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189 Comments
- JediCorran, on 11/15/2009, -4/+175cell phone prices in the USA are outrageous, and the price of texting should be blatantly illegal.
- Ruch182, on 11/15/2009, -2/+131I still find it strange that in america you get charged for receiving calls.
- ekSD, on 11/15/2009, -1/+113I went in to the AT&T store to get an employee discount with the military. He said "yeah, you'll get a monthly discount of 15% after paying a $36 fee."
Wait...I have to pay a FEE to get a DISCOUNT?
***** AT&T. - jerryjamesstone, on 11/15/2009, -2/+88Up Next: Why Canadian Cell Phone Pricing Sucks
- boeingb17, on 11/15/2009, -3/+80US cell phone pricing is the absolute worst I've ever seen! (that is until I moved to Canada). Canadian cell phone pricing is the absolute worst I've ever seen!
Sure it sucks, but thats only because we're not willing to pay for something different. If we keep swallowing these additional fees without following through with our threats of switching to a carrier that doesn't, then I suppose we've nobody to blame but ourselves.
Oh, and Canada. Blame Canada.
Stupid Canada. - Ineedanap, on 11/15/2009, -2/+46Um, if you don't have a plan, and you get incoming text's from others, you get charged. Doesn't matter if you wanted them or not.
- Nephersir7, on 11/15/2009, -3/+41Canada is worse.
We pay more, get less, and we are stuck with 3 year contracts.
Don't bring the population density argument: nearly 60% of the Canadian population lives in the Quebec City - Windsor corridor: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f ... http://www.witiger.com/internationalbusiness/scree ... - seltaeb4, on 11/15/2009, -6/+44There is a sick, self-abusing worship of business here in the U.S.
Until that ridiculous masochism is overcome, we are at the mercy of corporations. - ineversleep, on 11/15/2009, -0/+37Dugg for most hilarious comment on the article:
"It's simple make the stock market illegal, cap profits at 10% for companies that send american jobs overseas and layoff workers here in the states. Get rid of private colleges and allow for anyone that wants an available job to be hired as an apprentice even if they aren't qualified. Capitalism is wonderful "American Capitalism" is crazy stupid."
Wow, just wow. - bizzywho, on 11/15/2009, -1/+29How about in the case of a cartel? Because the service providers are acting as such.
- priegog, on 11/15/2009, -1/+22So what is this article talking about again?
- Kuvter, on 11/15/2009, -0/+20Walmart is talking about getting into the cellphone market pretty soon here. If I'm quoting NPR correctly they're going to have $30 plans which beat most if not all of the current competition. Hopefully this will drive down industry prices.
- harvinator24, on 11/15/2009, -3/+22Text messaging prices is out, with even considering the fact it costs the companies absolutely no money to have texting.
- MrSteamTank, on 11/15/2009, -0/+18I have a government cell phone(ANCEL) here in Uruguay and it competes with Claro(The Mexican brand). I bought my cellphone for 20 bucks and am paying just over a penny a minute with a pay as you go plan. It definitely beats the crap prices I used to get in Canada from Fido 100 times over.
- smashTasker, on 11/15/2009, -3/+18You have free health care though, that's always nice.
- MrSteamTank, on 11/15/2009, -0/+14http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ ...
It's pretty damn clear that these high prices due to obvious collusion between cellphone companies(how else do you explain text pricing all raising near simultaneously) is affecting the cell phone useage in the US. Canada is so bad that the government should really step in and regulate it because clearly the private companies are not up to the challenge of providing cell phone service to one of the richest nations in the world. - worldstoaster, on 11/15/2009, -0/+14@waddling You clearly don't understand rounding up.
- MAGZine, on 11/15/2009, -1/+14If you think your cellphones plans are *****...
move to Canada. THEN you'll have something to bitch about. - TheLoneWolf071, on 11/15/2009, -3/+16We just went over our minutes with T-mobile. Guess how much they charge per extra minute over per plan. .40 cents, for each minute. How insane is that?
- paker, on 11/15/2009, -1/+13I love metroPCS! For a FLAT RATE of $50.00 per month I get:
1. Unlimited local and long distance calling
2. Unlimited text and picture messaging
3. Caller ID, call waiting, 3 way calling
4. Free voice mail
5. Unlimited HTML internet
6. Unlimited GLOBAL text messaging
7. Unlimited premium directory service
8. Unlimited instant messaging
9. Unlimited email
10. Unlimited GPS
There is a bunch of other stuff for more money
And don't cry if you're on mertoPCS and you get a crappy signal. You probably bought a cheap phone.
Almost forgot. You can call over 100 foreign countries for $5.00 more a month and talk for an unlimited time. - filovirus, on 11/15/2009, -2/+13Give me an affordable smartphone that supports either US GSM or CDMA and is not locked. I will pay full price for it. If one carrier starts screwing me, I can switch.
- smemily, on 11/15/2009, -0/+11Even more annoying is telemarketing calls. Now, my cell number is published nowhere and nobody but family and friends have it, but I occasionally get calls from people that apparently have a random-dialer. And I get charged for them.
- paulvq, on 11/15/2009, -6/+17The price of texting is that high because it's not a necessity and people pay it anyway.
- fireashes, on 11/15/2009, -0/+10http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/15price ... this is the original link
We American cell phone consumers pay for making a call as well as receiving a call. The same goes for text (SMS). - aaleksey, on 11/15/2009, -2/+12How about "forced against your will to pay for incoming messages" - if this was true, would you agree?
- paulvq, on 11/15/2009, -0/+10Seriously people? I'm not agreeing with the prices being high. I think they suck, but they're not going to go down as long as people pay for the service. It's a simple fact.
- harvinator24, on 11/15/2009, -2/+11* outrageous
- Dundaman, on 11/15/2009, -0/+9Why did you get a contract?
- elenaadamscom, on 11/15/2009, -0/+9So your annoying aunt can call you and monopolize both your time and money, and there's nothing you can do about it short of being rude. That makes no goddamn sense.
- Ubermann, on 11/15/2009, -5/+14That is why our government sucks.
Our healthcare sucks.
Our dollar sucks.
And so on and so on...... we suck. - Slackdragon, on 11/15/2009, -0/+9In situations where the entire industry has behaved like a cartel, to use Bizzywho's words, it's just as bad, if not worse than a single-entity monopoly.
A free-market solution is always ideal, when it's not abused. If the five major carriers all decide in unison to up the price of texting unnaturally and on an arbitrary whim, how can the free market function? There's no choice for the consumer except to opt out of text messaging entirely. - skellener, on 11/15/2009, -0/+7Even with a regular plan, your bill will vary every month ayway. I had a $29.99 plan for 6 years. I don't think it ever came out the same ever. It was always different due to the small differences in fees taxes every single month. One month it's $34.48, next it's $35.06, next it's $34.92, etc.
- MAGZine, on 11/15/2009, -0/+7Do the math - $300 is typically what will be saved if you switch, and you're sending a strong message.
- wattersm, on 11/15/2009, -0/+7Go prepaid and it's not that bad. I spend about $10 per month on phone service, that's it. Of course I don't sit and talk on it for hours and hours either.
- souravondigg, on 11/15/2009, -1/+8Back in India, the phone cost is the cheapest ever. Now the call charges are about 1cent per min and same for SMS. And on top of that we have per second billing plans as well, where you are charged for only the seconds you have used, not the full minute. Besides this there are about a dozen phone operators each offering everyday new plans on prepaid and postpaid.
I guess American companies can do much better. - TrevorBradley, on 11/15/2009, -0/+7... More
- cathpah, on 11/15/2009, -0/+6If you tell the company that you're thinking of switching to, that the $300 early cancellation fee from the other phone company is the only thing preventing you from switching to this new company, New Company will offer to give you $300 in rebates/deductions from your bill so that the $300 becomes a null point.
Truly, try it. Every cell phone company in the US will do it. - cosmotic, on 11/15/2009, -1/+7Blog Spam. Buried.
- vacuum2440, on 11/15/2009, -1/+7its called an oligopoly, cell phone fees are overpriced just about everywhere in the world because there is no true competitive market to drive prices down to where they should be. For how little these companies need to provide, I can't believe how much they charge us consumers...
- mlw4428, on 11/15/2009, -1/+7Oh...you mean like the roads? How about city water? Oh, *****...the military only protects those under the age of 72 right? And those traffic lights...why just the other day it refused to turn green for me because I didn't fill out form STOP1181A in triplicate.
Clearly all of those are so very restrictive.... - dk75eclipse, on 11/15/2009, -0/+6Let's be honest here. How many kb of data is a single text message? I pay the same amount for my internet service as I do for unlimited texting, and there is no way that the two cost the same to run, even when you consider that texting is wireless.
- ekSD, on 11/15/2009, -1/+6I argued with the guy about it, but I was told to call customer service to have it reversed. I did it twice, but after waiting 20 minutes on the phone I figured it wasn't worth my time any more.
I know I'll end up saving far more than the $36 I was charged initially, but it's the principle of it that really bugs me. It's completely unnecessary. - tgc1, on 11/16/2009, -1/+63 companies control the entire market. That might have something to do with it.
Ie. Rogers, Bell, Telus. Finito. (all the other sub-carriers are owned by those 3) - GusterBear, on 11/16/2009, -1/+6I think it sounds perfectly fine. Trying to please investors instead of making a quality product at a resonable price and taking care of employees has effed this country over more times than I can ever count.
Does not own stock.
Will never own stock in a publicly traded company. - jv2k, on 11/15/2009, -0/+5Even AT&T has the rollover minutes which means less talkative people can sit pretty on a mountain of unused minutes and the my5 plans on Tmobile make it so that you can get even cheaper plans.
Honestly in terms of price verizon is the worst but they make up for it by having a damn good network. - issachar, on 11/15/2009, -0/+5Rogers will screw with you too. Every cell phone company we have does.
It's called an Oligopoly.
We simply don't have a real capitalist market in cell phones in Canada. - digitalgreek, on 11/15/2009, -0/+5Should have just linked to the New York Times article, than this horrible summary.
- Atario, on 11/16/2009, -0/+5Four-tenths of a cent seems pretty reasonable to me...
- reddikilowatt, on 11/15/2009, -0/+5So I recently switched to T-Mobile even more plus. Put the SIM card in, switched it on, the system sent a OTA programing message, done. I'm saving $30/month over my old plan, but I had to buy a phone up front (or provide one, which is what I did). I got it mostly because I bought an N900, which works on T-MO's 3G network. I'm still waiting for it to be delivered, but in the mean time, it was easy enough to use my N95 on 2G and it works just fine. They also still have a contract plan and even will let you buy the phone (even more plus) but pay off the phone over 24 months (sorry for sounding like an ad). But the overage charge IS crazy high. Luckily, I make about 2 calls a week on my personal phone.
But this got me thinking: If I were buying a phone, what really is a better deal, pay now or pay later? Back in 2002 I bought a new car with 0% financing. One of the reasons I bought it was because I had a fairly good idea that tomorrow's dollars were going to be worth less than today's, so even though my payments would be higher on a new car, over time I would be paying back with dollars worth less than today's, and I would be getting 3% or so raises to cover the devalued dollar. By the 5th year of the loan I was paying less for the car loan than for food. BTW, that's changed these days since we're in a deflationary environment due to the credit meltdown.
So if that's applied to a cell phone bought on contract, should you bet on inflation or not? The real answer is that I know that isn't what's going through someone's mind when they're looking at a phone. We Americans seem to have a tough enough time seeing the real cost of service as it is, so many of us end up looking at what's the cheapest way to get out of the store today, instead of what the total cost over the life of the service is going to be. - mishabear, on 11/15/2009, -0/+4Isn't that called corporate welfare? That's exactly what the bank bailout was about. Who benefited? Bank executives and those others with enough food on their tables at night.
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