Suppose I send a picture or video message to a friend on the My5 list. Since I have 250 “Anything” messages, does this mean TELUS will just deduct that as a used message out of the 250, or try and charge me extra because I do not get free Picture/Video messaging to those 5 people?

Of course I would need to find this out first, and I don’t think it’s fair to assume either way. Knowing TELUS, they would probably try and charge you the most money possible, but knowing billing systems, it really could go either way. It’s up to the programmer for a minute detail like that.

Another thing that I calculated the other night was that if I really did use MORE than about 50 “anytime” minutes on a Prepaid plan, I was probably better off to go with a monthly plan. By looking at the table in the previous blog post, the trend is clear that on average, my needs are met at about $45/month. If we compare that with the prepaid plans with similar features, they work out to about $30/month. Since prepaid plans don’t offer “anytime” minutes included in any of their packages, this means I have about $15 to spend on a monthly basis on “anytime” minutes if I were to compare them apples to apples. TELUS charges $0.25 for anytime minutes, which works out as: $15.00/$0.25 = 60 minutes. In other words, if I spent more than 60 minutes speaking to non-My5 individuals in a month, then it’s time to look at a non-prepaid plan. Even TELUS suggests this right on their website. Obviously I do not make more than 2 calls a day or use more than 100 minutes a month, so really prepaid IS for me.

I did consider another option however. My initial requirements were 100min/unltd evening weekends OR My5. After looking over my call log on my current phone, I realized how little phone calls I really make. It’s almost exclusively texting. I could consider going with Fido on their $25 a month plan, and then just dropping the voicemail option as a way to save a bit of money. I’d get unlimited texting, evening and weekends, and 100 anytime minutes. There are several downsides: no voicemail, no free pic/vid, no prepaid liability-free-ness. BUT, I could obtain an iPhone either used or directly from Fido as a way to consolidate my iPod Touch with my phone. Obviously I would be getting this WITHOUT any sort of data plan. Nevertheless, I would then have a camera with me at all times and the device would have built in email for use over WiFi, I could probably live without picture/video messaging. I would only have to carry one device, and it would make things a lot more convenient (although I’d probably have to live with 16GB of storage, since a 32GB iPhone is not cheap.)

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that most of the draw of the iPhone IS it’s features that rely on mobile data plan which I would be skipping out on. Things like Google Maps (while not on WiFi) wouldn’t be very useful, and of course I wouldn’t be getting the neat visual voice mail features, among other things. By skipping out on the carrier options that fuel the iPhone’s awesomeness, I’m kind of skipping out on half the iPhone experience. It would just be a really nice iPod Touch that also had texting and a camera, and useful for the occasional phone call that I almost never make. However it WOULD cost more, and I’d be sacrificing some real cell phone features that I appreciate in a phone. (Not to mention, it’s rumored Apple would be coming out with an iPod Touch with a built in Camera next week anyway, so maybe I should just wait for that and upgrade the ol’ iPod.)

I guess it’s STILL not time for me to get an iPhone. I’m just way to cheap to justify the cost, or would be paying for a low-cost plan that would limit the iPhone’s abilities. Maybe in another 3 years when I’m looking for a new phone again there’ll be a new miracle grassroots provider that appeared (Shaw?) using new previously analog-TV band frequencies at super low cost to pwn out the big 3. Hey, a guy can dream right?

Here’s a bit of a table describing the pros and cons of both. I think I’ve made up my mind though.

Click to Enlarge

• 30c a minute anytime
• 15c a minute evening and weekends
• Unlimited incoming/outgoing text messages
• Unlimited mobile browser
• Caller ID
• Voicemail
• $1/day 10-4™ Service (Never used)

Here’s a table of the average amount of money I spend per month. These records are a bit incomplete it seems, but they give you a good idea of what I pay for cell phone service.

The numbers on the right are averages. Obviously the net billing periods are missing in certain cases, which would indicate that I lost a prepaid receipt somewhere. Still, my average monthly payment is $13.80 a month. That works out to about $165 a year. What am I complaining about then? Well my phone is failing. It’s more than 3 years old, it looks quite crappy, it’s bulky, and I can’t upgrade my phone without losing this epic $13.80 plan. Also, it lacks a camera, which I would find extremely valuable. Here’s a summary of what features I need in the phone service provider:

• 200 Anytime minutes
• Unlimited evenings/weekends
• 500+ texts per month (minimum, unlimited is ideal)

OR

• MY5-style unlimited texting and calling to 5 numbers

PLUS

• Receive texts via email #@MSG.ISP
• Caller ID
• Voicemail

If I consider how much I actually use my Mobile browser, it’s not very often. This is partly because it’s slow and not very useful due to the constraints of my phone, but also because now that I am in University, wireless internet is everywhere. As a student, you pretty much live on campus. I had previously relied on mobile browser to check my email etc while at school because my high school did not have any WiFi or anything like that, but really the only time I would ever need to use mobile browser NOW is if I’m in the car or in transit somewhere. Thus, here are some BONUS features that I would love to have:

• No extra cost MMS (for sending photos, etc.)
• Unlimited mobile browser
• Free DUN (Bluetooth/serial connection to laptop for Internet anywhere)

So let’s take a look at what the various providers have to offer. This actually took quite a bit of time to compile, so if you’re looking for a table of info across the various providers at this point in time (and in my usage range) then this might be quite useful to you.

I will do a comparison of both prepaid and post paid options, however I continue to feel that prepaid always offers a better deal. This is primarily because in general service fees are omitted, although those seems to be eliminated with most providers nowadays, but also because voice mail and Caller ID are almost always included for free with prepaid. This will be reflected in the tables.

Click to Enlarge

(Download PDF)

As per my original requirements, I do not really need extra minutes on top of MY5 options. Since I am not using many “anytime” minutes, it is perfectly reasonable to use those minutes Pay-Per-Use, or with a prepaid plan. So we’ve narrowed it down to a prepaid plan. Since I am planning on using the multimedia messaging options quite a bit, it’s unacceptable to be charged extra for those. Thus, we’ve narrowed it down to TELUS somehow. Taking a look at the raw cost, it’s also one of the cheapest options. The Bell plan listed here does NOT include any sort of My5, so it’s actually not even worth considering for my needs. Caller ID also doesn’t seem to be included, so it could end up costing over $26.

• 160 character messaging OR auto numeration (140 max characters is not acceptable)
• Camera, preferably above 0.3 MP
• Browser, HTML compatible
• Java or App support for GMail and Opera Mini
• Solid, Responsive UI
• Clamshell or Flip format
• Bluetooth
• Numeric keypad

Bonus Features

• GPS is nice
• Nokia and Sanyo I have come to trust, consumer Motorola, LG, and Samsung seem to have their issues