mtcodex

When I was in the states last time, I got a Cingular sim card on their most basic pay & go plan and loaded it with $30. One, inbound one hour call later and that was down to less than $10. Once I got below $4, whenever I tried to dial a number instead of letting me dial a number, it gave me some automated message saying my balance was low. Apparently I could press a number to continue anyway, except it didn’t work. In short, my experience with Cingular, outside of a contract plan, was dire. In fact I vowed not to use them when I move to the States.

As cool a device as the iPhone looks, that isn’t going to change my mind. I could get one, for what seems to be around the full price of the device, plus a two year contract with Cingular. Hello? Two years. I wouldn’t sign up to any service for two years! I might pay another $200 on the device for one year, but $600-$800 plus a two year lock is just a joke.

To be fair, I get the impression that most cell phone providers in the States are just as bad, I’m guessing this comes down to a lack of regulation. Here in the UK, unless the call originates outside the country (and this may be about to change soon too), you will not be charged for receiving a call. Even on the lowliest pay & go plan, you will not be charged for receiving a phone call. Can you Americans imagine that? Even on the lowliest pay & go plan, you probably won’t pay more than 35p (about 70¢) per minute to call a mobile phone on another network at peak time. Quite expensive, true, but it is cheaper for same network or landlines. You can get a fairly decent contract with any service provider for just one year, and then you’ll probably be entitled to an upgrade too.

The only things that might sway me are either if it goes on another carrier, can be bought without a contract, or maybe just possibly if it supports Skype. Then, instead of being ripped off I could call across countries whenever I was at home or the office from my iPhone via Skype. Now that would be nice! However, as a consumer, exercising my right, Cingular et als schemes of providing horrific pay & go schemes in an attempt to lock people in to a two year contract isn’t for me.