A Way to Save Money over even the Best Cellular Phone Plans
When smart phone makers arrange their app stores to help their users take advantage of their smartphones like they were mini computers, they must have seen it as an opportunity to build a few additional functionalities about their devices, to make them more essential and applicable in their customer’s lives and as a way to painlessly turn a neat profit. What they probably didn’t intend was that inventive programmers who designed those apps would eventually find ways to help phone subscribers undermine the very phone plans that kept the manufacturers’ cell phone carrier partners afloat. There are all these apps now that grant you to totally circumvent having to use up your calling minutes and your text message quota. One out of three smartphones out there nowadays have Skype’s app that provides them to call different Skype users free of charge. And the number of users on Skype doubles yearly. And then there is Instant Messenger apps that let you send text messages for free. These have been on the smart phone companies’ app stores on their top-10 list off and on. Not even the best cellular phone plans can beat free.
What can best cellular phone plans save you? Let’s say that you have a kid who sends out a hundred text messages a day (not uncommon). Getting him on Yahoo! Messenger or Facebook on a smartphone could save you $200 a year. If you could buy voice minutes in a smaller bucket, that could save you additional $200. If you have to make regular calls to other countries, your savings could double. For example, if you use Skype rather than your voice minutes calling Canada for a half hour, every week, that could save you $10 monthly. Not to make it appear like using these services can be as effortless or as high-quality an experience as you are probably used to with regular voice calls. Skype calls go over Wi-Fi or your phone company’s data network. If it happens to be a congested Internet connection, your call quality can be pretty unreliable.
Instant Messenger apps can be far more pleasing to use though. Still, all of this will only work if the other party to the call has a smartphone too and has the same app as you. However, using these strategies will not really support you for very long. AT&T has already scrapped its unlimited data plan, and Verizon is set to do that soon. And that’s when using your data plan for voice akin of stop being a useful strategy. Until then, setting about your communication in these ways can be cheaper than the best cellular phone plans out there.
