Cell Wars: A New Hope?

Living in Europe, I had little idea of how bad the American cell system is. I have a phone that cost me around $50 (a junky phone but I don't mind; I had the option to get a nicer, more expensive one if I wanted,) on a prepaid system.

I came to the U.S. and tried to get a pre-paid phone for a few days. The guy at the counter wanted to sell me a years-long contract instead, and then tried to convince me to get a more expensive prepaid plan, saying it was 'better value' though the numbers on paper disagreed. Then he told me I'd have to buy a phone and they don't sell them for less than $100. say WHAT? In Sweden, this would cover the cost of my phone plus around 3 months of service.
I finally convinced him (that's how good a salesman he was, I had to spend 20 minutes _convincing_ him to give me a decent deal) to get me a cheaper phone. Then he sprang an 'activation fee' on me at the last moment (another thing that we don't have in Europe) that he hadn't mentioned before. Walking out the door, late for an appointment but semisatisfied that I had got what I wanted, I found that the phone's built-in voice recorder buttons weren't working. The phone had a voice recorder on it, which was disabled for no reason other than that Verizon didn't want me to have one. WHAT?

Two things here bothered me the most: the salesman wanted to rip me off, plus the phone company had crippled the phone by limiting the operating system! I understand the tactic of locking phones into networks for certain contracts, but I don't understand why they actively limit the features on the phone. The phone maker has put work into the hardware, and I've paid for it, but somewhere in the middle the network has removed features. The network should be just a network: a system that you connect your phone to in order to make calls and transfer data. not someone who controls the features of your phone itself.

I travel around a fair bit to countries other than the US. I tried to get a US phone that I could use in other places and that was a joke. I ended up buying an unlocked phone overseas, getting a SIM chip and airtime for less than what I would have paid just for the phone here!

I think it is time for us "peasants" to revolt and refuse to sign into contracts that we can't get out of without paying an arm and a leg.

Like the grouse says, when your contract runs out, don't sign up for another one. If a few million of us do that maybe we can get their attention!

I don't mind paying a fair price for what I use. But, I don't like paying for what I don't, like unused minutes.

Rise up, I say, rise up! We peasants are revolting.……ah, you know what I mean!

These include sightseeing, hedging the U.S. economy with foreign currency and fantastic cell phone service. I've lived 6 of the past 7 years in Korea and Germany, and I dread returning to the U.S. fiasco.

The U.S. government could quickly fix this if our lawmakers, executive and probably the judiciary weren't in bed with the telecom companies. Perhaps the people of the United States should collectively sue the government (AKA The People of the United States) to abolish all the games and allow a truly open market to operate.

As it stands now, Korea kicks Germany's cellphone butt, but even Germany is light years ahead of America. In Korea getting a phone takes 5 minutes, costs very little and works perfectly--prepaid/no contract phones are just as easy as contract. In Germany more people use contract phones, but whatever you use it takes about 20 minuts to buy the phone and install the sim card. If you buy a contract phone you must allow 40 more minutes to fill everything out in quintuplicate...and get stamps from the correct six offices--in the correct order (just kidding). But all kidding aside, not even death can get you out of a German contract, so prepaid is the only way for an expat to go. Whether one chooses a prepaid or a contract phone, everything works perfectly here too.

Now we come to America. First there is the fact that I actually come from America. Apparently this makes it very difficult to understand things--the opposite is true in every other facet of life! There are the myriad of choices-that-are-not-choices. Finally we have the crappy phones and spotty coverage areas (perhaps these should be remarketted as "coverage fractal powders"). In short everything cell is broken in the United States.

As I was scheduled to return to another overseas assignment, I chose a no contract phone. The company billed me monthly anyway. When I went to the shop to try to resolve this they couldn't help me because I didn't have an account. The same was true of the service (disservice) center. My non-account was eventaully turned over for collection and my credit report is annotated! Here's the kicker, the credit bureaus won't remove the errors until they contact whoever put them there. Well at least I had a phone, right? Actually it was so rare that I found it worthy of a stop along the road to make or receive a call--otherwise my signal would drop out. After three months of this I succumbed and purchased a special cell phone car amplifier (a la 1990s brick-phone technology) with which I was able to actually call for roadside assistance.

Finally I came to the point that I no longer needed the phone. In Korea or Germany I easily sell back (or at least recycle) used phones. I normally buy refurbished phones. That option never existed in America where I was told to "just throw it away." When I asked about proper battery disposal they told me to just toss it--NICE! Fortunately I was able to find someone like me who needed a phone for a short time--I gave it to him.

I have to say that by omitting any mention of the FCC's 700 MHz auction, and how Google ensured open access for the C band by petitioning for it through this auction venue, the writer missed a pretty major event in cellular market history. Verizon would never have been strongarmed into open access if it wasn't for Google and Google would never have had its chance without the auction. Plus, the strength of this frequency, which has been turned over to wireless communications, means that we will likely see fewer cell phone towers to support it. isn't that impressive too?

I travel in Africa a lot. My last trip to Ghana, there were a couple guys standing there after going through customs handing out FREE sim chips for their wireless service. Each chip had a couple minutes on it and you can buy more minutes EVERYWHERE. And the cost of the minutes is minimal.

Ghana is no exception. The most I have ever paid for a local cell network sim chip is the equivalent of $2 US. Little road side stands sell chips and minutes throughout Africa, even in small little towns.

Even Africa is ahead of the US in its wireless phone service. I have written to my congressman on this issue more than once. I would encourage you to do the same. We are being royally ripped off here in the US as cell phone technology is not expensive, but we are being charged as if it were.

There’s no doubt that everywhere there’s always a new features of cell phone. So, I guess communication with other places, even when traveling isn’t hard to do since we always have medium of communication. However, concerning to traveling around the world, These days, if you're taking a flight for a trip any longer than overnight, it will cost a lot of money to check a bag, and if you want something to drink on the airplane or maybe a snack – get a second mortgage. Travel fees get worse every year. They'll even charge you for the sordid and unsanitary pillow and blanket. Travel fees get worse every year. It's gotten to the point where you need debt consolidation from travel fees for a trip over the weekend. To read more visit http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/04/20/bag-travel/.