 500 company meeting right now... "Johnson, be sure
to hand out the PagePlus refill cards to the Senior VPs- we don't want
their service suspended during the annual meeting in Houston next week!!!
And check eBay again- that 'new' RAZR you obtained for the CFO was pink and
covered with 'Hello Kitty' stickers and he's feeling a little silly having
to talk on it in front of the board!"

> With Sprint and Voicestick, unlimited is $52 plus taxes and fees paid
> to Sprint, and Voicestick offers a lot of other advantages as well.


Too much hassle for most people, and doubles the chance of a service
problem whenever two companies are involved. Voicestick is a fine outfit
for a two-bit VoIP, but when's the last time your cellphone company e-
mailed you to warn you of a five-hour complete system outage so they can
install a new server? I got one from Voicestick in December, with the
outage scheduled in the early morning one week before Christmas!
I don't mind messing with VoIP to avoid a real screwing, like international
roaming or LD, but it's too flakey or too much work, IMO, to mess around
with to save a few bucks on my cellular bill.

SMS wrote:
> George wrote:
>
>> I bet many people don't realize how Mickey Mouse some carriers are.
>> Tmobile doesn't believe in generators and at least in my area the old
>> AT&T TDMA/analog sites had generators but now the GSM stuff just has
>> battery.
>
> Verizon claims to have generators at every site where generators are
> permitted (80%). AT&T claims to have generators at enough sites to
> provide complete geographic coverage, but at reduced capacity. This may
> be why Verizon tends to do better in blackouts and other disasters where
> power is interrupted.
>
> I couldn't find any information on Sprint and T-Mobile's back-up power
> infrastructure, other than Sprint's press release of installing
> generators at some sites in Florida and Texas. Just looking at some of
> the strange places that Sprint and T-Mobile have had to install sites in
> order to get complete coverage, where generators aren't allowed, there
> is just no way they could equal the AT&T and Verizon coverage in a
> prolonged blackout.

Sprint and tmobile have connectors on their equipment so a portable
generator can be connected. They do this even when generators are
allowed. There is a colo site behind a place that I frequently visit.
VZW, Sprint, AT&T, Nextel and tmobile are on it. The only generator
there is for the VZW equipment. According to the Sprint guy I bumped
into one time they have 4 trailer mounted generators to cover their
local 30,000 square mile market and they are located over an hour's
drive from here.

At 22 Feb 2008 15:55:05 +0000 CellGuy wrote:

> > They could get a 2¢/minute long distance service and still be better
off
> > in most cases.
>
> Or go with VoiP and pay no long distance charges (assuming you have
> broadband).


How do you get "no long distance charges" with VoIP unless you're only
calling other VoIP users? (Unless you are ignoring the monthly or annual
fees and really mean "no EXTRA charges.")

Todd Allcock wrote:

> I can see the Fortune 500 company meeting right now... "Johnson, be sure
> to hand out the PagePlus refill cards to the Senior VPs- we don't want
> their service suspended during the annual meeting in Houston next week!!!
> And check eBay again- that 'new' RAZR you obtained for the CFO was pink and
> covered with 'Hello Kitty' stickers and he's feeling a little silly having
> to talk on it in front of the board!"

LOL, well in a large corporation they have a telecommunications
department that would handle billing and equpment issues, and presumably
they'd be able to ensure that all the phones were operational. There are
no physical refill cards to hand out, and when on the unlimited plan
there is no worry about someone running out of minutes.

One thing that was interesting that I saw on UglyEric.com was "WARNING:
Verizon Inpulse Motorola W385 usually will not work. All other Inpulse
phones work fine."

If this is true, then all those phones sold at Walgreen's, Wal-Mart,
etc., will work fine.

> Too much hassle for most people, and doubles the chance of a service
> problem whenever two companies are involved. Voicestick is a fine outfit
> for a two-bit VoIP, but when's the last time your cellphone company e-
> mailed you to warn you of a five-hour complete system outage so they can
> install a new server? I got one from Voicestick in December, with the
> outage scheduled in the early morning one week before Christmas!
> I don't mind messing with VoIP to avoid a real screwing, like international
> roaming or LD, but it's too flakey or too much work, IMO, to mess around
> with to save a few bucks on my cellular bill.

Perhaps, though I've experienced AT&T outages as well, especially with
their conference call services.

These new unlimited plans seem to be targeted at casual users, not
corporate users, because they exclude smartphones, iPhones,
Blackberry's, etc.

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:27:01 -0800, SMS wrote:

> CellGuy wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:46:21 -0800, SMS wrote:
>>
>>> The
>>> downside is no free nights and weekends, but in reality the only reason
>>> people talk so much on their cell phones on N&W is because it's free.
>>> They could get a 2¢/minute long distance service and still be better off
>>> in most cases.
>>
>> Or go with VoiP and pay no long distance charges (assuming you have
>> broadband).
>
> VOIP isn't free either. You can purchase a yearly plan or get MagicJack
> and hope they stay in business, and hope they keep the price at $19.95
> for subsequent years. SunRocket tried $200, then $100, and couldn't make
> a go of it.

I've been with Vonage for almost as year and it works great.

At 22 Feb 2008 11:24:41 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> I can see the carriers dramatically changing the non-unlimited plans,
> making them very expensive relative to the unlimited plans. They could
> also reduce/eliminate off-peak and MTM. The idea would be to move
> people off their $70/mo plans and up to the $100/mo plan (plus
> "regulatory fee recovery" charges, natch).
>
> On the flip side, it moves many over to the prepaid side of the house in
> one way or another--which is no doubt what the big carriers want.


I don't think carriers "want" to move people to prepaid- just the opposite
in fact. Prepaid users tend to have lower ARPU and higher churn. Of the
big 4, only T-Mo seems to actively court prepaid users, as opposed to
tolerate them with punitive rates and restricted coverage (AT&T and Verizon)
or even disallow them (Sprint has no prepaid plan at all- they only do
prepaid through MVNOs like Virgin and Boost.)

> It'll just turn into an even clearer definition between prepaid and
> contract, that's all.

I doubt it- it'll just be a forced price increase disguised as "greater
value." The $19.99 monthly plans disappeared years ago, most carriers
dropped their $29.99 plans in the last year or two, and I expect the $39.99
plans are next to go. Entry level for cellular will quietly become $49.99,
with lots of extra minutes so it'll seem more palatable.

Like I said in a prior post, don't be surprised if some carrier will launch
a new "simplified pricing" model soon (6 months to a year) with only two
base plans- a fairly large minute bucket for $50 (like 1000 plus M2M and
N&W) and "unlimited" for $100. Then there will be bundled plans like $80
for the $50 plan with x# thousand texts/MMS x# MB of mobile web/TV/virtual
kitchen sink, etc. and $150 for unlimited minutes/messaging/video/web etc.

At least the brochures will be easier to read! ;-)

CellGuy wrote:

> I've been with Vonage for almost as year and it works great.

It works okay, but it's very expensive, and feature limited compared to
other VOIP options.

SMS wrote:
> Ben Skversky wrote:
>> Great post. You are 1000% correct. I don't even need the 1000
>> minutes I get from T-mobile, but I'm only paying $39.99 & that
>> includes free nights & weekends.
>
> Yes, T-Mobile is a great deal for a lot of peak minutes. Unfortunately
> they have no coverage yet where I live, and poor coverage where I
> usually travel to.
>
If they had better coverage, they wouldn't be only $40! There's a point
there somewhere that some seem to miss. Maybe it's me. Sorry.

Paul Miner wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:44:09 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> CellGuy wrote:
>>
>>> I've been with Vonage for almost as year and it works great.
>> It works okay, but it's very expensive, and feature limited compared to
>> other VOIP options.
>
> "Very expensive" is relative. It's much cheaper than some options and
> more expensive than others. I'm well into my 3rd year with the $15/mo
> plan and have no complaints.

Sorry, when I said "very expensive" I was comparing it to other VOIP
plans, not to other unlimited long distance plans offered by companies
like AT&T, or to carrier VOIP plans such as offered by Comcast.

At 22 Feb 2008 13:33:14 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> Well, I do agree that it will be a disguised price increase--beyond even
> what they've done over the past two years, which is large.

Agreed.


> But it just means that more people won't pay the $50 to $75/month, and
> will instead move to prepaid.

You give people too much credit! ;-) Who'd have thought years ago that
"basic cable" would start at $50/month?

I never thought people would tolerate $40/month as entry-level cellular and
it hasn't stopped them! (My first cellular plan was $14.99/month for TEN
minutes a month back in 1990 or so!) If $40 wasn't a problem, $50 won't be
either, unfortunately.

At 22 Feb 2008 15:16:12 -0500 Carl wrote:

> > Yes, T-Mobile is a great deal for a lot of peak minutes. Unfortunately
> > they have no coverage yet where I live, and poor coverage where I
> > usually travel to.
> >
> If they had better coverage, they wouldn't be only $40! There's a point
> there somewhere that some seem to miss. Maybe it's me. Sorry.


Or maybe believing that is how Verizon's and AT&T's customers get to sleep
at night! ;-)

At 22 Feb 2008 10:15:55 -0800 SMS wrote:

> LOL, well in a large corporation they have a telecommunications
> department that would handle billing and equpment issues, and
> presumably they'd be able to ensure that all the phones were operational.

I know, I was just Being facetious.

> There are no physical refill cards to hand out, and when on the unlimited
> plan there is no worry about someone running out of minutes.

Actually there is- the unlimited plan isn't billed monthly, but daily. The
daily $2-2.50 is taken from the balance as is texting and roaming charges.
Five minutes of roaming (or a few dozen texts!) will eat a day of unlimited
use, so you need to stay on top of your balance (and with PP's lack of any
online account maintenance, that's relatively difficult.)

A lot of them will benefit including business users like me.


"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in message
news:YRLvj.11502$Xo1.7300@fe085.usenetserver.com.. .
> At 22 Feb 2008 10:15:55 -0800 SMS wrote:
>
>> LOL, well in a large corporation they have a telecommunications
>> department that would handle billing and equpment issues, and
>> presumably they'd be able to ensure that all the phones were operational.
>
> I know, I was just Being facetious.
>
>> There are no physical refill cards to hand out, and when on the unlimited
>> plan there is no worry about someone running out of minutes.
>
> Actually there is- the unlimited plan isn't billed monthly, but daily.
> The
> daily $2-2.50 is taken from the balance as is texting and roaming charges.
> Five minutes of roaming (or a few dozen texts!) will eat a day of
> unlimited
> use, so you need to stay on top of your balance (and with PP's lack of any
> online account maintenance, that's relatively difficult.)
>
>