My Mobile Future: Part II

Eighteen years ago I made my first call on a mobile phone. Around 7:30pm on a cool September night, I walked outside my house, got in my mom's 1992 Honda Accord, and dialed our home phone number. She answered the phone and was pleasantly surprised that I was calling - her car phone was a birthday surprise done right. I have been mobile ever since.

As I briefly mentioned at the end of Part I, I will be considering all my options for my mobile future this November. There is a great chance that I will not be on Verizon Wireless anymore, there is a good chance that I will be on a prepaid plan, and there is a small chance that I will be without a mobile phone plan altogether.

A Quick Aside

Mobile phone plans follow an unfortunate pattern in America. Phone companies such as Verizon sell phone hardware cheap as a hook to tie you into an expensive two-year monthly contract. This enables high-end phones to be relatively affordable to the "everyman" in America. As the rest of the world knows, however, this model is far more expensive for the consumer than is necessary. Is a $200 iPhone upfront worth paying $2280 over the course of a two-year contract?

The Why

Verizon recently introduced new "Share Everything" data plans, which are ideally used to share multiple devices on one voice/data plan. While great for gadget lovers and families, the single-device user such as myself are left with a major increase in price and a decrease in value.

My mobile phone plan currently provides the following for $78 per month:

• 450 daytime minutes + free nights/weekends
• Unlimited SMS/MMS
• Unlimited data usage (of which I use about 1.2GB / month)

I use far less than 450 daytime minutes, but texting and data are pretty substantial to me. This is the takeaway from my babbling: Most of my phone usage can be measured in bytes, not minutes. In order to maintain my current level of service on Verizon's new plans, I would need to pay $100 per month, plus the usual fees, making my typical monthly bill just under $110. This will not be happening.

How Did I Do This Before?


Having unlimited, fast, wireless internet at my fingertips is relatively new to me. I only came on board the modern 3G train in late 2010, and now I cannot picture my life without an always-connected mobile device. Prior to 2010 my ideal mobile web experience relied on Wi-Fi access points scattered around the various places I traveled. My iPod touch got me from place to place as I synced at restaurants, coffee shops, work, and home. Most of my work and play time was spent on laptops and netbooks, so Wi-Fi was critical to my day. I planned to be places that had Wi-Fi.

Where I Am Now

I use my phone's data features obsessively. I update Facebook and Twitter, stream music via Spotify, answer email across three different accounts, sync to-do lists, share photos, and much more. I also do 90% of this from home or work - both places with Wi-Fi. In fact, thanks to the battery drain that 3G adds to my phone, I generally leave data features off until I need to use them. This happens maybe four or five times a day.

Many Paths, One Goal

Ultimately my mobile future has one goal: to stay connected with my friends, family, and co-workers. Here are my three options:

1) Switch to Prepaid (Virgin Mobile)

The easy switch for me may be to go prepaid. Prepaid services typically provide basic service on basic phones for cheap prices. Virgin Mobile has caught my eye thanks to its offering of decent Android phones, the iPhone 4S, and cheap, unlimited plans. Using Sprint's network, Virgin's $55 no-contract plan offers unlimited everything, and as far as I can tell, Sprint's networking coverage in my area is decent enough.

2) Not Carry a Mobile

The most drastic step is one I may actually try for a while. A mobile phone allows me to be reached anywhere at anytime, yet I spend the majority of my days near a computer, with an iPad in hand, and bathed in Wi-Fi. It would be possible to use a combination of IM, Google Voice, and Skype to handle my voice calls and texting needs.

This is where an Android tablet (the Nexus 7, for example) would come in handy. I could carry it in place of my phone and use native Google Voice capabilities at Wi-Fi-enabled locations to act as my phone. In between these points I would be entirely cut off from the benefits of mobile. This is the biggest hurdle for me to overcome.

3) Mix It Up

The most-interesting option for me is also the most-likely. This would be a combination of cord-cutting and cheap prepaid.

Part One:  My current mobile number would be ported to Google Voice, thus no one has to get a new number for me. I would encourage my closest friends to text and call through Google Voice and Skype when possible. Apple's FaceTime is even a viable option.

Part Two: Get a decent Android phone from Virgin Mobile and use their cheap $30 prepaid option (with only 300 minutes but unlimited texts/data) for when I'm away from home for a significant amount of time. I would only pay for Virgin when I absolutely needed it, meaning my yearly bill could be very, very cheap.

My Mobile Future

Thanks to the proliferation of quality tablets, plentiful Wi-Fi, and a myriad of online communication tools, my two-year stint with an expensive Verizon phone plan may be nearing its end. Although it may be a little more work for me in some respects, I believe I can have an inexpensive mobile future that still lets me stay in contact with all my friends and family.

B3 out.

My Mobile Future: Part I

I have been using mobile phones since 1994. My family's 1992 Honda Accord had a car phone installed (complete with a rear-window antenna!) and made rough, analog calls. Plans only came pay-per-minute, coverage was spotty, and calls were full of static. Roughly $40 per month covered the phone bill, though.

In 2000 my family upgraded to wireless Audiovox phones through one of the companies that would later merge to become Verizon Wireless. The phones were compact, made clear digital calls, and lasted about a week on a full battery. We had two phones that ran around $45 per month of service. Although they were primarily for my parents, I carried one of the phones on the weekend since I was a new, young driver.

Around 2004 our family upgraded to new phones, and this time I got my own phone number (the one I carry today) and a cheap, color-screen phone. $65 covered two phones per month.

In 2006, instead of upgrading phones through Verizon, I bought a mid-level camera phone by Samsung in order to keep up with my friends. Texting also entered my life, and I started at nearly 3000 messages a month.

In 2007 I wanted to try something a bit more complex, and I bid on a Windows Mobile 5 smartphone on eBay. For about $140 I had a brick-of-a-phone attached to my belt, but I also had a touchscreen, a web browser, and access to lots of neat apps on the go. The phone itself was old, so the battery life was awful and the experience generally poor.

2008 saw a change into the post-iPhone world. I left my parents' shared phone plan and signed up for a new 2-year contract with Verizon, this time paying $60 / month myself for an LG Voyager touchscreen phone that so badly wanted to be an iPhone. It was no iPhone, of course, but it was a texter's dream.

In 2009 I upgraded to the LG enV Touch and pounded away on its keyboard for a year before I finally decided I needed a full smartphone to stay up to date on the go.

November of 2010 saw me take the plunge into the Android world with an HTC Incredible. I instantly fell in love with Android and all its features. I was paying a lot, though: $90 / a month. My Meijer employee discount stuck with me after leaving Meijer, so I saved a bit on my bill anyhow. I knew right away that I would be stuck on Androird forever - despite being a bit buggy, it has all the apps I need, provides access to the Internet everywhere I go, and is hackable to no end.

At the end of 2012 I will be in a position to upgrade my phone again. Interestingly enough, I may upgrade by not having a mobile phone at all. I have been living in a mobile world for 18 years. That may suddenly end come November.

Stay tuned for Part II, when I look at my current mobile situation and answer this question: What purpose does my mobile phone serve and do I really need to carry one anymore?

B3 out.

The 50/50 Vacation

This past Wednesday, July 4th, I began a vacation from work with many grand intentions: hike, bike, visit friends in Cleveland, write, and attend the Build Responsively Workshops in Columbus. So far I have accomplished one of these things, and here I am in the Polaris suburb of Columbus, Ohio.

100+ degree heat for the past week and a half essentially shut down all my outdoor plans. While I did get a little biking in this morning, I am way behind on my mileage, so my first priority once I am back in Perrysburg will be to catch up on biking.

But in the meantime, I am spending the next two days in the middle of Polaris, Columbus, Ohio for the Build Responsively web design workshop. I will definitely be back afterwards with a short report on how it went.

Ultimately this vacation turned into a mix of the bad and the good: I spent the first half of it sitting on my butt (thanks to the weather), while the tail-end of it should be productive and awesome while I study responsive web design with a bunch of geeks.

B3 out.

A Slight Delay In Regularly Scheduled Programming

I will not be posting my usual entry tonight, instead saving my thoughts and words for my vacation this week, which begins this Tuesday at 5:00pm. See you then.

B3 out.