MOBILE

Smart Phones, Smart Savings (Part 2)

4/13/2013 9:11:02 AM

Satisfaction scores with cell-phone service may be unchanged overall, but the following developments are addressing some old gripes while creating a few new ones.

Data plans get metered.

The shift to selling data in measured tiers many actually has benefited some smart-phone owners. Among respondents to our survey who switched to a metered data plan, 21 percent saved up to $20 a month and 16 percent said they saved more than $20. Those savings may result from subscribers fine-running their purchases by buying as little as 300MB for their smart phone for $20 a month at AT&T, for example, rather than the previous $30 charge for overbuying unlimited data. On the downside, 10 percent of respondents who switched said they paid up to $20 more per month on a metered plan, and 9 percent saw their bill rise by more than $20 a month. At Verizon, for one, the price of 1GB of data a month, the minimum required by most smart-phone customers, has shot up to $50. Previously, Verizon charged $30 for 2GB and before that $30 for an unlimited 3G data plan.

 
In the four major carriers, only Sprint offers truly unlimited data plans

In the four major carriers, only Sprint offers truly unlimited data plans

You might still see so –called unlimited plans advertised, but of the four major carriers, only Sprint offers truly unlimited data plans. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all reduce the download speed under certain circumstances on grandfathered and new “unlimited” plans- when you reach a data cap, for instance, or when the network is busy-a practice known as throttling. It’s usually allowed by the fine print in your service contract.

Data becomes shareable.

Because they’ve all but ended truly unlimited data service, AT&T and Verizon now let customers share “buckets” of metered data among multiple family members and devices. They’re also moved more toward making voice and messaging unlimited, and seemingly free, in those shared data plans. In reality, though, you pay for both through a per-device access fee of $40 (Verizon) or $30 to $45 (AT&T) per smart phone per month. You can add devices other than phones to the plans, at access fees of $20 per laptop and $10 per tablet.

Overage alerts are now in place.

When users exceed their data, voice, or texting limits, carriers impose overage charges that can result in shockingly high cellular bills. This year, after prodding by the Federal Communications Commission and Consumers Union, the Advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, CTIA- the Wireless As-association agreed that its member carriers will warn customers via e-mail and text

 before and after they hit their limits.

When users exceed their data, voice, or texting limits, carriers impose overage charges that can result in shockingly high cellular bills

When users exceed their data, voice, or texting limits, carriers impose overage charges that can result in shockingly high cellular bills

But you should still be mindful of your limits and react by reducing usage or switching to a higher monthly bucket of voice minutes, data, or messages. Thirteen percent of our readers surveyed last September who switched from unlimited to limited data plans said they were hit with overage fees at least once. Our 2010 survey found that more than half of those who went over their voice, text, or data limits incurred penalties of at least $50.

How to save

The plan you pick and the cell-phone retailer you choose are likely to affect your cost of owning a particular phone far more than the price of the phone itself.

Haggle for the phone.

Most shoppers don’t think to negotiate for a lower cell-phone price, but 17 percent of our cell-phone-buying survey respondents took a shot. Of that group, more than one in four succeeded. The median discount won was $54, but a handful of hagglers knocked $100 or more off the price.

Consider a prepaid phone plan.

A no-contract plan is now worth serious consideration. Phones are better, reader satisfaction with prepaid service is relatively high, and service costs are lower.

Monthly bills are usually lower for prepaid service, especially from prepaid specialists such as MetroPCS, which offers low-cost unlimited everything plans.
Monthly bills are usually lower for prepaid service, especially from prepaid specialists such as MetroPCS, which offers low-cost unlimited everything plans.

You can pay $250 more to buy the same phone from a no-contract carrier can’t be assured of recovering some of the phone’s subsidized discount price through a two-year contract term.

But monthly bills are usually lower for prepaid service, especially from prepaid specialists such as MetroPCS, which offers low-cost unlimited everything plans. Prefer a big national carrier? AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon also offer prepaid service. Sprint does so through its Boost and Virgin brands.

Two-thirds of our survey respondents knocked more than $20 a month off their bill by switching to prepaid, and 17 percent saved up to $20 a month. Over two years, you can recoup the extra cost of the phone and more. Here’s a tip: If you’re coming off contract with a phone you like, you can often transfer that phone to a prepaid plan with your current carrier or a new one and pay less for service comparable to what you had on contract.

Be careful when upgrading early.

Unless you’re totally fed up with your current phone, try to stick with it until the contract runs out. If you upgrade early, you’ll be hit with penalties and surcharges, including paying full price for the new phone.

Think twice about insurance or an extended warranty.

It can easily cost $500 to $600 to replace a popular smart phone in mid-contract, as salespeople pushing protection plans will remind you. But in our survey of cell-phone buyers, we found that only 15 percent polled bought a new phone because the old one broke, and only 2 percent bought one because their phone was lost or stolen.

 
If you upgrade early, you’ll be hit with penalties and surcharges, including paying full price for the new phone.

If you upgrade early, you’ll be hit with penalties and surcharges, including paying full price for the new phone.

Based on that, the value of insurance or an extended warranty seems questionable. That’s especially true when you consider what a plan costs and what you get for the money. Phone replacement coverage can cost $5 to $150 deductible. Yet you might be entitled only to a repaired, refurbished phone rather than a new one.

Even so, close to one in three survey respondents purchased additional protection against loss or damage to their phone. Many said they felt it necessary to protect their investment in the phone.

But here’s a better idea: Keep your old phone until the new handset’s contract ends. If you lose or break the new phone, reactivate the old one by contacting the carrier and then syncing to your accounts to download contacts and more to the device. Then use the old model until you qualify for a free or discounted new phone.

Overview

We recommend all of the retailers in our Ratings because each was satisfactory to a majority of survey respondents. Stores we call out below stand out for the reasons noted

Best buying experience overall

A1: Apple.com

B1: Apple Store

Whether shopping online or in walk-in stores, those who bought a smart phone at an Apple Store or online had a better overall experience than shoppers at any other store.

Apple.com

Apple.com

Great prices and service

B2: Costco

With dedicated wireless kiosks in every store, the warehouse retailer delivers pleasing service along with its customary low prices and limited selection- which doesn’t include iPhones. Costco charges an annual membership fee, usually $55

Costco

Costco

Other standout options

B3: U.S. Cellular

B5: Wal-Mart

B6 Best Buy

U.S. Cellular was the best carrier walk-in store; only Apple Stores offered a better service and checkout experience. Wal-Mart matched Costco for pleasing prices, and Best Buy is unequalled in selection, offering a variety of phones- such as iPhones, 4G Android phones, and simple prepaid phones- from a host of carriers.

Ratings Cell-phone stores in order of reader score, within types.

Ratings Cell-phone stores in order of reader score, within types.

Data-hogging phone habits

It’s easy to burn through the 2-gigabyte (that’s 2,000 megabytes) monthly allowance of typical data plans, especially if you overdo any of the activities below when connected to the carrier’s network. Use Wi-Fi instead of the data network when possible and limit these activities:

1.    Watching video streams

A high-quality video consumes almost 6MB per minute with a 4G connection. Streaming a video per day from YouTube for a month, or a single HD movie, could eat up 700MB of data – or more than a third of that 2GB budget. Use the phone’s settings to reduce the resolution of videos you watch or upload.

2.    Making video calls

Face-to- face video calls, using the front-mounted camera found on most new smart phones eat up minutes once a week with your daughter at college and you would use up at least 200MB of data per month.

3.    Uploading video

Can’t wait until a Wi-Fi network is accessible to upload that high-def video from your phone to Facebook? Think twice; unless it’s compressed, a 3 minute video clip in HD (1080p) can be about 300MB

4.    Streaming music

Streaming favorite sounds to your phone from a subscription music service, a collection stored in the cloud or an Internet radio station eats up a megabyte of data per minute. Listen for a half-hour of commuting on weekdays and during a few 20-minute workouts per week, and you’ve consumed more than 700MB of data in a month. Consider reducing the bit rate of stream (via settings) and storing music on the device rather than streaming.

5.    Playing connected games online

Shooting it out with other players in high-octane online games is way cool- and way costly. With every minute of play requiring a megabyte of data, a half-hour of play three times a week will easily burn through 360MB of data per month.

 

Other  
 
Top 10
Extending LINQ to Objects : Writing a Single Element Operator (part 2) - Building the RandomElement Operator
Extending LINQ to Objects : Writing a Single Element Operator (part 1) - Building Our Own Last Operator
3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 2) - Discharge Smart, Use Smart
3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 1) - Charge Smart
OPEL MERIVA : Making a grand entrance
FORD MONDEO 2.0 ECOBOOST : Modern Mondeo
BMW 650i COUPE : Sexy retooling of BMW's 6-series
BMW 120d; M135i - Finely tuned
PHP Tutorials : Storing Images in MySQL with PHP (part 2) - Creating the HTML, Inserting the Image into MySQL
PHP Tutorials : Storing Images in MySQL with PHP (part 1) - Why store binary files in MySQL using PHP?
REVIEW
- First look: Apple Watch

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 1)

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 2)
VIDEO TUTORIAL
- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 1)

- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 2)

- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 3)
Popular Tags
Microsoft Access Microsoft Excel Microsoft OneNote Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft Project Microsoft Visio Microsoft Word Active Directory Biztalk Exchange Server Microsoft LynC Server Microsoft Dynamic Sharepoint Sql Server Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2012 Windows 7 Windows 8 Adobe Indesign Adobe Flash Professional Dreamweaver Adobe Illustrator Adobe After Effects Adobe Photoshop Adobe Fireworks Adobe Flash Catalyst Corel Painter X CorelDRAW X5 CorelDraw 10 QuarkXPress 8 windows Phone 7 windows Phone 8 BlackBerry Android Ipad Iphone iOS