Posts Tagged ‘cell phone’

Keep missing the mark

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

I keep hearing the cry to lower the prices of smart phones, well I have one for you. Lower the prices of their monthly plan.

If you put your money down for an iPhone you are going to pay about $70 a month for a two year plan (yes that comes out to $1680).

Granted it comes with unlimited data on the abysmal AT&T network, but it is usable. If you buy a Blackberry from Verizon it’s mandatory that you get a data plan and if you want to switch phones the “Blackberry data plan” is not the same as the “Android data plan”.

I went into a Verizon store last week, my daughter has an  enV Touch, and my wife who hasn’t had a new phone in years wanted to upgrade her old flip phone. I went in and asked for the month to month price on the phone, because I don’t want to extended my contract 2by two years they told my $409, I told them OK, then they said that this phone has a mandatory $9.99 a month data plan. What ? My daughter’s enV Touch has no such attachment. I was informed it is on all new enV Touch phones from November 2009 and onward.

Crap, ok keep sticking it to me. I walked out.

Another thing I noticed, that when buying a song on Amazon, it was $1.29. wait a minute, I though the music industry only made Apple’s iTunes raise their prices ? Not true says Amazon, the recording industry has a scaled pricing for all the music platforms.

Crap, again, where is my BitTorrent client?

No, that’s illegal, I cant do that.

sigh

Oh, wait, happy birthday Sir Isaac Newton.

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What’s the price?

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

I always thought here were two prices to all cell phones, the advertised price and the real price. There are actually three.

1.    The Advertised price (the lowest price), new customers and a 2 year agreement.
This is the price that is posted everywhere, that you will NEVER get,  to get the customers to come in the store.
2.    The” in store” price. (Medium price), old customers, 2 year agreement but you have to be at your upgrade cycle to get one at this price.
This is usually the price after you get to the store and they already have you hooked.
3.    The “real in store price” (the outrageous price), old customer, 2 year agreement and NOT at your upgrade cycle point, but as you are constantly reminded, you can put a new line on your account and get the #1 price.

The guy we talked to never listened to what we wanted just what he wanted to sell us.

The 21st century used car sales men, the cell phone dealer.

sigh

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What would YOU take ?

Friday, November 7th, 2008

I remember a few years ago, an email came across my desk. It asked if you could only bring 10 CDs to a deserted island and these would be the only CDs you could listen to for as long as you are stranded there which ones would they be ? My answer was 10 of the shiniest CDs I could find, because I would meld them together and make myself a reflector so I could signal planes and get off the island !

In that train of thought I am sitting here looking at my iPhone, I must have over 40 applications on here. Most of them free, I have to trim down. Thinking to myself, if I could only choose four apps, which ones would they be ? My choices would be (Note: all the links are the locations in iTunes):

1. Shazam – This app is truly amazing, we were in a restaurant, I wanted to know the song they were playing over the speakers and even with the background noise it actually figured it out.

2. pTerm – So i can SSH into all the boxes that I need to in a pinch

3. TrailGuru – Being able to see how fast and far I am walking makes the time go quicker.

4. SolFree – Would not be complete without a solitaire game.

Asking me 7 year old son he would pick:
1. Cannon Challenge – A Classic me vs. you blowing each other up with a cannon in the hillside.

2. Jelly Car – Since Crayon Physics isnt out yet, we settle with this unusual, but great game.

3. Tap Tap Revenge – The Guitar hero knock off for the iPhone

4. LineRider – Cant get enough of making the guy smash on his sled.

And my 13 year old Daughter.
1. AIM – Have to be able to talk to her friends

2. FaceBook – Sigh, how long can you look at your friends sites ?

3. Diner Dash – I have no idea why

4. Cowabunga – Something about bouncing cows (Don’t tell the California Proposition 2 people)

My wife, none, she uses her decrepit old cell phone to make phone calls and thinks we are morons. Silly her.

Yea, I know none of these are extraordinary, but these are the apps that we use everyday.

If only I could get a movie recorder and MMS I would be happy.

Sigh

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The tax man cometh (or Do the Math)

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

We got a new iPhone 3G yesterday. Yes I can officially say I am an Apple iPhone developer without having my NDA license pulled.

I got the Estimate of the first bill and without any taxes or surcharges it comes out to $74.99 (USD). It includes 450 voice minutes, unlimited data plan and 200 text messages (which comes out to about $1,200 per megabyte of data, do the math). Looking at the bottom, the total estimate comes out to $91.21 (USD) per month.

What ?

That is a $16.22 difference. That’s 22% of the total bill ! Yes 22%, OK wait a minute, lets look at the breakdown of the taxes and “adjustments”

Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge .43
Federal Universal Service Fund 2.28
State Universal Service Fund -
State and Local Tax 10.16
911 Fee 3.22
Other AT&T Surcharges .13
Total $16.22 (or 22% or $74.99)

(AT&T imposes a Regulatory Cost Recovery Cost Recovery Charge of up to 1.25 to help defray costs incured in complying with State and Federal telecom regulation.)

That means AT&T charges me a fee so they can do business or in other words, I am paying the AT&T fee to the government for AT&T AND AT&T is charging me to help me pay the fee to the government?

Wow, talk about double talk.

Does any one even notice their Bills any more ?

Can you imagine if you went to the grocery market and notice that mumbo jumbo at the bottom of your bill?

I guess someone needs to pay the money for the greedy needy Wall Street slimeballs professionals Bailout

Sigh

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777-000-0001

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

If you where searching Google for the number 777-000-0001 you are already upset and at the end of your rope. If not hang on for a minute I will explain everything.

First of all, I dislike Verizon Wireless very much (I cant say hate because the powers that be might yank my blog for not being politically correct in this election year). Verizon Wireless is just lucky they have unsurpassed coverage area compared to other carriers.

He is my story, we have a family plan, 500 minutes shared for three phones which is plenty for use because we use mostly Verizon to Verizon calls which are free under our plan. A few months ago our phone bill started to double because we were way over our 500 minutes. I looked at the bill details for there where a lot of data calls to 777-000-0001. I called Verizon and told them we have a data block on all out phones to block this sort of problem, they agreed and reversed the charges.

Next month, same thing, except this month they tried to sell us a new plan instead of fixing the problem. I said no, they reversed the charges. months went by same things.

I start getting pissed, they will never solve this problem so i I have to.

What the problem is, when we receive a Pict message from the phone, this will show up as a data charge under our Voice plan, NOT under the unlimited TXT/Pict message plan we bought at an additional expense.

Why, ok, lets call Verizon again. I explain all this to them..again..they want to sell me a 700 minute plan at $10 extra dollars a month…again…and they told me this will fix the problem. Well, no, it wont “FIX” the problem, it will mask the problem on their end by charging me an extra $10 a month for 200 more minutes we don’t need, if Verizon properly charged my Pict Messages under my unlimited TXT/Pict Message plan and not under my Voice minutes, I would never go over my voice minutes.

I finally had enough, so I went to the brick and mortar Verizon store yesterday (not a Kiosk). Here is there official final answer.

Our existing plan with 500 minutes does not exist any more, it has been grandfathered. When we added our unlimited TXT/Pict message plan it is not compatible with our old grandfathered plan, so all of our incoming Pict messages will show up and charged under our Voice plan instead of were they belong.

So, they want me to upgrade to 200 useless minutes, pay them $10 extra dollars a month to be moved to a new plan to fix THEIR billing system.

I think Verizon just flipped me the bird.

Sigh

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