Wall St. Journal: On saving on phone service and cable
leno...@yahoo.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310097165622001.html
Granted, this article isn't exactly aimed at people who are truly
struggling, but I thought I'd post it anyway.
Lenona.
Rod Speed
Trouble is that it misses the point utterly. The real way to go is viop.
www.Queensbridge.us
We stopped paying for cable TV last September when we got the
Digital Stream DTV box from Radio Shack with the $40.00 government
coupon.
We pay five dollars a month for cell phone
SMS
Meanwhile the wireless carriers keep trying to stop people from pay as
you go data. Verizon no longer offers it on new smart phones, though on
one two year old model you can still pay by the MB.
www.Queensbridge.us
Virgin offers it as an add-on, daily if you wish. And you can cell
phone service for a little as $5.00 a month. Go to www.virginmobileusa.com
Check out Virgin Mobile phones and plans. Buy one of their phones and
activate it. Enter Kickbacks Code number: yQqUHOsQ to get 60 minutes
of bonus airtime after you add money to your account
http://www.virginmobileusa.com
SMS
Sprint has no coverage where I live so I think I'll pass. In any case,
$5/month is very high.
Gordon
@e24g2000vbe.googlegroups.com:
Good point. You have to keep watch on what you pay.
I dropped CATV about a year ago. I got a DTV converter
for Over the Air TV (BTW: There are extra channels).
There is also TV over the internet (Hulu, Joost, etc).
So no real reason to have CATV.
My basic stratagy is to get a big fat internet connection
and stuff everything (TVoIP and VOIP) down that pipe. It
should be cheaper than buying everything separately.
Cel phones are another story. I'm now Month to Month on my
Sprint contract. So I'm looking at other options there too.
m...@privacy.net
>Cel phones are another story. I'm now Month to Month on my
>Sprint contract. So I'm looking at other options there too.
What abt using T Mobile prepaid and then buying a sim
based GSM phone that has wifi built in
That way you can use Skype and wifi to "talk" within
wifi hotspots..... and save the cell minutes for times
nothing else available?
Gordon
An intresting thought. But I am not a chatterbox on the
cell phone. Right now we have a 400 minutes a month plan
and we barely use up half of that. Right now I'm trying to
figure out our usage pattern. It changed when we got fios
installed. with fios for phone service, we get unlimited
nationwide calling. Before, we had to pay for long distance.
Where as we used to make a lot of long distance calls on the
cell (nights and weekends starting at 7:00 free), and no
long distance charges durring the daytime (just regular minutes).
We are now shifting our long distance calling to the land line.
That is eroding much of the justification for the cell.
Right now I'm looking at getting two plans. One for the
"main" cell that will get most of the use. Another for
the "auxillerary" cell that would be used in certian
situations where both my wife and I needed a cell (doesn't
happen very often). For the aux cell, I'm leaning heavily
toward the 7-11 Speakout plan. It has a minimum cost of
$1.25/ month. That's all I would pay if I never use it
that month. Also, its prepaid minutes (even the lowest
refill amount) don't expire for a year. It makes a very
good light use phone.
For the main cell, I'm still evaluating features and
useage patterns. The idea of a wi-fi enabled phone
for internet access is an intresting idea.
dcart...@gmail.com
> for internet access is an intresting idea.
Wifi is great, where it is available. For home users like me,
my options are limited. My city has precisely one metro-
politan-wide wifi provider. Everybody else serves businesses
within very small pockets of the area I live.
-d
Gordon
b7b63e...@v19g2000yqn.googlegroups.com:
I can set up my own wi-fi bubble here at home. After all,
I have Verizon's fiber optic running right to my door.
For raoming around, there are plenty of free hotspots
around town. We have a group here called the Personal
Telco Project that installs free hot spots in some of
the most used "hang out" spots in town.
I'll be evalauating Wi-fi as part of the usage patterns.
m...@privacy.net
>I can set up my own wi-fi bubble here at home. After all,
>I have Verizon's fiber optic running right to my door.
>For raoming around, there are plenty of free hotspots
>around town. We have a group here called the Personal
>Telco Project that installs free hot spots in some of
>the most used "hang out" spots in town.
Interesting! How do they fund this and what technology
is used? Must be something off shelf that is low cost
yes?
>I'll be evalauating Wi-fi as part of the usage patterns.
Me too...... going to buy a wifi enabled cell phone....
but waiting for some Android based phones to come out
that are wifi.
Gary Heston
Gordon <go...@alltomyself.com> wrote:
[ ... ]
>I can set up my own wi-fi bubble here at home.
If you do, be absolutly certain you turn on encryption and
change all the default passwords and keys.
If you don't understand what that means, search for
"securing wifi" or something similar and learn how to do it.
Gary
--
Gary Heston ghe...@hiwaay.net http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
"Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man"
General of the Army (four stars) Ann Dunwoody