cell phones posts

Ask 10 people the cheapest way to make long distance calls, and you'll get 20 different answers. The field is wide open, with calling cards, cell phone plans, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, and land lines all vying for dominance.

So who's really got the best deal for making long-distance calls? Let's compare them.

After questions from the Federal Communications Commission, Google has lowered its early termination fees for its Nexus One from $350 to $150.

Although Google calls it an "equipment recovery fee" for the phone, customers who want to break their two-year contract will still have to pay an early termination fee of $200 to T-Mobile. The Nexus One costs $179 for those customers who sign up for a two-year plan with T-Mobile or $529 to purchase an "unlocked" phone available for any wireless network.

Aside from asking about how Google decides on fees, the FCC is also asking why customers have to pay fees to both companies.

Google said in a statement that it lowered the fee to benefit customers and that it continues to make no profit off of the Nexus One.

I think $350 to cancel or downgrade service within four months (except the 14-day trial period) is a lot. While around 80,000 units were sold in January, a respectable but not unusual amount ,especially for a new phone, some critics are thinking sales may be affected by the large early termination fees. Perhaps many consumers are preferring something less cutting edge but with a more palatable fee system.<

While the Nexus One has gotten some good reviews and is no doubt a decent gadget, it's by no means the only smartphone out there, and until Google figures out how to make a slightly more economical phone, some consumers will be scared off by its high cancellation fees. However, it's too bad a company like Google, founded on the principles of being a decent rather than evil corporation, needed the FCC to step in before it considered revising its fee structure.

Assurance Wireless announced today that it is cutting its per-minute calling option in half in a program aimed at giving poor people cellphones.

Call it a coincidence, but the move comes less than a week after WalletPop pointed out that after the 200 free monthly minutes are used, customers can buy more airtime at 20 cents a minute -- double what the company's sister program, Boost Mobile, was offering at 10 cents a minute.

Its text messages, however, remain extraordinarily high at 15 cents, making messaging more costly than a domestic phone call. Most prepaid plans charge less for texting. Whatever. At least the calling rate drops.

Update: Assurance Wireless announced on Feb. 3 that it is lowering per minute charges for calls to 10 cents a minute.

Assurance Wireless is offering a cellphone and 200 minutes of calls for free to low-income people -- a noble goal but one that could prove costly if the users stick with the free phone service and buy more minutes after they've used up their 200 free minutes in a month.

The program, which started in December, offers the free prepaid service for people who have incomes 135% below the federal poverty rate -- $14,621 per year for a single person and $29,768 for a family of four, for example -- in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virgina.

If household income isn't that far below the poverty level, people can also qualify by receiving government assistance such as Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, Section 8 housing, the National School Lunch Program's Free Lunch Program, and other government programs.

All this blogosphere chatter about a cell phone powered by soda got us thinking: Genius or Mountain Dew-addled nonsense?

So WalletPop contacted a real scientist to break it down for us. His response in a minute.

First, the origins of this story. An item has been circulating about one Daizi Zheng developing a cell phone for Nokia that runs on soft drinks. It will supposedly be better for the environment. The charge will supposedly last four times longer than a regular lithium battery. And it can save you money.

So went the claims on Zheng's Web site, picked up by many online and print outlets. The so-called bio battery, Zheng explained, generates electricity from the sugar with enzymes as the catalyst. "It only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out," Zheng wrote.

I like control, especially when it comes to my money and my cell phone service. I just learned about a cell phone company that puts you totally in control of your usage and spending. The company is called Pure TalkUSA and they operate on the GSM network, just like AT&T and T-Mobile.

The way it works is you pay Pure TalkUSA $10 for 101 minutes. If you want to buy another $10-pack of 101 minutes, you can do so online or over the phone. The minutes include local and long distance calls. If you use all your minutes, you cannot receive or make calls, so there are no overage charges. I repeat, there are no overage charges.

Domestic and international texts are 5 cents each, or two texts equal one minute of usage. That's a lot less than I pay for my texts.

You can also sign up for a flex plan that lets you set a dollar limit for your total monthly usage. Pure TalkUSA will charge your credit or debit card in $10 allotments as you use your minutes up to your limit. This eliminates the need to manually buy another $10-pack of 101 minutes. Unused minutes rolls over and never expire.

Hey, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and others: Dan Borislow, the man behind the magicJack thingy that will make cell phone calls free and perhaps cut into your profits, wants to offer you an olive branch. He said he has nothing against cell phone companies. In fact, he thinks you'll all be sharing the same water cooler someday.

"I envision that we'll be partners with a number of those carriers," he said to WalletPop on Friday. "I actually think it's a value proposition for their users."

Borislow introduced the new version of magicJack at the International Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas. His phone -- we presume it's linked to a magicJack -- is ringing off the hook. Besides potential repeat customers in the millions who bought the original magicJack for landlines, he's getting plenty of coverage from mainstream media for the cellphone-compatible model.

About 15% of children 12 to 17 say they have received sexually suggestive images, or sexts, on their cell phone, while only 4% admitted to sending images of themselves, accord to The Pew Research Center/Pew Internet & American Life Project, which released results of a study called "Teens and Sexting."

The study found that by age 17, about 30% have received nude or nearly nude images on their phone.

The study also found that teens feel less comfortable sending or receiving sexually suggestive images if they're not footing the bill. Teens whose parents pay for their cell phone were five times less likely to send sexts (3%) than teens who pay their own bill (17%.) That's good and bad news for parents, but since about 70% of teens' cell phones are paid by someone else, it's probably the most effective deterrent.

According to research, teens said that there were three reasons for sexting: sending images between a dating couple, images shared with others outside the relationship and where two people aren't in a relationship but at least one person hopes to be.

Leaving your wireless carrier can be an expensive undertaking, and starting Nov. 15 it's about to get more expensive for users of smartphones like the Motorola Droid, Blackberry Storm 2 and other "advanced devices" on the Verizon Wireless network.

While employees have been ordered not to talk to customers about the change, starting on Nov. 15, the Early Termination Fee (ETF) for these devices will increase from $175 to $350. According to a leaked document the higher ETF, "fairly reflects the higher costs associated with offering feature rich advanced devices to customers at attractive prices."

At a recent holiday product preview in New York, representatives from Best Buy showcased the chain's biggest and brightest Christmas toys.

Unfortunately, I am legally restricted from discussing some of the more exciting new gizmos (here's a hint: have you ever wanted to talk to your cat?), but I can gladly report that there are new computers and televisions aplenty, and that some of this year's consumer electronics will blow your mind.

However, one of my favorite new toys isn't even being offered in most Best Buy stores. Coveroo, a San Francisco-based company, has developed a system that enables users to pick an image and laser-etch it on their cell phone faceplates, all in less time than it takes to get a latte from Starbucks.

This fall, it will be offering the service in four Best Buy outlets: Virginia's Fair Oaks Mall, Minnesota's Mall of America, Illinois' Woodfield Mall, and West Hollywood, California.

On Monday, I went on the Doug Stephan Show to express my outrage over a new plan by the IRS to start taxing employer-provided cell phones as a fringe benefit. Doug and I enjoyed a fun session of venting about greedy bureaucrats, and I explained why the idea made no sense in a post on WalletPOP.

Now the IRS and the Treasury Department have reversed course a week after the initial announcement, and are instead asking to repeal the widely-ignored law that requires employer-provided cell phone minutes used for personal calls to be taxed.

"The current law, which has been on the books for many years, is burdensome, poorly understood by taxpayers, and difficult for the IRS to administer consistently," IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said in a statement. "The passage of time, advances in technology, and the nature of communication in the modern workplace have rendered this law obsolete."

FierceWireless reports that the Internal Revenue Service is mulling a plan to tax employer-provided cell phones as a fringe benefit.

"The IRS is proposing that employers declare 25 percent of an employee's annual cell phone expenses as a taxable benefit," the site reports. "However, the tax collector said employees could avoid being taxed under the proposal if they were able to prove they used personal cellphones for non-work-related calls during work hours."

Holy crap. What a waste of time.

According to JD Power & Associates, the average monthly cell phone bill is $73. Twenty-five percent of that is $18.25. Multiply that by 12 months per year and you get $219 in annual fringe benefits from the use of a cell phone. For someone earning between $33,950 and $82,250, we're talking about an additional annual tax liability of $54.75.

And to collect that extra money, we're going to require employers and employees to do tons of extra paperwork, keep track of annual cell phone bills and what percent of calls are personal and which are work.

If you call a client who's also a friend and talk partly about business and partly about family, how does that break out? You could just divide it in half, but what if some of the small talk is necessary for keeping a good client relationship? So perhaps is 75% work and 25% personal? It's all very complicated.

Isn't the tax code already complicated enough? With all the cash being stuffed into companies like AIG to allow them to go on spa retreats, isn't it a little lame to start hounding the little guy over his cell phone use? It's especially stupid because we're talking about such a small amount of revenue.

Back when I was young and stupid enough to rack up credit card bills that I couldn't afford to pay off every month, I dreaded getting the credit card bill in the mail. Sometimes I wouldn't open it for days, thinking it would go away if I didn't look at it.

Now, Discover Card is offering its customers the chance to get a bill due reminder on their mobile phones, bringing the unavoidable news that their credit card statements are ready to be looked over immediately instead of having to wait until they get home.

As if getting bills in the mail wasn't bad enough, now a text message on your cell phone to pay up will make the unique combination of anticipation and dread of waiting for the bill-delivering mailman a thing of the past.

I'll know before he gets to my door that the payment that I can't afford is due. Yippee. Thanks, Discover.

This has to happen a lot more than we know: A British guy in South London was mugged last week by a gang of youths on bikes. The thieves took his wallet, but when he handed over his cell phone, they took one look at it and gave it back.

"They told me: 'we can't do anything with that.' It is just one of these cheap jobs," said the victim.

The phone in question was the Sagem MY220X, a no-frills, bottom-of-the-line candybar model available in Europe that lacks even a camera. The victim paid about 3% of the cost of a new 3G iPhone for it.

It underscores a piece of travel advice I've been giving for years: If you don't want to be ripped off, dress way, way down. Look like a slob, with ripped clothing and old shoes. Carry crappy stuff. Thieves tend to be snobs, and they only want what has market value, so if you dress yourself at the low end of the market, you'll have better luck.

The theory generally carries over to car theft as well. The most-stolen car in America, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute, is the Cadillac Escalade ESV, a luxury SUV. Among the least? The Buick Rainier and the Subaru Forester.

You've got to be in the grip of abject fear to let the threat of crime dictate your purchases, but you have to admit there can be an unexpected benefit to economy.

Every month I get my cell phone bill I feel a sharp pang of panic. What hidden fees are inside this time? But I can't begin to comprehend how Gregg Christoffersen felt when he opened up his monthly statement and saw that his 13-year old daughter had racked up $4,756.25 in a month. "It just hit us like a rock, like you're stepping into a bus," the Cheyenne, Wyoming dad told 9News.com.

Dena Christoffersen sent and received about 20,000 texts in one month. Their family's Verizon contract did not include a texting plan, meaning they were charged for every single text. Dena's parents thought texting had been disabled on their plan. Meanwhile she was launching over 300 texts every day, mostly at school.