RPF_0004_-_How_to_Save_Huge_Money_on_Your_Cell_Phone_Bill_-_An_Interview_with_I.P._Daley_the_Tech

00:00:00.000 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Joshua Sheets. I don't remember

00:00:07.480 | what episode today is so we'll just wing that and if you care too much about what episode

00:00:11.960 | it is, go to the blog and figure out what number is at the top of this. Today I am excited

00:00:17.560 | to do our first interview that's going to be going up on the podcast. I'm going to be

00:00:23.240 | interviewing somebody who is one of my favorite online forum participants. I first found him

00:00:30.720 | over in the Mr. Money Mustache forums. He goes under the screen name IPDaily, real name

00:00:38.180 | Will McClendon, and reached out to Will to interview him regarding how to save money

00:00:43.280 | on your cell phone bill. Interestingly, I think one of the things that I think about

00:00:48.720 | in our current culture, one of the expenses that we have, most people, that's different

00:00:56.040 | than 10 years ago, one of the few expenses that's higher than 10 years ago is the amount

00:01:00.320 | of money that we spend on our mobile devices. It's absolutely huge. If we could figure out

00:01:06.040 | how to get all of the same usage and convenience and features but do it for a lot cheaper,

00:01:10.920 | that would be a really good place to start. With that, Mr. IPDaily/Will, welcome to the

00:01:17.120 | Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

00:01:19.000 | Great to be here, Joshua. Hello, greater endocrines.

00:01:24.560 | You are the author of the world famous super guide to all things cell phone, VoIP, and

00:01:36.120 | communications guide over on the Mr. Money Mustache. Why did you ever start writing that

00:01:40.440 | thing?

00:01:41.440 | I wound up coming out of several years worth of research and experience on the subject.

00:01:49.000 | After seeing Dahlink's article or thread that they'd posted, I realized there's so much

00:01:58.520 | information out there that really needs to be condensed down and presented in a concise

00:02:05.440 | format. That's what brought about the super guide and ultimately the online resource,

00:02:14.160 | their technical meshugganah.

00:02:15.160 | I forgot to mention, yes, you blog over at techmeshugganah.com.

00:02:20.680 | Correct.

00:02:22.800 | Any other online presence that you want to tell us about?

00:02:26.840 | Not here.

00:02:27.840 | Fair enough. Good call. Let's get people's attention, hopefully, because our goal today,

00:02:37.840 | if we succeed in this interview, our goal today is to provide, I don't know, maybe this

00:02:43.600 | will be an hour's audio that at the end of it is going to help people save tons and tons

00:02:49.600 | of money on their cell phone bills and on their communications bills. Let's get a little

00:02:54.080 | teaser here. Why don't you go first? Walk us through what you spend every month, what

00:02:59.520 | you used to spend every month, and just a quick overview of the features and things

00:03:06.240 | that you have now and the price that you're paying. Then I'll go after you do.

00:03:10.360 | Right now, we're spending on average about $70 a month for two cell phones, home phone,

00:03:18.600 | business line, internet connection, and entertainment.

00:03:21.840 | Nice. The average cost in America is probably ...

00:03:26.440 | About $250 for the same thing.

00:03:30.320 | That would probably sound about right. This is going to be good. I'll tell you my story

00:03:35.280 | too. I used to spend, even just with AT&T back in the day, my wife and I used to spend

00:03:42.760 | $230 a month for unlimited everything plans, talk, text, data, two iPhones and an iPad.

00:03:51.200 | Then plus all the rest of it, we've gotten it down in our household. We've gotten it

00:03:56.200 | down to $10 a month for my iPhone, $10 a month for her iPhone, $15 a month for Comcast internet,

00:04:03.640 | and that is it. We do the TV stuff over there. I think I've got you beat, but I'm about to

00:04:08.520 | add a VoIP phone, so that's going to go up probably a couple bucks a month. I'm edging

00:04:17.280 | up, but that's all right. I got the room. Under $40 a month for the two of us.

00:04:21.080 | Considering the fact that you got lucky and only have to pay $15 a month with Comcast,

00:04:25.880 | it's just absolutely phenomenal. I'd like to know how you pulled that off, honestly.

00:04:30.120 | I'll tell you. It's actually a story. We moved into the house that we lived in about seven

00:04:36.880 | months ago. At that point in time, I was shopping for internet. I started going around and trying

00:04:43.440 | to see. I actually jumped off of your super guide over to the ... I think you recommended

00:04:48.080 | in there Broadband Reports, right? I jumped over to Broadband Reports, and I was trying

00:04:52.960 | to find what I could find. I didn't find any useful data for my area, which is Palm Beach

00:04:59.880 | Gardens, Florida, West Palm Beach, Florida, off of Broadband Reports or anything there.

00:05:04.560 | I tried following all the links, didn't find anything. I just said, "Well, let's see who's

00:05:08.680 | here," and it's Comcast and it's AT&T, U-verse.

00:05:13.360 | What a duopoly to choose from.

00:05:15.360 | Yeah, wonderful. Here was the deal. As I went online, the best deal was just right listed

00:05:20.360 | on the front of Comcast's website. They were offering me something for $14.99. I was shopping

00:05:28.440 | around, and the best deal at that time that I could find was U-verse was offering something

00:05:32.520 | for $22 or $23.99. I called Comcast. I said, "Hey, I want this deal." The rep said, "Oh,

00:05:38.840 | that deal's not available in your area." I said, "I just saw it on the website." What

00:05:42.720 | do you mean? I put in my address and everything. He said, "No, it's not available." I said,

00:05:48.080 | "Well, fine. I got to go back and shop at all." I called back five minutes later, speak

00:05:53.560 | to a different rep, and I say, "Hey, I'd like this $14.99 deal." They said, "Okay, no problem."

00:05:59.160 | They gave it to me right over the phone. Five minutes later, the deal that wasn't available

00:06:03.280 | five minutes previously was now magically available with a different rep at $14.99 a

00:06:08.480 | month for Comcast.

00:06:09.480 | Is that a fixed thing or just for a year?

00:06:14.440 | I'm not sure. If it's a year, that's fine. I'm fine with it. I'll shop again. I actually

00:06:20.200 | just got a letter in the mail, a flyer last week from U-verse offering it to me for $15,

00:06:25.480 | same price basically. They must be trying to match Comcast. I asked the rep. I said,

00:06:30.000 | "Does this expire after a year? Is this an intro contract?" They assured me on the phone

00:06:34.600 | that no, this was a long-term rate.

00:06:38.480 | Wow. Score.

00:06:39.480 | I don't really believe it because I think in another six months, I'm probably going

00:06:44.480 | to jump up and I'll have to call and we'll play that whole game. But for now, it's working

00:06:49.240 | well. Thanks to you, that was a really cheap rate on the three, I think it had three megabits

00:06:57.200 | per second. Based on your guide, I decided, "Well, that's enough," is the three megabits

00:07:03.080 | per second. But they were trying to push me up to the faster connection.

00:07:06.480 | Of course they were.

00:07:07.480 | I was not.

00:07:08.480 | You saved me lots of money already. So thank you.

00:07:12.480 | Excellent. I got to admit, yes, I'm spending about 70 bucks a month. You technically got

00:07:19.160 | me beat right now, but we're not under any contracts. This is the regular rate that we're

00:07:26.960 | paying. I'm one of those people. I'm not a big fan of doing the monkey dance, trying

00:07:34.160 | to fight for an hour or two, get the bill back down a lot. Just the fact that what we're

00:07:40.360 | spending today is less than what we used to just spend with AT&T alone for our cell phone

00:07:45.640 | service, that's plenty enough for me. Why do I need to really push that much further

00:07:51.920 | down?

00:07:52.920 | Yes, absolutely. I'm with you. So let's see. Let's start with what is going on in the world

00:07:58.320 | of cell phones and build the foundation for us. So if we're going to provide a useful

00:08:04.880 | guide to people, what are the basic building blocks that each person needs to look at to

00:08:10.960 | figure out what would be right for their situation?

00:08:15.400 | If we're going to talk about recent news in the cell phone industry, we should probably

00:08:21.320 | hit on some of the recent news here lately coming out of T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon.

00:08:30.160 | This whole jump program where they're trying to get people to pay more money to be able

00:08:39.160 | to continue to upgrade their devices every few months.

00:08:42.320 | Really? I haven't heard of that.

00:08:45.400 | This is actually just like the past week or so that this has really started to come up.

00:08:52.120 | It was on the heel of T-Mobile's supposed announcement of doing away with contracts

00:08:58.040 | and early termination fees, which let's be honest here. You're spending $70 a month with

00:09:05.960 | T-Mobile before they do away with their contracts. When you were paying that $70 a month, you

00:09:15.920 | had a two-year contract where you had to pay for the phone and they wouldn't carry or unlock

00:09:21.840 | the phone for you until you finished that two-year contract. You couldn't go anywhere

00:09:26.920 | else or reduce your plan any.

00:09:30.140 | Now they offer you, say, a $60 a month plan where you're spending another $10 a month

00:09:38.440 | on a cell phone that you cannot carry or unlock for two years until it's paid off and you

00:09:45.320 | can't take your business elsewhere until you pay off the rest of the phone. Is it just

00:09:50.840 | me or does that sound like the exact same deal?

00:09:54.080 | Exactly.

00:09:55.080 | On the heels of this announcement, well, if you want to call a few months heels, they

00:10:02.120 | wound up introducing the new Jump program to introduce another layer of contract to

00:10:08.480 | bleed customers for another $10 a month. The reason why they are doing this is the reality

00:10:15.920 | of the American cell phone market is we're at market saturation. We have 110% market

00:10:24.840 | penetration in this country with cell phone usage.

00:10:27.600 | Wow. Interesting.

00:10:29.040 | Yeah. And it's still growing. And it's partly because of this. It's the tablet movement.

00:10:36.800 | You have no idea how many people wind up owning two devices. It's insane. It really is. And

00:10:45.840 | they're getting desperate. And they're trying to find ways to continue to bleed the customer

00:10:52.280 | for as much money as possible. And this has been the latest fad. Instead of actually giving

00:11:01.600 | people reasonable rates and allowing them the freedom to choose not because they've

00:11:12.240 | become an indentured slave to the cell phone carrier, but because the cell phone carrier

00:11:18.080 | is actually providing a good enough service to keep them.

00:11:21.560 | Okay. Go ahead.

00:11:24.880 | It's the complete opposite of what you'd expect in a free market capitalist society, let's

00:11:30.880 | be honest.

00:11:31.880 | I hear you, but I'm going to disagree with you a little bit because here's why. Wouldn't

00:11:37.960 | you say that it's just my impression is that the big four are going that direction, but

00:11:48.120 | there are lots and lots and lots and lots more choices coming out, especially if you're

00:11:51.440 | willing to switch over to the prepaid world. And so now that's our job basically is to

00:11:57.560 | get the information out there, right?

00:12:00.080 | Yeah. But the thing is, ultimately we're still primarily dealing with the same big four carriers

00:12:07.720 | even though we're going through a third party that's buying in bulk. And this is not what

00:12:19.840 | you would consider straight up free market capitalism because if that were the case,

00:12:26.200 | we'd be operating not based on contracts and trying to get as much money out of the customer

00:12:34.440 | as possible, but actually offering an affordable service upfront to begin with and such a good

00:12:41.200 | service that you're willing to stay without a contract.

00:12:44.280 | Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. All right. So let's start with, we're working off an outline

00:12:50.640 | here. Let's start with some myths that we've got listed here. Myth number one, prepaid

00:12:54.960 | versus postpaid.

00:12:55.960 | Well, that kind of goes into the insanity here within this country with cell phone usage.

00:13:03.720 | So many people here are conditioned to think that we need to be postpaid with our cell

00:13:09.760 | phone service because prepaid is for poor people and for criminals.

00:13:16.320 | Who need the throwaway phone that Jason Bourne buys in the train station in England.

00:13:24.280 | Yeah. But the reality is that the United States and Canada is an aberration in the cell phone

00:13:33.080 | market. Europe and Asia alone are about 70% prepaid customers. Are you going to tell me

00:13:40.960 | that 70% of European cell phone buyers are poor and criminals? And I mean, India and

00:13:50.080 | Africa are over 95% prepaid. I want to say the global average of the roughly 6 billion

00:13:58.840 | cell phones working and operational in the world. I want to put it somewhere like 85,

00:14:06.440 | 90% are prepaid. So clearly prepaid in this country has just gotten a bum rap from the

00:14:19.520 | burner phones that you get down at Walmart. You know, your track phones, your net 10 and

00:14:26.680 | the like. So, but the reality is that most of the world pays for what they get and not

00:14:36.760 | get billed for what they use. $3,000 for traveling to Europe with your phone that you left the

00:14:43.760 | data on. Exactly. They're not going into contracts. They're not subsidizing their cell phone purchases.

00:14:52.080 | They're paying for the phones upfront for their actual value and they are paying for

00:14:58.480 | what they use, plain and simple. And there's nothing wrong with that.

00:15:03.640 | Yeah. And I'm with you. I think prepaid seems like it was back when cell phones were coming

00:15:13.960 | out of the bricks on your hip or the car phone type of era. It seemed like prepaid was an

00:15:18.840 | option. But it seems to me as a young guy that they seemed to only ever work for the,

00:15:25.280 | like you said, the burner phone at Walmart. And so when you say, I want a nice device,

00:15:28.640 | I want a fun device, I want something that does more for me, you don't usually traditionally

00:15:33.880 | think of prepaid. Exactly.

00:15:36.440 | But with my $10 a month, that's a prepaid plan and I love it. So next myth, unlimited

00:15:41.920 | anything. Well, let's face it. Nobody needs unlimited

00:15:45.200 | anything. I've lost track of how many people I've talked to who say they need like unlimited

00:15:53.440 | text. And then I ask them, well, how many text messages are you sending a month? And

00:15:58.520 | they're, oh, 500, 600. And it's like, you're kidding me, right? On most prepaid plans,

00:16:06.840 | some of the cheapest text rates out there are like two cents a text message. That 500

00:16:12.840 | messages is 10 bucks. And you're telling me that you need to, you're not calling anyone,

00:16:20.800 | you're not using any data, but you need to send like five, 600 messages a month. So that's

00:16:27.040 | why you're justifying spending something like 55, $60 a month on your cell phone service.

00:16:33.840 | Exactly. And that applies to minutes, minutes, data,

00:16:41.960 | messages, anything. I mean, you don't need unlimited anything. And everything is finite.

00:16:51.680 | We're not talking about, you know, we're not talking about infinite minutes here. There's

00:16:58.680 | only so many hours a day that you can be awake and using this stuff. So be aware of what

00:17:06.600 | you're actually using. And odds are you're not using near as much as you think you are.

00:17:12.760 | Daily. Here's one important point though, is you are right for adults. But from what

00:17:18.800 | I read about 13 year old girls, the number of texts they can use, they might actually

00:17:23.960 | need unlimited texting, right? Don't get me started on teenage girls and

00:17:28.920 | texting that will just derail the entire thing. All right, next data.

00:17:35.920 | Well, data, basically you don't really need as much data as you think. If you're using

00:17:42.080 | your phone as an actual honest to goodness, portable emergency communications device,

00:17:48.320 | that means you're going to be using email, SMS text alternatives, maybe a little bit

00:17:54.720 | of GPS data or something like that. And very, very light web browsing to look up resources

00:18:03.200 | or whatnot. That's nowhere near as much data as you think it is. I mean, you could easily,

00:18:09.800 | you know, with the right phone and cutting out any streaming anything like streaming

00:18:18.200 | media or heavy, heavy GPS usage, you really don't need much data. I mean, we're talking

00:18:29.400 | about with some SMS text replacement applications like Kik and XMS, we're talking close to like

00:18:38.160 | a thousand SMS sized equivalent text messages and one megabyte of data.

00:18:46.800 | Wow. Well, the data thing is interesting and it ties in with what you just said, unlimited

00:18:54.400 | anything. Because the thing that frustrated me, what finally got me, and here this AT&T

00:18:59.800 | if you're listening, what finally got me, I think I was an AT&T customer for at least

00:19:05.240 | a decade, probably more than a decade. What finally got me was for years I paid for an

00:19:11.560 | unlimited data plan. And because it was, you know, the original data plan, I was grandfathered

00:19:17.200 | in and I couldn't get it. And I enjoyed using data. There would be all the data from the

00:19:21.320 | applications that, you know, just the normal apps that I would use. But then I also would,

00:19:26.320 | I love streaming. You know, the reason I do a podcast is because I love streaming audio.

00:19:32.120 | I would, you know, stream hours of video off of YouTube. So I was a heavy data user. I

00:19:38.000 | think my record was something like five or six gigs one month. But anytime I would get,

00:19:42.760 | you know, any heavy data usage, even with my unlimited plan, AT&T would send me this

00:19:48.880 | little pop-up thing on my phone that would say, well, you know, you're near your cap.

00:19:54.440 | So we got to cut you down. So unlimited data didn't exist. And all I did was just change

00:19:58.920 | my usage a little bit and quit streaming media over it and just download the, you know, download

00:20:05.920 | podcasts before and then watch videos when I'm on Wi-Fi. And it's worked well for me.

00:20:13.600 | It's amazing how much a little bit of preparation can do to pretty much gut your data usage.

00:20:19.320 | Yeah, exactly. And even if people are, because here would be one difference, is that even

00:20:24.960 | if people do have a lot of applications that they like to use a lot of times, most of them,

00:20:29.640 | at least my experience is they don't actually use that much data. I would never, what is

00:20:34.360 | the average usage? Just one gig, right, in this country?

00:20:36.760 | Yeah, something like that. Even that seems embarrassingly high, honestly.

00:20:41.520 | It is. And if I didn't stream anything just from applications, it wouldn't be that much.

00:20:52.400 | It's not that much data from the applications. Next you've got, we've got on our outline

00:20:58.360 | here, hours.

00:20:59.560 | Hours, well, hours are, you know...

00:21:03.360 | You're talking about this like 7 to 7 thing where you've got to...

00:21:06.360 | Yeah, well...

00:21:07.760 | And hours in the day. All that stuff just has always seemed goofy to me. It's like all

00:21:14.760 | these little things of, okay, you get, you know, free cell...the thing I hear is this,

00:21:21.800 | I've got a family plan, so I get my six friends that I always talk to and I put them on my

00:21:25.680 | family plan and, you know, so we get free usage between, you know, after 7 o'clock PM

00:21:31.360 | and like you said, how often do you really, you know, do you really spend four hours on

00:21:36.120 | the phone? If you have a girlfriend or something, that's your one person that you talk to, I

00:21:40.080 | get it, but it seems...

00:21:42.120 | It ties back into the unlimited anything. You don't need unlimited data, you don't need

00:21:46.920 | unlimited hours. You, again, you only have a finite amount of time and trying to game

00:21:53.920 | for, you know, prime times or anything like that, that's wasting your own time. You should

00:22:02.720 | have the freedom to be able to just talk whenever you need to and when you're trying to utilize

00:22:11.760 | their off-peak hours or whatnot to be able to get that unlimited time, to game the system,

00:22:18.760 | to try and keep your costs down lower. You're just...it speaks to a need for situational

00:22:26.000 | awareness, honestly.

00:22:29.400 | Yes.

00:22:30.600 | And honestly, if you're waiting until after 8 PM to make a call anyway, you're probably

00:22:39.720 | already home and you might as well, you know, take advantage of much cheaper data and phone

00:22:46.720 | services at home than, you know, using your mobile service.

00:22:51.920 | Yeah. All right, here's my favorite. "Daley, I'm going to save so much money if I bundle

00:22:58.920 | my internet and my cable TV and my cell phone and my car payment all in the same payment."

00:23:06.200 | Really, what's known to the insiders in the industry is the triple play, being able to

00:23:12.920 | get the phone, the internet, and like cable TV all together in one package. You know why

00:23:18.680 | they love selling you bundled packages? Because they can inflate the bills that they want

00:23:25.680 | to charge you just that much more.

00:23:28.160 | Yeah. I'll tell a little personal story. Years ago, I used to work for a market research

00:23:34.280 | company and one of the things that we worked a lot with fast food restaurants and we worked

00:23:41.280 | with a famous fast food restaurant brand and I got to see some of the data that they used

00:23:48.480 | and it's very interesting. This particular brand at one point was offering these huge

00:23:55.480 | burgers with multiple, multiple patties. So, you know, you can have the one patty burger,

00:24:02.200 | the two patty burger, the three patty burger, and the four patty burger. And you look at

00:24:06.400 | the four patty burger and the thing is the size of your head. And you say, "What person

00:24:11.240 | would ever eat the hamburger that looks like that?" Well, what the research showed very

00:24:16.680 | consistently is that the biggest burger that was on the menu was a three patty burger.

00:24:21.440 | The restaurant might serve a total of five of them and they would sell in one day five

00:24:27.960 | of them, but they would sell lots and lots of two patty burgers. But if they put a four

00:24:33.360 | patty burger on the menu, they would sell maybe like four or five of the four patty

00:24:40.200 | burgers, but they would sell dozens and dozens and dozens of the three patty burgers. So

00:24:44.360 | everyone would go from the two patty up to the three patty. And to me, that's like bundling.

00:24:49.760 | Is that, "Wow, listen, I probably don't need this 483 channel package on my cable TV and

00:24:57.920 | I don't need necessarily 50 gigs of speed on my, I don't even know what the speed ones

00:25:04.280 | are, 50 megabytes of speed on my internet. But if I bundle it all together, it's only

00:25:08.000 | $342 a month."

00:25:09.480 | Yeah, exactly. And I mean, the thing is, is if I had actually gone for the triple play

00:25:16.280 | with Cox to where I'm paying for even just basic cable TV, basically getting the exact

00:25:23.760 | same stations I get over the air with the rabbit ears for free and bundled our home

00:25:28.760 | phone with them and the internet, I would probably be spending somewhere in the neighborhood

00:25:34.600 | of about $130, $140 a month instead of 70. So it just goes to show as long as you can

00:25:41.600 | keep control of who you get your services provided from, you are always going to be

00:25:48.880 | able to get a deal cheaper than trying to bundle everything into one bill with someone

00:25:55.560 | else. It may be slightly more convenient for billing purposes, only paying one company,

00:26:02.560 | but how much of your money is worth that convenience?

00:26:06.200 | Yeah. And seriously, put it on an automatic payment off your credit card and it's just

00:26:10.440 | as convenient.

00:26:11.360 | Yeah.

00:26:12.080 | All right, business use versus home use.

00:26:14.760 | Well, the whole business use versus home use, if you're using your phone for business use,

00:26:21.760 | then your employer should be paying for it. So if you're using the whole excuse of, "I

00:26:35.600 | have to use my cell phone X number of minutes because it's for business," to get a deal

00:26:44.240 | for business, then yeah, you can justify maybe a postpaid contract or something with one

00:26:51.240 | of the major carriers. But honestly, under those situations, your employer should be

00:26:56.880 | paying for it, not you. And I mean, home use, again, if you're using it at home...

00:27:03.880 | Why are you on your cell phone?

00:27:09.080 | Why are you on your cell phone? It is specifically designed to be a mobile device. And you've

00:27:16.080 | got to think about this stuff. If you know what you're getting into and what you're using

00:27:23.440 | it for, you can figure out how to better save on it. And the thing with mobile services

00:27:30.600 | is it's expensive to be mobile. So why are you using mobile services when you're staying

00:27:39.080 | near stationary?

00:27:40.680 | Yeah. And on that point, I think there's... This is one of the reasons why stuff changes

00:27:47.040 | so much is because it used to be that using the cell phone was expensive. So people would

00:27:53.880 | have the cell phone as being expensive and then they would use the home line. Well, then

00:27:57.560 | what happened is cell phone prices seemed to come down so much, people said, "Well,

00:28:01.280 | I use the cell phone. I prefer that, not as dump the home line." And so my wife and I

00:28:06.320 | don't have any kind of wired line. And that's where we get into VoIP, voice over IP. And

00:28:13.320 | that... If you don't have a voice over IP solution, then not using the cell phone thing

00:28:19.680 | doesn't make any sense. So you've got to get the voice over IP solution into play. But

00:28:24.320 | once it does, like you said, there's plenty of time. It's all... I mean, you can get unlimited

00:28:30.800 | services for a couple bucks a month versus the big... The much... Relatively much larger

00:28:35.840 | cost on the mobile device. And then on the business use thing, I agree with you. If you've

00:28:42.760 | got to use your phone for work, you should consider that your boss needs to pay for it.

00:28:49.760 | And then the other thing is that do you really want all your work on your phone? I'm an entrepreneur.

00:28:55.680 | I do... I keep my phone with me and I do business on my phone, but I often think very hard about

00:29:02.240 | it. Am I really that important? That I have to be available all that time? And you read

00:29:07.760 | any productivity book, you read any productivity blog, you read any lifestyle blog, and one

00:29:11.840 | of the first things that people should consider is, am I that important that I need to be

00:29:17.680 | answering my email constantly or can I do it during normal hours? So I'm with you.

00:29:24.440 | So let's start at the beginning. So I would say step one, calculate what you actually

00:29:29.680 | need and talk us through how to do that. But here's my thing. One of my big pet peeves

00:29:37.440 | is when people assume that every situation is equal. So I may not be on the road much

00:29:50.800 | and I may not use my phone that much, but then again, I may be a contractor who's on

00:29:55.120 | the road constantly. So I would say count what you actually need, but count it. Because

00:29:59.440 | I used to be on the road a lot and when I actually sat down and even though I was on

00:30:04.320 | the phone a ton on the road, when I actually sat down and counted it, it was nowhere near

00:30:08.520 | what I thought it was. So walk us through your thoughts.

00:30:12.000 | Well, basically you need to start by inspecting your bills. You got to count the usage on

00:30:16.800 | minutes and we're not just talking the minutes they bill you for, but your off peak minutes,

00:30:22.720 | your in network minutes, count all your minutes every month for like the past three, four

00:30:29.040 | months, average them out, get some solid statistical analysis going on how many minutes you're

00:30:37.800 | using. Then do it again for your texting and for your data. Find out what the baseline

00:30:45.360 | is on actual usage for your phones. They're not just giving you those bills to collect

00:30:51.200 | money. They are basically giving you a tool that you could potentially use to educate

00:30:57.840 | yourself to what your needs actually are without you having to sit down and keep track of all

00:31:03.680 | of it yourself.

00:31:04.680 | Yeah. And most of the big ones, especially if you're with a big carrier, they've got

00:31:09.400 | a nice thing online where you can pull it up online and you can chart it out. And if

00:31:14.440 | you don't have that, if you don't have the paper bills, if you don't have the online

00:31:17.680 | bills, you can use the counter on the phone, right? And it'll tell you your total talk

00:31:21.960 | time. It'll tell you when it was last reset and then reset it once a month and see how

00:31:27.160 | it goes for a couple of months.

00:31:29.840 | Absolutely. And from that point, once you know what you're using and when, figure out

00:31:40.640 | where you're actually using it. Is it mostly at home? Is it mostly at work? Is it on the

00:31:46.120 | road? If you know how much you're using and you know how much of it you're using in these

00:31:52.560 | stationary locations where you already have network access or something like that, then

00:32:01.200 | don't use your cell phone to communicate with. Use a VoIP service. Bring back the home phone.

00:32:08.880 | I can see a YouTube video of you. You've got your beard and saying, "Bring back the home

00:32:17.280 | phone, please, people." We should create that.

00:32:21.880 | Indeed.

00:32:22.880 | We'll use your avatar off of Mr. Money Mustache and stick that on there and say, "Bring back

00:32:29.120 | the home phone."

00:32:30.120 | Even with SMS replacements and the like, if you're at home, use your home data and use

00:32:42.080 | VoIP services and use your home connection for Internet access. I've lost track of how

00:32:48.240 | many people who I've talked to who pay Netflix like eight bucks a month to stream video to

00:32:56.960 | their iPhone, and then I find out they usually watch the videos at home. But are they even

00:33:03.680 | connected to their home network? No. They're streaming the video over the 3G or LTE service,

00:33:13.760 | spending just that much more money. It's absurd. Why spend the money on data service if you're

00:33:22.760 | not going to actually use it at home? And if you have a cheaper source of data at home,

00:33:28.480 | why would you not use that instead of the data service that they're going to gouge you

00:33:34.320 | for over the air?

00:33:43.880 | You got to take advantage of what you have available, and you ultimately need to realize

00:33:49.960 | that landline anything is typically going to be cheaper, plain and simple.

00:33:59.760 | And so there's basically just a couple of things. Number one, if you can move data usage

00:34:07.320 | to your home Internet, it's pretty easy to do. So switch out one app that you always

00:34:11.480 | stream audio through and switch it to an app that you download the audio first. Number

00:34:17.720 | two is get a voice over IP phone and switch your talking to that. And then number three

00:34:24.920 | is consider some kind of easy SMS replacement. The one that works well for me is the main

00:34:30.320 | person that I would text would always be my wife. And I would imagine that I'm not the

00:34:34.680 | only one. It's not uncommon for couples or spouses to send lots and lots of text messages.

00:34:41.680 | Probably like 70, 80% of anyone's text usage is between the same two or three people.

00:34:47.640 | Yeah. So we just switched to Skype. She's on a computer, I'm on a computer, my phone

00:34:52.560 | can do Skype on Wi-Fi. So we just switched to Skype on the phone or on the computer.

00:34:59.040 | And there went hundreds of text messages, and that was an easy thing to do. And if she

00:35:03.520 | needs me, she can still text me. But for the most part, most of those other times, we just

00:35:10.040 | use Skype instead. So next on our outline here, the wonderful world of early termination

00:35:18.960 | fees. Let's do the math. Okay. Well, once you know what you're actually

00:35:23.880 | using and you start pricing prepaid alternatives, you can sit down and you can actually do the

00:35:32.120 | math to see if a breaking contract makes sense financially. And you'd be surprised. More

00:35:38.280 | often than not, it does make sense financially. If you're in for $100 a month, and in reality

00:35:47.520 | you could get away with only spending like $20, $25 a month on service, and you've still

00:35:56.400 | got like a year left on your contract, think about how much money you can potentially save

00:36:02.760 | just going from $100 to $25 a month. You've got a $200 ETF. I mean, let's see, you'd basically

00:36:11.200 | break even in four months and start saving money shortly thereafter. Once you know what

00:36:22.000 | the price is on your head and how much longer you have left on the contract and how much

00:36:30.080 | money you can save, you can figure out if it makes financial sense to just pay the money

00:36:35.520 | and get out or not. And so many people think that they need to wait out their contract,

00:36:42.560 | when in reality, they shouldn't because doing so is just going to be flushing that much

00:36:49.020 | more money down the crapper. Excuse my language. And what's more important, actually saving

00:36:58.480 | money or trying to take the easy way?

00:37:01.840 | Well, plus, I'll add to that because I think you're exactly right. I paid the early termination

00:37:08.200 | fees when I switched out of AT&T because I calculated that in two months I'd make back

00:37:15.400 | that whole early termination fee. I don't know any really good formula for figuring

00:37:21.920 | out if it's worth it or not. I mean, it's hard to say, "Okay, at three months it's worth

00:37:26.640 | it, but at four months it's not." It's kind of a gut call. You could apply some kind of

00:37:31.920 | capitalization rate as far as what you're making on your investment and say, "Okay,

00:37:35.680 | well, if it's in excess of 10%, it'd be worth it." But to me, it's usually pretty simple.

00:37:41.720 | But go ahead.

00:37:42.720 | Well, Ed, that's one of the reasons why there's an ETF calculator on the website.

00:37:47.400 | I was just going to say that. Good. So, plug for your protectmeshugana.com and I'll put

00:37:55.040 | a link in the show notes. You build a nice, pretty-looking, fancy little calculator where

00:37:59.880 | you put in your current cost, you put in the early termination fee, and then you put it

00:38:05.840 | there and it'll tell you when you break even and if it's worth it or not.

00:38:09.120 | Yep. And sometimes it'll make sense to wait out the contract. One of those instances is

00:38:14.160 | like some of T-Mobile's old contracts where it doesn't decrease over time, where they

00:38:22.000 | basically have flat rates on the ETF fee at the 6-month, 12-month, and 24-month periods.

00:38:30.760 | But now that they've kind of gotten away from that, it doesn't matter as much. But I'm sure

00:38:34.840 | there are still some people out there under contract with T-Mobile that, you know, there

00:38:41.280 | will be situations where it'll cost less to wait out the contract versus paying off in

00:38:46.720 | advance. But typically, no, especially if there's a lot of time left on your contract.

00:38:53.720 | And there's a whole other like aspect to it as well, and that's the fact that the reason

00:38:58.600 | that you're paying an early termination fee is because you're under a contract. And the

00:39:03.920 | reason you're under a contract is because you got a subsidized phone.

00:39:07.160 | Yep. So, the way that the contracts work is, let's

00:39:09.840 | say Apple charges AT&T $600 for, I don't know, an iPhone 5. Well, AT&T will sell it to you

00:39:15.360 | for $200 and to your contract. So, if you leave before the two-year contract, then they

00:39:22.480 | pay the early termination fee, and that's where AT&T makes their money on the device.

00:39:26.480 | So, your choice is, do you want the device, and you may or may not, depending on who you're

00:39:32.360 | switching to. So, if you're switching from a device that's only compatible with one option,

00:39:37.040 | and you want to switch to something else, you may sell the device. And/or you may just

00:39:41.080 | decide that there's a cheaper device that can do your job for you. So, maybe you've

00:39:45.520 | had iPhones. I'll pick on iPhones because I have one, and that's what I use. Let's say

00:39:49.440 | you've had iPhones, and I know you hate them too, which is fine. I'll make sure to put

00:39:55.240 | a link to your iPhone article about why you despise them in the show notes.

00:40:02.560 | But the point is that let's say you've had iPhones for a couple years, and you say,

00:40:07.000 | "You know what? I'm done with this." Terminate the contract, pay the fee, sell the device

00:40:14.280 | on eBay or another site, and you probably are going to make more than the early termination

00:40:21.040 | fee, and you might make enough if you've got an in-demand device. You might make enough

00:40:25.200 | to turn around and buy your whole new device.

00:40:29.720 | Well, the thing is, basically, the reason for the contracts to begin with is because

00:40:36.280 | they're preying on the fact that people stink at math, especially when they're out shopping.

00:40:41.680 | They don't actually sit down and run the actual numbers. They just get presented with these

00:40:47.240 | reasonable sounding amounts of money in little chunks, and it overrides common sense. So,

00:40:54.760 | basically, because we as consumers suck at math, they're exploiting that for their own

00:41:00.320 | financial gain. But if you actually sit down and look at the cost of breaking contract,

00:41:08.320 | you think from the surface, looking at it, "Oh, it'll be more financially beneficial

00:41:13.080 | for me to stay put until the end of the contract instead of buying my way out." But in reality,

00:41:20.040 | they're using that emotional bias against you. So, always do the math.

00:41:27.080 | Amen. Do you know any off the top of your head, do you know any web, any of, I need

00:41:33.240 | to research some. My brother used one. Any of the ones that make it easy to sell your

00:41:37.760 | device, to resell your device that aren't eBay?

00:41:41.080 | Well, there are a couple of outfits. I can't remember their names off the top of my head.

00:41:45.800 | I'll look them up and put them in the show notes. I'll figure out what that is and I'll

00:41:48.960 | put them in the show notes. I don't remember what they are off the top of my head, but

00:41:51.920 | I'll find out.

00:41:52.920 | All right.

00:41:53.920 | All right. Devices. Smartphones.

00:41:58.300 | Well, do we really need them?

00:42:01.300 | Good question. Here's my answer to that. When I watched the Steve Jobs presentation years

00:42:12.700 | ago at the Apple Developers Conference, I actually watched it live. I used to be a bit

00:42:17.180 | of a nerd. I'm still a nerd, but I was into that stuff years ago. When I watched him give

00:42:22.920 | his presentation, I still remember the slides flashing. Communication device, web browser,

00:42:31.760 | music storage thing. I said, "I need this iPhone. Look how cool it is. I need it. I

00:42:36.160 | need it. I need it. I need it." But I tell you, at this stage, I'm kind of over it. It's

00:42:41.280 | not really as exciting as it used to be.

00:42:43.280 | Well, that's the thing. When you start slapping several functions into a singular device,

00:42:49.080 | you wind up having to compromise on its design, and you wind up having a device that stinks

00:42:53.800 | at everything. Let's be honest here. When was the last time you used a smartphone that

00:42:59.240 | was actually good at making telephone calls and typing out messages?

00:43:05.040 | And didn't mute half of my calls, or the person saying, "Hello, hello," because my cheek bumped

00:43:10.760 | the mute thing.

00:43:11.760 | Yeah. And iPhones, Android phones, BlackBerrys, these things, I don't doubt that some of the

00:43:22.920 | features are very useful for some professionals. If you actually have a need and purpose for

00:43:29.600 | a lot of this stuff, then yeah, spend the money because you are investing in a tool.

00:43:36.640 | But so many people don't realize how many feature phones today... Were you aware that

00:43:43.480 | a $100 Nokia Asha is capable of doing GPS navigation?

00:43:50.720 | No.

00:43:52.720 | Exactly. You'd be surprised at what feature phones are actually capable of doing from

00:44:00.080 | a technological standpoint now, even on the J2ME platform. It's just... You don't need

00:44:08.840 | a smartphone to get some of this functionality.

00:44:13.440 | What do you classify as a feature phone? Because that's... You're talking about the thing with

00:44:17.360 | the nine-digit keypad, or...

00:44:20.520 | Feature phone is basically any phone that isn't an actual full-blown smartphone. But

00:44:26.240 | the thing is that the line has been kind of blurred between the two. With the proliferation

00:44:33.320 | of cheap technology, ultimately what defines a smartphone is software and the availability

00:44:41.800 | of apps. But the industry basically puts the divider between smartphone and feature phone

00:44:51.000 | as iPhones and Android devices, and like Blackberry, those are smartphones. And J2ME-based devices

00:45:01.840 | and simple phones with just keypads on them or something like that, those are more regarded

00:45:09.360 | as feature phones. And kind of in the nebulous in between, you've got Nokia's old Symbian

00:45:17.280 | devices and a few other little platforms. It kind of depends. I think what really defines

00:45:26.840 | a smartphone is exactly how much ridiculous amounts of hardware you have to throw into

00:45:35.040 | the device to make it functional. Just jacking the price up that much further.

00:45:41.760 | Got it. Well, I see both sides of the smartphone thing. I have friends who are actually app

00:45:50.960 | developers, and apps are fun. They really are. They're fun to use. I have some language

00:45:59.960 | apps that I enjoy using. Apps are fun. But the reality is that if I'm actually honest,

00:46:07.840 | I'm not a bit more productive because I've got a fancy checklist. I'm no more productive

00:46:11.800 | because I've got a fancy checklist on my phone than I did if I had a three by five card with

00:46:15.680 | a list on it. And I'm not any more fit because I still don't go running. Just because I can

00:46:22.040 | track my run with the GPS doesn't mean I actually go running. And the reality is that the stupid

00:46:27.720 | iPhone bouncing on my arm with the armband is not nearly as comfortable as my tiny little

00:46:33.320 | iPod Nano. It's basically the more features you have on there, the more likely it is to

00:46:39.800 | distract you from doing things. And that distraction has gotten out of hand. Let's be honest. It's

00:46:48.280 | gotten out of hand. People walking down the street no longer are even civil to one another

00:46:53.360 | because they're staring into these tiny little glowing rectangles instead of interacting

00:46:57.920 | with one another. We've become a society afraid of being bored. And it damages the fabric

00:47:07.480 | of our society. Do we really want to contribute to that damage and decline? If you do, keep

00:47:16.800 | using your smartphone every waking minute of the day. It'll chew up your time. It'll

00:47:23.440 | make you feel like you're being productive without actually doing so. You'll never have

00:47:28.960 | to think about anything ever again. And tra la, tra la. And next thing you know, you'll

00:47:35.320 | look outside and the apocalypse is on the horizon. And you'll see giant flicking flames

00:47:40.920 | at the sky and someone rolling past taking a picture of it and posting it to Twitter

00:47:48.180 | and then keeping on. This is not the future we want.

00:47:54.720 | Well, tell me how you really feel. I'm a little confused as to your actual feelings on the

00:48:01.480 | subject. Cell phones are destroying America, people. Wake up.

00:48:06.680 | There we go. I like it. Well, the good news is this. So we'll give people options if they

00:48:15.400 | want to keep their smartphones. And we'll give people options if they don't. And it's

00:48:21.160 | up to them what they want to do. My message is, use it as a tool, not as an

00:48:27.560 | entertainment device. As long as you're using it as a tool, you're going to be able to save

00:48:32.380 | money on the device. You're going to be able to be more productive. And you're going to

00:48:37.960 | be able to actually get more things done. And that's what technology is supposed to

00:48:42.080 | do for us, make our lives genuinely easier. And that's what this is about. I want to help

00:48:49.600 | people actually reclaim that freedom and that advantage to using the technology. And you

00:48:56.080 | can't do it as long as you're a slave to your data plan and your device and it's just eating

00:49:02.640 | up every waking hour of your day. To be clear, you're not a Luddite.

00:49:07.680 | No. You're not against technology. You have a

00:49:11.080 | highly technical -- we kind of skipped over any kind of background, but I know from speaking

00:49:15.520 | with you that you have a technical background. You're not a Luddite. You just want it to

00:49:18.680 | work well and to be in the right place. Yeah. I've spent a decade and a half in IT.

00:49:23.360 | I'm a freelance systems administrator. I work in Unix, BSD, and Linux servers for a living.

00:49:32.080 | This is what I do. I love technology. I just -- it terrifies me to see people becoming

00:49:39.760 | enslaved to the technology instead of using it for what it's supposed to be, a tool.

00:49:45.880 | Yeah. I'm with you. Okay. Let's give people some tools, first of all, to keep usage low.

00:49:54.920 | So walk us through some tools to keep our usage low so that we can get by with some

00:50:00.560 | of the cheaper plans without feeling totally deprived.

00:50:03.080 | Well, for one, I've noticed a lot of people wind up using a lot of data from GPS.

00:50:07.840 | Yeah. That one's a big deal for me. So I'm interested in anything that you've got on

00:50:12.520 | that one.

00:50:13.520 | Well, the nice thing is you don't actually need data services for GPS. Like on the Android

00:50:20.280 | platform, this is actually a more recent development, but Google Maps has an offline mode. You plan

00:50:27.240 | ahead and you can load your map onto the phone in advance, and then you don't need to use

00:50:33.680 | data while you're out in the field. On the iPhone, there's map software called -- I can't

00:50:42.360 | remember the name of it. It's from Sygic. It is a completely offline GPS service. And

00:50:49.480 | of course, people have forgotten about the old GPS units that they used to sell that

00:50:56.040 | didn't need any sort of online data access either. And what about paper maps?

00:51:04.000 | You're right.

00:51:07.520 | But moving on from GPS, streaming audio and video. You don't need to stream your entertainment.

00:51:16.040 | Read a book. If you really want to listen to audio or watch something, download it and

00:51:22.520 | preload it to your phone before you leave. Basically, you know, anything that is bandwidth

00:51:31.680 | intensive and takes advantage of your need and desire to exploit your impulse control,

00:51:42.840 | you probably don't -- you either don't need it at all, or there are much simpler solutions

00:51:47.860 | that you've forgotten about. And the biggest money pits in data usage is GPS and entertainment.

00:52:01.560 | You plan ahead, you eliminate that cost. It's as simple as that.

00:52:09.320 | Do you know of any solutions for iPad/iPhone to have offline GPS usage?

00:52:15.240 | Yeah, that was the --

00:52:16.240 | Side joke. Okay, I'll look that up and figure out -- I'll look that up and include it in

00:52:24.140 | the notes. Because this one actually has hurt me because I'm using -- well, it's two things.

00:52:31.740 | Number one is using the iPad internationally where I didn't have any data. It was useless,

00:52:37.300 | which was a pain because I didn't realize that one time before I did it. And I was driving

00:52:41.260 | across Haiti in a car and trying to use my iPad to navigate with and I had zero data.

00:52:46.740 | That's a story for another day. But that was one experience. And then currently I'm using

00:52:52.460 | Air Voice and I'm not using the data. So from time to time -- I have an old-fashioned GPS

00:52:57.980 | that just -- you know, an old Garmin. But I'll be interested to look up that.

00:53:03.500 | It's called SIGIC GPS navigation.

00:53:05.940 | S-I-J-I-C-K?

00:53:06.940 | No, S-Y-G-I-C.

00:53:07.940 | Okay. All right. I'll look that up, too. All right. That's useful. SMS replacement?

00:53:19.780 | Well, there's stuff like XMS, Kik, Nimbus, Takanot, Google Voice. You mentioned Skype

00:53:26.980 | earlier. Basically, if you've got a basic smartphone or even a higher-end feature phone,

00:53:37.300 | a lot of this stuff, you don't need to actually use SMS. I mean, yeah, you can keep using

00:53:45.420 | SMS, but I mean, XMS and Kik, like I mentioned earlier, you can pass nearly 1,000 messages

00:53:54.460 | for one megabyte worth of data. What's cheaper? 1,000 messages like on PlatinumTel for 20

00:54:03.220 | bucks or 1,000 messages in one megadata for, you know, 10 cents.

00:54:10.900 | Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Do any of those -- do all of those -- how do those work, though,

00:54:18.300 | as far as your number? Like, are those apps where you have to -- the other person has

00:54:22.900 | to have that same app to do it?

00:54:24.580 | Yes. A lot of these, you need the same app to do it. It's basically just -- it's basically

00:54:30.460 | nothing more than an IM client, like on your desktop computer, except a lot of these are

00:54:36.900 | specifically targeted for the phones themselves. It's one of the things I like about Takanot

00:54:42.700 | personally, because it's not so much a dedicated SMS replacement utility type of thing, so

00:54:53.340 | much as an application that allows you to use a Jabber server for communicating. So

00:55:00.900 | you can use, like, Google Talk or any of the other Jabber XMPP services out there, and

00:55:12.500 | you don't have to actually, you know, use custom applications that are only available

00:55:20.820 | for phones. So with Takanot, I log into that. If my wife's at home on her computer, kind

00:55:27.620 | of like you with Skype, we're able to bridge the cell phone/computer divide and be able

00:55:34.340 | to continue to message just for the cost of text -- or for data.

00:55:40.000 | So I'm going to switch it on you. What if -- with all these apps, what's your opinion

00:55:47.060 | on switching from a phone with voice and minutes and data? What about -- what do you think

00:55:54.820 | about switching to a tablet, maybe a small tablet, like an iPad Mini with a data connection,

00:55:59.500 | where you're just paying a flat fee for data, and then using apps like I use on my iPad?

00:56:04.660 | I've used Talkatone to do mobile talking and mobile texting off the data connection. What

00:56:11.100 | do you think about that approach?

00:56:12.100 | Well, I'm not a big fan of paying any extra for the data connection to begin with, because

00:56:17.780 | --

00:56:18.780 | What if that -- what if that replaced the phone, though?

00:56:20.740 | Well, the problem there is going to a peer VoIP solution. You -- we'll get to that a

00:56:29.100 | little later, I think. There was an encounter that I had a few weeks back during the May

00:56:38.020 | 31st tornado out in El Reno, and relying on all of your mobile emergency communications

00:56:48.140 | is just a bad idea. And we'll kind of cover that more when we get to, like, some of the

00:56:54.500 | carriers.

00:56:55.500 | Okay. All right. Deal. The other question I have is, what do you think about some of

00:57:01.140 | these apps that compress data? Like, so I saw recently an article on -- I don't know

00:57:07.140 | how to say it. Is it Onavo?

00:57:08.140 | Yeah.

00:57:09.140 | I think so, innit?

00:57:10.140 | Yeah, I believe it's Onavo. They can cut down on some data usage, but the thing is, is that

00:57:17.060 | -- like, with Onavo on the Android platform, most of Google's traffic's already compressed

00:57:23.340 | anyway, and you introduce a third-party proxy, they're basically, you know -- you're pushing

00:57:30.580 | all of your information through their servers. So they're basically able to, you know, sniff

00:57:36.500 | all your packets and see what you're doing. And there's no such thing as a free lunch.

00:57:43.140 | If you're getting a free service here, you need to ask yourself why. But it can cut down

00:57:48.940 | a little bit on data usage, potentially, but if you're already using a phone that's lean

00:57:54.520 | on data to begin with and is already, you know, compressing most all of the text-based

00:57:59.740 | traffic between the origin servers and your phone, and you're mostly sticking to text-based

00:58:10.420 | communications anyway, you don't really need that much compression.

00:58:14.980 | Makes sense. Makes sense. And then the other one I saw -- and I don't know if you know

00:58:20.900 | anything about it. I haven't used it. Opera Mini? I saw an article on that. Do you know

00:58:24.980 | anything about that one?

00:58:25.980 | Opera Mini, they basically -- they're doing the proxy compression thing again with all

00:58:33.100 | of your usage.

00:58:34.100 | Same thing?

00:58:35.100 | Basically, yeah, it's the same thing. You're pushing all of your web data through their

00:58:41.340 | servers to have it optimized and compressed to cut down on data usage. That's fine if

00:58:48.860 | you want someone else rifling through your online business. But if you're seriously looking

00:58:56.140 | at Opera Mini to compress and optimize the data usage that you're using on your smartphone

00:59:04.540 | anyway, especially your Android device, maybe you should consider going with Dolphin instead

00:59:09.340 | where you can just turn off image loading because that's going to be about 90% of your

00:59:16.180 | bandwidth traffic right there.

00:59:18.100 | Okay, that's a browser. Dolphin is a browser?

00:59:21.140 | Yeah.

00:59:22.140 | Okay, I'll look that one up because that one's new to me too. Interesting. Okay, so those

00:59:26.460 | are -- yeah, I think it's going to get faster. It's going to be less and less data. And so

00:59:32.620 | it's interesting to kind of hear, understand. I'm not a technical -- I'm not a techie, so

00:59:36.740 | it's interesting to kind of hear what's going on behind the scenes with some of these things

00:59:40.060 | that I read articles about. So, good. All right, let's get on to the actual here's where

00:59:46.820 | you should go and can go as far as provider selection. So, first thing on our list, MNO

00:59:53.660 | versus MVNO. What does that mean?

00:59:56.700 | Well, we'll start with MVNO. MVNO is Mobile Virtual Network Operator. They basically piggyback

01:00:03.100 | off of the MNO or the Mobile Network Operator and resell the services. The MNOs, those are

01:00:13.340 | your AT&Ts, your Sprints, your T-Mobiles, and your Verizons. MVNO is your Air Voice

01:00:21.780 | Wireless, your PlatinumTel, your GoSmart Mobile. Well, actually not GoSmart so much, but your

01:00:28.940 | TANG, the smaller carriers. They're basically reselling the service from the big guys on

01:00:36.380 | their network.

01:00:40.180 | When they do that, I've talked with...so, I'm using an MVNO, Air Voice Wireless, and

01:00:47.900 | I've also in the past used the Straight Talk service from Walmart, which we'll get to in

01:00:56.580 | just a minute. But the two things that I've heard, one is I was talking with somebody

01:01:02.140 | who was a salesperson for one of the big four, and they said that by using an MVNO, I would

01:01:09.100 | come second in line to all of the big fours, even though I'm using the same towers as AT&T,

01:01:15.260 | because I'm not an AT&T customer. If there was an overload on the system, I would come

01:01:18.900 | second. Do you know if that's true?

01:01:20.900 | I'm not sure if that's necessarily true or not. I guess theoretically, the primary operators

01:01:31.940 | would wind up getting preferential treatment and primary access to the towers. But if we're

01:01:42.020 | treating our mobile devices as an emergency communicator anyway, you don't really need

01:01:48.380 | to worry about that, because when you dial 911, it doesn't matter if you have access

01:01:54.700 | to the closest tower or not. If you're with Air Voice and you're not near an AT&T tower,

01:02:05.780 | but you are near a T-Mobile tower, you're still going to be able to complete that 911

01:02:11.940 | call, and you are going to get priority over everyone else. Let's face it, if we're minimizing

01:02:19.940 | our communications to their bare necessities when we're out and about, the stuff that we're

01:02:26.980 | going to communicate is either going to be life-threateningly important, in which when

01:02:39.180 | we dial that emergency number, we are going to get priority, or it's going to be something

01:02:44.900 | that, you know what, doesn't really matter if we're getting the best possible call connection

01:02:54.740 | on that call, as long as the information gets relayed. That should be what matters. And

01:03:02.220 | I've never had that problem of my carrier not being able to complete that call, even

01:03:10.640 | on an MVNO. So there may be truth to it, but in reality, when you actually see it in action,

01:03:20.260 | you certainly aren't going to notice the difference.

01:03:22.700 | Yeah, that makes sense. What about data speed? Do you think that...because one thing I...and

01:03:28.700 | I'm not...I've never been techie enough to kind of run like the speed tests and stuff,

01:03:33.620 | but I had a...I always thought that when I switched from AT&T to Straight Talk, that

01:03:39.940 | even though at that time I was running still on the AT&T towers, I felt like my data speed

01:03:45.220 | was slower. Would that be normal, or is that probably not true?

01:03:48.700 | Yeah, that actually is true. Most MVNOs, you're not going to have near as fast a network connection

01:03:57.820 | as directly through, because, you know, you're basically adding on a third-party layer with

01:04:04.020 | that, using a smaller carrier servers. But it's not really a restriction so much on the

01:04:12.940 | network itself as the MVNO you're dealing with. Like in the case of PagePlus, they're

01:04:23.460 | operating all their own servers, and even though the Verizon network can provide a much

01:04:30.900 | faster connection speed off of their 3G service, you're ultimately going to get capped at something

01:04:39.260 | like 350 kilobytes a second, absolute maximum. So yeah, you're going to get a...you're going

01:04:45.420 | to take a little bit of a hit on data speeds, but if you're only using text-based communications

01:04:53.100 | and you're eliminating streaming video and audio and the like, odds are you're not going

01:04:58.340 | to notice the difference. Yeah, the only place that I noticed it at

01:05:03.020 | that time, and the reason I'm kind of harping on it and asking these questions, because

01:05:09.380 | I want people, like with the information that we're providing, I think a lot of people are

01:05:15.460 | going to be able to go in the direction that you advocate as far as, "Hey, just cut your

01:05:20.540 | usage down, change your usage patterns." But there's a lot of people my age that are going

01:05:25.340 | to still say, "Listen, I like...you like using iHeartRadio, I like using this app that sends

01:05:32.660 | data off, I like posting on Twitter," things like that.

01:05:36.260 | Well, at that point, you need to basically justify how much that convenience is going

01:05:42.540 | to ultimately be worth to you, because being able to keep that convenience is going to

01:05:48.300 | drastically impact the bottom line on how much you can potentially save with your communications

01:05:53.860 | budget. Correct, but there are some options that

01:05:57.220 | we're going to get to with some of these carriers, sorry, some of these MVNOs, and where just

01:06:03.940 | by at least by switching to a prepaid plan, you can have everything except like 4G YouTube

01:06:10.660 | videos. So that was where for a while I was on Straight Talk. I still cut $30 a month

01:06:17.780 | off my plan by switching from AT&T to Straight Talk, and I could still have...I had unlimited

01:06:23.420 | data. Well, that's different now, which we'll get to in a minute, but I had unlimited talk,

01:06:27.620 | unlimited text, and yet it saved me a good bit of money, and I could still use all those

01:06:34.900 | apps. So those options are there. They're just still going to be in the, what, $40 to

01:06:39.500 | $50 a month range instead of the $10 to $20. Yeah, potentially, and even then, you're still...there's

01:06:45.980 | no such thing as unlimited anything. You read the contracts, and there's going to be caps

01:06:51.540 | in place. Well, so let's go there. What do we look for? How do we choose between people?

01:06:57.220 | If I'm...because we're going to, on the show notes, we're going to give people a list of

01:07:00.900 | providers to consider and see what's appropriate for them. What do we look for? Well, first

01:07:06.980 | thing you need to look for is a provider that's going to be able to provide you all the features

01:07:13.380 | that you actually need. Not all MVNOs provide things like call forwarding, for example.

01:07:20.580 | So if call forwarding is important to you, you need to look for a provider that gives

01:07:26.540 | you call forwarding. If cheaper data services is more important to you than cost per minute,

01:07:35.140 | then you need to find a provider that gives you cheaper per megabyte costs on the prepaid

01:07:41.980 | end than per minute. And the best way to find out what you're actually going to get out

01:07:50.560 | of your service is to actually sit down and read the contract.

01:07:56.820 | Nobody does that, Will. Come on. Seriously.

01:08:00.660 | Everybody needs to.

01:08:01.660 | I know. It's been...I've read some of your posts on the Superguide, and it's pretty...I

01:08:07.740 | never used to read those things. And kind of reading through some of your posts when

01:08:11.820 | I saw some of the stuff that was in there, I mean, you're exactly right. It's foolish.

01:08:16.260 | I've started reading all those things when you get an application, because there's...especially

01:08:21.300 | with all the privacy stuff with Snowden, it's a good wake-up call for people to say, "Okay,

01:08:30.060 | I know that...I always knew that everything was public, but let me actually read these

01:08:34.460 | terms of service. What does this actually say? What am I literally signing? Yes, I'm

01:08:38.220 | fine with this."

01:08:39.220 | Yeah. Let's take Street Talk and Net10 and their unlimited bring-your-own-device services.

01:08:49.260 | Have you actually sat down and read the terms of service from them?

01:08:53.220 | No, I read your...I haven't. I read your analysis on the Superguide.

01:08:57.940 | Well, basically, right there in black and white, they basically state that they can

01:09:03.140 | terminate you for using streaming media or any other bandwidth-intensive data usage that

01:09:10.220 | falls outside of email, purchasing songs online, and very basic web surfing and instant messenger

01:09:18.940 | communication. What good is unlimited data service if they have you so thoroughly tied

01:09:27.020 | on what you can and cannot do that you'd never be able to even break two gig worth of traffic

01:09:36.180 | a month?

01:09:37.180 | Yeah. And that...they've...man, I tell you, Street Talk got a lot...if you go online and

01:09:43.900 | you start looking in the forums, they've cut so many people off of their data and just,

01:09:48.020 | boom, the whole thing just stops working.

01:09:49.780 | And you lose your number, you lose any remaining credit you paid. I feel really sorry for the

01:09:58.020 | folks with, like, Street Talk who, "Ooh, if I pay for a year in advance, I can get it

01:10:04.780 | down from that $45 a month down to, what is it, like, $40?" And then two weeks in, they're

01:10:11.980 | streaming something off of YouTube, and they wind up losing their service because they're

01:10:16.820 | in...

01:10:17.820 | You've got to call Mexico to get to speak to the customers.

01:10:20.820 | Yeah, and they're not going to do anything for you anyway except, you know what, you

01:10:25.180 | kiss your money goodbye because you breached the terms of service contract, and they get

01:10:31.700 | to keep your money, they get to keep your phone number if you liked it, and, I mean,

01:10:36.140 | that's the way it is. So it's important to read the contract to see what is provided,

01:10:43.540 | what's not provided, and what can get you ultimately booted. And that's one of the things

01:10:48.540 | that makes the claim of unlimited so dangerous with a lot of these providers. And it is something,

01:10:57.940 | even with the good providers, that you need to be aware of. There are clauses wherever

01:11:05.180 | unlimited is bandied about that they can arbitrarily define what constitutes network abuse and

01:11:15.180 | terminate you. And if you truly need the ability to have, like, 5,000, 6,000 minutes a month,

01:11:24.500 | you need to either pay for those... You need a provider where you can actually pay for

01:11:29.260 | those minutes, or you need a provider who's going to tolerate that level of usage. And

01:11:36.420 | that's not going to be from an end to you know.

01:11:39.420 | Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there still is a place for the big four. You know, we're pretty hard

01:11:45.900 | on them, but it's all about, just like with anything, and I know my show is brand new,

01:11:51.820 | but I'll tell you just kind of who I am. The thing that drives me nuts is anybody saying

01:11:58.380 | that this is the way it is, especially talking heads on, you know, and things. People always

01:12:05.580 | say, "Well, this is how it is." Well, I think that the reality is that each person is going

01:12:10.060 | to know their usage patterns, and we can challenge them like we're doing to say, "Do you really

01:12:17.540 | need this? Is it not worth doing something?" But at the end of the day, there are going

01:12:23.900 | to be people who are going to need 6,000 minutes a month, and they're going to be out in the

01:12:28.340 | boonies, and so Verizon is the only tower that's going to work there, and they need

01:12:32.260 | a smartphone because, you know, that's their only connection to the grid. You know, that's

01:12:38.980 | a good spot for an iPhone on Verizon, right?

01:12:42.340 | Yeah, if you need it, if you have the justification to do it, then do so. It's all about using

01:12:51.620 | it as a tool, though, and prioritizing what's more important. When you're questioning whether

01:13:00.660 | it's worth spending even like $70 a month on a cell phone, then you are clearly paying

01:13:07.260 | too much. If you can't see the value to it, then you're already there. You need to make

01:13:17.560 | the cut. Going back around a little bit, I have to point out how absurd it is in this

01:13:25.980 | country that in order to actually be able to save money on our cell phone bills, that

01:13:32.940 | we have to actually abandon the major four carriers and go to third-party resellers of

01:13:41.020 | those services who have their own overhead and their own technical support and sales

01:13:47.760 | support people just to be able to save money. It's mind-blowing, but it is what it is, and

01:13:59.080 | as long as the only way to get affordable service is to do the song and dance, then

01:14:06.340 | let's help people do the song and dance. It's not as hard as, say, trying to talk your cable

01:14:12.240 | provider into shaving $10 a month off of your internet connection again for like six months.

01:14:20.000 | You just pay for it and you go.

01:14:22.200 | >> Yeah. Yeah. Let's give some people, on the comment you just made, one quick comment,

01:14:30.040 | my hope, and I think it's really possible, I bet you, whatever you want to bet, a cold

01:14:39.380 | Coke or whatever, I bet you that in two years, my hope is that all this information that

01:14:46.080 | we're giving is hopelessly out of date because the major carriers are losing so much, the

01:14:51.220 | contract players are losing so much business that they have to wise up and say, "You know

01:14:55.860 | what? We've got to change something."

01:14:56.860 | >> Well, technically speaking, last year was the first year that they've actually had negative

01:15:01.760 | growth in the cell phone industry, and it's been because Americans have finally started

01:15:07.720 | going over to more and more prepaid plans through MV&Os.

01:15:11.040 | >> Well, good. Maybe we'll continue to contribute to that, and they'll wake up when they get

01:15:17.080 | to that.

01:15:18.080 | >> Yep.

01:15:19.080 | >> So let's go to some providers. Before we do, though, I want to show why this is such

01:15:24.240 | a big deal because my fear is that people maybe have heard this, and we've talked, I

01:15:30.600 | think, pretty straightforwardly about the advantages and disadvantages, but I just want

01:15:35.720 | to talk about the impact of saving money. So I'm going to run it quick. I've got my

01:15:41.200 | trusty financial calculator here, and here is one of the things that I did. So I said

01:15:45.040 | I was previously paying about $220 a month with AT&T for the two phones and the iPad

01:15:51.400 | line, unlimited everything, and I've switched that to, like I said, to $35 with Internet

01:15:59.600 | at Home. Instead of using unlimited data on the phones, I switched to Internet at Home,

01:16:03.960 | and then we're using Air Voice. So that's $185 a month of savings. So let me run a quick

01:16:10.880 | calculation here. Let's say $185 a month into an investment account. Let's just for round

01:16:16.920 | numbers say that we use 10%. And let's see, our target, I don't know, let's say that we're

01:16:24.360 | doing this at 30 years old and over the course of 30 years of savings, right? So let me use

01:16:29.520 | a 30-year period of time, starting with nothing. If I took that money and invested that, my

01:16:36.320 | trusty financial calculator here at a 10% rate of return, which is a historical average

01:16:40.560 | of the stock market, $421,675.18.

01:16:47.560 | Oh, shucks. I was figuring you'd at least be a millionaire by that point.

01:16:51.560 | Here, I'll go to 40 years. I'll go to 40 years. So we'll call this 25 to 65, and we'll go

01:16:57.680 | to 40 years here, and we'll have $1,179,704.35.

01:17:04.680 | There we go. And suddenly I'm reminded of that old Joy of Tech comic where the kid goes

01:17:16.000 | to his financial advisor asking about if he should invest in an iPhone, and the financial

01:17:23.120 | advisor goes, "Well, if you invested that money instead, you'd be a millionaire by the

01:17:27.640 | time you retired." And the last panelist, "iPhone 3G! Woo-hoo!"

01:17:34.640 | That's exactly true, and that's why it's such a big deal, because a lot of times we forget

01:17:38.920 | that, yes, I like convenience. I like apps and things like that, but the opportunity

01:17:43.800 | cost is that now I'm likely to have, based upon the changes that I've done, and just

01:17:49.320 | by being willing to download podcasts when I'm on Wi-Fi instead of on the road, and by

01:17:53.960 | being willing to use my GPS in the car that doesn't need data, just a few very small,

01:17:59.680 | minor things, it's likely to result in an extra half million to a million dollars of

01:18:04.200 | net worth in my lifetime, just that one little change. So it's a big deal.

01:18:10.880 | My encouragement for folks listening is that run your own calculation. Maybe 40 years is

01:18:16.440 | a long time. It always feels a little silly when you go that far out, because it's hard

01:18:20.120 | to imagine 40 years. Maybe figure it on a year. $185 a month is, in a year's time, that

01:18:28.680 | comes out to $2,220. That's a really nice trip to a foreign country.

01:18:34.400 | What is it that Pete there, Mr. Money Mustache, what is it he always says? $10 saved every

01:18:41.800 | month is like $100 invested permanently or something such as that?

01:18:47.160 | He uses a really useful rule of thumb. He uses 173. He says take your monthly number,

01:18:54.880 | multiply it times 173, and that will give you a 10-year return. I think he used, I can't

01:19:00.640 | remember, it's an 8% return. So let's say, in my example, using his formula, $185 times

01:19:08.680 | 173, quick and easy over a 10-year period of time. If you take that money and invest

01:19:14.320 | it instead, that's $32,000. So big money.

01:19:18.640 | Yep, it really is.

01:19:20.400 | Big money. All right, providers. So first one on our list is Airvoice. I'll go first

01:19:25.680 | because this one's the one that I'm using. I know your favorite one is the second one

01:19:30.920 | on our list. So I'll comment on Airvoice since I've done some research on that one, and then

01:19:37.000 | you can fill in any gaps I missed.

01:19:38.640 | Okay.

01:19:39.640 | So first of all, Airvoice is an MVNO that resells space on the AT&T towers. I've switched

01:19:46.920 | to them four months ago. They've been great. They really have been great. Even just signing

01:19:53.040 | it up, I don't know all the technical stuff, but the people answer the phone in English.

01:19:59.080 | They know what they're doing, and I can tell that they're probably in the US. If not, they've

01:20:03.680 | got really good accent.

01:20:05.240 | Well, they are located out of the Great Lakes area. I think Airvoice is actually up in Chicago,

01:20:10.600 | if I recall correctly.

01:20:12.200 | Okay. Well, they're doing a really good job. They have a plan that's a $10 a month plan.

01:20:19.080 | So you have $10 a month, and you can split that out into any combination of voice minutes,

01:20:24.960 | text or data. And voice is billed at four cents a minute. Texts are billed at two cents

01:20:29.000 | a text message, and data is billed at 33 cents a megabyte, right?

01:20:34.640 | And so that comes out to your $10. If you do that, $10 comes out to 250 minutes, 500

01:20:44.080 | text messages, or I don't figure out the data thing. The data price seems really high to

01:20:48.280 | me, so I just don't use the data.

01:20:49.800 | Yeah. It's something like a 30 megabyte of data or something such as that. Some insulting

01:20:55.600 | amount of data, which I mean, honestly, if... We're talking reduced data rates, but the

01:21:02.280 | way AT&T charges their MVNOs for data, you'd think the stuff was made out of the finest

01:21:10.440 | gold and jewel-encrusted bits of data that were somehow magically entrusted upon you

01:21:19.520 | through the network. It's just... It's absurd. But it's neither here nor there.

01:21:28.080 | So what did I miss on Airvoice? Did I miss anything?

01:21:30.680 | A couple things. Airvoice does offer auto-renew plans, which is actually pretty rare in the

01:21:38.240 | MVNO market. They do have rollover with that plan, so anything you don't use out of that

01:21:47.640 | $10 every month is going to continue to carry over, so you're not just losing what you don't

01:21:55.840 | use at the end. It'll keep going, and that's one of the nice things about averaging out

01:22:02.720 | your usages. If you do wind up having a couple of lighter usage months followed by a really

01:22:09.660 | heavy usage month, given that rollover is there, it's going to be able to absorb the

01:22:16.800 | shock of using more than what you normally buy, and that can be incredibly useful to

01:22:23.720 | know. Let's see, Airvoice also does call forwarding on their per-minute plans. Not their unlimited,

01:22:31.080 | but on their per-minute plans, so that's something to keep in mind for those of you who are using

01:22:37.320 | like Femto cells in your homes to try and get coverage in your house where you're not

01:22:45.800 | actually getting like AT&T reception. You can set up your cell phone to forward to your

01:22:52.520 | handy new voice number if you like, and then you don't have to worry about missing any

01:22:56.960 | calls.

01:22:57.960 | That's cool. I saw in the notes here about the call forwarding, but I didn't think about

01:23:05.760 | why that's important, so that makes sense to me.

01:23:08.880 | Of course, you're still going to get billed per minute, and you'll want to be real careful

01:23:13.920 | about not staying too long on calls where you know it's been forwarded through, but

01:23:20.880 | it is something to consider and something that can be potentially useful, and beyond

01:23:26.080 | that, they're basically a bring-your-own-device company, so as long as you have a carrier-unlocked

01:23:32.080 | GSM cell phone, you're set to go.

01:23:35.960 | And also, on the $10 a month thing, I want to emphasize, because I actually was talking

01:23:40.360 | with some friends last night about it. If I run out of texts per minute, I just buy

01:23:48.320 | another $10, and, "Oh, I spent $20 this month. Big deal."

01:23:53.720 | "Oh, I've doubled my expenses!"

01:23:57.440 | I mean, if you actually run it, even at those rates, let's say that I do $30 of minutes

01:24:06.120 | divided by $0.04, that's 750 minutes. That's a lot of talking, and yet I'm still cheaper

01:24:11.840 | than I was.

01:24:13.880 | For me, the reason I love it so much is because I can still have all the fun of my iPhone.

01:24:19.200 | I have my Kindle on there, so if I'm waiting in line, I can read a Kindle book. I've

01:24:24.960 | still got all of the usefulness of all of my applications, but I just am using it kind

01:24:29.680 | of like an iPod Touch or a tablet that doesn't have a data connection, but yet I can still

01:24:36.200 | get the few phone calls and texts that I want to get.

01:24:39.040 | So it's been super, super – we love it. We're super pleased with it.

01:24:43.120 | >> By that same token, though, if you're consistently having to spend $25, $30 a month

01:24:51.000 | on per-minute costs, then you might want to reevaluate whether you want to stick with

01:24:55.720 | per-minute or potentially jump up to one of their "unlimited plans" on the talk and

01:25:01.720 | text.

01:25:02.720 | >> Yeah, I've only had one – you're exactly right. I've only had one month where I wound

01:25:09.040 | up doing $20 instead of $10 because I was on the road. Actually, the reason it was,

01:25:13.120 | I had a car accident.

01:25:14.120 | >> That'd do it.

01:25:15.120 | >> Yeah, so I'm on the side of the road and I needed to turn data on to get on the

01:25:20.240 | Internet and get some phone numbers and stuff while I'm sitting on the side of the road.

01:25:23.440 | So I burned through $6 of data on the side of the road, but hey, whatever. That's what

01:25:28.920 | it's there for. So it was fine.

01:25:32.360 | Next on the list, your favorite, PlatinumTel.

01:25:34.400 | >> Yeah, PlatinumTel – technically, PlatinumTel has a sister company called GiveMobile as

01:25:41.600 | well. We'll get to them in a minute. They're on the T-Mobile network. They've got U.S.-based

01:25:49.640 | customer support just like AirVoice does. Same region of the country as well. Kind,

01:25:56.480 | wonderful folks up in the Great Lakes region. We as a country do not give those people near

01:26:03.080 | the credit they really deserve. They're just salt of the earth, man. But their voice prices

01:26:12.560 | per minute are a penny higher than AirVoice's $10 plan, so you're spending five cents a

01:26:18.720 | minute. But their text rates are the same, and more importantly, their per megabyte charge

01:26:26.880 | is basically nearly a third of what AirVoice is charging. Yeah, 10 cents a megabyte. So

01:26:39.200 | you can actually – that's a fair chunk of data. I mean, 10 bucks will get you 100 megabytes,

01:26:47.320 | so that's not too bad. We're talking in an era where we're talking about 100 megabytes

01:26:57.200 | of data for $10 isn't bad. This is embarrassing. Welcome to the future, ladies and gentlemen.

01:27:07.880 | Thank you, data caps. But you got cheap data prices. They don't have any auto-renew, but

01:27:16.320 | they have really long airtime with their pay as you go. 10 bucks gets you 60 days of service,

01:27:25.760 | 20 gets you 90, and it just keeps going up until I think 100 bucks gets you a year. And

01:27:36.120 | that takes care of things sufficiently to where you don't have to sweat things too much

01:27:43.120 | on, "Oh, I got to stay on top of it every month to renew stuff." If you just buy a

01:27:50.200 | giant wad of – you figure out how much you need in the way of minutes and say if you

01:27:57.600 | figure you're going to wind up using about 10 bucks airtime a month, go ahead and get

01:28:04.520 | like the $100 of airtime, and then you don't really have to worry about it until a year

01:28:11.720 | from now. You'll get the little message, "Hi, you need to pay before this such and

01:28:16.160 | such a date or else your service is going to get cut off and you'll lose any rollover."

01:28:21.040 | But even if you wind up missing that time, if you read their terms of service, which

01:28:26.720 | is actually one of the shortest in the industry, you've got something like 30 or 60 days after

01:28:34.320 | that point to reactivate the account and keep your phone number, which is a drastic shift

01:28:43.680 | in what a lot of people are used to with like Straight Talk, Net10, and TrackPhone, where

01:28:49.680 | basically you let your account lapse, you lose your number within 24 hours. It emphasizes

01:29:00.640 | again that you need to read the terms of service. But I mean, they're forgiving. And I mean,

01:29:09.640 | PlatinumTel really shines as a per-minute pay-as-you-go provider. They're a little

01:29:16.520 | more expensive than T-Mobile's own GoSmart for the "unlimited packages," but by the

01:29:25.160 | same token, PlatinumTel's customer service is just that much better than anything T-Mobile's

01:29:32.320 | ever going to provide you, especially on their prepaid services. And to that regard, too,

01:29:44.320 | with GiveMobile, their sister company, it's a service that just launched a few months

01:29:49.480 | back. For the same price as those unlimited packages on the PlatinumTel end, on the Give

01:30:00.160 | end, they donate 8% of your bill to three charities of your choice from like a list

01:30:06.440 | of 45 that they support. So you get better -- you may wind up paying a little bit more

01:30:15.640 | than GoSmart for the same amount of data and unlimited talk and text, but you get better

01:30:26.360 | customer service and you have the option of doing good in the world.

01:30:32.000 | >> I wonder if they send you a receipt so that you can deduct your 8% of yourself.

01:30:38.440 | >> I doubt it. That's not something I'd consider outright charity on your behalf because you

01:30:45.320 | got the middle man there. But I mean, it's still --

01:30:47.880 | >> It feels good and it helps.

01:30:50.520 | >> Yeah, it helps. And more people need to be charitable, doggone it. We need to do more

01:30:58.720 | good with our money. And if you can potentially do that by switching to a provider that does

01:31:06.480 | that, hey, just like Credo Wireless over on Sprint, if the billing works for you and the

01:31:16.640 | organizations that they support float your boat, go for it, man. It's better than just

01:31:22.320 | flushing the money directly down the chute and can potentially help other people.

01:31:32.480 | >> And they have international options, right?

01:31:34.960 | >> Yeah, PlatinumTel, that's one of the things where you wind up getting that price differential.

01:31:42.080 | The reason why they seem a little more expensive than like GoSmart for basically the exact

01:31:46.920 | same service or very close to it, it's because they've already got international services

01:31:52.360 | rolled into it. So in actuality, if you need like international texting or whatnot, then

01:32:01.400 | PlatinumTel and Give are going to cost the same amount of money per month as GoSmart

01:32:08.040 | is with that international bundle added on. So you might as well just go the one route

01:32:18.000 | versus the other anyway.

01:32:20.000 | >> Got it. GoSmart then, you're just mentioning them. What's the deal with GoSmart?

01:32:24.160 | >> GoSmart's actually a new brand owned by T-Mobile. They've been making a big push into

01:32:30.360 | the MVNO marketplace themselves the past few months. And they don't have any pay-as-you-go

01:32:35.600 | stuff. But if you're in that category of $30 plus a month on your cell phone service and

01:32:44.120 | you just can't rope your usage in, but you want to go with a T-Mobile provider that has

01:32:50.280 | cheap data, GoSmart's going to be the one you want to go to.

01:32:55.360 | >> So that would be good for my young friends who are iPhone app developers that say, "There's

01:33:01.800 | no chance that I'm going to... Joshua, you're being a dumb-dumb here thinking that I'm going

01:33:06.120 | to give up all my data usage." But I go, "Okay, listen, consider GoSmart, right?"

01:33:10.200 | >> Yeah. For $45 a month, you can get that unlimited talk text and 5 gig of unmetered,

01:33:18.320 | unthrottled data. And then after that 5 gig, you'll get throttled down to edge speeds.

01:33:25.920 | But I mean, anyone who's able to use 5 gig of data a month on a cell phone really is

01:33:32.720 | using so much data that they need to be on a desktop anyway.

01:33:36.200 | >> Yeah. That's a monster. And you would say even though straight talk offers similar,

01:33:41.400 | although theirs is capped at what, 3 or 4, I think...

01:33:44.240 | >> Well, that's the thing. They don't actually disclose what their caps are.

01:33:48.640 | >> Okay. Yeah. You're right. You're right. But at least you would say GoSmart better

01:33:55.320 | than straight talk, right?

01:33:56.320 | >> Yeah, absolutely. And fact of the matter is, is I think straight talk, America Mobile

01:34:01.480 | actually switched over to T-Mobile as their primary SIM card provider now. So honestly,

01:34:08.400 | for the money, you're getting no better. The only thing is, is you're getting an even longer

01:34:14.840 | contract with an even longer terms of service with even more dubious points of contention

01:34:21.240 | where they can just terminate your service without any warning or question. So if you're

01:34:29.920 | going to wind up on a T-Mobile network anyway for your data service, go with someone where

01:34:37.080 | they're actually upfront and honest about how much data you're actually going to use.

01:34:43.240 | >> I got--I just--I thought I had heard something and I just went and Googled it while you were

01:34:47.840 | talking. I heard--I was listening to Clark Howard the other day and he had really recommended

01:34:52.160 | straight talk but all of his listeners were so frustrated with not knowing the cap. So

01:34:56.520 | they hammered on straight talk and they finally got straight talk to give the number.

01:35:03.640 | >> Really?

01:35:04.640 | >> Yeah, 2.5 gigs. I'll send you the--I'll send you the--

01:35:07.880 | >> 2.5 gig.

01:35:08.880 | >> Yeah. So I'll send you the link and I'll put it in the show notes on his blog. So 2.5

01:35:16.360 | gigs of high speed data. After 2.5, you're throttled to--you're throttled down and there's

01:35:21.520 | a hard cap at 4 gigs. So their unsubmitted data is 2.5 gigs.

01:35:25.400 | >> It was a hard cap at 4 gig. And even more interestingly is that may be, you know, 2.5

01:35:32.360 | gig in a month but if I recall correctly, their data throttling practices are actually

01:35:37.600 | on a daily basis. So if you exceed something like--I want to say that others had kind of

01:35:43.480 | figured out that the daily cap was like somewhere around 70, 80 megabyte and you exceeded that

01:35:49.720 | and they'd already start to throttle you for the rest of the day. So, yeah. Let me tell

01:35:56.320 | you, the best place for resources on finding out the more unsavory side of any particular

01:36:04.440 | MVNO carrier, even the good ones here, and it's important with research. You really need

01:36:10.560 | to know who you're dealing with and you should look at both good and bad with any of them.

01:36:16.240 | But I mean, Howard Forums is just an absolute fantastic resource for that because you're

01:36:21.480 | going to get full spectrum. You're going to have the people who absolutely love the service.

01:36:26.280 | You're going to have the people who absolutely hate it. And there is value in negative feedback

01:36:34.200 | because you can tell by that negative feedback where the problems and the shortcomings are

01:36:39.960 | in the service. >> So you said Howard Forums?

01:36:43.880 | >> Yes, Howard Forums. >> Okay. I'll look that up and put it in

01:36:48.680 | the show. Moving on, Ting. My brother uses Ting and he--they got this thing where like

01:36:55.440 | you change your plan every month based upon your usage, right?

01:37:00.600 | >> Yeah. It's basically kind of this hybrid prepaid, postpaid, paid monster, kind of the

01:37:06.080 | best of both worlds in a lot of regards. And they have some really nice tools that allow

01:37:11.440 | you to restrict and cap usage and really good provider if you need several--if you're doing

01:37:22.160 | like the family plan type of thing where you just want one bill for everyone and they'll

01:37:27.640 | basically, you know, you pool everyone's usage together and bill you only for what you're

01:37:35.000 | actually used. There's no unlimited anything there. They're a newer company. I typically

01:37:42.160 | try and skew towards older established MVNOs simply because the marketplace is just so

01:37:49.920 | cutthroat and brutal. So like Airvoice and PlatinumTel, they're really the granddaddies

01:37:57.080 | of the MVNO marketplace. They've been--they've both been around for over a decade just like

01:38:02.160 | Virgin Mobile has, though technically Virgin was bought out by Sprint. So that's kind of

01:38:08.240 | cheating a little bit on that particular number. But you want to go with providers who've proven

01:38:17.320 | themselves in the marketplace. But I do make exceptions on rare occasion. Ting is one of

01:38:24.240 | them. They've only been around for like a year and a half, but they're backed by 2Cows.

01:38:29.120 | You remember the company back in the late '90s where you used to go for like freeware

01:38:34.280 | and shareware on the internet?

01:38:36.600 | >> Yeah.

01:38:37.600 | >> Yeah.

01:38:38.600 | >> Yeah.

01:38:39.600 | >> That's them. They're actually a pretty large internet services provider and back

01:38:47.120 | bone bandwidth, the whole nine. And they recently got into MVNO usage. And one of the other

01:38:54.240 | nice things is Sprint's network is, I believe, the smallest network footprint on the nation.

01:39:05.120 | With Ting, they actually allow for voice roaming with Verizon as well. So that kind of fills

01:39:11.080 | in a lot of gaps and shortcomings for a lot of Sprint MVNO users. So if you're seriously

01:39:18.480 | thinking about going Sprint, you need to go with the Sprint MVNO, you should probably

01:39:24.880 | consider using Ting. And it doesn't hurt that they actually let you bring your own Sprint

01:39:29.320 | device as well.

01:39:30.320 | >> Cool. Cool. Virgin Mobile, is that still owned by Richard Branson or did he sell that

01:39:37.360 | off?

01:39:38.360 | >> No, he sold it off a couple of years after establishing it here. And Virgin Mobile in

01:39:44.840 | this country is actually owned by Sprint. Just like...

01:39:47.640 | >> My sister's on their network and she's had a good deal with just with the dumb phone

01:39:52.200 | for a long time. But she's really liked their service.

01:39:55.000 | >> Yeah. Their prices and services aren't too bad for both packages that skew more towards

01:40:01.920 | voice usage and other plans that skew more towards data usage. They're decent enough.

01:40:11.400 | And if you just absolutely positively have to have a CDMA-based iPhone, go Virgin Mobile.

01:40:22.960 | >> So CDMA, you mean if you were on Verizon?

01:40:27.360 | >> If you were...well, if you've got good Sprint coverage, clearly, because you're really

01:40:33.160 | not going to be able to bring any sort of iPhone over to a Verizon MVNO. But if you

01:40:38.280 | just absolutely positively have to have CDMA coverage and you have to have an iPhone, then

01:40:45.200 | you...

01:40:46.200 | >> What I'm asking is the CDMA, I thought it was Verizon that used CDMA. Is Sprint...

01:40:50.680 | >> Both Sprint and...yeah, both Sprint and Verizon.

01:40:53.680 | >> Okay. Do you think that...is there any deals to be had there if somebody buys a CDMA

01:40:59.280 | iPhone off eBay or something? Is that something to be...

01:41:01.920 | >> No. You have to buy the iPhone straight from Virgin. It's got to be a Virgin-branded

01:41:07.720 | device. They don't really...they kind of have a bring your own Sprint device policy unofficially,

01:41:18.040 | but it's kind of difficult to do. It's just easier to buy an actual Virgin-branded device.

01:41:24.800 | It cuts down on portability, but...and you're already getting clipped hard on the whole

01:41:31.400 | portability and taking your handset wherever you go with a CDMA provider anyway, so...

01:41:38.160 | >> Okay. Let's see, PagePlus.

01:41:41.400 | >> Yes, PagePlus. They're currently a...they're a Verizon-based MVNO. They've got a reasonably

01:41:52.240 | decent history and track record of good...they've got good packages at good price points, but

01:42:00.840 | I am getting a little hesitant on the idea of recommending them anymore because...you

01:42:07.240 | know how I keep kind of not saying the kindest things about the realities of services from,

01:42:15.520 | you know, like Straight Talk, Net10, TrackPhone, any of the other America Mobile-branded services?

01:42:23.560 | America Mobile put in a bid to buy out PagePlus's parent company, and pretty much every MVNO

01:42:37.200 | that America Mobile has bought out has ultimately gone over to the worse, I'm sorry to say.

01:42:45.680 | I just...the support is terrible. The prices for what you're getting are not that competitive.

01:42:56.240 | I find it hilarious that people think they're getting, like, this fantastic deal on TrackPhone

01:43:05.440 | with, you know, triple minutes for life on the goofy little proprietary phone that they

01:43:11.600 | sell you, and you do the math and the triple minutes for life, you're still paying, you

01:43:18.000 | know, you're still paying, let's see, $20 for 90 minutes, so you're getting, like, oh

01:43:27.400 | geez, 270 minutes for 20 bucks. Well, even the PlatinumTel 200 minutes is, you know,

01:43:37.800 | 10. You're way overpaying. But we'll kind of get more...I've jumped off of PagePlus

01:43:44.320 | and gone straight to...I've gone straight to the America Mobile properties, but back

01:43:52.000 | to PagePlus. For the moment, they've still got some good plans, and they've kind of been

01:43:59.120 | the default go-to for Verizon refugees who just wanted to get out. And unless you need

01:44:10.040 | to bring an LP device or a BlackBerry or an iPhone, you can usually just bring your Verizon

01:44:18.560 | device over with you as well without any problems. But given the whole America Mobile thing,

01:44:27.640 | you know, we do need to...what happens if we lose PagePlus? Well, there is an outfit

01:44:34.280 | called Talk for Good. They're kind of new. I am a little skittish about their long-term

01:44:39.480 | survivability, but odds are if the deal goes through for PagePlus, they've pretty much

01:44:46.680 | got it locked and made as long as they, you know, don't extend themselves too thin. So

01:44:54.120 | same benefits right there. So consider them potentially as well, but do keep in mind that

01:45:05.080 | they haven't been on the scene for that long. So caveat dumped or, you know.

01:45:13.000 | - Got it. Straight Talk, Net10, TrackPhone, you pretty much covered, not a huge fan. And

01:45:20.960 | we've talked a few times about Straight Talk. Is there anything that they do well? Like,

01:45:24.520 | is there any reason to go for them?

01:45:26.360 | - Well, if you're...

01:45:28.160 | - That was kind of a leading question. I didn't mean to sound quite that bad, but I mean...

01:45:35.040 | - Well, as a perfectly cromulent, horrible response to that question, if you're a masochist,

01:45:42.400 | why not? But, you know, there are limited situations where they may be of use. Like

01:45:51.200 | if you are up in the $40 to $50 a month range where you're wanting to bring your own device

01:45:57.920 | and you need the ability...where you're on a GSM carrier and you need the ability to

01:46:04.560 | roam off network from your primary provider. Like if your T-Mobile coverage or your AT&T

01:46:16.600 | coverage isn't sufficient for every place you go, but is mostly sufficient, but you

01:46:21.360 | still need that critical reception that's more than just 911 service access, and you

01:46:29.520 | can justify, you know, the usage and the money, then yeah, you could find a case for usage

01:46:39.520 | on that in certain situations, but not often. So...

01:46:50.280 | When you get down to it, it's all about doing the math. Do the math for what they're actually

01:46:54.920 | charging for those services, and you're going to find that there are going to be better

01:46:59.600 | providers out there offering the exact same service for cheaper. And you don't have to

01:47:06.520 | use their crummy phones.

01:47:11.400 | - And I guess you figured, who's the guy that owns those...

01:47:14.200 | - Carlos Slim.

01:47:15.200 | - The richest man in the world. So he's doing okay. He'll be all right. He's out here, I

01:47:21.200 | guess.

01:47:22.200 | - He's on his bottom line, not giving them any business.

01:47:24.200 | - Yeah. Of course, Carlos, if you need anything, call me. I'm happy to help. You know, we can

01:47:28.440 | help you work out your customer service problems here. Republic Wireless.

01:47:35.200 | - Okay. We were talking earlier about the dangers of potentially, you know, getting

01:47:41.360 | all of your service through data, and this is Republic Wireless and Freedom Pops actually

01:47:49.040 | introducing a new phone service here through their data as well. And like I said, I was

01:47:59.840 | out in the thick of the May 31st tornado here in Oklahoma, the one that ripped through El

01:48:06.600 | Reno, and I noticed that the first thing that went was data. Second thing to go was voice,

01:48:16.160 | and the third to go was SMS. And as much as I would love to like Republic Wireless and

01:48:23.120 | Freedom Pop for, you know, providing these "incredibly cheap, unlimited services," I

01:48:32.560 | can't because all it is is VoIP service wrapped up in a proprietary mobile phone. And that

01:48:42.800 | means you're getting the worst of both mobile service and VoIP. And you're restricted to

01:48:49.400 | the Sprint network, which, you know, doesn't exactly have some of the fastest data speeds

01:48:54.880 | anyway, especially on the MVNO end. And if you wind up being in an emergency situation

01:49:04.720 | with an emergency phone, and the first thing to go is your data service, you've basically

01:49:10.600 | lost all forms of communication with that device. So that needs to be something that

01:49:19.400 | you are aware of. And if you really want an emergency communications device, you need

01:49:25.920 | to be able to go through multiple channels of communication, and you can't do that with

01:49:31.320 | those providers. You think you can, but you can't.

01:49:37.240 | >> That makes sense. So it would -- so those -- because I, you know, I like the Republic

01:49:42.880 | Wireless idea. I mean, basically their deal is $19. Their drum they beat is $19 a month,

01:49:51.760 | no caps on anything. And the reason we can give it to you really cheap is because we're

01:49:55.600 | going to run you through Wi-Fi when we're on Wi-Fi, and then we're going to trust you

01:50:00.800 | to be part of the family and not go too high on your usage when you're not on Wi-Fi.

01:50:05.080 | >> But in reality, if you use too much data, you're going to wind up losing your service

01:50:10.320 | anyway. And let's be honest, if you're going to be saddled at home using a VoIP provider

01:50:17.400 | anyway, why do it through the worst possible way to do it? Why not just properly get a

01:50:25.200 | cheaper VoIP provider like VoIPo or some such and just go that path?

01:50:32.440 | >> Yeah. It's -- you're right. I was -- I recommended recently Republic Wireless to

01:50:39.680 | my sister because she's on a dumb phone with Virgin Mobile, and she's, you know, years

01:50:44.680 | later she's like, "I think I'm finally ready to go ahead and get a smartphone." So I said,

01:50:48.880 | "Well, you know, you've got this great cheap plan. If you really want a smartphone, you

01:50:52.120 | don't use that much. You're at the house where you've got Wi-Fi all day. Why don't you, you

01:50:56.400 | know, consider this Android that Republic Wireless has. It's probably good enough for

01:51:00.720 | you to get the experience of the smartphone without going too high." But, you know, your

01:51:06.120 | point about the risks of everything being on the data connection is exactly, you know,

01:51:10.920 | it's well received. What would you -- so what would you recommend to her, you know, to get

01:51:18.800 | the smartphone experience? You know, because I didn't want her to -- my conundrum was I

01:51:22.600 | didn't want her to be worrying about not using data on the road. So I figured, well, the

01:51:26.760 | easiest thing if she wants the smartphone experience would be Republic Wireless.

01:51:30.800 | >> Well, you're not really going to get much of a smartphone experience with Republic Wireless

01:51:36.600 | anyway. But probably one of the T-Mobile providers, if that is that much of a concern with the

01:51:45.480 | whole, you know, smartphone experience, then, you know, go with the carrier that has the

01:51:51.880 | cheapest data services available, you know.

01:51:55.280 | >> Yeah. Makes sense. Let's see. Anything else on this list here? I guess next thing

01:52:05.760 | up on our list is that there are other features and talk us through Google Voice and other

01:52:11.280 | providers.

01:52:12.280 | >> Well, Google Voice, it's a great -- a lot of people use it to augment their service

01:52:16.480 | with and -- but because it's basically VoIP. So it makes things, you know, cheaper as long

01:52:25.000 | as, you know, you're not having to pay too awful much for your data. But the thing that

01:52:30.560 | a lot of people don't realize is a lot of Google Voice's features are not exclusive

01:52:34.640 | to Google Voice. Things like global call hunt, SMS support, you know, voicemail to email,

01:52:41.840 | that sort of thing, cheap international rates, those can be had with services like VoIPO,

01:52:48.640 | VoIP MS, and call centric. So why get involved with Google's data mining? Because, I mean,

01:53:00.600 | let's face it, there's no such thing as a free lunch. So why bother?

01:53:04.400 | >> Yeah, Mr. Plummer needs to listen to my calls. It's okay.

01:53:10.240 | >> But I mean -- but it does highlight the necessity for using VoIP as a way to augment

01:53:16.520 | and cut down on prices. You want VoIP for your home. So, you know, Google Voice plus

01:53:24.080 | Talkatone or an OB device at home, if you really want to go the Google Voice route,

01:53:28.720 | that can work.

01:53:29.720 | >> What is OB?

01:53:30.720 | >> The OB, the OB high devices like the OB 110, they're basically little ATAs that you

01:53:38.800 | can actually tie into Google Voice, just like Talkatone can on a smartphone. So --

01:53:46.480 | >> Got it.

01:53:47.480 | >> Yeah, that basically allows you to tie like an old analog telephone to your Google

01:53:54.840 | Voice account. But you get what you pay for and Google Voice is not that great of a service.

01:54:00.520 | I take it from someone who's had them since the Grand Central days. The only reason why

01:54:05.480 | I'm still with them is purely the momentum and the fact that I don't want to give Google

01:54:16.560 | a credit card number.

01:54:19.560 | >> Here's one thing also that I like about Google Voice, and maybe there are others as

01:54:25.920 | well, but one thing I like about Google Voice is that I can have one phone number that I

01:54:33.960 | don't have to pay for as far as money out of pocket that I can always use. So even if

01:54:39.400 | I go out of the country for a month or a couple months or things like that, I can just shut

01:54:43.560 | off, especially with prepaid. It's so wonderful. I can just turn off my prepaid phones and

01:54:49.240 | no one has those numbers. I can disconnect any kind of like those services and save that

01:54:53.120 | money and Google Voice will email me my voicemails and I can call people on the road.

01:54:58.280 | >> And like I said, that's not a service exclusive to Google Voice anymore. Most really good

01:55:05.560 | VoIP providers already have that option as well.

01:55:07.720 | >> Do they have it for free, like without a monthly fee?

01:55:11.320 | >> Well, not without a monthly fee. If you're paying for VoIP service, but you do get it

01:55:16.960 | as part of the base package. You're not spending extra for it. So if you're already going to

01:55:22.280 | be spending money for VoIP service at home, why drag Google Voice into the mix when you

01:55:28.040 | can replicate those features for...

01:55:30.400 | >> That makes sense.

01:55:31.800 | >> Yeah.

01:55:32.800 | >> I'm with you. All right. Anybody else on that list? Anything special about phone power

01:55:36.520 | and NetTalk?

01:55:37.520 | >> Well, Talkatone, or sorry, not Talkatone, VoIPO, VoIPMS, Callcentric, Future9, Phone

01:55:43.320 | Power and NetTalk, those are kind of the core providers that offer some of the cheapest

01:55:51.960 | things. The thing with NetTalk is I'm not crazy about them because they're basically

01:55:55.720 | selling a proprietary device and you're locked into it. But if you're just absolutely positively

01:56:01.680 | looking for the absolute cheapest VoIP service at home possible, go NetTalk. It's going to

01:56:08.840 | be cheaper than the MagicJack. The service is going to be better and you're not going

01:56:19.080 | to have the restrictions with it. But all of these providers, it's just like the MVNOs.

01:56:26.120 | You need to look to see what's going to give you the best options that you need because

01:56:30.980 | not all of them have things like SMS support. Not all of them have visual voicemail. Not

01:56:37.120 | all of them do global call hunt. And some of them have the option of a free second number.

01:56:52.040 | You just got to look at the services, what they offer, what their prices are and kind

01:56:57.160 | of determine where to go from there. But that said, of all of them, per month, if you're

01:57:02.840 | willing to pay for a couple of years up front, VoIP is going to be your cheapest, most feature-rich

01:57:07.120 | for the money.

01:57:08.120 | We may have to do another show just on VoIP because we're going long. I'd love to provide

01:57:18.400 | a resource just on VoIP and talk people through their options because you mentioned MagicJack,

01:57:24.320 | you mentioned these here. We haven't talked about Ooma. We don't need to go into it right

01:57:28.480 | now.

01:57:29.480 | I'm not a fan of Ooma. Don't get me started on Ooma.

01:57:33.920 | All right. Understood. We're going to have to have an extra one because it's interesting

01:57:37.640 | because Consumer Reports says Ooma is the best one for the last few years.

01:57:41.720 | Someone's not doing any math on that.

01:57:44.320 | I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on it. And obviously, here's the other thing

01:57:49.520 | is that people need to understand where they're at as far as the technological side of it.

01:57:55.440 | So sometimes, if you just want a plug-and-play solution, you might need to choose one. It

01:58:00.280 | may not be the cheapest, but if you can bring together a situation, there's always little

01:58:07.800 | things that you can exploit if you know what you're doing.

01:58:10.960 | Absolutely.

01:58:11.960 | And the last thing is, I think we said it before, but there's always the option of maybe

01:58:15.960 | you don't quite need a cell phone.

01:58:17.720 | Yeah. Maybe you don't actually need a cell phone. But by the same token, I can understand

01:58:25.000 | the concern for those people where, I mean, we've become a society without any payphones

01:58:31.520 | because of cell phones. So you want that emergency lifeline. Well, good news. You don't have

01:58:38.000 | to pay money for that emergency lifeline. If you're just looking for a phone that can

01:58:42.320 | dial 911 access, any decommissioned phone will work.

01:58:47.960 | Absolutely. And any phone is going to dial 911, no matter what it's going to dial. And

01:58:54.680 | here are my other things. If you need that emergency phone, that's thing one. Thing

01:59:00.480 | two is you can use either some sort of mobile device or tablet that has Wi-Fi. You can use

01:59:07.880 | an iPod Touch, a cheap iPod Touch off of eBay, and you can use that for all of the email

01:59:12.480 | stuff. And there's Wi-Fi everywhere. And/or you can always go and find an old Kindle 3G

01:59:17.960 | that will have limited email on the phone, and all that stuff is free.

01:59:21.520 | So for those who are pretty hardcore, there are lots of free solutions that you can accomplish.

01:59:26.680 | Absolutely. All right. I'm going to throw at you a couple

01:59:30.880 | of scenarios. And because we've talked about a lot, and obviously, this has been really

01:59:35.640 | great. I've enjoyed it. I'm going to give you a couple of scenarios. And first, I want

01:59:39.720 | to give people carrier guidance. Because a lot of times you get into CDMA and GSM and

01:59:48.960 | all this, what phones work with what phones? So if I have an AT&T phone, of the list of

01:59:54.840 | MVNO providers that we're suggesting people look at, which of those providers will take

02:00:01.080 | my AT&T phone? Well, providers, without being carrier unlocked,

02:00:07.320 | you're pretty much stuck with AT&T MVNOs like Air Voice, H2O Wireless, a few others I'm

02:00:17.320 | at a loss for at the moment. But I mean... So that's two. So if my phone is not unlocked,

02:00:23.440 | I can take it to Air Voice or you said H2O Wireless?

02:00:27.480 | H2O. H2O Wireless.

02:00:29.880 | And conversely, if you're someone under an AT&T contract and you want a new phone, technically

02:00:36.360 | speaking, you can just buy one of those Go phones off the shelf, one of the AT&T's prepaid

02:00:40.880 | phones. They'll work just as well. Just drop a SIM card in and you're done.

02:00:46.280 | Got it. And now if my phone is unlocked but it's an AT&T phone, then I can go to Air Voice,

02:00:53.720 | PlatinumTel, who else? Pretty much any GSM provider.

02:00:58.680 | Which ones are the GSM providers? Well, Air Voice, GoSmart, PlatinumTel, GiveMobile.

02:01:08.440 | There's... Oh, geez. There's someone else I want to mention but I'm drawn a blank at

02:01:15.120 | the moment. They weren't that important. I primarily stick with just recommending those

02:01:22.040 | guys anyway simply because of the price and the service and the longevity. But basically,

02:01:29.940 | if any provider... Oh, Consumer Cellular. That's who I was talking about. They're kind

02:01:34.680 | of the GSM equivalent of Ting, only you have to manually juggle between tiers of service

02:01:44.720 | and they have really steep overages. And well, it's basically what you'd expect from the

02:01:53.280 | Ting experience if it was filtered through the AT&T distortion field.

02:02:02.320 | Got it. Consumer Cellular is actually not too terrible,

02:02:13.160 | but it's considerably more expensive as is pretty much nearly any AT&T MVNO. But any

02:02:23.400 | MVNO that provides a SIM card, you're going to be able to use in your unlocked AT&T or

02:02:29.160 | unlocked T-Mobile phone. So T-Mobile phones would be the same list that you just gave

02:02:35.320 | me for AT&T? Yeah. You are going to run into some issues

02:02:43.060 | if you're wanting high-speed data with like a T-Mobile MVNO. There are some changes being

02:02:51.040 | made, but if high-speed data really matters to you, you're probably going to want to get

02:02:58.080 | a Pentaband T-Mobile cell phone that's carrier unlocked to be able to take advantage of high-speed

02:03:08.040 | access from a T-Mobile network provider. But beyond that, basically whatever applied for

02:03:19.400 | AT&T, you can switch it around for the T-Mobile MVNOs and vice versa. So basically just reverse

02:03:28.980 | what I said before. Got it. Now, if I've got Verizon, I can go

02:03:35.120 | directly to which of these characters without any trouble?

02:03:38.320 | Page Plus or Talk4Good. Okay. So if I've got Verizon, Page Plus and

02:03:42.900 | Talk4Good is where I go. And then Sprint? Your options pretty much are going to be like

02:03:49.320 | Ting, Virgin Mobile, and EcoMobile. Okay. Got it. All right. Any closing thoughts

02:04:01.720 | or anything we missed? Well, all I can really say is the same thing

02:04:06.520 | that I always say, research, research, research. Do the research, work out what you actually

02:04:12.680 | need to be well-informed as a customer. Do the math and sit down with your bills. I mean,

02:04:23.040 | know that very few people in this world need anything near approaching Unlimited. And remember

02:04:29.800 | that Unlimited doesn't actually mean infinite. So do the math and read the contracts that

02:04:37.480 | you're getting into. Understand them. If you see a contract that's way too long, that's

02:04:43.720 | not a good sign. So as long as you know what you need, you've researched, you've done the

02:04:53.000 | math, you know what you need out of your provider, and you have a contract that you understand,

02:05:01.320 | you're golden. Beyond that, I always advise try and stay away from any sort of vendor

02:05:07.800 | walk-in with handsets and devices. If you buy a phone that is proprietary only to that

02:05:17.080 | provider and you literally cannot take it anywhere else, well, kind of like Virgin Mobile's

02:05:22.960 | handsets or Cricket or any of the phones from Straight Talk Net 10 and TrackPhone, you're

02:05:38.280 | walked into those providers. You're not going to be able to take it anywhere else. So walk-in

02:05:45.000 | can be a nasty thing. And as long as you're walked in, you don't have the freedom to be

02:05:50.480 | able to go elsewhere. And ultimately, you need to be willing to compromise.

02:05:57.480 | >> Yeah. It's been -- you know, I think I've got a good understanding of what I think -- how

02:06:06.960 | a lot of people think about it. I used to be very scarred about going over and having

02:06:12.840 | -- being shocked by a huge bill. And so I said, "Well, I'll just go with unlimited,

02:06:16.880 | and that way I don't have to think about it." And it's an easy thing to think about. But

02:06:21.120 | as my little math example proves, that if you need unlimited, like if you need, like

02:06:26.480 | you said, thousands and thousands of minutes, great. Go for it. But most people don't. And

02:06:33.000 | it's worth it. It's worth the time. You know, saving an extra 50 bucks a month just by making

02:06:38.040 | a couple of switches is substantial over time, saved and invested. So it's been fun.

02:06:47.560 | >> Yes, it is.

02:06:48.560 | >> It's been fun. Well, I've enjoyed having you on. And --

02:06:51.400 | >> Thank you for having me.

02:06:53.600 | >> As far as where people should go, so you've got your site. I'll put links -- I'm going

02:06:58.160 | to put extensive show notes for this episode. And again, this episode, when checked, is

02:07:03.760 | going to be episode four. So to get to the show notes, go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/episode4.

02:07:11.800 | Just type that into the browser. It'll go right there. I'll put extensive show notes

02:07:15.280 | directing people to techmashugana.com, also to the Super Guide on the Money Mustache Forums.

02:07:21.080 | Let's see, would you prefer people ask you -- if people want to ask you questions, would

02:07:26.040 | you prefer they do it on the Super Guide or on your website? Or do you have a preference

02:07:29.920 | there?

02:07:30.920 | >> If you want to ask questions there on Radical Personal Finance or drop me a line directly

02:07:37.160 | off of my feedback form on my website, that'd be fantastic. I mean, I do frequent the forums

02:07:42.800 | as well. I'll answer questions wherever, but don't be afraid to ask.

02:07:48.160 | >> Yes, so people can leave questions right in the notes on this podcast. And we'll try

02:07:56.200 | to make sure that Will sees them. And then if there's something we can do -- and I got

02:08:00.440 | an idea that if you're Will and we might be doing this in a year and it'd be totally different.

02:08:05.320 | >> Yes, the markets change.

02:08:07.720 | >> They change quite quick. And then we'll see about kind of the schedule. If this is

02:08:12.840 | well received, maybe we'll do another one on VoIP because I know that's something you've

02:08:16.320 | got expertise in. It's totally new to me. I just bought a MagicJack and --

02:08:20.160 | >> Oh, you poor thing.

02:08:22.160 | >> Well, that's what I'm saying. I just decided it was on sale and I said, "Well, let's try

02:08:28.480 | it out." But I probably could return it. So maybe we should do it sooner than later, but

02:08:31.880 | we'll see.

02:08:32.880 | >> Very.

02:08:33.880 | >> I'll play with it. Thank you, Will. And with that, this has been Episode 4 of the

02:08:38.040 | Radical Personal Finance Podcast. As always, leave some comments on the show. Let us know

02:08:44.680 | how we can help you. My goal is to provide world-class information, content, and advice

02:08:52.480 | that doesn't have a specific agenda to beat you over the head to say this is what you

02:08:56.000 | should do, but rather to -- with the assumption that you're an intelligent consumer. If you

02:09:00.440 | know the information, you'll make the decisions that are right for you. So have a great day,

02:09:04.520 | everybody.

RPF_0004_-_How_to_Save_Huge_Money_on_Your_Cell_Phone_Bill_-_An_Interview_with_I.P._Daley_the_Tech_Meshugana