AT&T Eliminating $10 Text Messaging Plan for New Customers
macrumors.comThe ridiculous state of wireless data (tethering, sms) has finally driven me to get rid of my smartphone. Well done AT&T/Verizon.
I am:
* Porting my number to Google Voice.
* Getting a voip "landline."
* Getting a new number with the cheapest possible wireless plan + dumbphone. Sprint still not evil?
* Routing my calls using Google Voice to the landline/dumbphone, depending on where I am.
Frankly, I'm sick of paying $120/mo and getting fucked around every corner. I dont NEED this you know; the non-phone part of this phone is a convenience, not a necessity.
I'll let the market/regulators figure this out. In the meantime, I'll be fine not checking my email every five minutes and staring at yet another screen when I'm not in the house/office.
If anybody has recommendations re: my plan of action, I'm all ears.
I don't have any recommendations for you, but here's my plan of action.
I have been monitoring my usage for the past year. I have an iPhone. I've slowly been weaning myself from my emotional attachment to it. Much exposure to WP7 and decent Android phones has helped tremendously. I use an average of 150 voice minutes a month, 20 texts, and ~170mb of data (although most of it is me diddling around, checking Google Reader, FB & Twitter, my device checking and downloading emails and notifications when I'm not near wifi). I'm always within wifi at work and home.
I'm going to start by getting a T-Mobile Pay As You Go SIM. If I can port my # to the SIM, great. If not, I'll port it to my Google Voice account. If I actually need data on the go, in a pinch, I can grab a Web Day Pass for $1.50. But for 11/12's of a day, I'm around wi-fi and so I'll get all my blessed Twitter/FB/G+/GTalk notifications.
I figure 2000 to 2500 prepaid minutes, costing me $200-$250 over the course of a year, should cover my voice and texting for a year. In actuality, I'm lazy at work and often don't use my desk phone, so I expect my wireless minutes usage to plummet. I should see savings of at least $650 a year from what I pay on AT&T.
If this all fails, I will probably look towards the $30 or $50 Monthly4G prepaid plans on T-Mobile (http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans) and go from there. Even if I went the $50 route, I'd still save $300 yearly.
The straw that broke the camel's back happened before today's txt plan news, but it's just becoming harder and harder to participate as the victim in this swindle.
To update my comment:
1.) You can port a number into a T-Mobile To Go prepaid account. However, if you go to a brick and mortar store, they'll likely tell you that it's not possible. I've had two stores tell me this. I called the T-Mobile toll-free number and requested a port to T-Mo2Go and it was not a problem in the least.
2.) You can utilize the Wi-fi Calling feature on supported BB and Android phones (any current phone). It will use your minutes. It's now automatic, if you connect to wi-fi. You can shut this off. It's much more robust on Android than it was a year ago.
You'll find contract free plans are the way to go, especially if you're not interested in the latest smartphone. Virgin Mobile's plan is $35 for 300 minutes a month and unlimited text/data. (Looks like they just raised this from $25). You will be hard pressed to find a contract plan for that cheap, even without data. Virgin Mobile runs on Sprint's network, so you'll have the same coverage you would have with Sprint, with the exception of no roaming.
It's also becoming more and more difficult to find non-smartphones with the big contract companies.
Thanks for mentioning that it's Sprint. This answers my question further down the page.
Virgin might be it for me. I was looking at them before, but was traveling a bit at the time. Verizon was really the only option.
I am considering moving to Virgin because of the data option, but I have done exactly what you describe you want to do 3 years ago. I currently use Straight Talk, which is sold by Wal-Mart, run by Carlos Slim's telco (he's _the_ telco player in Mexico), which uses Verizon's towers. I pay $33 including tax for 1000min/ 1000sms (200MB of data, but it's ~useless CDMA 1.x).
edit: I don't know if you want VOIP opinions (there so many options), but I use flowroute and am quite happy with their performance/ pricing.
I use Skype a lot, so that would probably be my goto voip provider. Assuming that they offer something like a landline.
$120 a month???
I pay $25 a month from Virgin Mobile for unlimited text, unlimited data, and 300 minutes of call time, with a pretty good android smartphone. (It would be $32 a month if you amortize the price of the smart phone, which I had to buy up front). I use easytether to hook up my laptop, no problem.
300 minutes wouldn't be enough for me, but:
Verizon. Pretty much the same plan was slightly more expensive on AT&T.$60 for 900 min $30 for unl. data (lucky me) $10 for 500 texts $17 in taxes (NYC)Tether might still work, for now: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/verizon-blocking...
300 minutes is the voice call limit. The data portion is "unlimited", so if you have Google Voice or are willing to move over to it, you can skip over a lot of would-be voice minutes by using GrooveIP (or some other SIP gateway solution) and serve most of your talky needs via voip without burning talk minutes.
Granted for most people it is probably easier just to bump up to one of the higher level Virgin plans which are also pretty cheap relative to industry averages.
Yeah, for 1200 minutes + unlimited data + unlimited texts, Virgin Mobile is now $45 http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-...
I look at it a different way. I'm saving $35 per month over Sprint with my Virgin Mobile plan. The phone cost me about $140, so I essentially pay it off in 4 months savings on this plan. I could upgrade my phone every 4-6 months if I wanted to, at no extra cost from where I was with Sprint. Compare that to the 1-2 year upgrade cycle on a contract, assuming you're able to get a free phone with the contract renewal. If I did upgrade every 6 months, the old phone would still be new enough to fetch $50 on Craigslist, making it even more economical.
Just a different perspective. I'm not actually one to be particular about having the latest and greatest phone, and at most I will upgrade once every 18 months. Switching to Virgin Mobile was one of the steps I took while unemployed to cut down on bills. It's actually been the easiest and most effective way to reduce my monthly living expenses without much sacrifice.
The VM compatible Motorola Triumph is a pretty nice Android phone, too. Noticeably quicker than my original Droid.
Like I mentioned on Twitter, if you don't like the new plans, you can always switch to T-Mobile. Oh, wait...
I am literally doing so during lunch today. I've been debating this for the past month and made my final decision last night.
Luckily, I'm out of contract on AT&T, so I don't have an ETF to pay. My only issue is deciding which phone to go for.
I'm trying to decide between the Defy, $299 off-contract and durable, Sensation, and G2x.
I'll probably through Cyanogenmod on whatever I buy ASAP, can anyone comment on the above phones? I'm particularly wondering if a Cyanogenmodded Defy will meet my responsiveness/battery life needs. I don't play games, I just hate laggy UIs, which unfortunately seem to plague Android.
Even better - this is for new contracts. People can always just not sign up for AT&T in the first place!
For now, provided the merger doesn't go through. And provided you're not under contract with AT&T.
I wonder if the impending release of iMessage has something to do with this. With so much iPhone to iPhone messaging no longer counting towards text messaging, a lot of users would probably drop from the unlimited plan to the $10 plan - if it was still available.
This is the first I've heard of iMessage. Pretty much everyone I know has an iphone, so I think I'm going to be dropping down to the pay-as-you-go text plan once iOS 5 drops.
... which would seem to provide a $240/year incentive to just use iMessage, or twitter, or any IM system.
It seems that the right strategy for AT&T to pursue would be to follow the natural decline in the cost of these services by offering a better plan-- say $5 for 2,000 messages a month. As they lower the cost of an individual SMS, the usage should go up dramatically, and since SMS has network effects, this might slow the shift away from SMS as the messaging service of choice.
... which would seem to provide a $240/year incentive to just use iMessage, or twitter, or any IM system.
Assuming your conversation partners can keep tabs on what system to use. Your Android pals can't iMessage you, and using Google Talk or another IM service on an iPhone has always felt a little kludgy.
Sounds to me it's designed to drive you to one of two choices: either pay $20/month for a service you don't need, or cut it out altogether and pay 20c every time you get an SMS from someone who can't use iMessage/Twitter/Facebook messaging.
At 20c/message it doesn't take long before you end up paying as much or more than you would've been paying under an SMS plan.
When iOS 5 is released, I plan on keeping my current SMS plan for a month to measure how many text I send to non-iPhone users. I'll then downgrade my plan accordingly. My guess is that I'll end up cutting my plan entirely and just paying per text. The vase majority of the people I text with frequently are iPhone users.
It would be a great move by Apple to open the iMessage protocol so Android and other smart phone OS' could participate in the exchange. Unfortunately, my guess is that this won't happen as "free texts" represent a great benefit for switching to an iPhone and opening that network to other vendors would undercut their advantage.
Predication: ATT/Verizon drastically increases the cost of bandwidth on iPhone plans to make up for the cut. We'll see...
Or you can do what I do and still send a few text messages just not enough that a 10$-20$ per month plan is cheaper.
Here in Argentina, I pay about US$10 for about 180 text messages per month. I say "about" because I'm on a prepaid plan; additional messages are about US$0.04 each.
Until recently, I could pay about US$4 plus the US$0.04, but they switched the SMS credit to expire after a month instead of after six months, so I have to buy a new SMS card every month.
(This also includes a limited amount of voice calling.)
It seems to me that a competitive market in a country like the US, where very few people have text-only plans, ought to make this service considerably cheaper than in Argentina. The marginal cost of delivering a text message is something like a thousand times lower.
> in a competitive market in a country like the US
With At&t and Verizon controlling 80% of the U.S. mobile market, I'm not so sure it's competitive. Is there only a single provider in Argentina or is it structured differently?
Buenos Aires is definitely one of the most affordable cities I've been to (c. 2003), but I do recall being astonished at the prices for electronics.
Buenos Aires has four major providers: Claro, Personal, Movistar, and Nextel.
I think the economics here might be a little different (aside from possible collusion between the operators) because such a large fraction of the population uses only SMS. If the providers have to put up new cell towers to provide SMS to an area, the economics are a little different.
Argentina in 2003 had just collapsed. Things cost three times as much here now, or more. On the plus side, that means the taxi drivers can afford electronics and other imports.
>a large fraction of the population uses only SMS
Interesting. These people who use only SMS, do they never use their phones to make voice calls -- or do you mean only SMS and voice?
They never (or almost never) use their phones to make voice calls. I hardly make voice calls myself.
This seems shortsighted to me. I'm already seeing non-tech friends using messaging apps that don't go over SMS - with the mass adoption of smart phones, this hopefully is the nail in the coffin for SMS.
Devil's advocate: Perhaps promoting unlimited SMS can mitigate the move to iMessage and equivalents?
SMS at current prices is going to go. It can't compete with internet-based solutions like iMessage and BBM, especially in regions with many small countries like Europe or Asia where international fees can be quite restrictive. (This is why Skype became so popular in Europe.)
Perhaps promoting unlimited SMS can mitigate the move to iMessage and equivalents?
iMessage still uses SMS whenever you send a message to somebody with a non-iOS 5 device. I don't know about you, but I communicate with tons of people who don't have iPhones or even data plans.
This move is ridiculous gouging whatever way you look at it.
If Google and Apple weren't in a cold war perhaps they could work together and make an interoperable standard. Get RIM in on the mix and you have the big three bypassing SMS.
They could call it "XMPP"!
Perhaps, but I don't believe that $20 a month will be easily swallowed during a time of low consumer confidence.
From the title I thought it would be a goodwill gesture. "Text messages are so ubiquitous now, they should be a standard part of every phone plan."
Nope. Now the only option is $20 for unlimited texting.
I have a virign mobile plan here in the US: $25/month
no contract
300 minutes
unlimited texts
5GB/month of data(it gets slower but not stopped or overcharge after that)
I'm not sure why its not more popular. Oh and I can tether.
NOTE: just checked and it looks like the plan is advertised as $35/mo now
Coverage seems to be the biggest problem/non-problem with Virgin. I had to dump AT&T after two iPhones, because the service turned to shit. I am on Verizon right now and coverage has been great. Prices, not so much (still less than AT&T!) Do you know which underlying network Virgin use? Surely they don't put up their own towers.
They use Sprint's network, the coverage has been pretty good for me, I haven't been anywhere where I expected service and haven't got it.
They use Sprint's towers. You don't get roaming with Virgin. I find the coverage is great in my area and the few areas I travel to throughout the year.
If you are on the road a lot, you might run into problems.
yeah they use sprint without roaming. When I first signed up I considered also getting a prepaid verizon phone for the times when I am far out of town or otherwise in poor/no coverage areas, but its never been a problem so I've never gotten around to it.
Texting pricing is such a gigantic and well known scam that it's hard to have sympathy for its victims at this point in time. It's like a guy who keeps buying lemons from the same dishonest car salesmen and then asking why the guy is still in business. Um, he stays in business and gets away with this stuff because these people keep giving them money, that's how.
It really pisses me off that I can't opt out of receiving text messages. AT&T charges me for text messages I didn't want from people I don't even know. The system should be changed so that only the people sending text messages pay.
It is my belief that this is even already how it works in Europe: people sending messages are charged, but receiving is free.
Does iMessage automatically determine if the receiver is on an iOS device and then send your SMS without using your phone plan? Or do you have to know beforehand and then use a different app/route for your message?
Automatically. It also lets you know what method is used so you can monitor your SMS usage somewhat.
iMessage is built into the Messages app. http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html#imessage
That's disappointing since $10/1000 messages is a good price point IMO. The "cheapest" iPhone plan right now is $40/mo base, $10 for messages, and $15 for a pathetic 200mb of data. Going from $65/mo to $75/mo for essentially no benefit is really underwhelming.. maybe if they atleast bumped it up to 500mb of data, it wouldn't be so bad.
Or, it seems, 20c per message if you chose to pay for what you use.
20c per message would be a better deal than $20/month for me.
E, no it doesnt. It may "only" be 20c per message, but that is coming AND going. If you expect a reply for each message sent, it takes 50 back and forths to be equal with the unlimited plan.
At&t doesnt ask for you to just bend over, but also says "prepare for it deep". And the government wont do a damned thing because they grease palms on both sides of the aisle.
Easy enough to avoid, just use Google Voice and voila text messages are free, and unlimited (assuming you have a smartphone).
How much are messages when you don't have a plan? How many do you get for the $20 the unlimited plan would cost you?
$0.20 per SMS with my ATT/iPhone contract.
How much will they charge you if you never want to receive or send a text message at all?
On Verizon, this was a $10 one-time charge.