How many users actually benefit from $99 unlimited?

For the cost of one of those $99 unlimited plans (which will be about
$115 after taxes and fees), you could buy about 2150 minutes on a
prepaid network (at about 5.3¢ per minute). That's about 35 hours a
month. Other than certain business people, i.e. realtors, field service,
etc., how many users actually use over 2000 minutes per month?

PagePlus charges as low as 5.3¢/minute for voice, and as low as 3.5¢ per
text message (when you buy the $80 "1400 minute" card at a discounted
price of $74). They also offer unlimited voice minutes for $2.49 a day,
or $75 for a 30 day month.

It seems that too many consumers look at the "unlimited" part, without
understanding that $99 is a) not really $99, and b) not such a great
deal compared to non-unlimited plans, and c) a lot more than they have
to pay for unlimited voice.

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.


"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:47bdabbd$0$36387$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> For the cost of one of those $99 unlimited plans (which will be about $115
> after taxes and fees), you could buy about 2150 minutes on a prepaid
> network (at about 5.3¢ per minute). That's about 35 hours a month. Other
> than certain business people, i.e. realtors, field service, etc., how many
> users actually use over 2000 minutes per month?
>
> PagePlus charges as low as 5.3¢/minute for voice, and as low as 3.5¢ per
> text message (when you buy the $80 "1400 minute" card at a discounted
> price of $74). They also offer unlimited voice minutes for $2.49 a day, or
> $75 for a 30 day month.
>
> It seems that too many consumers look at the "unlimited" part, without
> understanding that $99 is a) not really $99, and b) not such a great deal
> compared to non-unlimited plans, and c) a lot more than they have to pay
> for unlimited voice.

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.

I pay $30 for 300 minutes and unlimited N&W on Verizon, and I just don't
get into long gab fests during peak times.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:02:25 -0500, "Ben Skversky"
<bskv19114@comcast.net> 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.
>
>
>"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
>news:47bdabbd$0$36387$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net.. .
>> For the cost of one of those $99 unlimited plans (which will be about $115
>> after taxes and fees), you could buy about 2150 minutes on a prepaid
>> network (at about 5.3¢ per minute). That's about 35 hours a month. Other
>> than certain business people, i.e. realtors, field service, etc., how many
>> users actually use over 2000 minutes per month?
>>
>> PagePlus charges as low as 5.3¢/minute for voice, and as low as 3.5¢ per
>> text message (when you buy the $80 "1400 minute" card at a discounted
>> price of $74). They also offer unlimited voice minutes for $2.49 a day, or
>> $75 for a 30 day month.
>>
>> It seems that too many consumers look at the "unlimited" part, without
>> understanding that $99 is a) not really $99, and b) not such a great deal
>> compared to non-unlimited plans, and c) a lot more than they have to pay
>> for unlimited voice.
>

ATTs previous plans offered 2000 minutes for $99.99
4000 for $149.99 and
6000 for $199.99

Many folks prefer the greater convienence of post-paid plans,
so anyone with any of those three previous plans would be a candidate
for a $99.99 unlimited plan, as would anyopne one the 1350 minutes
$79.99 plan that ever went over and paid 35 cents a minute for that
overage.

Ron wrote:

> ATTs previous plans offered 2000 minutes for $99.99
> 4000 for $149.99 and
> 6000 for $199.99
>
> Many folks prefer the greater convienence of post-paid plans,
> so anyone with any of those three previous plans would be a candidate
> for a $99.99 unlimited plan, as would anyopne one the 1350 minutes
> $79.99 plan that ever went over and paid 35 cents a minute for that
> overage.

I suppose, but if I were those people I'd definitely choose the PagePlus
unlimited at about $75 per month, plus it's not "plus taxes, fees, etc."

Actually you can get it for about $2.30/day or about $69/month, if you
buy the refill cards at a discount. I.e. the $80 card can be purchased
for $73.72, a discount of 7.85%.

The biggest benefit is that it's on Verizon, which has the best coverage
of any U.S. network.

Ron wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:02:25 -0500, "Ben Skversky"
> <bskv19114@comcast.net> 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.
>>
>>
>>"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
>>news:47bdabbd$0$36387$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net. ..
>>
>>>For the cost of one of those $99 unlimited plans (which will be about $115
>>>after taxes and fees), you could buy about 2150 minutes on a prepaid
>>>network (at about 5.3¢ per minute). That's about 35 hours a month. Other
>>>than certain business people, i.e. realtors, field service, etc., how many
>>>users actually use over 2000 minutes per month?
>>>
>>>PagePlus charges as low as 5.3¢/minute for voice, and as low as 3.5¢ per
>>>text message (when you buy the $80 "1400 minute" card at a discounted
>>>price of $74). They also offer unlimited voice minutes for $2.49 a day, or
>>>$75 for a 30 day month.
>>>
>>>It seems that too many consumers look at the "unlimited" part, without
>>>understanding that $99 is a) not really $99, and b) not such a great deal
>>>compared to non-unlimited plans, and c) a lot more than they have to pay
>>>for unlimited voice.
>>
>
> ATTs previous plans offered 2000 minutes for $99.99
> 4000 for $149.99 and
> 6000 for $199.99
>
> Many folks prefer the greater convienence of post-paid plans,
> so anyone with any of those three previous plans would be a candidate
> for a $99.99 unlimited plan, as would anyopne one the 1350 minutes
> $79.99 plan that ever went over and paid 35 cents a minute for that
> overage.

35 cents a minute? Gawd! If my mother or my stepmother had lived to
see cell phones, they would have talked sixteen hours per day and the
family would have been bankrupt!

"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:47BDC0D0.8090000@comcast.net...
>
> 35 cents a minute? Gawd! If my mother or my stepmother had lived to see
> cell phones, they would have talked sixteen hours per day and the family
> would have been bankrupt!


Really? My mother, after having a cellphone for several years still wonders
why there's no dial tone.

I think she's used 10 minutes in the last 12 months. (Thank you, T-Mobile,
for a $10/year minimum refill policy!) ;-)

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

> 35 cents a minute? Gawd! If my mother or my stepmother had lived to
> see cell phones, they would have talked sixteen hours per day and the
> family would have been bankrupt!

35¢ a minute is actually pretty low for overage charges.

That's actually one of the big advantages of prepaid, you don't pay
outrageous overages, you just pay the normal per minute rate. Prepaid is
available on Verizon's network for as little as 5.3¢ per minute.

Sprint had a deal for a while that got rid of the huge overage charges,
called "Fair and Flexible."

It's a double-edged sword for the carriers. If they made the overages
reasonable then subscribers would be less careful about going over, and
use more than their plan minutes without much concern. However that
would cause some subscribers to move to lower tiers, which would cost
the carrier money.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:17:24 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <47bdbf80$0$36372$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>I suppose, but if I were those people I'd definitely choose the PagePlus
>unlimited at about $75 per month, plus it's not "plus taxes, fees, etc."

Deity help us -- you're morphing into a shill for PagePlus!

>Actually you can get it for about $2.30/day or about $69/month, if you
>buy the refill cards at a discount. I.e. the $80 card can be purchased
>for $73.72, a discount of 7.85%.
>
>The biggest benefit is that it's on Verizon, which has the best coverage
>of any U.S. network.

But still a Verizon shill I see.

--
Best regards,
John Navas <http:/navasgroup.com>

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea - massive,
difficult to redirect, awe inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind
boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." --Gene Spafford

In my job, I go as far west on the Pa. turnpike to Harrisburg, Pa., on the
NJ turnpike I go as far north to Fort Lee, NJ. I have no problems with
T-mobile.



"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:47bdafd6$0$36367$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> 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.
>
> I pay $30 for 300 minutes and unlimited N&W on Verizon, and I just don't
> get into long gab fests during peak times.

Ben Skversky wrote:
> In my job, I go as far west on the Pa. turnpike to Harrisburg, Pa., on the
> NJ turnpike I go as far north to Fort Lee, NJ. I have no problems with
> T-mobile.

Yes, T-Mobile seems to work very well in the eastern U.S.. My mother
switched to T-Mobile prepaid in Florida after AT&T/Cingular converted
her from TDMA/AMPS to GSM and increased the monthly rate by 40%. She
started a movement among her senior friends when they found out how
little she was paying. However now she uses OneSuite for long distance
at 2.5¢/minute, where before she could use free N&W on AT&T.

In the western U.S., T-Mobile took over the horrid Cingular/Pac Bell
1900 MHz GSM network, which has poor coverage. They've been trying to
improve things, but have run into a lot of opposition to suburban cell
sites. Still, it's slowly improving. Sometime in 2008 I should get
coverage at my house, but there are still a lot of areas of the Bay Area
with coverage holes, much more than with Verizon or AT&T.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:56:57 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <47bde4e5$0$36327$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:

>In the western U.S., T-Mobile took over the horrid Cingular/Pac Bell
>1900 MHz GSM network, which has poor coverage. They've been trying to
>improve things, but have run into a lot of opposition to suburban cell
>sites. Still, it's slowly improving. Sometime in 2008 I should get
>coverage at my house, but there are still a lot of areas of the Bay Area
>with coverage holes, much more than with Verizon or AT&T.

Nonsense. The old Cingular now T-Mobile actually has good coverage.
Will you stop the trolling when you finally get coverage in your house?
Or must your wife get coverage at work too?

--
Best regards,
John Navas <http:/navasgroup.com>

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea - massive,
difficult to redirect, awe inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind
boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." --Gene Spafford

On Feb 21, 11:53*am, SMS <scharf.ste...@geemail.com> wrote:
> For the cost of one of those $99 unlimited plans (which will be about
> $115 after taxes and fees), you could buy about 2150 minutes on a
> prepaid network (at about 5.3¢ per minute). That's about 35 hours a
> month. Other than certain business people, i.e. realtors, field service,
> etc., how many users actually use over 2000 minutes per month?
>
> PagePlus charges as low as 5.3¢/minute for voice, and as low as 3.5¢ per
> text message (when you buy the $80 "1400 minute" card at a discounted
> price of $74). They also offer unlimited voice minutes for $2.49 a day,
> or $75 for a 30 day month.
>
> It seems that too many consumers look at the "unlimited" part, without
> understanding that $99 is a) not really $99, and b) not such a great
> deal compared to non-unlimited plans, and c) a lot more than they have
> to pay for unlimited voice.

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.

Unfortuantely I think that getting Magic Jack is a bigger bang for
the buck in dropping a old fashioned landline then trying to cut the
cord using a cell phone plan. You can't beat unlimited calling in the
US and Canada 24 X 7 for only $20 a year. Plus you get all those
advanced phone services thrown in for free also .

Magic Jack is one kick ass phone company when it comes to net cost!
Now if AT&T could drop the cell bill to only $20 a year that would be
something.

Todd Allcock wrote:

> I think she's used 10 minutes in the last 12 months. (Thank you,
> T-Mobile, for a $10/year minimum refill policy!) ;-)

Well maybe Richard meant that if those family members had had cell
phones when they were between 20 and 50 years old!

My mother's also on T-Mobile prepaid and probably uses 20 minutes a
month. She went from $50 a month on AT&T to about $2/month on T-Mobile.
First she got conned into switching from AT&T TDMA to AT&T GSM, which
resulted in loss of coverage at the places she travels to the most as
well as higher prices, then Cingular took over and raised the prices
again. She was most concerned about having to learn to use a new handset
and re-enter her contacts, so I walked her through unlocking her Nokia
handset.

The downside is that she has no T-Mobile coverage at my house in
suburban Silicon Valley or at my sister's house in suburban Atlanta.

SMS wrote:
> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>
>> 35 cents a minute? Gawd! If my mother or my stepmother had lived to
>> see cell phones, they would have talked sixteen hours per day and the
>> family would have been bankrupt!
>
> 35¢ a minute is actually pretty low for overage charges.
>
> That's actually one of the big advantages of prepaid, you don't pay
> outrageous overages, you just pay the normal per minute rate. Prepaid is
> available on Verizon's network for as little as 5.3¢ per minute.
>
> Sprint had a deal for a while that got rid of the huge overage charges,
> called "Fair and Flexible."
>
> It's a double-edged sword for the carriers. If they made the overages
> reasonable then subscribers would be less careful about going over, and
> use more than their plan minutes without much concern. However that
> would cause some subscribers to move to lower tiers, which would cost
> the carrier money.

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..

SMS wrote:
> Ben Skversky wrote:
>> In my job, I go as far west on the Pa. turnpike to Harrisburg, Pa., on
>> the NJ turnpike I go as far north to Fort Lee, NJ. I have no problems
>> with T-mobile.
>
> Yes, T-Mobile seems to work very well in the eastern U.S.. My mother
> switched to T-Mobile prepaid in Florida after AT&T/Cingular converted
> her from TDMA/AMPS to GSM and increased the monthly rate by 40%. She
> started a movement among her senior friends when they found out how
> little she was paying. However now she uses OneSuite for long distance
> at 2.5¢/minute, where before she could use free N&W on AT&T.

That would be except in the large region of the eastern US that I am in.
A tmobile phone is a paperweight here if you go a few miles away from
the interstate.


>
> In the western U.S., T-Mobile took over the horrid Cingular/Pac Bell
> 1900 MHz GSM network, which has poor coverage. They've been trying to
> improve things, but have run into a lot of opposition to suburban cell
> sites. Still, it's slowly improving. Sometime in 2008 I should get
> coverage at my house, but there are still a lot of areas of the Bay Area
> with coverage holes, much more than with Verizon or AT&T.

Ben Skversky wrote:
> In my job, I go as far west on the Pa. turnpike to Harrisburg, Pa., on the
> NJ turnpike I go as far north to Fort Lee, NJ. I have no problems with
> T-mobile.
>
>
>
> "SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
> news:47bdafd6$0$36367$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
>> 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.
>>
>> I pay $30 for 300 minutes and unlimited N&W on Verizon, and I just don't
>> get into long gab fests during peak times.
>
>
Can I suggest that isn't much of a test? I think every carrier has the
PA & Jersey pike lit up.

4phun wrote:
> On Feb 21, 11:53 am, SMS <scharf.ste...@geemail.com> wrote:
>> For the cost of one of those $99 unlimited plans (which will be about
>> $115 after taxes and fees), you could buy about 2150 minutes on a
>> prepaid network (at about 5.3¢ per minute). That's about 35 hours a
>> month. Other than certain business people, i.e. realtors, field service,
>> etc., how many users actually use over 2000 minutes per month?
>>
>> PagePlus charges as low as 5.3¢/minute for voice, and as low as 3.5¢ per
>> text message (when you buy the $80 "1400 minute" card at a discounted
>> price of $74). They also offer unlimited voice minutes for $2.49 a day,
>> or $75 for a 30 day month.
>>
>> It seems that too many consumers look at the "unlimited" part, without
>> understanding that $99 is a) not really $99, and b) not such a great
>> deal compared to non-unlimited plans, and c) a lot more than they have
>> to pay for unlimited voice.
>
> 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.
>
> Unfortuantely I think that getting Magic Jack is a bigger bang for
> the buck in dropping a old fashioned landline then trying to cut the
> cord using a cell phone plan. You can't beat unlimited calling in the
> US and Canada 24 X 7 for only $20 a year. Plus you get all those
> advanced phone services thrown in for free also .
>
> Magic Jack is one kick ass phone company when it comes to net cost!
> Now if AT&T could drop the cell bill to only $20 a year that would be
> something.
>
But magicjack doesn't have a sustainable business plan. Also there is a
huge difference between a wireless carrier who has to have a massive
infrastructure compared to a VoIP provider who needs some equipment in
one location.

At 21 Feb 2008 13:06:23 -0800 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.
>
> Unfortuantely I think that getting Magic Jack is a bigger bang for
> the buck in dropping a old fashioned landline then trying to cut the
> cord using a cell phone plan. You can't beat unlimited calling in the
> US and Canada 24 X 7 for only $20 a year. Plus you get all those
> advanced phone services thrown in for free also .


Magic Jack is an interesting option, but it's probably doomed.

The "$20/year" is a money losing proposition for them- they don't own their
phone numbers, so thy have "rent" them from a provider like Level 3 for
maybe $3 or even more depending on the amount of incoming calls. Then they
have to pay termination fees of $0.01-0.05/minute (depending on where you
call.)

Magic Jack is hoping to make it up on sales of banner advertising you'll
see on the softphone display, which may or may not cover their costs.

> Magic Jack is one kick ass phone company when it comes to net cost!

Sure. Anytime you give a product away, consumers will be happy! Magic
Jack will be a heck of a bargain...

....until the VC money runs out! ;-)


> Now if AT&T could drop the cell bill to only $20 a year that would be
> something.

Maybe after they start running 30-second commercials on your iPhone display
before and after each call they will!

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"

> Magic Jack is one kick ass phone company when it comes to net cost!
> Now if AT&T could drop the cell bill to only $20 a year that would be
> something.

How long do you think Magic Jack is going to survive at $20/year? It's
great while it lasts though. They'll probably be going the way of
SunRocket before long.

"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.)

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.

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.

George wrote:

> That would be except in the large region of the eastern US that I am in.
> A tmobile phone is a paperweight here if you go a few miles away from
> the interstate.

Yeah, but apparently that model fits quite a few users.

I remember commenting once about how one carrier had coverage throughout
the Sierra Nevada mountains, by virtue of both their native network and
roaming, including coverage on several state roads over mountain passes
with ski resorts. A competing carrier lacked coverage in these areas.
One response was along the lines of planning your routes so you avoid
routes where your carrier has coverage issues! It's true, if you stay on
Interstate 80, you have pretty much uninterrupted coverage on any
carrier, at least with roaming.

It's amazing to me how many people live their lives without ever
venturing more than a few miles from their homes. Unfortunately we're
seeing repercussions of this now in California, where one of the budget
cutting moves is to close down 48 state parks. There's not much of a
constituency to keep them open since they are little used.

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.

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.

Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>
> "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:47BDC0D0.8090000@comcast.net...
>
>>
>> 35 cents a minute? Gawd! If my mother or my stepmother had lived to
>> see cell phones, they would have talked sixteen hours per day and the
>> family would have been bankrupt!
>
>
>
> Really? My mother, after having a cellphone for several years still
> wonders why there's no dial tone.
>
> I think she's used 10 minutes in the last 12 months. (Thank you,
> T-Mobile, for a $10/year minimum refill policy!) ;-)
>

My father married a couple of motor mouths! They could talk for hours
at a time. Sometimes it seemed as if they only got off the phone to eat
or go to the bathroom!

I see women in the parking lot of the local supermarket with BlueTooth
headsets chattering away. I can't help wondering if they wear them to bed!!

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.

"John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message
news:enjrr3pql8spgqo6s4gro4oak5s5udohc3@4ax.com...

>>I suppose, but if I were those people I'd definitely choose the PagePlus
>>unlimited at about $75 per month, plus it's not "plus taxes, fees, etc."
>
> Deity help us -- you're morphing into a shill for PagePlus!

Hey, if he has to shill for someone, why not PP? They offer, hands down,
the best prepaid plan in the industry right now, between the low cost, large
native network, and ability to roam. T-Mo's "2Go" prepaid runs a close
second- it has the largest coverage area of any non-MVNO due to it's
inclusion of free roaming.

>>Actually you can get it for about $2.30/day or about $69/month, if you
>>buy the refill cards at a discount. I.e. the $80 card can be purchased
>>for $73.72, a discount of 7.85%.
>>
>>The biggest benefit is that it's on Verizon, which has the best coverage
>>of any U.S. network.
>
> But still a Verizon shill I see.

Even assuming that AT&T and Verizon postpaid service has comparable
coverage, AT&T's prepaid GoPhone coverage is decidedly lackluster. PagePlus
has better coverage that GoPhone or any AT&T prepaid MVNO (at least now that
Beyond Wireless TDMA is history, since it had the ability to roam off-net
for additional cost.)

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article <47BE04D8.5020801@comcast.net>,
> "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>>My father married a couple of motor mouths!
>
>
> At once?
>
> Man, I wouldn't care if they were motor mouths...
>

Nope, one at a time!

If he'd married both at once he never would have gotten a word in
edgewise. Or anything else for that matter! ;-)

Todd Allcock wrote:

> Hey, if he has to shill for someone, why not PP? They offer, hands
> down, the best prepaid plan in the industry right now, between the low
> cost, large native network, and ability to roam. T-Mo's "2Go" prepaid
> runs a close second- it has the largest coverage area of any non-MVNO
> due to it's inclusion of free roaming.

Since when does stating the facts about a carrier, prepaid or otherwise,
constitute shilling? I gain nothing if people sign up for PagePlus, or
Verizon for that matter. I just want to get the facts out there since
there are others that would benefit from them.

> Even assuming that AT&T and Verizon postpaid service has comparable
> coverage,

Don't assume that. The coverage maps may show comparable coverage, but
in reality the Verizon coverage is far superior. Just check all the
independent surveys if you have any doubts.

> AT&T's prepaid GoPhone coverage is decidedly lackluster.

Do they not allow off-AT&T roaming? I would have thought that at least
they were equivalent to AT&T's postpaid coverage.

> PagePlus has better coverage that GoPhone or any AT&T prepaid MVNO (at
> least now that Beyond Wireless TDMA is history, since it had the ability
> to roam off-net for additional cost.)

Yeah, I had Beyond Wireless TDMA for my kids' phones. Too bad they went
over to the dark side, both in terms of coverage and cost.

I wonder about 7-11 SpeakOut GSM coverage. Their literature claims to
allow roaming onto other GSM networks at extra cost, but
"http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm" states "Can't Roam." Some
users claim that there is some roaming in western states. Some claim
that there used to be Dobson roaming in some areas but not any more.

"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:47be127f$0$36383$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...

> Since when does stating the facts about a carrier, prepaid or otherwise,
> constitute shilling? I gain nothing if people sign up for PagePlus, or
> Verizon for that matter. I just want to get the facts out there since
> there are others that would benefit from them.

I apologize- I wasn't agreeing, I was just parrotting Navas' choice of words
back at him. In retrospect I should've encased it in quotes ("shill") to
emphasize I wasn't agreeing.

I appreciate the "shilling"- if not for you, I'd have never heard of them,
and I'm a happy customer.

>> Even assuming that AT&T and Verizon postpaid service has comparable
>> coverage,
>
> Don't assume that. The coverage maps may show comparable coverage, but in
> reality the Verizon coverage is far superior. Just check all the
> independent surveys if you have any doubts.

I was speaking to a specific audience. John will never concede Verizon has
wider coverage, so I was making the logical point that even if their
postpaid coverage was comparable, PagePlus is superior product offering
because it's a SUPERset of Verizon coverage (albeit with roaming charges in
some areas) while GoPhone is a SUBset of AT&T coverage.

>> AT&T's prepaid GoPhone coverage is decidedly lackluster.
>
> Do they not allow off-AT&T roaming? I would have thought that at least
> they were equivalent to AT&T's postpaid coverage.

Oh, Lord, no. The monthly GoPhone "hybrid" plans include a small amount of
roaming, but nothing like postpaid, and I don't believe the "pay as you go"
plans offer any. Go look at the online maps. Entire states are blank
except for a metro area or two!

>> PagePlus has better coverage that GoPhone or any AT&T prepaid MVNO (at
>> least now that Beyond Wireless TDMA is history, since it had the ability
>> to roam off-net for additional cost.)
>
> Yeah, I had Beyond Wireless TDMA for my kids' phones. Too bad they went
> over to the dark side, both in terms of coverage and cost.

I assume BW TDMA was operating under a legacy agreement with the old,
pre-merger, AT&T Wireless, who seemed far more agreeable to MVNOs (Beyond,
JusTalk, Locus' varied offerings, etc.) than Cingular was. Post merger, it
seems a middle ground was reached- they still entertain MVNOs but they seem
to offer lousier deals to them!


> I wonder about 7-11 SpeakOut GSM coverage. Their literature claims to
> allow roaming onto other GSM networks at extra cost, but
> "http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm" states "Can't Roam." Some
> users claim that there is some roaming in western states. Some claim that
> there used to be Dobson roaming in some areas but not any more.

I think the "problem" is that most of the roaming available on SpeakOut was
provided by affiliates that AT&T eventually acquired, so essentially the
very few former roam areas are now native, so SO users didn't lose much of
anything. Universal "extra cost" roaming, like BW TDMA offered and PP
currently offers, simply isn't available on any AT&T MVNO that I'm aware of.