Living Without a Cellphone
wsj.com
Living Without a Cellphone
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Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#2The purposes of the Communications Act of 1934 were "regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide, and worldwide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority theretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the 'Federal Communications Commission', which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act."[1] In other words, it was preventing, or rather, dismantling, a telephone monopoly.
The Communications Act 1996 expanded it to support “a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition..."[2] In other words, it was expanding it to cover more than radio and phones.
I wonder if the cellphone lock-in policies mentioned in the article (e.g. Carlene, who can't afford the early termination fee) are considered anti-competitive, and therefore could potentially fall under the scope of the 1996 Communications Act?
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[1] http://www.criminalgovernment.com/docs/61StatL101/ComAct34.h...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934#cit...
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#31st world problems...
Edit: As a lower-middle-class American, my (budgetary) choice to be without a cell-phone has not impacted my quality of life in any noticeable way. The linked story says nothing more than "life without modern conveniences is relatively inconvenient." How is that illuminating, in any way?
But yeah... my original comment is kinda deserving of downvoting, if I'm honest.
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#41st world problems... Edit: As a lower-middle-class American, my (budgetary) choice to be without a cell-phone has not impacted my quality of life in any noticeable way. The linked story says nothing more than "life without modern conveniences is relatively inconvenient." How is that illuminating, in any way? But yeah... my original comment is kinda deserving of downvoting, if I'm honest.
Anecdotally speaking, cell phones have appeared to be pretty saturated in all the developing countries I've been in.
I bought my current phone for about $55. It's got a quadcore 1.3ghz processor, 512MB of RAM, a decent screen but a mediocre front and back camera. It might have some backdoors in it though, as it's got some software I can't uninstall without rooting.
The plans, minutes, and internet bandwidth in developing countries have been far cheaper than say Verizon's (perhaps no longer available) plan for 1GB of data for $40. The plans range from about $2 for 1GB in some countries to $16 for 1GB plus a chunk of talk and messaging time.
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#5This is the big reason why I switched to T-Mobile. Yes, the coverage is limited outside of urban and suburban areas. I live in a major city so it works for me. My AT&T Wireless bill had crept up to about $280 and that's with one line "grandfathered" onto their smartphone data block. (AT&T started requiring that smartphones have a data package or be blocked entirely from data if the smartphone was already on the account. This one already was so the block was put in place. Six months later, AT&T declined to exempt MMS "data" from the data block, so the user's picture and group messages died. Tech support said I could put a $30 data feature on there to restore MMS.)
Now, for ~90% of the coverage I had with AT&T, I pay $179 and that's with interest-free financing of my wife's new mobile phone. Once that is paid off in a year, the bill drops to $160. That's seven SIMs, or five mobile phones and two data-capable tablets, and now the smartphone user who couldn't have MMS on AT&T has it, just like all five lines have 1GB of high speed data (going over is free, but rate-limited).
If I wanted to go cheaper, there's Cricket Wireless, MetroPCS, Red Pocket Mobile, Harbor Mobile, Page Plus, or any number of MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) and resellers that have popped up in the past year or so. Heck, Cricket could drop my bill to $100, though I'd lose the tablet data. Family plans have never felt so inexpensive.
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#6Article is from 2.5 years ago, during more recessionary economic times, and possibly meant to influence the 2012 election by the focus on economic pain - you might recall the BS 'Obamaphone' meme from that time.
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#7$65 a month?! shit,that's high! For 1GB od full speed internet, and after that unlimited lowspeed, with morze then enough calls, I pay $7.34 in Poland.
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#8$65 a month?! shit,that's high! For 1GB od full speed internet, and after that unlimited lowspeed, with morze then enough calls, I pay $7.34 in Poland.
My GF is with nju (and I'm moving to them soon), for $13 a month she has unlimited calls, texts and 5gb of data. Sweet setup.
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#9I have been paying like $99 for a plan with a bunch of data and minutes I don't use. I changed the plan and its down to I think $60. I should have cancelled and found something cheaper than a regular Verizon contract. Only reason I didn't was because it would take some work to find the right alternative. I know I am still getting screwed though.
Re: Living Without a Cellphone
#10I am tracking my productivity day-by-day. It's generally sloppy, but there were a few outliers where I got done a lot. All these days had one thing in common: I forgot my smartphone at home.