Consumers In U.S., Canada Pay More For WirelessWireless industry respectfully requests that you ignore this 10:24AM Wednesday Aug 12 2009 by Karl Bodetags: prices · business · wireless · consumers · cellularThe latest OECD data suggests consumers in Canada, Spain and the United States pay the most for calls and text messages of all 30 ranked OECD nations. Unlike Europe, callers in Canada and the US pay to receive messages -- but even factored in North American customers are paying considerably more than dozens of other countries. On average, the OECD found that Americans pay $635.85 on cell phone service, compared to $131.44 per year in the Netherlands or $137.94 per year in Sweden. The study highlights how prices have decreased 21% for low-usage (360 calls per year, 390 SMS, 8 MMS) consumers, 28% for medium usage, and by about 32% for high usage (1680 calls per year, 660 SMS)consumers. Still, a medium use customer in the United States (780 calls per year, 600 SMS, and eight MMS) pays $53 a month for service, compared to $11 a month for service in the Netherlands. As you might expect, the wireless industry issued a press release proclaiming the study was based on "flawed assumptions" that "just don’t make sense." If you look at the data the way carriers would like, you're getting quite the bargain. The CTIA does have a point that the OECD's usage categories seem low -- particularly when it comes to MMS use. Another reason U.S. prices seem high? Carriers charge a hell of a lot of money for service. They also spend millions on lobbyists who tirelessly work to eliminate consumer protections and price controls. Carriers had a similar response when recently asked why exactly SMS prices have jumped 200% in just two years despite the service costing virtually nothing to provide (160 byte data is already transferred via tower control channels). Verizon went so far as to deny SMS prices had risen at all -- and that if consumers looked at the data the way Verizon would like, SMS prices have actually decreased. How? By jacking up SMS prices, carriers got consumers to flock to bundle SMS packages ranging from $5-$15 per month.
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- Wireless Industry Pricing Plans Confuse Economists, Too
|
 
Eat Me
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ | Calling party pays In some countries the calling party pays more, sometimes much more when they call a mobile. We don't.
This could at least in part explain the reason why our wireless costs more. | |
|  | Luminaris
join:2005-12-01
Winchester, VA | Re: Calling party pays This maybe true but still, the price difference per year is, astonishing to me. | |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
 ·RoadRunner Cable
 ·DSL EXTREME
| Re: Calling party pays Canada has a LOT of extra fees.
SAF, long distance, caller id, voicemail are all extras in Canada.
If I'm not mistaken, in Canada, you pay long distance even on a received call.
US has a LARGE geographical area covered. Most other countries are the size of a US state, and pay roaming through the nose... in the US - its all bundled. | |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| Re: Calling party pays said by en102  :If I'm not mistaken, in Canada, you pay long distance even on a received call. Oy... the service I had from Bell Atlantic Mobile back in the mid-1990s was like that. If I was outside of my local calling area I had some sort of inbound long distance per-minute fee tacked onto the call, and that was on top of roaming. If I remember correctly there was also a "termination fee" for ever completed outbound call.
said by en102 :US has a LARGE geographical area covered. Most other countries are the size of a US state, and pay roaming through the nose... in the US - its all bundled. True. Paying extra for roaming within the USA for domestic plans is almost unheard of these days.
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Blagojevich / Madoff 2012! | |
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Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| All this money and still not the best networks.. I could understand if Canada/U.S. consumers pay more for wireless while having the best networks in their respective countries, but foreign countries where it's cheaper tend to have much more advance networks.
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CheckSite.us | YourIP.us | Reverseip.us | |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| Re: All this money and still not the best networks.. said by espaeth :Both the US and Canada have relatively low population density across the massive landmass they need to cover, and you also have the problem of "not in my back yard" zoning restricting the placement of infrastructure. I am not sure how much of a problem this NIMBY stupidity when it comes to cell phone towers is in Canada, but in the USA, I get sick and tired of people complaining about cell phone tower placement. We allow for ugly utility poles to go up and down streets because we need to be able to get electricity, cable TV and conventional phone service from one place to another, what is the big deal about cell towers?
People who are opposed to the placement of cell towers for any reason should be banned from ever having a cell phone.
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Blagojevich / Madoff 2012! | |
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DeathK
Premium
join:2002-06-16
Cincinnati, OH
| Re: All this money and still not the best networks.. said by espaeth :We allow for ugly utility poles to go up and down streets because we need to be able to get electricity, cable TV and conventional phone service from one place to another, what is the big deal about cell towers? People have grown up with all their lives with telephone poles running along roads everywhere. They're used to it. Having a cell tower pop up where there never used to be one is a scary proposition 
Personally I don't give a damn. Give me better service. | |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| Re: All this money and still not the best networks.. said by DeathK :Personally I don't give a damn. Give me better service. No kidding. I'll let any cell company that wants to rent property from me to build a tower do it.
These must be the world's most pathetic people. Who even notices a cell tower?
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Blagojevich / Madoff 2012! | |
| | | | | | | | Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO | Here we go..... when ever our country looks bad compared to the rest of the world and we can't logically justify it lets through out the "we are really big and dispersed" argument that makes it seem like everything is OK here. | |
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DaCheetah
@edu.au
| Re: All this money and still not the best networks.. Agreed, it's a poor excuse.
The US has ~10 times the population density of Australia, and last I checked we (Australians) pay less for SMS messages. (We pay slightly more to send them, but nothing, not a cent, to receive them, unless they are "premium SMS" messages like the $10/month horror-scopes that are a total waste of time and money)
This also doesn't take into account that most people here are on "cap" plans, where as long as you don't go over the "included credit" you only pay about a quarter of the total you "spend", making the ~$0.20 SMS more like 5c (Which would be about 4c US at the moment)
These plans also often have ~150 free SMS messages per month and ~100 hours of free talk time to others on the same network. | |
| | | sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH
| said by espaeth :said by Rob :I could understand if Canada/U.S. consumers pay more for wireless while having the best networks in their respective countries, but foreign countries where it's cheaper tend to have much more advance networks. Both the US and Canada have relatively low population density across the massive landmass they need to cover, and you also have the problem of "not in my back yard" zoning restricting the placement of infrastructure. We all want the best technology available, unless it means there might be something not aesthetically pleasing (be it a VRAD cabinet or cell tower) placed in my neighborhood. Allow me to quote someone whose experience disputes your claims:
Uh, here in central Europe (Austria) I'm paying EUR 19.50 per month for virtually unlimited voice and data (1000min/month and 3GB/month, both of which I can never reach). Something is seriously wrong over there on your side.
Well, actually the big chunk of Austria are thinly populated mountains.
According to the CIA factbook, ~15% of the land is arable (which probably includes also the mountain farmers that are basically surviving on EU subsidies).
Same source: urban population: 67% of total population (2008)
Now all GSM/UMTS licenses include a rule that forces the mobile carriers to offer service to over 90% (not sure about the exact values, they might even vary depending upon the license) of the population, so not offering the mountain population service is not an option.
That's probably more painful to some than others, e.g. 3 (drei.at) has no GSM license, so they have to fulfill their service requirements via UMTS that tend to need more base stations. | |
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nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy
| Re: All this money and still not the best networks.. Also, I don't really recall the SIM card I got for my BlackBerry costing me for out-of-country roaming when I called from outside Germany (e.g., while driving through Belgium or Amsterdam). Granted, it was a few months ago, so I don't have the usage bill in front of me. Maybe it did, I just don't recall precipitous fund drains happening when traveling outside Germany with my German SIM.
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell | |
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Uncle Remus
@shawcable.net | Re: All this money and still not the best networks.. re: Bertrand Russell
How true that is! | |
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Duo Maxwell
What? Stop Looking At Me Like That
join:2003-03-31
Racine, WI
| Oh not that same lame tired ass argument again, how long did it take them to wire up 3G in most of the normal sized cities in the US? the population density can't be that much lower then most small cities around the world, I'll give you back woods Nebraska, but it should take 5 years to cover the decent sized cities. Same thing with their cherry picking of internet speeds. If they can run phone power, water, cable and sewage they can put up a cell tower...
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| | WernerSchutz
join:2009-08-04
Sugar Land, TX
| said by Rob :I could understand if Canada/U.S. consumers pay more for wireless while having the best networks in their respective countries, but foreign countries where it's cheaper tend to have much more advance networks. Same as with Internet access via, say, cable. Poor service/high price. Same politics used to rip off the customer. | |
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jmn1207
Premium
join:2000-07-19
Reston, VA
 ·Verizon FIOS
| How Much For That Phone In The Window? Sure we pay more, but how is it compared when you throw in the price of the phones? We often see higher priced plans because the phone's cost is being subsidized by them.
Also, my plan covers a significant area. A plan that covers most of Europe would have to be considered to be comparable, not just individual countries like the Netherlands. I could probably find a cheaper plan if it only covered an area the size of Maryland.
Yes, Europe tends to have more advanced communications, and their trains rock, but the numbers aren't as far off as it might seem. What about taxes? Have any taxes been added to the cost of these plans? Some of these countries have taken a lot of money from their people to finance the infrastructure. This cost would also have to be included to the overall price being paid for service.
Find me a total percentage of a person's income spent to support their wireless service after everything has been more accurately calculated, and then we might have a comparison that is useful and fair. | |
| | sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH
| Re: How Much For That Phone In The Window? said by jmn1207 :Sure we pay more, but how is it compared when you throw in the price of the phones? We often see higher priced plans because the phone's cost is being subsidized by them. Also, my plan covers a significant area. A plan that covers most of Europe would have to be considered to be comparable, not just individual countries like the Netherlands. I could probably find a cheaper plan if it only covered an area the size of Maryland. Yes, Europe tends to have more advanced communications, and their trains rock, but the numbers aren't as far off as it might seem. What about taxes? Have any taxes been added to the cost of these plans? Some of these countries have taken a lot of money from their people to finance the infrastructure. This cost would also have to be included to the overall price being paid for service. Find me a total percentage of a person's income spent to support their wireless service after everything has been more accurately calculated, and then we might have a comparison that is useful and fair. Umm...remember the $200 billion dollars of tax payer money the ISP incumbents stole over the last decade or so? It didn't just vanish into thin air. They spent most of that money on building out their wireless infrastructure.
So yes, actually, in the US taxpayers have indeed funded most of the infrastructure already.
Let's not forget the huge markups Verizon and AT&T charge on special access lines, completely abusing their duopolistic control over the middle mile.
It is incredibly frustrating to be paying so much to these greedy thugs after paying for the infrastructure. | |
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jmn1207
Premium
join:2000-07-19
Reston, VA
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: How Much For That Phone In The Window? What is $200 billion dollars in a percentage of our total income when compared to others? Face it, our conglomerates are just better at price gouging customers than the European corporations. We win!  | |
| Gardener
Premium
join:2006-10-19
Burnaby, BC
·TELUS
| Try CDN$ 134.40 per year Most of my family is on "pay-and-talk" that costs $11.20 per month, including taxes. $0.25/minute for voice and $0.15/text in or out. Seems reasonable for casual use. I'm in the age group that was brought up to call only when necessary and to keep calls short; my kids pay for their own service.
When I bought the phone, incoming text messages were free, then Telus began charging for incoming texts. Now we find that a short voice call is more cost-effective than exchanging several text messages, so we've adapted our use to the greed of the carrier. | |
| 
yock
TFTC
Premium
join:2000-11-21
Fairfield, OH
| Subsidized? I wonder how subsidized the networks are in the "cheapest" parts of the world. Lower bills are irrelevant if you're making up for it in taxes.
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Have more fun with your GPS.
Geocaching.com | |
| hoyleysox
join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA | Coverage areas The netherlands is a small country relative to the US so I reason it would take fewer cell towers to cover the country.
The US has a lot more rural areas to cover...
Not really sure about sweden. | |
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Duo Maxwell
What? Stop Looking At Me Like That
join:2003-03-31
Racine, WI
| Re: Coverage areas we don't have to and neither do they, they at least put up towers where people actually are, unlike the us where we maybe, just might get around to it 3 years after we claim we cover your small to mid sized city with minimum 500k people in it...
your argument is still a straw man as if the place already has power, water, sewage, road, natural gas, phone cable the whole works then theres no reason internet and cell service should be any harder t put in, in fact it should be even easier to put in as phone and cable lines are there thus fios connections should be at some nodes in the area. Hell cell is about the easiest of these things to install, you only need a few antennas, you don't need to run wiring or pipes to each and every home and business...
so GTFO corporate shill.
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| | | hoyleysox
join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA
·Cox HSI
·Time Warner Cable
| Re: Coverage areas said by Duo Maxwell :we don't have to and neither do they, they at least put up towers where people actually are, unlike the us where we maybe, just might get around to it 3 years after we claim we cover your small to mid sized city with minimum 500k people in it... your argument is still a straw man as if the place already has power, water, sewage, road, natural gas, phone cable the whole works then theres no reason internet and cell service should be any harder t put in, in fact it should be even easier to put in as phone and cable lines are there thus fios connections should be at some nodes in the area. Hell cell is about the easiest of these things to install, you only need a few antennas, you don't need to run wiring or pipes to each and every home and business... so GTFO corporate shill. 
I am not talking about how difficult it is to install a cell tower, I am talking how many you have to put up to cover an area: a lot more in the US than the Netherlands.
Btw: see below for definition of a straw man argument, then reread your post.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Personal attacks with signature vouching for free speech. sheesh. must be a late night. | |
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Duo Maxwell
What? Stop Looking At Me Like That
join:2003-03-31
Racine, WI
| Re: Coverage areas sure because you need to have a 3g capable cell tower everywhere in the us... if your population density for a given area is 1 person per mile fucket, no tower needed, that guy is bear food for all anyone cares, but for any place with a decent amount of people it should cost this much or take this long for them to install a tower. If a place has a population density high enough for all the other utilities and amenities then cell with at least 3g should be installed promptly.
landmass of the Netherlands has nothing to do with it as the install cost is about the same anywhere and everywhere.
You got any more strawmen to set ablaze?
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| | | | | hoyleysox
join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA
·Cox HSI
·Time Warner Cable
| Re: Coverage areas said by Duo Maxwell :sure because you need to have a 3g capable cell tower everywhere in the us... if your population density for a given area is 1 person per mile fucket, no tower needed, that guy is bear food for all anyone cares, but for any place with a decent amount of people it should cost this much or take this long for them to install a tower. If a place has a population density high enough for all the other utilities and amenities then cell with at least 3g should be installed promptly. landmass of the Netherlands has nothing to do with it as the install cost is about the same anywhere and everywhere. You got any more strawmen to set ablaze? Your first paragraph summarizes my point pretty well.
You are correct that the land mass alone is not the issue. I should have elaborated that low population density areas coupled with land mass is the issue that makes costs higher in the US than the Netherlands, thus driving up rates.
I reread my initial post and I still don't see how it constitutes a straw man argument, not that I don't make them. Usually straw man arguments include phrases like "some people say..." I did not try to twist anyone else's argument, my point was my own. I felt like ending with an ad hominem argument but thought it would not show class. | |
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Duo Maxwell
What? Stop Looking At Me Like That
join:2003-03-31
Racine, WI
| Re: Coverage areas because you're still making the assumption that these other countries are putting up a cell tower no matter the population density which with a certainty I can assure you they aren't. Their deployments follow a logical path that you'd expect. You make the assumption that we somehow have to pay 5x as much simply because we have more places to put towers, thats crap because you only need to put the towers where the people are which would mean you won't have tower that aren't making money, the towers in your large cities would end up subsidizing the deployment of the ones in areas that aren't packed like sardines. but you still wont be putting up cell towers in bat country.
So yes, your argument is still a straw man as it still holds no water. The expenses in the US still don't justify those costs, what does? greedy ass execs that need another 15 150k cars and million dollar house every year.
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| | | | | | | hoyleysox
join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA
·Cox HSI
·Time Warner Cable
| Re: Coverage areas said by Duo Maxwell :because you're still making the assumption that these other countries are putting up a cell tower no matter the population density which with a certainty I can assure you they aren't. Their deployments follow a logical path that you'd expect. You make the assumption that we somehow have to pay 5x as much simply because we have more places to put towers, thats crap because you only need to put the towers where the people are which would mean you won't have tower that aren't making money, the towers in your large cities would end up subsidizing the deployment of the ones in areas that aren't packed like sardines. but you still wont be putting up cell towers in bat country. So yes, your argument is still a straw man as it still holds no water. The expenses in the US still don't justify those costs, what does? greedy ass execs that need another 15 150k cars and million dollar house every year. I consider my statement vague since you interpreted it differently than I intended. I could have been more specific about what I meant by "cover the country." What you are pointing out is different from a straw man argument. It could be called a false assumption. It would be a straw man argument for me to suggest that everyone I disagree with makes a straw man argument.
I am going to let this one rest. Talking about greedy people with cars & mansions is not a very sophisticated argument either. | |
| 
djdanska
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Glen Ellyn, IL
clubs:
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·T-Mobile US
·A + Net
·Mediacom
·RCN CABLE
| About right... $635.85 per year? My last month cell bill was higher than that! (Did not help that my brother bought a blackberry 8900.)
With 5 lines, i pay about $3000 a year for just service. I have 5 lines so that is about right. I do have 3 full data plans, a cheap data plan, unlimited messaging, myfaves, m2m, and 1800 monthly minutes. I bet most people don't have that. I can only imagine how much someone on verizon would pay for the same thing.
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The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult. The day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.
Alden Nowlan | |
| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | Re: About right... $3,000/5=$600 per year. You're doing better than avg | |
| axiomatic
join:2006-08-23
Tomball, TX
| Features Then when you throw in all the extra cool network features other countries get that America doesn't the situation looks even more dire for the US.
Come on Wireless company executives... you don't need another vacation home in the Hampton's. Really, you don't! | |
| | |
en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: The only cost effective carrier is.. I thought Boost and MetroPCS were cheaper. | |
| | | |
CheapCell
@comcast.net
| How about a comparision with India and China Prepaid cell phone calls in India are about 2 cents to 4 cents a minute. Text messages are 400 messages for a dollar. Incoming calls and texts are free.
Also the US has a larger area and hence more costs theory is bogus. India has more cell phone towers then the US and has about 450 million cell phone users.
Telecoms in the US have bought (or at best hoodwinked) Congress and squelched such comparisons | |
| | 
C_
Kill The Socialists
Premium
join:2001-03-19
| Re: How about a comparision with India and China said by CheapCell :
Prepaid cell phone calls in India are about 2 cents to 4 cents a minute. Text messages are 400 messages for a dollar. Incoming calls and texts are free.
Also the US has a larger area and hence more costs theory is bogus. India has more cell phone towers then the US and has about 450 million cell phone users.
Telecoms in the US have bought (or at best hoodwinked) Congress and squelched such comparisons
i'll take running water, toilet paper, and a/c over having cheap cell phone minutes 
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"and no matter how drunk you get .. don't lick the wall socket to test polarity..." | |
| | | sam64
join:2006-07-31
Newtown, PA
| Re: How about a comparision with India and China i'll take running water, toilet paper, and a/c over having cheap cell phone minutes
I'd like to add lower crime and less murders, lower cost of living along with the cheaper cell phone costs.
This topic is about cell phone costs so let's talk about that.
Another important thing to note is "calling party pays" just like you have with your land line. People in these countries don't pay to receive calls while here we get shafted both ways. | |
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Duo Maxwell
What? Stop Looking At Me Like That
join:2003-03-31
Racine, WI
| said by C_ :said by CheapCell :
Prepaid cell phone calls in India are about 2 cents to 4 cents a minute. Text messages are 400 messages for a dollar. Incoming calls and texts are free.
Also the US has a larger area and hence more costs theory is bogus. India has more cell phone towers then the US and has about 450 million cell phone users.
Telecoms in the US have bought (or at best hoodwinked) Congress and squelched such comparisons
i'll take running water, toilet paper, and a/c over having cheap cell phone minutes Thats a BS argument and you know it, we have overpriced crap because of people like you that live in a magical fantasy land where if you appease the rich they'll be nice to you. They wont, the rich are rich because they have plenty of marks like you to rip off every day of your pathetic lives.
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| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
·Comcast
·Qwest.net
 ·magicjack.com
·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Only sheeple pay that much for wireless these days If you can stick around their coverage area, a semilocal provider down here (Pocket Communications) offers unlimited talk, text and pix for $25 (plus taxes = around $30) per month.
Page Plus Cellular now offers unlimited talk, text, some web and picture messaging on Verizon's network for $40 per month, straight-up.
Straight Talk offers 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30 MB of data/MMS access for $30.
There's really no reason why 99% of the country should be paying more than $50 for their cell...oh wait, more than 1% are on the iPhone.
As for cellular rates around $11 per month, not gonna happen unless you're on prepaid and only use maybe 100 minutes and a few texts per month. That said, I have one family member whose cell service runs around $6.50 per month (prepaid, doesn't talk much), two family members whose service runs around $20-$25 per month (they talk more, still prepaid) and myself, whose cellular service runs around $42 per month including data, taxes and fees. Plus another $10 for TeleNav, but that gets billed through TeleNav and I can turn it off whenever.
All four phones are either out of contract (mine) or had no contract in the first place. The cell company is making money off of all of us (including me, even though I'll use 1.2 GB of data per month on my phone every once in awhile).
About the Netherlands comparison though, they use phones differently than we do. They're very skewed toward prepaid, whereas we're skewed toward postpaid. They don't use a lot of minutes. We do. They don't have exclusive phones with 2-year contracts that still give you relatively high prices for the phone you want. We do. They have calling-party-pays. We don't. | |
| | delusion ftl
join:2009-07-09
| Re: Only sheeple pay that much for wireless these days I completely agree. There are reasonably priced cell phone plans out there for the majority of the US population but for some reason the average clueless American consumer seems to think they have to buy an expensive toy phone sign a two year lease on it and pay 80-110 dollars a month.
Average American cell phone consumer:
-Lines up to re-buy virtually the same device from Apple every year
-Sign two year contracts like crazy fools often replacing phones every 6 months to a year out of pocket anyways
-Thinks Verizon and ATT are the only carrier choices
-Thinks that Sprint and Tmobile are the low cost options
-Thinks that since most of their friends are on verizon or whatever, they then have to use verizon "to save minutes" even though more cost effective providers like Metro/Cricket/PP/Pocket etc.... have unlimited minutes so it's irrelevant.
- Gets to deal with 100-150 dollar "everything" plans OR gets to deal with overages.
Bottom line is if you live in/near a reasonably sized metro area in America and are paying more than about 50 dollars a month for unlimited talk/text/pix/data/ then you are probably paying too much.
I suppose some of you have hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to blow on cell phones, but seeing vzw and att's combined 150m subscribers shows that the majority are clueless. | |
| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
·Comcast
·Qwest.net
·magicjack.com
·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Only sheeple pay that much for wireless these days Heh, and you can even get unlimited on Verizon for $40 per month now. Grab a KRZR off of eBay for $80 and you're set!
Have a friend who switched from Qwest (Sprint) to Verizon (Qwest) because Qwest doesn't want anyone on Sprint anymore and he knows a lot of folks on Verizon. They're now IN calling/texting for him, but he's on a two-year contract at this point. He could be paying about $40 per month for pretty much the same thing as he's getting for, oh, $60 + taxes and fees now. But he does have that IN calling.
Whereas in my experience, I call a variety of folks who tend not to be on any particular carrier. Even though it seems like most of my town is Sprint here in Fredericksburg, I don't use a lot of M2M minutes because I call landlines, a few Verizon cells, some AT&T, T-Mobile, Pocket, etc.
Of course, with Straight Talk, Page Plus et al in the last few months things have gotten a good bit cheaper, but people are still signing spendy contracts for their iPhones :/ | |
| | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| said by delusion ftl :-Thinks that since most of their friends are on verizon or whatever, they then have to use verizon "to save minutes" even though more cost effective providers like Metro/Cricket/PP/Pocket etc.... have unlimited minutes so it's irrelevant. People are vapid and greedy enough to not have anything to do with people who aren't on "their" network. So if you want affirmation from those people, you have to be on their carrier, and once social circles form these carrier loyalties for M2M, they stay with them, only until a majority of the socialites change to unlimited plans, then we will stop seeing the M2M effect. | |
| | RolandP
join:2009-08-15
New York, NY
| About the Netherlands comparison though, they use phones differently than we do. They're very skewed toward prepaid, whereas we're skewed toward postpaid. They don't use a lot of minutes. We do. They don't have exclusive phones with 2-year contracts that still give you relatively high prices for the phone you want. We do. They have calling-party-pays. We don't. I think this is at the heart of the problem. Like you mentioned, there are really great prepaid offers out there that compare much more favorably, BUT consumers in the States have been herded (read: brainwashed) by the big carriers into the perception that prepaid is somehow more expensive, less desirable or less 'classy' than signing a two-year contract. Even today I see articles on prepaid where it is suggested that prepaid is only a way of getting a phone without a credit check or an option if you just need an emergency phone.
I use a Tracfone myself and spend generally about $20 or $30 every month when in the States. It costs me very little to keep activated over long periods of time when I'm traveling so it suits me fine. Also, I like the fact that I can phone quite a number of countries at local rates.
In any number of other countries the general perception is that getting the fancy phone is not worth the contract. It does lead to consumers changing their providers more often, but it keeps prices low and carriers have to work at customer service and special offers to win (and keep) customers. Here, our carriers use contracts to keep customers 'loyal'.  | |
| bsoft
join:2004-03-28
Boulder, CO
·Comcast
| Calls per year? Calls per year is a pretty bad metric, because it doesn't take into account the length of the calls.
In the US, many (if not most) postpaid plans have "free" night, weekend, and same carrier minutes.
I can talk as long as I want with immediate family without paying, if I call them on their mobile phone.
I regularly have one-hour plus calls. I use over 1200 minutes per month on a "500 minute" plan because of this (plus free nights/weekends).
That would tend to skew the call distribution in the wrong direction. While I probably only make about 1200 calls per year, I use about 15000 minutes per year.
Also consider that roaming is considerably cheaper in the US - specifically, there's pretty much no roaming charges whatsoever. I am not billed extra for using GSM service anywhere in the US, which, I might add, is considerably larger than all of Europe (excluding Russia).
Someone in the UK going to Belgium has to pay extra to make/receive calls. But I can drive 600 miles in any direction without paying roaming (it helps to live in Colorado).
Now, as for low-usage subscribers, the US model sucks. If you like to save money by texting, well, sorry, that's expensive here. And our prepaid plans stink, although they are getting better. | |
| | sonicmerlin
join:2009-05-24
Cleveland, OH
| Re: Calls per year? Um, cell phone plans are cheaper in India and China than in the US. They have pretty large landmasses and happen to be 3rd-world countries.
The landmass argument is retarded. While we have larger amounts of land than most of the countries in the OECD, we also have larger populations, much of which are concentrated in urban environments. | |
| tuminatr
join:2003-03-19
Saint Paul, MN
·Qwest.net
| the countrys we are compaired to are the size of one state yes it costs more people demand free long distance and nationwide roaming if there were cell plans like landlines say $20 per month unlimited but you pay roaming and long distance this would be best for most Americans but people are stupid and they wont ever change | |
| SysOp
join:2001-04-18
Douglasville, GA |  Check out Boost Mobile
Nation wide unlimited voice, web, and mms. No extra fees, all tax is included. | |
| antidelldude
join:2003-12-22
Rochester, MI
| I pay alot, but not as much as some. I pay $280 a month to those thieves at Sprint for unlimited data (5gb...what a scam)/unlimited text/1500minutes/unlimited airave minutes/5 lines/and the complete scam insurance is (they replace my $500 phone with a POS that is more broken then the original, on replacement phone #4 now, getting ready for a lawsuit because this is the second time I had to go through a bunch replacements before they did anything). Being that Verizon quoted me $450 and didn't have the unlimited femtocell option, and ATT is just junk in my area and also quoting in the upper $400's, (Ha, You think I looked at t-mobile?) I feel like $280 is a bargain in our current market, but still way overpriced for the services rendered even if performance is decent. Something will have to change soon, but if the public keeps paying these ridiculous prices and living with the issues crap wireless service causes as if it was a normal trait of a cellphone, we will get nowhere fast. | |
| bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA
| This is just yet another "Woe is the consumer" whine If you don't think a service is worth the price it is offered to you, then don't subscribe.
It is that easy.
BTW, without regard to whether wireless is more or less expensive in Canada, Spain and the United States, there are a lot of things that are. Prices are based on perceived value; and different people in different countries perceive value differently. (One wouldn't think that this was big news. ) | |
| rodlaben
join:2009-08-13
united state
| this looks like a seriously flawed report My two cents:
While I think U.S. operators offer too little flexibility in pricing--for example forcing subscribers to buy large “buckets” of minutes--this OECD report appears to greatly overstate the disparity between the most expensive and least expensive markets.
The biggest flaw is that the report appears to completely ignore the cost of receiving calls in the “caller pays” markets. This is a HUGE omission.
Take for example the high use example in the Netherlands. While it is true that the mobile phone subscriber does not pay for incoming calls, it is not fair to say that these calls are free. There is a real cost to these calls--a cost that should be included to reach an equitable comparison.
I know all of two Dutch words, but I was able to navigate around KPN’s website. On an analog home phone line, calls to mobiles are approx. €0.18 (or $0.26) per minute. The OECD report assumes for high users, 1680 outgoing minutes and 1272 incoming minutes per year (the report isn’t totally clear; I assume this is the difference between total and outgoing). If we assume just half of these minutes are calls placed from a home fixed line to a mobile, the added cost is actually approx. $165 (1272 ÷ 2 x $0.26).
This is just one of the apparent flaws in this report.
Even more basic, just do the math.
The high survey assumes 140 minutes per month, of those 84 are at peak times. In the notes, the report indicates in the Netherlands, fixed costs are $15 per month with NO usage charges. Can someone who knows better Dutch provide a link to a non-prepaid plan (report notes specify high plans are not pre-paid) that costs $15 a month that includes at least 140 minutes--including calls to other mobile networks?
Oh, and don’t get me started on the nickel-and-dime charges on my T-Mobile Germany bill. It’s not all perfect in Europe. Try paying €0.49 to call customer service or €1.50 for an itemized bill--or being stuck in a dead zone with no ability to roam domestically. | |
|
Dylan
@rr.com
| let's lower those cell bills... Karl, nice (albeit depressing) post. I wanted to add that there's no reason we should be overpaying so much for cell phones when there are alternative methods to reducing wireless expenses. I'm not trying to overtly plug here, but I think this is relevant: I work for the consumer advocacy division of the company Validas, where we electronically audit and subsequently reduce the average cell bill by 22 percent through our website, »www.fixmycellbill.com . Put simply, Validas guards against frivolous and unnecessary charges that inflate your cell bill more than it should be for your usage. You can find out for free if fixmycellbill.com can modify your plan to better suit your needs by going to the website. The key thing here is that we can optimize a cell plan, to better suit someone's usage than their current plan. By tinkering with the plan, rather than changing it, you avoid early termination fees and the hassle of switching.
For more info, check out Validas in the national news media, most recently on Fox News at »www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/consum···s_072409 .
Good luck to everyone reading on cutting your wireless costs.
Dylan
Consumer Marketing Manager, FixMyCellBill.com | |
| Infantabella
join:2009-09-10
Miami, FL
| Pre-paid cell phones offer the best value right now. The reason why we are charged more in the US right now is because most consumers think they need to sign a two year contract with a major carrier for service. That's not how the rest of the world operates and it's no longer necessary in the Us either.
I just switched to a pre-paid cell phone called StraighTalk, available at any Walmart, and got unlimited talk and text for $45 a month. I used to spend upwards of $120 monthly for this before!
I researched for best cell phone value and found out that StraighTalk is considered the best network option because it's serviced by Verizon, which means the most reliable, Consumer Report rated, cell phone company in the US.
You can check out their website straightalk.com or walmart.com and figure out that by paying less you'll get more. | |
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