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IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Good for non-smartphones

Good for people who use basic phones. Not everybody uses smartphones.

My mother and grandmother have good old flip phones (Samsung Convoy II).

empire5
join:2002-07-31
Rosharon, TX

empire5

Member

Yippie. 12 MB for a dollar. Its 2003 at Verizon.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Some people (particularly the 50 and over crowd) prefer the simplicity of a basic phone.

The nice thing about Verizon is you don't have to worry about minutes anymore, which is killing landline carriers. I remember back in my high school years you used the home phone for most of your conversations and your cell phone on the go.

Now the home phone is used for the alarm dialer and emergencies with true Enhanced 911 (had to call 911 Sunday night when grandma broke her hip and I used the house phone).
Happydude32
Premium Member
join:2005-07-16

2 recommendations

Happydude32

Premium Member

You are the only person who I can think of who would think $20 for 250MB on a dumb phone would be at all in anyway good. It’s called rape. Before smartphones, I paid $5 (and that covered both phones on my account) for unlimited (or as unlimited as you could get using a java based browser) data with Nextel for their ‘Nextel Wireless Web’ service. Anyone dumb enough to pay more than a few dollars for data access on a flip phone deserves to be taken to the cleaners. $20 is beyond insane especially being limited only 1X or EVDO at best.

And I know you’re married to Verizon Wireless and enjoy forking over cash to them for their overpriced, halfassed services, but you do realize most of the providers have been offering unlimited voice minutes for YEARS now, right? When I got Nextel in 2002, they offered unlimited voice for $150/month.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

$20 for the data plus $30 basic phone access = $50 which is the average bill for a basic phone. Sure beats $150 for unlimited voice minutes.

Too bad Verizon doesn't have a no data plan for people who don't use data.
Happydude32
Premium Member
join:2005-07-16

Happydude32

Premium Member

You clearly missed the point. Point is Verizon didn't invent unlimited voice. It's not just Verizon where 'you don't have to worry about minutes anymore' and the concept of unlimited voice is well over a decade old. How much did unlimited voice minutes with Verizon or whatever they called themselves back then?

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Verizon doesn't offer non-data postpaid voice plans anymore is my point.

I don't mind as I have a smartphone and a couple of data only devices and mom and grandma are only added to my plan for $30 a pop since they have basic phones.
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

Crookshanks

Member

said by IowaCowboy:

Verizon doesn't offer non-data postpaid voice plans anymore is my point.

Yes they do. The old plans are still available, just unadvertised. Throw a big enough hissy fit and they'll put you on them, even as a completely new customer. They aren't truly unlimited voice calling (well, they can be, but it costs more) but with nights & weekends + mobile to mobile they might as well be.
Crookshanks

1 recommendation

Crookshanks to Happydude32

Member

to Happydude32
said by Happydude32:

It's called rape.

I'm really growing weary of the casual way that people use that analogy. Why don't you talk to someone who has ACTUALLY been raped and then try using the analogy for something as mundane as a wireless data plan?

Speaking of....
said by Happydude32:

You are the only person who I can think of who would think $20 for 250MB on a dumb phone would be at all in anyway good.

If this is part of "Share Everything" (and it looks like it is) then you can use it for any device. I know quite a few people who don't break the 100MB barrier with their smartphones, never mind 250MB. It may boggle the mind for people like us, but there's a sizable percentage of people out there who barely utilize the "smart" portion of their smartphones. It's also a viable option for a pool of dumbphones to share, as opposed to the $10 individual line data plans.

Not saying I would use it, but there's bound to be a market for it.

rape
@comcast.net

rape to IowaCowboy

Anon

to IowaCowboy
you do realize they have unlimited talk and text no data tmobile prepaid for 35 dollars which would save you $15 dollars. people like you are the reason Verizon is continually raping others. jump off Verizon and help the rest of us out.

»prepaid-phones.t-mobile. ··· id-plans

TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium Member
join:2000-11-08
Da Bronx
·Verizon FiOS
Ubiquiti NSM5
Synology RT2600ac
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

TamaraB to IowaCowboy

Premium Member

to IowaCowboy
said by IowaCowboy:

.....
My mother and grandmother have good old flip phones (Samsung Convoy II).

Oh yeah! I trashed my iPhone5 for a pre-paid flip phone. Data prices have made owning a smartphone totally absurd. One 40 minute HD TV show is more than 250MB. Carriers are fast making smart devices useless with their rapacious pricing.

Even turning cellular data off is not a viable option. AT&T was charging me $30/Mo for the mere privilege of cell data access. That's $30.00/Mo even if you never use their precious data. In earlier, saner days, this practice would be classified as grand theft, now it's simply normal business practice. How we have fallen into a society of stupid sheep!

As long as people continue to welcome and pay for being ripped off, this will only get worse. Where is the breaking point I wonder; $10.00 per power-switch operation? $.25.00 per screen-swipe? How about charging a premium for turning your device off? After all, if you turn your device off, carriers can't over bill you, so you are guilty of denying them revenue.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

The cost of smartphones period is through the roof. I know a few of the MVNOs carry the iPhone (straight talk and virgin mobile) but you'll pay an arm and a leg for the phone and get less than stellar service and non existent customer service. And you have to go buy phone cards before your prepaid balance runs out or you lose your phone number.

Smartphones burn you either way, either pay more for the phone or pay more for the service.

amenite
The Soylent - It's People
Premium Member
join:2002-11-21
Ridgewood, NJ

amenite

Premium Member

On my prepaid T-mobile phone I can send a text message to add to the balance (requires a credit card). The balance is good for 90 days and you get another 90 days grace period after the account runs dry before they kill your number. This phone sits in a car basically unused 99% of the time so for that scenario at $40/year it's about the best deal going in prepaid.