Increasing (?) costs for communications

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I was down to a cell phone and a cable modem at one point, then added VOIP service for home.

Problems came when I moved. I got no cell signal inside the house except for right at the front door. And the various VOIP providers I tried either gave me lousy/non-existent service or had product quality problems.

We used a regional cell provider that gave us unlimited minutes for $39/mo and if you signed up for 2 years at a pop it was $29. Surewest Wireless but there was another one called metropcs that services many areas. Great if you talk a lot.

T-mobile to-go is what we're on now and its great if you dont talk a lot. $100 buys 1000 'anytime' minutes with roaming and long distance included. Minutes are good for a year and if you recharge before they expire they roll over. We got three phones for about a hundred bucks total and we never use the whole 1000 minutes before having to recharge after 364 days.

Seeing $70 for 700 minutes, its the same price and you dont 'lose' the minutes you dont use.

Comm costs have gone up a lot. My cable tv and internet went up a lot the last 5 years.

Martha...might want to be careful mentioning the word 'inflation'...seems to invoke all sorts of visceral reactions in people.

 

[Cut-Throat]

$25 for land line
$25 for Dsl
antenna in attic - free HDTV - better picture than cable
$10 a month for Car Satellite Radio
use phone card for long distance - 3 cents a minute
-------------------------------------------------------------------

total $60 a month - Costs have gone down over the last year since getting DSL - Dropped a land line and saved over 30% a month

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I always wondered "Who the hell would pay ten bucks a month to listen to the radio in their car?!?"

Now I know.

 

[Baxter]

Land line: $20
Two cell phones, Page Plus prepaid: about $5/mo each
TV: rabbit ears
Cable modem: $35

Total is $65/mo, not too bad. That's quite a bit less than in years past, before prepaid cell phones and mass-market high speed internet. Back then we were paying on the order of $30 per month per cell phone and $80 per month for ISDN.

 

[FinanceDude]

I always wondered "Who the hell would pay ten bucks a month to listen to the radio in their car?!?"

Now I know.

He can afford it............ Besides, with a Lexus, you might as well have it all........so the audio matches the car..........

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I wuz just wondering how he listens to seven stations at the same time.

I have a lexus, no satellite radio.

But then I find that people who listen to the radio when they drive are distracted and therefore bad drivers. I'd like to see state laws passed that allow you to have radio's, but not listen to them while driving.

Oh yeah, costs...

$107/month for directv (minus $20/mo for customer problems); full package with three receivers
$25/month for three prepaid cell phones with more minutes than we can use
$42/mo for land line with call waiting, caller id, and unlimited long distance nationwide
$58/month for cable ISP

I could cut the directv costs down by dumping the premium channels, but gabe likes a lot of the hbo family shows and we watch enough of the shows like sopranos, dexter, etc that we get our moneys worth out of it. I could wait a year or two and rent them, but bah...we're rich.

I'd LOVE to have an ISP alternative. No dsl or wireless options for me.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Tell me the details on the $25 a month for 3 cell phones. I might actually get one if I could get one this cheap

 

[Khan]

$53.62 - Landline/DSL
$104.79 - cable (how did that happen? will call tomorrow to lower)
$39.07 - cell

$197.48

 

[Martha]

I am intriged by the pay as you go plans like CFB and Al have. But given that we have no land line and like being able to talk to each other without using minutes, I think we will stick with the Verizon plan we have for now. We also cable the phone to the computer to get internet on the road. Though this option will not be long for the world as Verizon is pushing us back door internet people into buying data plans.

T Mobil also doesn't seem to have the best signal around where we live when I check the coverage maps.

CFB, I understand the T-mobile pay as you go plan where you get 1000 minutes for $100, with the minutes lasting up to a year. You mentioned having three phones. Do they each share those minutes ? Do they have separate phone numbers or are all the same? Just curious for future reference.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Martha,

Off topic, but we ate at the Vietnamese place again a few days ago. They know us now as the 'people from the western suburbs' - Had the shrimp with spicy vegetables and eggrolls.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Read a little further back. Go into Target or Walmart or to the t-mobile web site and buy a t-mobile to go phone that suits you. Usually $29 for a basic phone, more if you want something like the razr that'll bluetooth to the lexus' nav system.

Then go to www.cheapphonecards and buy a $100 1000 minute tmobile card. Use a coupon from here:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?start=200&catid=18&threadid=546489
Like "thanks5" for 5% more off. You should be in the range of $90 now. After successfully charging your card, they'll email you a card code good for 1000 minutes.

Activate the phone per the instructions in the box; basically call an 800 number, enter your phones serial numbers,pick a local phone number and plug in the el cheapo $10 or $15 minutes card that comes with the phone. Thats good for about 50-100 minutes for 90 days. Before the 90 days expires or when you run out of minutes, follow the instructions in the email for the $100 1000 minute card to charge up the phone. You now have 1000+ minutes that are good for a year.

If you buy another 1000 minute card and charge the phone again before the year is up, all the minutes roll over.

Some folks claim they've done a $10 refill card and their residual minutes rolled over and stayed good for a year. Some folks say they tried that and the minutes rolled over but were only good for 90 days. I've tried the 1000 minute card rollover trick and it works.

At this price, I just threw a phone into each car and put a thousand minutes on each. We seem to be using about 500 per year. Two el cheapo nokias for the two cars I drive and the bluetooth razr for the lexus that I only seem to get to drive when its out of gas. No forgetting to bring a phone with you and perfect for quick calls or emergencies. Not so good for yapping for hours at a time.

$300 per year (actually 270 after discounts/coupons) / 12 = under $25/mo for three phones.

Tracphone has better coverage than t-mobile in some areas but t-mobiles minutes are cheaper if you're actually going to use them. At least they were the last time I looked.

Martha - each phone has its own "minute" pools and separate numbers. They work exactly like every other cell phone i've used except that theres no monthly fee, only charge is when you use it.

 

[Martha]

Martha,

Off topic, but we ate at the Vietnamese place again a few days ago. They know us now as the 'people from the western suburbs' - Had the shrimp with spicy vegetables and eggrolls.

Yeah, we have been going there about once a month, "the friends from up north."

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Heres the charges from cheapphonecards after using the 'thanks5' code. All three of my phones are up for rollover in the next few months.

You can also setup the tmobile to go thing to automatically add a chunk of minutes at specific periods and just charge your credit card.
-------------------------------------
Subtotal: $ 300.00
Discount coupon: $ 14.55
Discount: $ 9.00
Shipping: n/a
Tax: n/a
Order total: $ 276.45

Thats 3000 minutes good for a year I can use on three separate phones, or I could apply one and keep the other two in reserve. They dont expire if you dont use them.

They sell airtime for other prepaid plans as well...about the best deal around. Been using them for a couple of years now, no problems.

 

[Martha]

Interesting. Maybe CT will end up with a cell phone or two.

I will have to keep an eye out on whether T Mobile's coverage improves.

For now, we will keep the Verizon plan and rethink when they start making us pay for a data plan.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

By the way C-T...if you need to use the phone while driving, you can save a bundle on those 'hands free' devices by just using a large rubber band to hold it to the side of your head.

Then...10 and 2 and keep that dang radio turned off while you're driving!

 

[Cut-Throat]

By the way C-T...if you need to use the phone while driving, you can save a bundle on those 'hands free' devices by just using a large rubber band to hold it to the side of your head.

Then...10 and 2 and keep that dang radio turned off while you're driving!

Thanks for the Cell Phone info - I'll probably get a couple. - I did have an in dash phone in a car about 12 years ago. Even though it was hands free, it was the most distracting thing I've done in a car. More so than the navigation system that I am now playing with.

 

[Nords]

Would like to eventually drop the landline but old habits die hard.

When the electricity goes out, those cell phones & VOIPs die pretty hard too. That and 911 issues will keep us landlined for the foreseeable future.

Nords, I had a Southwest Bell guy confirm to me that even though we had tone service, Ma bell's equipment did everything in tone anyway (even if you had pulse service) so we switched back to the pulse service and it had no effect what-so-ever on our touch tone service other than saving $1.50/mo. That was 15 years and 2 providers ago so it may be worth asking?

Oh, it can be done, but it's also also a PITA to switch back & forth between tone & pulse. Look at all the businesses who need to hear tones coming out of a phone, not pulses. (Our kid accidentally switched her phone to pulse once and freaked at the noises it was making.) I appreciate that we can save the $18/year but it doesn't seem to be worth the hassle of resetting our mental dialing behavior and reprogramming our computer fax settings.

Personally I'm still trying to understand the advantage of paying $10/month for commercial-free satellite radio vs "lugging around" a few of my favorite CDs... the car is the only place I listen to the radio today anyway, and not very much.

 

[Dawg52]

I will have to keep an eye out on whether T Mobile's coverage improves.

I use T Mobile just as an emergency phone. It works well here in town and on major highways, but pretty much dead in the rural areas. I like the cheap $100 - 1000 minute plan, but there is a trade off in coverage.

 

[Gumby]

Cable TV and internet -- $97.47
Local landline -- $25.86
Sprint Long Distance for landline -- $0.10 per minute, no monthly charge
Cingular cell phones -- $57.75 for 2 phones sharing 450 day and 5000 night/weekend with monthly rollover and free long distance

I have tried without success to convince the young wife to give up the landline. She is worried about power outages and is certain the landline will always work. She is also concerned about 911 coverage. We really don't make enough long distance calls to justify adding VOIP to our cable package, and, for similar reasons, I also doubt the young wife would agree to go with that instead of the landline. Of course, the fact that her father worked for Ma Bell for 42 years certainly colors her view. Oh well, about $30 per month is a small price to pay for domestic harmony.

While I haven't tracked it carefully, I don't think that we have ever gone over 100 minutes per month total on the cell phones, so I probably should switch to a cheaper plan.

 

[lowflyer]

I always wondered "Who the hell would pay ten bucks a month to listen to the radio in their car?!?"

Now I know.

Hey wait a minute. I've got XM in my car and love it. Lots of good music and (here's the good part) CNBC all the time! There's just nothing like "Mad Money" on the radio!

 

[Bikerdude]

Interesting. Maybe CT will end up with a cell phone or two.

I will have to keep an eye out on whether T Mobile's coverage improves.

For now, we will keep the Verizon plan and rethink when they start making us pay for a data plan.

I use T Mobile just as an emergency phone. It works well here in town and on major highways, but pretty much dead in the rural areas. I like the cheap $100 - 1000 minute plan, but there is a trade off in coverage.

I believe Tracfone uses the "Cingular" network. Anyway their coverage map looks identical to Cingular. They are currently running a special 1 year service with 450 minutes and a free phone for $99. For $130 they have a free camera phone and 600 minutes. The minutes roll over as long as you buy a new 1 year card before the expiration date displayed on your phone. I don't "chat" so I never use all the minutes.

 

[MikeD]

and 2) have heard 911 service is more reliable, as in they can locate you accurately faster. Anyone have anecdotes to share regarding #2?

A couple of years ago the county sheriff came to our house at 3:15 am and demanded we come to the door because 911 had a hangup call at "this address" 6 hours before. I told him that unless our dog called 911 while we weren't looking it wasn't us. He asked me my phone number and was puzzled as to why it didn't match the one on his report. We looked up the phone number in our community phone list and told him how to get to the correct house. He grunted and left. We went back to bed.

Mike D.

 

[magellan_nh]

Re: Internet phones and E911

First, it's probably fair to say that an old fashioned copper line into the home is the most reliable emergency phone. However, I think there's considerable FUD around the E911 issue and Internet phones.

When our house was struck by lightning a few years ago, DW was able to get the fire department here in just a few minutes using our Vonage line to call 911. Interestingly, if it hadn't been for our Vonage conversion, I probably wouldn't have made sure that our cordless phone was plugged into a UPS.

Anyhow, even though the lightning strike took out power in the house, the UPS absorbed the shock and provided plenty of juice for the Cable Modem, phone adapter, and cordless phone.

Also, if you really want the security of a copper based landline, consider the cheapest metered service for $9-10 a month just to have for emergencies. In some locations you can even call E911 from a phone line that doesn't have any active service.

One last thought - I just bought a year of unlimited outbound calling on Skype for $14.95. For an additional $20 you can get a phone that plugs into a USB port to use with Skype.

 

[Niko]

Landline: About $24/month
Dial up: $5.50
No cell phones
No cable, satellite, etc.

Grand total for communication expenses: $29.50/mo.

 

[sgeeeee]

. . .Martha...might want to be careful mentioning the word 'inflation'...seems to invoke all sorts of visceral reactions in people.

Actually, only in you, CFB. Many of us understand how inflation affects us. We have taken appropriate actions so aren't worried about it.