Wireless 101 Choosing a Cell Phone and Calling Pan
Over the life of a cell phone, the service will cost much more than the phone itself- especially if the phone is free, after rebates and credits. Thus, the best way to control your mobile phone costs is to choose the most cost-effective calling plan from a carrier with good coverage in your area. Aggressive competition for subscribers among the service providers, also know as "carriers," has driven the monthly and per-minute costs of wireless calling down dramatically and made even some of the newest cell phones, packed with cutting-edge features, unprecedented bargains. And the new ability for subscribers to keep their phone numbers when they switch carriers has only heightened the competition (see What is WLNP for more details). Because of this more and more people are cutting the cord altogether and making their cell phone their only phone.
Calling Plan Basics
If you choose the right calling plan, your cell phone shouldn't cost you much more than your home phone. But the myriad choices and complexity in rate plans can make comparing and choosing among them a challenge.
There are two key differences that make cell phone calling plans more complicated than your home phone. One is that cell phone users pay for both incoming as well as outgoing calls, making it somewhat harder to estimate and control your usage. The other is obvious: cell phones are mobile, allowing you to use them from a virtually infinite number of places, rather than the fixed location of your home or office phone.
Thus, in addition to the traditional variables in your phone bill -- how much time you talk, what time of day you talk and across how long a distance do you talk -- where you are when you talk on the phone can also affect your cell phone bill.
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Components of a Cell Phone Bill
Here are the primary components of a cell phone bill. Estimating your average usage, or in some cases maximum likely usage, in each of these categories will help you choose the most cost-efficient calling plan for you.
Talk Time
Peak Minutes
Off-Peak
Roaming
Long Distance
Additional Talk time
Mobile-to-Mobile Minutes
Data Services
Talk Time, or "air time," is the total amount of time you spend talking on the phone, whether you made or received the call. Most calling plans include a specified allotment of talk time, divided between peak and off-peak portions, during your monthly billing cycle- all for a flat monthly fee. Any talk time over this amount will cost you extra, typically at a much higher per-minute rate.
Peak Minutes, also know as "anytime" or "whenever" minutes, are the minutes of talk time used during the prime calling time when the cellular networks are the busiest, typically between 6am and 9pm Monday through Friday. These are the most expensive minutes for using your phone, so the more of these included in a calling plan, the higher the monthly fee.
Off-Peak Minutes, more commonly called "Night & Weekend" minutes, are the least expensive, often included in generous quantities (frequently unlimited), even in many inexpensive plans. Subscribers who expect to use their phone frequently late at night and on weekends should make sure to choose a plan with a plentiful allowance of Night & Weekend minutes.
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Roaming takes place when you use your cell phone outside your home calling area or your service provider's coverage area. Roaming agreements between carriers, along with circuitry and software built into most cell phones, lets you use your phone over a much wider area than your service provider's cellular network, but you often pay much higher rates for using this capability. Unless a calling plan specifically offers no roaming charges, this airtime is usually the most expensive. International roaming is possible with some cell phones, but can be even more costly. Frequent travelers should look for calling plans that include no roaming charges.
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Long Distance, as with your home or office phone, are the calls to numbers outside your local area codes. Long distance calling can be more expensive, per-minute, on a cell phone than on a conventional phone, unless your calling plan specifically offers free long distance. All carriers off some type of single-rate or "national" rate plans that typically don't charge extra for long distance and are best for people who frequently make lots of long distance calls.
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Additional Talk Time, or Additional Minutes, is the amount of time you talk that exceeds your monthly allocation of airtime, either peak or off-peak. This extra talk time, after roaming, is the most common cause of unexpectedly high phone bills.
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Mobile-to-Mobile Minutes are those you spend talking to another cell phone user operating on your carrier's network and, when included in a calling plan, don't count against your allotment of peak or off-peak talk time. These come in handy when friends or family have cell phones from the same provider, effectively making most calls to friends and family free.
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Data Services: text messaging, Web/Internet access and others are among the extras, over and above phone calls, that typically carry an additional charge, either separately or bundled together in a package. Unlike voice calls, which tend to be packaged in similar ways by most carriers, data services come in many forms -- downloadable ringtones and screen graphics, photo-sharing services, email like text-messages sent from cell phone to cell phone, the ability to access Web pages from your phone and many more. They are packaged and priced in many different ways: from per-message charges for text messaging to bulk charges per megabyte for all "data" transmitted to and from your phone to all-inclusive, unlimited data plans for a flat monthly fee. Most of these services require a separate subscription or are accessible from a dedicated Web site that spells out the costs and estimates, for example, how many digital photos downloaded to your phone equals one megabyte of data.
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Types of Calling Plans
Though each carrier offers variations, most calling plans fall into one of these basic categories:
Local
Regional
National
Family or Shared Plans
Pre-paid
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Local
These are the most geographically limited plans in which you pay extra for using your phone outside of a relatively small home calling area, typically a metropolitan area and the adjacent suburbs. Under many local plans you also pay extra for calling long distance. These plans carry the lowest basic monthly fees, but if you use your phone when you’re on the road or make a lot of long distance calls, your monthly bills can quickly climb well above the cost of comparable regional or national plans. These are the most cost-effective plans if you generally stick close to home and/or don’t plan to use your phone very much.
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Regional
These plans usually offer inexpensive calling over a much larger multi-state area, such as the entire Northeast or Southwestern U.S. Only when you make or take calls outside this area will you pay high roaming charges on top of your monthly fee. If you take frequent road trips across state lines, a regional plan could be your best bet. Make sure to check the coverage maps for your carrier to make sure the places you frequent are within your home calling area.
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National
These plans carry somewhat higher monthly fees, but they typically allow you to use your phone anywhere in the country with no extra charge for roaming and/or for long distance calls. These plans are best for people who travel or are simply willing to pay a bit more for freedom from worrying about where they are and who they’re calling.
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Family or Shared Plans
These monthly plans give two or more family members their own phone and separate phone numbers, while sharing a "pooled" allotment of minutes. The plans offer a lower cost per minute than individual plans that add up to the same number of minutes. Even better, they cut costs by addressing a common multi-phone problem: some family members exceed their allotment of minutes, while others don’t use theirs. You get one monthly bill for the entire family. But you’ll want to check the call timer on each member’s phone periodically, since there's no other warning that you’re about to run over your family quota of minutes.
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Prepaid
A pay-as-you-go prepaid phone is an option for people who don't want the hassle of a credit check; those who expect to use their phone very sporadically or only for emergencies. Their per-minute rates can be more expensive and the minutes your purchase sometimes expire after 90 to 120 days. The phones are generally inexpensive, but increasingly stylish and capable models are being offered with standard features such as voicemail, call waiting, Internet access and other extras just like those sold with conventional monthly calling plans.
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Cell Phone Basics
Each service provider, known as a "carrier," offers dozens of models ranging from inexpensive phones offered free (after rebates and with a new service agreement) to sophisticated multi-function devices with all the latest bells and whistles that cost several hundred dollars. Choosing among them can be a daunting task without a basic understanding of the characteristics and useful features that distinguish one model from the next. Here are some of the key attributes and features that differentiate the myriad choices. Deciding which are most important to you will help you find a cell phone that meets your needs.
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Size and Weight
Though cell phones today are much smaller and lighter than their predecessors of just a few years ago, they still come in a wide range of sizes and shapes, from tiny phones that weigh less than three ounces to models that double as a handheld organizer and tip the scales at nearly half a pound. The ultra-compact, lightweight phones are the easiest to carry and slip comfortably into a shirt pocket or a dainty evening bag. But some users prefer a phone with a more substantial feel to it, since a larger screen and keypad can make these models more comfortable to use, and a larger phone is less likely to get lost in an overcrowded briefcase or purse. Think about how you'll carry your phone, when considering the size and weight that's right for you.
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Design
The two most popular styles are the candy-bar shaped phone and the clamshell or flip-phone that has a protective cover that flips open like a clamshell to reveal the screen and dialing keypad. Flip-phones can be more compact without sacrificing display and keypad size, though there are several popular candy-bar models that fit in the ultra-compact category. The clamshell design can also help protect the phone's display when not in use, and newer models with a small external display can provide caller ID information without having to open it. Otherwise, there's very little functional difference, and the choice between them often comes down to a preference for the look of one style over the other
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Network Technology
You may not have a choice of network technologies, if you've followed conventional wisdom and chosen your service provider and calling plan first. There are some technical differences between the three predominant technologies in use -- a system called CDMA used by Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS and others, Nextel's proprietary iDEN technology and a system called GSM deployed by AT&T Wireless, Cingular, T-Mobile and others, including most of the carriers in Europe and most of Asia. But the general performance characteristics of all three are comparable, and the only real significance to subscribers is that these technologies are incompatible with each other. That means you can't buy a phone from one carrier and subsequently use it on another carrier's network.
The one instance in which network technology should influence your choice of carrier and phone is if the ability to use your phone overseas -- a capability called international roaming -- is important to you. Frequent overseas travelers should consider the GSM carriers and a "multi-band" phone that also works on the GSM frequencies used abroad. These carriers and phones allow you to make and receive calls while traveling in many countries in Europe and Asia, albeit at a much higher cost per minute to talk time.
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Screen Size and Color
Larger screens that display hundreds and even thousands of colors are increasingly common, even on inexpensive cell phones. These bright, colorful displays can make it somewhat easier to read and navigate increasingly complex cell phone menus, but they make a much bigger difference when you use the phone for data services, such as sending and reading text messages, taking and sharing digital photos or surfing the wireless Web. If you don't plan to use your phone for much more than making calls, you'll pay less or get more calling features for you money and your phone's battery will last longer between charges is you stick with a monochrome screen.
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Battery Life
Cell phone batteries have improved steadily over recent years, and even the most inexpensive phones have batteries that deliver several hours of talk time and multiple days of standby operation (the phone is turned on and ready to accept incoming calls). Still, if you spend several hours each day talking on the phone, you'll be better served by a model with an especially long-lived battery. Battery life varies widely based on how the phone is used, network conditions and a myriad of other variables, sometime even the weather. Most phones come reasonably close to the maximum battery life estimates provided by the phone manufacturers and carriers, but those should be used only as relative measures in comparing different models. Separate battery life estimates are typically given for talk time and standby operation. Look for a generous amount of talk time if you talk on the phone a lot. And look for longer standby batter life of up to two weeks if you frequently wander from your home or office for long stretches and think you'll need your phone to go several days between charges.
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Phone Book Capacity
Even the most inexpensive cell phone has the ability to store names and phone numbers in a handy electronic phone book. The most basic models can typically store 100 to 200 names and numbers -- plenty for the average user -- while phones geared toward business users provide an electronic rolodex that stores postal addresses and multiple phone numbers and email addresses for as many as 500 contacts.
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Personalization Options
With more than 150 million in use in this country, cell phones today are more than just communication tools; they are frequently fashion statements or expressions of personal style. Many cell phones offer interchangeable multi-color covers, a selection of graphics or photos that can adorn the screen and/or a choice of customizable ringtones- snippets of music or other sounds to replace the standard beeps, chirps or rings that tell you someone is calling. Many phones let you assign specific rings to individual callers whose names and numbers are stored in the phone's electronic directory. These and other largely cosmetic features don't make your calls sound clearer or give your phone better reception, but they can be fun, and they're increasingly available on even the most inexpensive cell phones.
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Text Messaging
Probably the most common, non-phone function available on cell phones is the ability to send and receive short email-like text messages to and from other cell phones. Sometimes called SMS, short for Short Message Service, the international standard for such technology, this capability can be handy for sending short, discreet messages to someone who's not free to take a phone call and isn't sitting in front of an Internet-connected computer. Typing text on a phone's numeric keypad can be tedious, even with the ubiquitous software designed to simplify the task, called predictive text entry. That's probably why these messages are limited to about 150 characters. Through agreements among the carriers, SMS messages can be sent to any cell phone user, regardless of which carrier they use. Several more elaborate forms of messaging that let you embed or attach graphics, digital photos, music clips or other multi-media content, but these technologies -- known by acronyms like EMS for Enhanced Messaging Service or MMS for Multimedia Messaging Service only work on specially equipped cell phones and between compatible phones from the same carrier.
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Web Browser
Another increasingly ubiquitous data feature of most cell phones is the ability to access the Internet and display Web pages specially formatted for viewing on small cell phone screens. Though most Internet-enabled phones include Web browser software, it typically requires and extra-cost subscription from your carrier to allow you to surf the Web from your phone.
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Digital Camera
One of the most popular new bells and whistles is a built-in digital camera or plug-in camera attachment that lets you take photographs with your cell phone. Though not quite suitable for framing, these grainy photos can be displayed on your phone's small screen or shared with friends and family via email, the Web or by sending them to similarly equipped phones. The capability is showing up in an increasing number of cell phones, from some inexpensive models available for free (after rebates and with a new service agreement) to high-end phones that cost several hundred dollars.
These new camera-phones aren't substitutes for conventional digital or film-based cameras for capturing memorable moments, but having a camera with you everywhere you go can be both useful and fun. Once you buy the phone, it doesn't cost anything to snap and display photos on your phone's screen, but sending photos via email, MMS or Web-based photo-sharing services usually requires an extra-cost subscription from your carrier and or a third-party service. Additionally, the airtime that you use transmitting photos and other data counts against your allotment of talk time.
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Two-way Radio (Direct Connect/Push to Talk Service)
An instant communication feature that lets subscribers call each other walkie-talkie style without dialing the 10-digit phone number. Calling plans that offer this feature usually provide a separate allowance of minutes for the service outside of the allotted airtime in the calling plan. Popularized by Nextel, several other national carriers have announced plans to emulate this service on their networks. Currently, the two-way radio feature only works if both parties subscribe to the service on the same service provider’s network.
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- Speed Dialing or One-Touch Dialing – a feature of virtually every new cell phone that lets you designate a few stored phone numbers for quick one- or two-button dialing of frequently called numbers.
- Vibrating Alert -- another ubiquitous feature that lets you set your phone to vibrate instead of ring, providing a silent alert for incoming calls that lets you keep your phone on in public places where a ringing phone would be inappropriate.
- Speakerphone -- a valuable ability to talk on your phone without holding in up to your ear, which, among other benefits, makes hands-free operation while driving a car much safer.
- Voice Dialing – the ability to speak a name stored in your phone's electronic phonebook to dial the number instead of pressing buttons on the numeric keypad. Another feature that eases hands-free operation while driving.
- Voice Recorder – the ability to record and playback short spoken notes to yourself.
- Games -- make your cell phone an entertaining diversion from airport layovers, tedious waiting in line or other boring situations.
- Ringtones and Graphics -- the ability to add new ringtones, screen graphics and other data that didn't come built into a phone by connecting to your carrier's or a third-party data service and "downloading" them over the airwaves to your phone's internal memory. Some phones are limited to downloading ringtones and screen graphics, while others can add games and other software programs, including productivity tools and relatively sophisticated applications.
- Ring Tone Melody Composer – a software program built into some phones that lets you compose your own melodies that can be played as the ringtone to alert you to incoming calls.
- FM Radio and/or MP3 Player – a built-in radio or digital music player that eliminates the need to carry one more electronic device for fans of portable music, talk radio or news broadcasts.
- Instant Messenger – the popular device-to-device, text chatting service that lets you type silent conversations with someone using an Internet-connected computer or cell phone.
- Personal Information Management or PDA Functions – anything from simple organizational tools such as an alarm clock, calendar and to-do list to sophisticated hybrid devices that combines a cell phone with a full-blown handheld computer. Many inexpensive cell phones and mid-priced models include the basic organizer functions, and most can be synchronized with calendar and contact info maintained on a PC. More sophisticated cell phone-PDA combo devices typically cost several hundred dollars.
- Infrared Connection -- An infrared link that lets you connect wirelessly to other cell phones or to handheld and laptop computers, primarily for exchanging and synchronizing phonebook or calendar data. A particularly useful feature if you use PC-based contact management or calendar software and want to keep the same data stored and updated on your cell phone.
- Bluetooth Connection – a wireless connection similar to infrared, which allows links to additional devices such as Bluetooth-enabled wireless headsets, computer printers, and other devices. Bluetooth is designed to allow such devices to share data without as much complex setup as other connections require.
- Global Positioning System or GPS -- a receiver that uses signals from GPS satellites to pinpoint the geographic location of the device. This feature will be used to provide location-based services, such as the location of emergency 911 callers.
