Choosing a wireless service provider

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Choosing a wireless service provider

• Take a cell assessment
• Making a commitment
• Avoid surprises in your wireless bill
• Prevent theft and fraud

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Welcome

• Why are you here?
• To learn how to choose the best wireless plan and
  avoid potential pitfalls.

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What you will learn

• Choosing the best plan
• Cellular industry vocabulary
• Prepaid vs. Monthly Wireless plans
• Choosing the right phone for the plan
• Reading wireless bills

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Whats in your folder?

• Brochure
• Backgrounder guide
• Slides in handout form
• Activities
• Sample billing statement
• Quiz
• Order form for free multilingual materials

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Expectations Activity

• Your name
• Your agency title
• What you hope to get out of this seminar today

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Available plans

• Local
• Roaming
• Regional
• National
• International

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Local Plans

• Allow calls within a metropolitan area or
  portions of a state without long distance charges

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Roaming

• Making calls outside of the carriers network
• Higher per minute charges with some plans

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Regional plans

• Users can make calls within a state or group of
  states without any long distance or roaming fees

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National plans

• Often called nationwide plans
• Users can make calls within the U.S.
• No long distance or roaming charges
• Remember to clarify all plan details with your
  carrier in advance

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International plans

• May provide better deals to other countries
• Prepaid plans also offer overseas calling options

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What to ask?

• What type of questions should you ask when
  comparing calling plans?

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What to consider?

• Basic monthly charge
• Anytime minutes
• Free nights weekend minutes
• Per minute rate if exceeded
• Long distance charge
• Roaming charges
• Peak vs. off peak hours
• Text messages / Internet access
• Contract issues

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Family plans

• What is a family plan?
• Does anyone have a family plan?

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Family Plans

• A less expensive way to add multiple phones and
  services to one account
• Share minutes
• Difficult to control shared minutes

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Family plan features

• Two or more cell phones share one bucket of
  minutes
• Bucket of minutes is an industry term for an
  allotment, usually monthly
• Plans offer buckets of 250, 500, 700 or 1000
  minutes per month

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Family plan features

• With some plans, unused minutes roll over to the
  next month
• Outgoing incoming calls and toll free calls
  will use bucket minutes
• Buy enough minutes to cover calling pattern
• Going over minutes 40 cents/min

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Comparison sites

• www.point.com
• www.myrateplan.com
• www.letstalk.com
• www.wirefly.com
• www.consumerreports.org (fee)

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What do you think?

• Are all cell phones the same?
• What is free mobile to mobile?
• Can you estimate your monthly usage? How?
• Can you control incoming calls?
• Do U.S. cell phones work overseas?

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Break

• See you in 15 minutes!

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Activity - 15 minutes

• Break into small groups
• Choosing a wireless service activity (page 9 in
  training curriculum)
• Choose a spokesperson
• Choose a recorder
• Be ready to share findings

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Cost of service

• First bill can be higher than normal due to
  activation fee
• Pro-rating of charges can increase your bill when
  changing plans or adding new features
• Request an estimate
• Final charges include taxes/surcharges and will
  be higher than calling plan fee

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Carriers may allow

• Checking minutes
• Checking balance

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Data Service

• What is data service?

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Data Service

• Downloading photos
• Checking e-mail
• Reading news headlines
• Text messaging
• Usually billed by kilobytes

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Billing mistakes

• Contact carrier immediately
• Take notes on your conversation
• Request an e-mail confirmation

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Activity

• Break into small groups
• Review Laura Fishs wireless bill
• Answer the questions on page 12
• Choose a spokesperson
• Choose a recorder
• Be ready to share findings

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Choosing a phone

• How many people here have a cell phone?
• Family members?
• What kind of cell phone do you have why?

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Types of phones

• Flip up candy bar phones
• PDAs - Personal digital assistants
• Smart phones
• Retractable antenna
• Ringer levels / vibrate settings
• Separate volume controls

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Making a choice

• Accepting a free phone
• Blocking the purchase of ring tones
• Rebate offers
• Phone replacement insurance

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Thank you!

• Did we meet your expectations?
• If you were facilitating this workshop tomorrow
  or next week, what information would you need to
  be effective?
• Other comments?

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Contact us

• Consumer Action - 1.800.999.7981
• www.consumer-action.org