---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20180725172518.GA5665@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 13:25:18 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Why Your Phone Service Is So Expensive By David Leonhardt Many Americans pay close to $100 a month for smartphone service. And this pricetag isn't some natural reflection of the service's value. In many other countries, smartphone plans cost much less. The economists Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago and Mara Faccio of Purdue estimate that Americans pay $50 billion per year more than they would if they instead were paying European prices - for the same quality service. That translates into about an additional $30 per month for every American household. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/opinion/antitrust-regulation-united-states-europe.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <pj8e4f$2vp$1@news.albasani.net> Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 23:52:48 +0000 (UTC) From: bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> Subject: Re: Cheap voice-only cellphone plans? John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote: > > The cheapest prepaid I know of is Tracfone, who resell at&t, Verizon, > and T-Mobile. Their cheapest plan is $18+tax every 90 days which > gives you 60 or 120 minutes, depending on the phone, extra rolls over > if you don't use it. > When I looked at Tracfone it appeared they charged about the same as AT&T but allowed only 400 minutes/year. Not bad, but out of pocket no better, and the name "Tracfone" makes me cringe. 8-) Ting looks like a better deal if the coverage is acceptable in my area. I had no idea of its existence (despite looking) and am grateful for the guidance of the group. At least now I've got one potential alternative when it comes time to renew. It isn't much cheaper than what I have, but it _is_ cheaper. Thanks to all for taking the time to reply! bob prohaska ------------------------------ Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.999.1807242208380.3877@freeman.4gh.net> Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 01:43:44 -0400 From: Stuart Barkley <stuartb@4gh.net> Subject: Re: Cheap voice-only cellphone plans? [The rambling below also applies to the recent "without a landline"/ "voice mail question" thread] On Thu, 19 Jul 2018 at 22:21 -0000, bob prohaska wrote: > It was an AT&T GoPhone (now called AT&T Prepaid) that cost $100/year > and gave me 1000 minutes of talk time for one year. No data, no > smartphone, just simple voice. It was just for unusual > circumstances, and worked fine. I'm in a similar situation, basically happy with my AT&T GoPhone for occasional voice and text use. I actually have a cheap smartphone (after they turned off local 2G service disabling my old flip-phone without telling me). I never use cellular data, just WiFi at home or a few other places. With my current accumulated balance and rate plan ($25/3 months and $1/day unlimited when used) I can go for over two more years of unlimited use, so I don't want to switch from the GoPhone service. In addition, I have Vonage for my "home" service which I seldom use and would like to get rid of. I have some old cordless phones setup, but I mostly use the very clunky Vonage Mobile Extension android app over WiFi for the Vonage calls. Key feature #1: On the cell phone I forward "When busy", "When unanswered" and "When unreachable" calls to my Vonage number. This means the occasional calls to the cell number will go to the Vonage number and eventually to the Vonage voicemail if not answered. Key feature #2: My Vonage voicemail is configured to transcribe the audio to text ("Visual Voicemail") and send me the transcription and audio file via email. Most calls to either number go unanswered and to voicemail unless I know the caller. I can read the email/voicemail using my normal processes including on the smartphone if I have WiFi. This is just about the only way I get voicemail anymore. I would like to ditch the Vonage service but have become attached to their Visual Voicemail and don't know what might be a suitable replacement. It looks like the AT&T "Visual Voicemail" is only Visual in that you need vision to operate the UI to listen to your voicemail. I do see Voicecloud <http://www.voicecloud.com/voicemail-to-text-transcription/> - but $15/month for about 10-20 voicemails is pretty high (but a little less than I'm paying Vonage). I would prefer to stay away from Google Voice which as usual for Google seems to have little to no documentation about what it does/how it works. Questions: What is the current state of voicemail transcription and forwarding to email? Is this common for any mobile providers? Any other ideas or suggestions for a voicemail to email transcription service? Thanks, Stuart Barkley -- I've never been lost; I was once bewildered for three days, but never lost! -- Daniel Boone ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20180725194521.725922002D566B@ary.qy> Date: 25 Jul 2018 15:45:21 -0400 From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> Subject: Re: Cheap voice-only cellphone plans? In article <pj8e4f$2vp$1@news.albasani.net> you write: >> The cheapest prepaid I know of is Tracfone, who resell at&t, Verizon, >> and T-Mobile. Their cheapest plan is $18+tax every 90 days which >> gives you 60 or 120 minutes, depending on the phone, extra rolls over >> if you don't use it. > >When I looked at Tracfone it appeared they charged about the same as >AT&T but allowed only 400 minutes/year. Not bad, but out of pocket >no better, and the name "Tracfone" makes me cringe. 8-) Look again. The $18/quarter plan is about $75/yr. If you talk a lot, you can use it with a cheap smartphone which triples the minutes so you get 720 min/yr (also 720 texts and 720mb) >Ting looks like a better deal if the coverage is acceptable in my area. Agreed, if you have adequate Sprint or T-Mo coverage. If you need AT&T or Verizon, Tracfone is the better option. R's, JOhn ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Thu, 26 Jul 2018