Understandable cell phone service

When I wrote “Junk mail and the fine print”, I neglected to mention my cell phone provider, Consumer Cellular.  It is very upfront about the costs and the usage.  I get to tailor it to what I think I will need in the next month.  Plus, Consumer Cellular gives me a report when I approach a limit.

You can buy a variety of phones from Consumer Cellular, either by phone or in certain chains.  If you want a smartphone, the prices start at $80.  If you want higher end phones, they start at $xxx plus $25/month for so many months.  This is the one place that Consumer Cellular is a bit opaque, but it does give you the added information with a click of your mouse.

The basic service is $10/month plus 25¢/minute.  The next step is $15/month with 200 minutes.

Data starts at 20MB for $2.50 and tops out at 2.5GB for $30.

My plan is for January is $81.39 for 600 minutes of talk, 1GB of data, a wireless home base at our cabin, and $25/month for my iPhone 5s.  The hard part is calculating all the surcharges and taxes; for some reason these vary every month, no matter the provider.  If I had a paid iPhone and didn’t have the home base, my bill would be about $46/month.  Even less if I didn’t use my iPhone for a hotspot when we’re at our cabin.

Oh, yes, Consumer Cellular uses the AT&T network.  At our cabin I can get from 10Mbps to 23Mbps.

Bottom line: Consumer Cellular is a case in what the free market in phone service should be.  The buyers have all the information they need to make a decision.

Offers you can refuse

As I opened my Frontier statement for our cabin phone, I was shown an ad for High-Speed Internet for "$19.99 No Contract, 3-year price guarantee".  The tiny, grey, fuzzy print is "per month with qualifying phone service".  I have yet to find "qualifying phone service" explained in detail.

Fine print on another page states "Limited time offer to new or current Frontier customers who subscribe to a qualifying package of Frontier local service with features, long distance and new High-Speed Internet with speeds up to 6Mbps."

Ah!  When I clicked on "bundles" then I got a list of packages that include high-speed internet.  The minimum bundle is "Digital Phone Essentials" which includes 30 minutes of long-distance per month, caller iD, and call waiting; all features we do not have and do not need.  The price is $47.98; taxes are not mentioned.  Our basic dial-up service is $18.00 including extended area service* and $16 taxes and other charges.  So, we would be paying at least $64/month for internet and phone we use only one or two nights a week.

I think I'll stick with the poky 25kbps dial-up.

But I may have no choice.  Last time I knew, the faster phone cable hadn't been laid as far as our cabin.  Even faster Frontier service is being provided in the area with fiber-optic cable, but it ends about 1-1/2 miles from our cabin.  I assume any extension of that cable will continue on the main paved road and not come down our gravel road.

* Surprisingly, we can make a local call to our house in Duluth that is 46 miles away, but we can't make a call to Two Harbors about 35 miles away.