Chacham's Journal: Chronicle: Verizon cell phone plans, and land lines.

I use Verizon Wireless for the cell phone, and have been confident about checking my minutes throughout the month, so to switch plans on the last day, having it retroactively make the past month cost less.

So, today being the last day of the month, i called up to change my 800 minute plan to cover the 1038 minutes i've used so far. Well, in Michigan, from mid-June this changed. It is now pro-rated. So, being 238 minutes over @ 40 cents a minute is expensive. Had i known of the change i would have called a week or two ago. Well, the lady on the other side of the phone gave me 200 minutes, after her attempt at 250 failed, and now i'm stuck paying at least $15.20 extra this month.

There are two reasons i use Verizon over Sprint. One is the non-dropped calls. A few people i know on Sprint call for dropped calls. Sprint even does this automatically now. The second reason is the ability to change my bill retroactively. And now that's gone. With the rest of the family on Sprint, my usage minutes would go down quite a bit if i just switched to Sprint and had them call me only from their cell phones.

Well, given the high cost of cable, a phone line and DSL from SBC seems cheaper. I ought to find out the exact prices tomorrow, and get a land line. Then lower the cell phone minutes to the lowest plan. Cell phones are convenient, but an expensive replacement for a land line.