Wireless Discounts Review: AT&T Mobility & Verizon Wireless - Most wireless subscribers pay a set amount every month for their cellular telephone service without thinking about ways they could be saving significant amounts of money every month. One way to save which is commonly overlooked is the carriers’ discount programs. Below, readers will find just a few of the many discount programs available from AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless. In the next edition of TRACNotes, we’ll look at some discounts available to Sprint-Nextel and T-Mobile subscribers.
AT&T Mobility Union Plus Discount
Active or retired members of one of the 300-plus labor unions who participate in the AT&T Mobility’s Union Plus program may be eligible for a 10% discount off the regular monthly rate on most AT&T Mobility calling plans. Union Plus members will also receive additional savings on handsets and wireless accessories. Interested union members must provide proof that they are an active or retired member of a union affiliated with Union Plus when they activate their service. Union members who currently subscribe to AT&T Mobility who would like sign up for the discount will have to renew their contract for an additional two years. Another important detail to keep in mind is that the 10% discount will only apply to the primary line of a family calling plan. IPhone users and subscribers on the “Unlimited Minutes” plan also do not qualify for the union discount. Only service plans priced at $39.99 or more per month qualify for the discount. To learn more about AT&T’s discount and how to sign up for it, click here.
AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless Senior Discounts
Both Verizon and AT&T offer wireless plans for consumers 65 and older for $29.99 per month. Both Verizon’s “Nationwide 65 Plus” plan and AT&T’s “Senior Nation 200” come with 200 anytime minutes and 500 evening and weekend minutes and with unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. Anytime and “night and weekend” minutes are somewhat limited on both plans, but the unlimited in-network calling may be a great bargain for seniors who tend to only call their family members. In return, family members can avoid using their own anytime minutes when calling a senior relative. This could even help make it possible to choose cheaper a calling plan with fewer anytime minutes. Consumers interested in taking advantage of one of these plans for themselves or a family member should keep a couple of caveats in mind, however. First, as mentioned already, both parties need to subscriber to the same carrier to take advantage of the unlimited in-network calling. Second, make sure that either the Verizon Wireless or AT&T Mobility network cover both parties, since roaming fees can quickly eat into any savings gained by free in-network calling. To learn more about the Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility discounts, please click here and here, respectively.
Additional Discounts
With a little digging, additional discounts can be found on both carriers. For example, Verizon Wireless offers New Jersey state employees a 15% discount and Illinois state and local employees an undisclosed discount on wireless plans that are $34.99 or more per month. To take advantage of these discounts, New Jersey state employees should call (609) 472-7773 and Illinois government employees should call (217) 622-5813. To read more about these offerings, click here for the New Jersey discount and click here for the Illinois discount.
Additional AT&T Mobility discounts may be available to university students or through private-sector employer discounts. Interested consumers can check their eligibility to receive a wireless discount through their school or employer by calling AT&T customer service at 1-800-897-7046 or by clicking here and providing a school or work e-mail address to verify whether eligibility for a discount. If done through the website, AT&T will send a message with details about the discount to the e-mail address provided by the consumer. Students who decide to purchase service at an AT&T retail location will need to show a valid student ID. Employees of participating companies will need to show proof of work such as a W-2 form. This may sound like a lot of work, but the savings can add up over a two-year contract. For example, students who attend Missouri S&T University can receive a 10% discount and Indiana University staff will receive a 12% discount on their AT&T wireless plans. Over the 24 months of a typical $39.99 per month plan, the discount can save the MSTU students $95.98 and the IU staff member $115.17.
VOIP WATCH
Is magicJack All It’s Cracked Up to Be? - Have you turned on late-night TV lately? Chances are you’ve seen one of the many infomercials running advertising a new VoIP calling service called magicJack. Numerous publications have raved about the service. It seeks to improve upon other cheap local and long distance VoIP services like Skype and Vonage by simplifying the connection process offering a hefty discount versus these more well-known services. After an initial $39.95 fee (which includes the price of the device and one year of magicJack service), service costs $19.95 per year. Once service is activated, all local and long distance calls within the U.S. and Canada are free. International calls can be made by purchasing prepaid minutes from the magicJack website prior to making the calls. Instead of needing to hook up a large router box (as VoIP service from Vonage and others require) or download software from the Internet (as Skype requires), magicJack users simply plug the magicJack into their computer’s USB port and their traditional telephone into the magic jack and start making calls. While reviews of magicJack are generally good, there are a few caveats to keep in mind:
- You may need to use a new phone number. magicJack does not currently support porting of existing numbers. Only 367 area codes in 24 states are currently available to new magicJack users and popular area codes like 212 (New York, NY) are unavailable.
- While magicJack supports 9-1-1 dialing, users must register their home address when they first begin use of the service and again whenever they change locations and want to associate a new address with their magicJack line.
- magicJack does not maintain a record of long distance calls made.
- The only operating system currently supporting magicJack is MS Windows XP and Vista. Mac compatibility is in the beta stage, but Linux compatibility is not scheduled at this time.
- Like Vonage and Skype, magicJack is dependent on electrical power and broadband to function. If either of these goes out, so will your magicJack phone service.
We hope to test out magicJack in the future and will report back with the results of our testing. For more information on magicJack, click here.
Tried magicJack yourself? Send us your review at trac@trac.org.
Verizon Wireless Moves Closer To Opening Its Network - Verizon Wireless customers who are interested in choosing more phones and applications than the carrier provides directly have reason to be both excited and skeptical about the network provider’s open-network policies. At Verizon Wireless’s recent Open Development Initiative conference, it announced that third-party devices and applications that meet its standards and can operate on its CDMA network standard may be on the market as soon as July. These devices will be sold by manufacturers and retail stores. Once purchased, these devices will be able to be activated on Verizon Wireless’s website. Things get tricky though if a customer decides to cancel a third-party device. Verizon Wireless says that it will not handle problems or technical support with open device services. This would mean that if a Verizon Wireless subscriber has a problem with a third-party device or application, they would have to call the manufacturer about their problem. This raises questions about a manufacturers’ ability to provide quality customer support. Of additional concern to some consumers may be the cost of the new third-party devices. Since Verizon Wireless is not subsidizing the costs of the devices (in return for customers agreeing to a one or two-year contract), the devices may cost significantly more up front than has traditionally been the case. To read Verizon Wireless’s Open Development Initiative Guidelines, click here.
TRAC IN THE NEWS
Pay-As-You-Go Text Messaging Fee Increases Taking a Bite Out Of Budgets, Says TRAC - The fees associated with pay-as-you-go text messaging and data services are making wireless service more expensive for many consumers. With the cost of voice calls dropping, carriers are trying to move customers to there higher-margin services. Fortunately, consumers are not out of luck when it comes to dealing with these fees, said TRAC in a recent CNN.com article. If you object to the increase in the pay-as-you-go text messaging fees, you may be able to get out of your contract. Carriers usually have a clause that allows you to cancel your contract without a penalty if a fee change has a material impact on your service, said TRAC Research Director John Breyault. Third-party contract swapping services such as celltradeusa.com may also provide an avenue out of high-cost cell plans, noted Breyault. To read the full article, click here.
INTERESTING LINKS
FCC Main Page: http://www.fcc.gov
FCC Complaint Form - http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm
List of State Regulatory Commissions: http://www.naruc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=15
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