My wife, Lori, made the jump first. She changed cell phone companies. We were using a very small cell phone company and, quite frankly, there are a whole lot of places we have gone where we had little or no cell access. If I remember correctly, we were paying under $70/month for unlimited talk and text and three GB of data.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) estimates that there are 292.8 million active wireless subscribers as of June 2010 in the United States. In 2010 there were over 311 million people; which means that about 94% of the people had a cell phone. Now, I understand there are a whole lot of children in that number, so I am guessing some older people have several cell phone lines. To give you a little perspective, there are an estimated 285 million televisions in the United States, an estimated 290.5 million cars and almost 90 million dogs.
According to Michael Kwan, Professional Technology writer, with nearly 300 million cell phones in the United States, we are third overall in the world when it comes to cell phones in use. Recent estimates credit China with approximately 841 million, and India has 729 million cell phones. The United States penetration, however, is significantly higher than those two more populated countries.
The CTIA tells us that approximately 57.2 billion text messages were sent in 2005. That number, in 2010, grew to 1.82 trillion; that’s an increase of 30 times in the same period where the use of wireless minutes was less than double. No data was found on the increase in thumb injuries.
In Statista Research Department, July 27, 2022, android users in the United States reached 129.1 million of the nearly 300 million cell phones. We have android phones.
According to CNBC the average cell phone bill for the typical American is $127.37.
We are doing ok in that department. We were spending about $70/mo. for both of us. With our new carrier and new service that cost will be more like $40 for the two of us. That’s with 5 GB of data, and unlimited this, that and the other thing. The four major carriers in the United States: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon come in at between $65-$80/month per person on their most economical, unlimited data plans.
Lori has been with the new carrier for a while and finds better access, clearer conversations. And did I mention, better access?
One of my pet peeves about the carrier we had was that they made it nearly impossible to talk to a person. They want to conduct all business via the internet.
In fact, when I dialed the three-customer service numbers I found on their website, the first two were voicemails for the legal department with information stating non-legal messages left on the voicemail wouldn’t be addressed.
The third one was no longer in use. I got the feeling they really wanted to make it hard to leave. When I finally got to talk to someone, they gave me the necessary information to switch my number to another carrier and when I tried, it didn’t work. I got that done after about three days.
The next step is the anticipated arrival of an email from the new company saying, “The coast is clear; go ahead and change SIM cards.” Remember when you could just slide your cell phone open and pull out the old SIM card? Now, I need a fancy one-sided paper clip.
I am optimistic, but wish I had noticed sooner that the carrier we’ve been with so long has 1.3 stars on their customer service rating. Oh well, water, or stars, under the bridge.