How can some of you people be happy about these rates? I think they're a bit usurious.
I'm of the opinion that as technology becomes more democratized, the prices should decrease. AT&T doesn't seem to understand that.
Few American companies real industry stand that. So many products, technology or otherwise, later versions come with poorer build and materials quality due to "more cost-efficient manufacturing processes", at higher prices.
The good news is that society can only be pushed so far. Note, primarily due to pretty much the world's lowest gasoline prices -- though that really doesn't matter, as our incomes, transit costs, energy costs, etc., are based on what we are accustomed to paying, not what they're accustomed to paying in, say, Germany -- it has now become hip and trendy to be frugal. That's the first step toward making it a habit, taking as something fun, a trend.
We already had cell phones, could make some use of mobile data for e-mail, looking up maps, data on the web, and the Wi-Fi is handy around the house, if you just want to check your email or look something up, like a phone number, without using a full-fledged Mac. With our T-Mo plans we could get two data-friendly phones, keeping our old plans, both of which had plenty of anytime minutes, free nights (after 9) and weekends, but no rollover, or mobile-to-mobile, and add data plans. My wife finally wanted an iPod, too. I wanted a flash-based iPod for the battery life. So, we got two iPods that suited us, "smart" phones, WiFi devices, kept our mobile service which we use as two-way radio when we're out together and go off in different directions, and to keep in touch with the kids at home, more as a security blanket than as a necessity, as in a life-threatening emergency, calling 911 rather than Mom or Dad generally works out better. On T-Mo we would have paid $160 total per month to add the data, had to buy separate iPods because the T-Mo "music" phones were just not acceptable to us in design, missed on the fringe benefits of the original iPhone. As it turned out, we spent the same on iPhones as we would have the kind of iPods we most wanted, kept our cell service, for $130 total per month. A $30 savings.
My wife uses her voice service more than I do, but still not much. My iPhone stays in airplane mode most of the time so I won't be bothered. We have, after 10 months of service, on the lowest anytime minutes group plan, I just checked, 5,615 rollover minutes. They expire, of course, 12 months after the month they posted, but they'll always be replaced with enough new unused minutes.
This was, considering what we wanted and could use, a good deal. A 3G iPhone upgrade, to pay more, would not be a good deal at all. Faced with the current plans, we probably would have gone with iPod touches and kept our T-Mo plans.
This is just not the time to bump up people on cost. They'll notice. Sales will be negatively influenced. This is a time when people are conscious of screwy pricing. Any notice Target sells food and video games and DVDs? A lot of the food and staples costs have tripled, due, you'll hear, to transportation costs tripling, which makes sense save for the fact only the transportation cost portion of the retail price should triple, not the whole price. But, still, assume a big part of cost of a roll of aluminum foil is transportation cost. Its price has tripled, the roll of aluminum foil. Now DVDs and video games, which even use petroleum-based plastics in the discs and packaging, they're still the same price. These items must appear at the stores' loading docks through wormholes, magic, something like that.
Gimme a break.
