I don’t know if I’ll make a habit of posting "think out loud" articles, but I think my decision-making process for the following scenario may be beneficial for those of you in the same boat regarding your mobile phone service. Please share any advice or additional questions in the comments. I would love to hear what you have to say.
A few posts back I discussed the setup for my "office" phone. It’s a great setup and I have no complaints. However, in addition to the office phone line I also have a mobile phone (as I assume all of you do as well). Here’s the scoop…
I originally signed up for the plan I’m on in November 2007. The original carrier was Unicel, and they have since been purchased by Verizon so I am now officially a Verizon customer. The plan I use gives me 600 anytime minutes, free incoming calls, free incoming texts, and all the usual night/weekend stuff. Plus my wife has a 2nd phone on the contract. This deal costs us $59.99/month. It works out great because I rarely call out but get a lot of incoming calls.
However, now that Verizon is our provider, our original Unicel phones lose their charge much quicker because we are both on "roam" at all times. Verizon has offered us the chance to upgrade our phones with a new 2-year agreement but there’s a catch with that too: We can’t keep the plan we’re on. So instead of our current plan, we’d have to go to a $69.99/month plan for 700 minutes, incoming calls are NOT free, incoming texts NOT free ($5/month/phone for 250 texts each), and all that fun stuff. Also, neither one of us are "texters". I simply use text alerts from Google Calendar to remind me about meetings, birthdays, etc.
I really don’t mind Verizon at all. In fact, I think they’ve got the best network out there. And normally I’d just find a decent phone I like and just take the hit and go with the plan that will cost us an extra $20/month for essentially the same service we already have.
One problem is that I’m also in the market for a decent pocket HD video camera. I’d like to have something such as a Flip or Sony Webbie that I could have with me at all times in case something came up that could be useful on AnywhereMan or any of my other sites. If I can find a phone that offers HD or near-HD video recording with 16:9 ratio, I’d totally go with that.
The other problem is that I’d like a Wi-fi enabled phone so I can access web and email. I do NOT want to pay an extra $30/month for web access on my phone since I am around Wi-fi networks 99.9% of the time. Verizon DOES offer Wi-fi enabled phones such as the Samsung Omnia, but the catch is you have to have the $30/month web access feature in order to use this phone.
I’ve looked into AT&T as a possible option for an alternate carrier, and the iPhone itself is Wi-fi enabled. But, again, they lock you into a $30/month web access charge in addition to the fees you’ll already be paying for your minutes. You cannot get out of this as long as you use the iPhone on their netword. Not an affordable option for me right now, plus I haven’t heard consistent reviews on AT&T’s actual service. Like I said, Verizon has been great both in customer service and network performance.
The other options in my region are Sprint and T-Mobile. Both seem to have similar rate plans. T-Mobile’s actual phone plans are cheaper, but they tack on an extra fee just for Wi-fi (not mobile web) access. And since I had T-Mobile at one point when we lived in St. Paul and had issues, I have doubts over how well their service could perform here in the north woods of Minnesota.
So essentially I’m looking for a decent plan and a phone that has Wi-fi and HD video recording. I don’t know if this even exists, but if I just go with a basic plan and basic phone, I’ll essentially need to carry my phone, my newly purchased Flip or Webbie, and my iPod Touch for Wi-fi at all times. This doesn’t make sense: carry three devices to do something that a single device should be able to do? There should be a device that offers all three of these things, and I should be paying for the DEVICE and not locked into some ridiculous and over-inflated plan where I pay an extra $30/month for a feature like mobile web which I’ll never use.
I feel like the iPhone 3GS is close, but being locked into that extra rate and paying $200 for the phone doesn’t work for me. I’d be paying an extra $560 in the first year to make that happen. This is money that could be spent on much more useful things, like groceries or taking my kids to the zoo. 
So, what advice would you have for me? What are you using for your mobile phone these days? Should I just resolve to carry THREE devices at once?
Also, doesn’t it seem backwards that I was able to get a great rate plan from the "little guy" (Unicel), but when they get bought out by a much larger corporation (Verizon), the deals get worse?
