By Jordan Whelan
Students who are “bill-shocked’ by escalating cell phone costs can take comfort in mobile industry tips that can lighten their budget.
David Lemstra, creator of cellplanexpert.ca, said that “bill-shock” could be avoided if the student pays the most amount of attention to their long distance usage.
Cell phone plans can be one of the toughest aspects of a budget to stabilize, Lemstra said, as the base rate does not include overage charges for features such as long distance, text and picture messaging, or usage over the monthly minute allowance.
“The best way to save is not to use it. Use Skype to call and use Wi-Fi calling whenever possible.” said Lemstra.
Lemstra’s website is dedicated to helping users customize their cell phone plans and calculate the final costs with all hidden charges included.
He also stressed that plans are negotiable and features such as text messaging, voicemail and call display are the easiest to obtain for free because they are of such low cost to the mobile provider.
The website mycellmyterms.com can be used by students to create a proposal which states the features and fees which they desire in a mobile price plan.
The proposals are then shopped to the exclusive dealer network and the results ranked side by side.
Creator Yale Holder said recent trends indicate that students use text messaging and social media more often than other mobile features.
“Plans which include these on an unlimited basis are often targeted at students,” said Holder. “However, if accessible to the user, corporate plans can also have large data plans with low rates.”
Magda Horbacz, a third year electro-mechanical engineering student, uses a corporate plan, which she negotiated through Bell to stay within her budgeting constraints.
“The most important things to my student life are email and unlimited texting, which I wish were bundled to save some money,” said Horbacz.
Another really useful tool for cutting the long distance bill on your cell phone is an iPhone App that I’ve been using for a while now. It’s called zerofone, and it’s available in the app store. I think that it’s also coming to the android market soon as well. Basically it’s a VOIP app for your phone that lets you call long distance for a fraction of the regular costs because it uses data as opposed to your long distance minutes. Definitely worth checking out if you have an iPhone or a phone that runs android.