With all of the cellular carriers now offering unlimited plans as low as $49.99; this weekend the Los Angeles Times reported on a study, by the San Diego based Utility Consumers' Action Network, which shows many customers pay for much more time than they use.
The Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN) averaged out the cellular minutes and costs of 700 San Diego residents to come up with the $3.02 per minute value. On the surface seems way out of band, however the LA Times wrote: "That $3-per-minute figure is skewed by the relatively small percentage of people who pay for a lot of minutes but barely use any. But even when those folk are taken out of the mix, most wireless customers still pay between 50 cents and $1 per minute, the study found." This clarification is important and although I still think $.50 to $1 is still very high, it makes more sense.
I decided to open up Excel and put my current T-Mobile Family bill to the test. I added up all of our Whenever minutes used including Weekend, HotSpot@Home, MyFaves, and T-Mobile to Mobile calls. I came up with $.04 per minute (taxes excluded) for the 2328 voice minutes we used. I felt much better that my current plans seems right for my situation. From the study's results it seems a lot of consumers don't bother analyzing their bills, all of the cellular carriers will even help you figure out the best plan for your usage pattern, so there is no excuse for paying more than you need especially in this economic environment.
Cell phone calls cost $3 a minute???
This preposterous assertion from UCAN San Diego should have set off skeptical alarm bells in any reputable journalist and editor. It didn't.
This bogus story has been circulated around the nation. Newspapers, TV stations and blogs mindlessly published or paraphrased an LA TIMES story (which the failing paper refuses to correct) without any effort to fact check, or even to apply the giggle test (it fails miserably).
UCAN is a far left advocacy group, masquerading as a consumer organization. They favor nationalization of the utilities, and vehemently oppose deregulation, competition and the private sector in general. The study was a classic example of junk science, or, more accurately, junk research.
UCAN's "scientific study" (87 pages, no less!) http://tinyurl.com/b563dc
surveyed their OWN membership -- a group dominated by low income senior citizens sporting tattered Che Guevara T-shirts. A third of those who responded had signed up for cell phone service and then seldom if ever used it. And this is the polling sample on which UCAN tells the nation that we are averaging $3 a minute for cell phone calls (and a ludicrous $.55 cents a minute for land line long distance, I might add).
Pathetic.
Posted by: Richard Rider, Chairman, San Diego Tax Fighters | March 11, 2009 at 04:55 PM