Mobile Phones and Data/Texting Only Plans

[kajarainbow]

So, while paying my mobile phone bill that I had run up due to inability to pay it for a couple of months, I just checked on some things with my mobile phone company. They don't have anything cheaper than the data/text only plan I'm on. $30/month unlimited data, 300 text messages. In fact, it's not even available to new customers anymore. They said it was a promotional offer.

I was thinking of dropping down to a cheaper plan, like something with only texting or something, but T-Mobile doesn't seem to offer that. And I've found that stuff like Google Maps on the go have often been invaluable--helped keep me from getting totally lost on occasion.

Hmm. I guess I'm sticking with my current Blackberry Pearl. Did I mention that this plan only applies to Blackberries, and I cannot get any other kind? Every Blackberry upgrade option offered by my provider would cost me at least $49.

From what I've been reading, there aren't too many options for affordable data/text only plans. Hmm. Do any of you know of any? Though I've had a nothing but positive customer service experience with T-Mobile, and I've heard bad things about some of the other carriers' customer service.

Apparently there're other deaf people out there who aren't too happy about the limited options in general.

Comments

[relee.livejournal.com]

My Mom is a service rep for T-Mobile, though she mostly deals with business clients anymore. She's never had a cell phone in her life and probably will never have one. She's always going on about how she doesn't know what she's doing and she's shocked they don't fire her.

I hope the telephone textiness ends up working for you. ^.^

[angelcake.org (from livejournal.com)]

I've got nothing here. :/ AT&T offers an iPhone plan for $40-$50 (http://www.wireless.att.com/about/disability-resources/text-accessibility-plan-for-iphone.jsp) with unlimited SMS and data, which is a lot less than the $110 or so a month you'd pay otherwise, but still not very cheap.

Pretty much every cellular service everywhere (that I've seen) has set a minimum of $30/mo on their plans. There used to be 19.99/mo options for most carriers a couple years ago, but apparently they decided that people could be convinced to pay more.

Have you considered prepaid? If you don't use your phone much at all, 1 cent per KB of data and 10 cents per SMS might be cheaper at the end of each month. (see the GoPhone (http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-plans/pyg-cell-phone-plans.jsp?wtSlotClick=1-001SJX-0-1&WT.svl=calltoaction&_requestid=358370) plan details, for example)

[kajarainbow.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's interesting information about the increase in minimums for plans. Actually explains a lot of what I've been seeing.

Hmm. Before I got an IM client that used up data allocation instead of text messages, I actually managed to run up more than the 300 free messages mostly on IMs, on my first trip. So, that's more than $30 for the rates you quote.

But I would be only paying that every few months. So in the long run it actually might be cheaper. Hmm. My irregular usage patterns (extended periods of almost nothing, then a MASSIVE spike whenever I go on a trip) makes calculating costs kinda weird.

[angelcake.org (from livejournal.com)]

When you put it that way, I would think all the more that prepaying it might be a better deal. o.o I mean, that's a lot of money you have to spend that's never going to be used for anything. :/

I wonder how much data an IM client really takes up. I mean, 1KB *is* a thousand letters, and that supposedly only costs $0.01..

If those GoPhone thingies had AIM on them, you could theoretically pay massively less than you do nowadays. o.o