The US gets gouged on cell phones

nitro

nitro

"An average plan that includes 500 MB of data costs $85 a month in the U.S., compared with $8.80 in the U.K. and $24.10 in China, according to the International Telecom Union...."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101404127

But hey, capitalism breeds competition which means better prices for consumers. Those pesky brits are socialist though :confused:

Back to the drawing board. The government it is time to break up these communication monopolies again.

The internet is next. It should be $10/Month for 25Mbit up/down.
 
it's all about
nitro said:
https://republicwireless.com/plans/
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It's all about the network. The only worth even paying anything for is Verizon. Verizon has the coverage. T-Mobile should be sued for massive fraud. They have maps showing coverage where there is none at all. AT&T is similar, perhaps a bit better than T-Mobile but still useless a lot of the time...

If one of those inexpensive cell companies was piggybacking on Verizon I might consider it.

Those rates in the UK are very, very good. I'd love to have my Verizon account for $8/mo. I wonder if they aren't massively subsidized?
 
Hard to defend the cell companies, but in all fairness there are two things at work. First, the rest of the world requires you buy your phone up front, in the U.S. the phone cost is priced into the plan, ergo plan price will be significantly higher. Also, the population density of the U.K. is far higher than the U.S. and the density of the area covered in China by those "average" plans is far higher than that covered by the average U.S. plan. These two factors almost completely cover the difference in the actual average prices seen in these countries. That $85 number is completely bogus by the way. I just did a 2 minute scan on att and found a 300mb, unlimited talk plan for $40, and that's paying more than you should. I pay $20 plus $10/gb worldwide with project fi. You'd have to try hard to pay that $85 "average" even a year ago. Although its been two years since I shopped for a cell in the U.K., I know that $8.80 number can't even be close to right, again scanning the UK phone sites prices look comparable to the U.S.
 
its funny I stepped into a store the other day to get some prices on cell phone plans, I figure Im getting ripped off for the last 10+ years and decided to see what those family plans were like, Now I pay close to $100 a month for my plan that really is only worth maybe $35 with taxes, when I went in I saw the deal, 2 lines for $100, of course its a $100, but now since no companies subsidize the phone the phones now retail for $600-$1000, yes I can but a laptop for $175 bucks but a phone costs triple that...anyway after figuring out all the numbers the 2 phones with unlimited talk, text and 10 Gigs of Data was approx $170, where am I saving, $5 bucks a month is all I'm saving and the phone isnt even mine due to the fact they now lease you the phone, you can buy the phone with installments but some companies now offer you to lease the phone, when you lease the phone you have to buy insurance which is $8 a month + tax etc, so all done and said the 2 line were going to cost approx $170, thats $85 each, a $5 savings from what Im paying now, now if I want to save more money I have to add another 2 lines, thats where you start to save money but you still have to buy the phone which adds another 25-35 on top of your plan, so when its all done and said these companies are still ripping off consumers with these plans, the best way to go is those secondary places like Cricket or boost or even metro pcs, thats the only way to really save money now a days on plans.
 
Sig said:
Hard to defend the cell companies, but in all fairness there are two things at work. First, the rest of the world requires you buy your phone up front, in the U.S. the phone cost is priced into the plan, ergo plan price will be significantly higher. Also, the population density of the U.K. is far higher than the U.S. and the density of the area covered in China by those "average" plans is far higher than that covered by the average U.S. plan. These two factors almost completely cover the difference in the actual average prices seen in these countries. That $85 number is completely bogus by the way. I just did a 2 minute scan on att and found a 300mb, unlimited talk plan for $40, and that's paying more than you should. I pay $20 plus $10/gb worldwide with project fi. You'd have to try hard to pay that $85 "average" even a year ago. Although its been two years since I shopped for a cell in the U.K., I know that $8.80 number can't even be close to right, again scanning the UK phone sites prices look comparable to the U.S.
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You are the first person that I can ask, how is project fi? I have been leaning on signing up and trying it out but haven't met one person with the service, no one even know it exists thats how quiet that roll out has been.... Im literally days away from getting a new provider since the nearly $100 I pay for my service is out of touch with where prices should be today, project fi is $20 unlimited talk and text, that is an insane deal, $10 a gig, the plan is so easy to understand vs these other major carriers, to understand how these other plans work you need to have a diagram and a 3 hour powerpoint presentation on how their plans work, with all the hidden fees they claim aren't there still exist, its all bait and switch, with project fi its simple, you pay $20 a month for unlimited talk and text, $10 a gig, If I decide to sign up for 5 gigs and only use 2 gigs they credit me back $30, done deal, where else are you going to get a plans as simple as project fi...so how is project fi? how long have you used it? 10 out 10? or are their some cons?
 
Its 10/10 so far. The only catch, if there is one, is that you have to buy a Nexus 6. Otherwise its exactly what you describe, $20 plus $10/GB and you only pay for what you use. I'm not sure why they have you "sign up" for a certain number of GB, you can really pick any number you want and you end up paying just for what you use, I think prorated to the MB. So far I haven't seen any extra fees. The combination of TMobile and Sprint gives me better coverage than I got on my TMobile phone, plus the phone automatically uses a whole bunch of wifi hotspots as well. Its seamless to you but you end up with better coverage than the coverage maps for a change.
The best part of the plan for me is that you get your data at the same price almost anywhere in the world, at 3G speed. On my trip to Greece last month I actually got LTE speed much of the time, even though they advertise only 3G. Voice calls from are free anywhere in the world if you use a wifi signal, and pretty reasonable if you don't. I'd have paid well above average for the overseas data feature, so to get it at this price is a great deal for me. I looked up what it would cost to use my wife's ATT phone overseas, its $.25/MB ($250/GB), or if you get a special package you can get $30/120MB or $120/800MB. What a deal!
 
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Sig said:
Its 10/10 so far. The only catch, if there is one, is that you have to buy a Nexus 6. Otherwise its exactly what you describe, $20 plus $10/GB and you only pay for what you use. I'm not sure why they have you "sign up" for a certain number of GB, you can really pick any number you want and you end up paying just for what you use, I think prorated to the MB. So far I haven't seen any extra fees. The combination of TMobile and Sprint gives me better coverage than I got on my TMobile phone, plus the phone automatically uses a whole bunch of wifi hotspots as well. Its seamless to you but you end up with better coverage than the coverage maps for a change.
The best part of the plan for me is that you get your data at the same price almost anywhere in the world, at 3G speed. On my trip to Greece last month I actually got LTE speed much of the time, even though they advertise only 3G. Voice calls from are free anywhere in the world if you use a wifi signal, and pretty reasonable if you don't. I'd have paid well above average for the overseas data feature, so to get it at this price is a great deal for me. I looked up what it would cost to use my wife's ATT phone overseas, its $.25/MB ($250/GB), or if you get a special package you can get $30/120MB or $120/800MB. What a deal!
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Thanks for the response, so a 10/10...I think Im going to go with it, figure I had enough paying close to a $100 a month, with that plan I would be probably paying close to $50, on average I use 3-5 gigs of data, most times I use my data its 4g where I can hook into wifi but don't, I have been getting messages from Att saying that I used my allotment of data for the month EVEN THOUGH I HAVE UNLIMITED DATA, I called them numerous times and gave the heat for it, I told them thats why you are getting sued for $100 million dollars, you cannot throttle my data when Im unlimited and say that i have used close to 5 GIGS of data when Im unlimited, that really ticked me off especially since Im paying close to $100 for not much at all....I know with project fi I have to buy the phone but I figure the phone I have now is already 3+ years old so I know that even if I paid for the phone outright which you now have to do with any plan you get cause they come with no contract that it would pay for itself in about a year, even I paid $40 a month for a plan, thats $50 a month savings X 12, $600, there is the cost of the phone, in year 2 I would save hundreds of dollars compared to what I pay now, so the switch would be well worth it, how long did it take you to get the invite? did you buy the phone first or? I don't travel much overseas but that extra info is all well worth it if I ever do travel.
 
I signed up for the invite the day it was announced and it took several months, not sure what the wait time is now but you might as well sign up as its free and you can always ignore it if you change your mind. You buy the phone at the same time you sign up for the service once you get the invite, it was cheaper to get it from them than even to buy a used one on ebay.
One other caveat I just thought of, the fi SIM card, although it looks like any other sim, doesn't work in any phone other than a Nexus 6 loaded with the fi software. You can put any sim in your fi Nexus 6, just not use your fi SIM anywhere else. Probably not an issue for anyone, I only ran into it because I dropped my phone in the water on vacation and wanted to put the sim in a cheap replacement I could buy until I got back, but was told it wouldn't work.
 
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