Cell phones are a scam - General

ZTE blade, unlimited 1-10M mobile internet, texts and calls 0.069€/min/ea 6.9 €/month, two year contract. Plus during weekends I can talk as much I want and it will cost max one € per day. And 300 text package for additional 5€/month.

[QUOTE=garrynohome;27333772]Do want! [editline]10th January 2011[/editline] Then I'm convinced it isn't actually WiMAX. "WiMAX update IEEE 802.16m expected to offer peak rates of at least 1 Gbit/s fixed speeds and 100Mbit/s to mobile users." I'm not convinced the tech jumped from 6mbps to 100mbps in one movement.[/QUOTE] For peak rates they advertise "More than 10Mbps."

[QUOTE=ChristopherB;27333840]What's the issue with CDMA EvDo? The performance seems to be great for me.[/QUOTE] EvDo rev A caps at 3.1mbps. HSPA+ here is 42mbps. Honestly it probably doesn't matter to most people, but when I use my laptop on a portable modem a lot I do tend to notice it being 13.5 times faster. [editline]10th January 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Kagrenak;27333876]For peak rates they advertise "More than 10Mbps."[/QUOTE] That makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying. I live in Canada so I don't know as much about the US carriers except for AT&T.

Canada eh? I hear Rogers is terrible. Also, 3 year contracts? That's some ole bullshiz.

My dad pays 70$ a month here in Canada for his unlocked iPhone 4. Pretty basic plan, limited calling, limited text, 512MB data. My Dad pays 20$ a month in Ghana. Unlimited Calling, Unlimited Text, and amazingly cheap data. You would expect it to cost more, but it doesn't. I personally am on a Pay-as-you-go plan on Telus. 110$ phone. 256mb data, 20 cent per minute calling, unlimited MMS/SMS, costs me 20$ a month.

My father sent an email from his phone from the Philippines to England. They charged him five dollars.

Old cellphones tend to have a better lifespan than the new ones, from my own experience. [editline]10th January 2011[/editline] And I personnaly use my cellphone rarely

[QUOTE=OogalaBoogal;27333980]My dad pays 70$ a month here in Canada for his unlocked iPhone 4. Pretty basic plan, limited calling, limited text, 512MB data. My Dad pays 20$ a month in Ghana. Unlimited Calling, Unlimited Text, and amazingly cheap data. You would expect it to cost more, but it doesn't. I personally am on a Pay-as-you-go plan on Telus. 110$ phone. 256mb data, 20 cent per minute calling, unlimited MMS/SMS, costs me 20$ a month.[/QUOTE] Uh he's being ripped off. Any of the big 3 carriers offers $55/mo 200 Anytime Mins 6pm Evenings/Weekends Unlimited incoming/outgoing text/picture/video My 10 Nationwide (Talk/Text) 1GB Data VM3/CW/CC Why is he paying $70 for less than that. I regularly look over bells plans and it's never costed $70 for what he's getting. Does he have some sort of feature that you didn't list?

reminds me of the computer market

Just get a pay as you go phone, theyre more conveniant than than the stupid costs of contract ones.

Haha wow that's a lot of money for a phone. I have some shitty old Nokia 3310 that does it job well (it sends and receives calls and texts, whoa!) and I pay less than £10 a month thanks to not needing a phone for the most part.

I thought everyone knew that getting a "free" phone was a bad idea. Prepaid is the way to go..

My dad insists that he gets movies, TV shows, etc and it makes the bill so damn high.

Canada apparently has the most expensive plans on average according to some chart that went around (USA was second). We're in a 3 year contract with Rogers, which is a standard amount of time here. Our plan is a family plan with 2 LG Xenons and my BlackBerry Bold 9000 with a 500 MB data plan ($25 per month extra), usually costing $110-150 monthly. Rogers being Rogers, they give you a somewhat reasonable deal with the family plan but there's something hidden... You don't have call display (So when you receive a call, the phone says "Unknown Number" instead of a phone number). This means that most of the useful phone features on the phone are rendered useless. There's no "I shouldn't take this, it's only X" or "My mother is calling me during class, she would never do this unless it were pretty fucking important". So I call Rogers about this and they say that we need to play an extra $8 a month [I]per line[/I]. Alright, so I previously had the phone on their prepaid service, which DID have call display. How much did I pay per month (If I wanted to)? $10-20. We're locked in for 3 years, paying much more yet I ended up losing a critical feature. Fucking. Even with having to deal with Canadian cell carriers, my smartphone is an extremely valuable tool.

I still have a cell phone with an antenna. I dislike the whole texting thing, and if I want the internet I just go on my computer. I only use the phone in case of emergencies or to talk to my girlfriend, but we talk more in person than over the phone. I do agree with the drug dealer analogy.

[QUOTE=Maucer;27333841]ZTE blade, unlimited 1-10M mobile internet, texts and calls 0.069€/min/ea 6.9 €/month, two year contract. Plus during weekends I can talk as much I want and it will cost max one € per day. And 300 text package for additional 5€/month.[/QUOTE] ZTE Blade £120 with £20 topup, I have a £5 extra for 0.25Gig of internet, its nice.

[QUOTE=benjgvps;27334624]Canada apparently has the most expensive plans on average according to some chart that went around (USA was second). We're in a 3 year contract with Rogers, which is a standard amount of time here. Our plan is a family plan with 2 LG Xenons and my BlackBerry Bold 9000 with a 500 MB data plan ($25 per month extra), usually costing $110-150 monthly. Rogers being Rogers, they give you a somewhat reasonable deal with the family plan but there's something hidden... You don't have call display (So when you receive a call, the phone says "Unknown Number" instead of a phone number). This means that most of the useful phone features on the phone are rendered useless. There's no "I shouldn't take this, it's only X" or "My mother is calling me during class, she would never do this unless it were pretty fucking important". So I call Rogers about this and they say that we need to play an extra $8 a month [I]per line[/I]. Alright, so I previously had the phone on their prepaid service, which DID have call display. How much did I pay per month (If I wanted to)? $10-20. We're locked in for 3 years, paying much more yet I ended up losing a critical feature. Fucking. Even with having to deal with Canadian cell carriers, my smartphone is an extremely valuable tool.[/QUOTE] On any canadian carrier if you add a number as a contact it will show up as them when they call.

One time when I was traveling in San Francisco from abroad (canada) I used the phone for google maps because it's quite hard to get around San Fran. My phone bill was over $400, thankfully, my mother spoke with the people and lowered it to $80, but still, using google maps isn't very taxing, maybe 1 mb per usage, and I used it around 10 times.

Wow, sounds pretty shitty across the pond. In the UK, i pay £5 a month for free texts and 5 pounds worth of call time with O2, really useful as more people tend to text rather than talk.

[QUOTE=garrynohome;27334773]On any canadian carrier if you add a number as a contact it will show up as them when they call.[/QUOTE] I have the same problem as benjgvps, thought all phone plans would have call display. Even if it's someone I know, it still says Unknown. Also: [img]http://i.imgur.com/oOsDV.png[/img] Cellphones.ca carrier ratings for Canada

I pay 60 a month for unlimited texting, downloading, browsing, and 250 minutes a month.

im paying 40$ a month for 200 minutes, free calling to other MTS phones and 5 numbers of my choice, Unlimited Text messaging, Caller ID and Voicemail, Free evenings and weekends and Unlimited Data WITH unlimited Tethering. Only 2 down sides. It's Evdo Rev 0 (but the coverage is amazing) and MTS Has sweet fuck all for phones. Im stuck with an older HTC Touch Diamond. (Though If i wanted to make the effort, I could sweet talk them into activating an unlocked HTC Touch Pro 2). BUT MTS and Rogers made some sort of Merger with their network equipment, so we're supposed to be getting HSDPA phones on MTS :D.

Use it properly ?

Even though I live in the US, I got my phone European style. Bought an unlocked Nexus One on ebay and got prepaid AT&T. I pay $25 for 3 months, and that money accumulates everytime I charge it. The money acts as credit I can use to make calls or send SMSs. I would have went with TMobile but they don't have service here because they're partnered with a local company who has crappy prepaid plans, but their monthly plans seems really good if I was into that.

10 pounds a month, 500 texts, unlimited virgin to virgin minutes, 100 minutes and it came with a [B]FREE[/B] Nokia e63 (A pretty decent smart phone) [IMG]http://www.cameraphonesplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/nokia-e632.jpg[/IMG] Its like a blackberry, but its not a pile of shit. edit: I text a fuckton, its easier

I hate all this obsessing over phones society has been doing, and how people text more than talk. Its getting ridiculous.

Why use monthly contracts? I just use pay as you go its cheaper if you dont text much

I've lived both in Norway, and the US. I can safely confirm that cell phones, and even ISP's are a load of shit in the US. Fuck Bresnan.

ITT: Facepunch users with no real friends to talk/text to agree that cellphones are stupid. :colbert:

[QUOTE=garrynohome;27334262]Uh he's being ripped off. Any of the big 3 carriers offers $55/mo 200 Anytime Mins 6pm Evenings/Weekends Unlimited incoming/outgoing text/picture/video My 10 Nationwide (Talk/Text) 1GB Data VM3/CW/CC Why is he paying $70 for less than that. I regularly look over bells plans and it's never costed $70 for what he's getting. Does he have some sort of feature that you didn't list?[/QUOTE] My mistake. It's sixty.