I wish I had a cell phone right now, so I could call my parents and ask for advice on whether I should buy a cell phone. See, I’m at school right now, where internet access is freely available, but phone service is hard to come by. And even if I had long distance available at my home (I don’t) I wouldn’t be able to use it here. So I could really use a cell phone. I spend more than half my time away from home. What if somebody calls me with a job offer? Will I get the message?
Ok. What’s more, there are mobile phone plans available as low as $19.99 a month, while I’m paying nearly $30 for my local phone service. That’s right, $30. While I’m still paying the connection fee, it’s more like $39 a month. It looks like a cell phone would be a cheaper deal all around. But it gets complicated. Ohh it gets complicated.
Internet. Currently I don’t have it. I walk 40 minutes to school to check my email. Xanga suffers because if it. How often have I posted on Xanga in the last four months? You try writing a carefully crafted piece in the library. I just don’t like it. Must have internet
But when you put internet and phone together you get a tangled mess of necessary payments.
The cheapest possible option is to get a local dialup provider ($15) and an answering machine and pay for local phone service ($25). A total of $35. Not so bad. Except that if somebody calls while I’m online, I don’t get the message. And if somebody calls while I’m not home, I don’t get the message. And if somebody wants to send me music online… right.
The internet solution is high-speed DSL through the phone line ($45) or through the TV cable ($45). Except the cable internet option only works if you have cable TV in the first place, and I’m not about to spend $30 a month on TV so I can spend $45 a month on internet. (How to bleed money 101, by Kyle French) So if I want decent internet and phone I start out paying a minimum $75 a month. Yeesh. Will they give me DSL if I don’t have a land-line phone?
Even then, the cheapest cell phone rates ($19.99 a month) guarantee you a whopping 45 anytime minutes. That’s a minute and a half per day. If somebody actually calls me on that thing, I’m sunk. Unlimited evening minutes, evening being defined as 9:00 pm to 5:59 am. The next best deal, comprable to my local residential phone is $29.99 and gives me a whole 250 anytime minutes, or 8-9 minutes a day. One real conversation with my friend and it’s titanic city at 45 cents a minute.
The realistic option (it seems on the surface) is the $39.99 plan, with 500 minutes a month. I don’t make more than 500 minutes of calls in a month. But, with a cell phone only, there’s no way I could have dial up. I would have to have DSL of some kind. $45 a month. Let’s see, that adds up to… $84.99. No big deal. Not like I’m going to have any other major payments in my near future.
And people wonder why I haven’t been posting.
neumatikos 