Best cell phone plans?

With a youngster you have to watch out for those text message options, they seem to be real popular for them. Son got my phone for 2 hours one night and had over 90 Text messages.

I really enjoy the Power Vision plan cause it allows me to take and send/receive pictures/video. It also allows me to watch TV, football highlights etc. Not that I watch much TV while workin, but can see highlights, or latest news if I'm in the mood.

I got the phone that has a MP3 player built in, hehehe now I got music and my kids phones don't. Mine also has the removable memory chip (upgradable to 500MB) so storing pictures, videos, and music is almost unlimited. I share pictures of stuff all the time. Music, Just plug in the headphones and have music all the time while brush hoggin, if a call comes in I just touch a button and i'm talkin through the headphones.

go to Sprint.com to see phones, plans etc...

Kritter

Verizon: Inlaws have this. Coverage was excellent and large. Then, suddenly their local area was reduced to apparently a single tower, as it's only a few square miles of local coverage.

Watch the games!
Cingular: Had it for years because it was dirt cheap. As in $14 a month for the family. True, coverage was terrible, but it was cheap. Then came the games, and then the forced upgrade with no warning to me, just a huge clonking bill. When I cancelled the plan because of it, there was hell to pay with them refusing to cancel, etc.

Inlaws had Verizon. Still do in fact. Coverage area was reduced to basically a single tower in their county, rates tripled, or there abouts. Verizon insists it's an improvement, and that's why it costs more.

NEVER again!

Now, I don't know about you...but I fail to see how a young person is going to get a financial foothold in this world paying those kinds of phone bills. But I've talked to a lot of his contemporaries at the community college, and they all tell me that they regularly pay those kinds of phone charges.

I've been looking into getting one of those "GO" phones for myself...a pay-as-you-go-plan. Good news is, anyone on Cingular is "in-network," and it's $1 a day for each day you use your phone that way, plus whatever minutes you use talking to out-of-network folks. Unless the car breaks down, I figure I'd only be talking to family anyway, so this might make some sense. Your situation may be different, and your mileage may vary.

I want to address your observation about young people not being able to get ahead with monthly charges like these. At the job where I worked until last spring I had a 25 year old assistant who was willing and able to work hard but he didn't know how to do anything. He wasn't much good at figuring things out, either; you have to have some experience before you have information to to apply to new problems.

He lived with his fiance who worked two low paying jobs. They had an apartment at a good price and shared an old car. He started with us through a temp agency (immediately after leaving a factory job he had held for several years) and when I saw that he had a good attitude and potential I got the company to hire him. The pay structure of that company was such that he didn't get his first check for a month. They had to borrow money to get through it.

Now here's the real issue: This kid and his girlfriend had cell phones since the day he came to us from the temp agency. (BTW, did you know that there's a law, apparently, that if your cell phone rings you have to answer it. Doesn't matter whether you're working, carrying half of a heavy load, on your way back with a tool you've been sent for, at a meeting, or dealing with a client---you have to answer it. And everybody under 40 seems to know about this law and is fine with it.) Once he was a full time employee and past the probation period, he and his girlfriend got a new car each (Kia's, which showed some restraint) and cell phones that do everything but cook rice and vote. What's wrong with this picture is that these kids are doing exactly what the believe they're supposed to do. Their grandparents don't think so, but their parents do.

99.999% of us are perfectly happy being consumers in a consumerist society. No one is ever truly chastised for foolish spending; even bankruptcies carry no stigma. How are young people going to get ahead with all the things they've been made to believe they have to have? By totally accepting the value system that says that if you have enough worthless crap from the dollar store you ARE ahead. That's all I can figure.

All the best, Stan

So why is it "believe it or not," since I don't have one, never have had one, and may never have one? I've looked at boats and Cadillacs before, and haven't ever owned one of THEM, either. Did I really say something to deserve that "believe it or not" ??

Nice piece of writing. Did you get all that down in one breath, metaphorically speaking? I think maybe, just maybe, you might be the next Jack Kerouac. Could you keep it up for 800 more pages, preferably in one sitting? And leave out all punctuation? The title could be "On the Phone". I think it speaks to our time just as much as Kerouac's work spoke to his. I'm about half serious about this. Completely serious about liking it.

All the best, Stan

"Tractor Vet;
If you ever decide to retire from tractor fixing, you should seriously think about writing. You truly have skill for creating a picture with your words. If this sounds like praise...you're right, it is!
Good Luck w/ all your endeavors"