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Blogs > random1235 > Confessions and Observations

Misadventures in phone shopping  

random1235 48M
156 posts
11/16/2013 7:18 am
Misadventures in phone shopping
Well, the punchline of this story is that cell phone plans are expensive and don't do everything I want.

I've been living without a smartphone for, well, ever. I have a dumb cell phone with TracFone service for the few phone calls I receive. I don't have a landline. I have a three-year-old iPod shuffle whose battery life is starting to decline. I have an eight-year-old Palm PDA that keeps the list of video games that I own, so I avoid buying duplicates when I'm shopping in thrift stores for games I don't own. And I use Clear for my internet access.

I was thinking maybe I could get a new phone and service that would replace all of these things. The big trip-up, which is very carefully hidden by the phone service providers, is that their "unlimited" data plans (for those providers who have one) do not include tethering (attaching another device, like a PC, to the phone for Internet access) or devices connected to the phone's mobile hotspot. They have limits on the data you can download through the phone to other devices in those ways, and many don't even support tethering.

I download and<b> upload </font></b>a lot of data. As I write this, I'm watching the Rams/Colts game via NFL Game Rewind and I'm broadcasting my webcam on Alt and Senior Sizzle. According to the "Ethernet Status" in Windows, I've received 5,055,0000,0000 bytes (that's in the GB range) over the past two and a half hours. That would blow through many of the plans' monthly allotments. Those that could handle that cost multiple hundreds of dollars a day, and I'd still run out of the monthly allotment within a week.

So, I just bought a mediocre smartphone via TracFone. It'll replace my current phone, my Palm, and my iPod, and will give me the ability to go to the Internet for short periods when I really need to, but not for entertainment. I'll stick with Clear for my Internet access for now. I'm just frustrated that I couldn't fold all of these things together.

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