Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Cell Phone Plan Reviews- Verizon Wireless Share Everything Plans

One of the things Cell Plan Blog has become known for is our extensive coverage of cell phone reviews, whether it is reviewing phones on our own cell phone blog, or linking to other sites such as CNET and commenting on reviews by G4 such as the Droid Review video.

One thing that occurred to me recently is that in addition to reviews on equipment, consumers also would like reviews on the cell phone plans themselves. Many of our early posts focused on cell phone plans, especially how to save money on cell phone family plans and cell phone upgrades. However, the blog received very little reader traffic at the time. With all that said, I think it's time to go ahead and post some Cell Phone Plan Reviews from major wireless carriers.

For my first cell phone plan review, I am going to discuss my own personal phone plan, the Share Everything Verizon Wireless phone plan. As reviews go, I am biased. I have been a Verizon Wireless family plan customer since 2000. I have spent enough on Verizon phone service to purchase a small house or mid-luxury vehicle. Suffice it to say I have been very happy with their service. Here is my take:

Verizon Wireless Cell Phone Plan Review-
Nuts and Bolts: Here is how it works. Verizon Wireless replaced their old plans recently with a new Share Everything plan. The pricing has been simplified, but this plan might not be the best deal for everyone. Instead of cell phone plans that provide a certain number of minutes, adding phones at a flat monthly rate, and then subscribing to text and data plans for each phone line, each phone now has a flat charge for calls and texting. Then a data plan is shared. For example, my iPhone 4 for Verizon costs $40 per month. This includes unlimited calls and texts. Each additional smartphone is another $40 per month. Each non-smartphone is $30. Then you add a data plan that is shared. The minimum data plan for sharing between 2 smartphones is 1 GB for $50/mo. So on my family plan with 2 smart phones and one basic phone, I pay $40+40+30+50= $160 plus taxes and fees.

Under the old family plan structure I had 3 basic phones, which started at $79 per month for a plan that included 400 shared minutes and free nights and weekends. I don't think I used more than 100 minutes in any month over the last 10 years. I later adding unlimited texting for $30, bringing my cell phone plan to $109 per month. So I basically was paying the same per month then if I take away the data. What changed? I got 2 smartphones. Most cell phone plan providers are pushing the conversion to smartphones. Basic "feature" phones are not widely available. Smartphones have come down in price, after contract subsidies. If you don't want to use a smartphone with data, the new pricing structure is probably not ideal, but I think making the call and text prices all-inclusive is the way to go. I think the data pricing could be improved however.

Stay tuned for future cell phone plan reviews.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

ATT Wireless Home Phone and Other Wireless Home Phone Services

It is a known fact that there has been a decline in the number of people who are using a landline & home phone services in the present times. There is an obvious and sudden shift in the trend with most people preferring mobile & wireless phones, as they consider these services more reliable. Hence they feel no need to maintain the home phone or landline anymore. 

But wouldn’t it be great if you could get both the home phone and wireless plan all packed in one solid plan? Though, these combined offers have their own pros and cons. But still, there are many plans which you can use both in your professional as well as personal arena. 

Numerous wireless carriers such as Verizon, AT&T provide you with a combined home phone options along with their wireless plans. Such plans often have stand alone services for your home and you also have the provision for add- a line option on the family plan which you may use. This is suitable when you wish to opt for a second home line. 

Almost all of them try to bridge the gap; however they are yet to taste complete success. AT&T and other similar companies still vouch about the workability of these plans and believe that the people will never write off the need of using home phone services. 

Moreover, AT&T home phone provides you with plugged phones which you can plug in the cellular hub of your house. You will have to pay for unlimited calls all over US & other international options. In fact using your mobile phone as your land line will help you save a lot of money. Besides this you even get the benefits of both the mobile & land line services. You simply need to unplug the phone and use it as a regular cell phone. 

The telecom industry is evolving rapidly and hence the home phones and landline services seem to be an outdated concept. However these service providers are trying to revive the interest of the end users by providing them both the services at a fairly low price.