Living Without a Cellphone

I got rid of my cellphone because no one calling me was anyone I wanted to talk to.

I used to be a financial/investment advisor, and those calling were mostly financial service wholesalers (insurance and annuities) and other commercial calls. Whenever I felt a vibration in my jacket's breast pocket, my stress levels would soar, and more than half the time it was imagined. Now I feel free, plus I'm probably saving $100 a month.

I'm now a programmer at a bank, and my wife can get me at my desk at work. I got a small tablet (a Nexus 7) with a data plan (attached to my wife's phone plan so it's cheap!), and I paid $20 to switch my phone number to Google Voice. Now when someone calls, they can leave voice-mail or text me, and it shows up in my gmail on my tablet. I added a Zagg hard-shell bluetooth keyboard and it's like I'm carrying around a little laptop.

I feel like it's an awesome change that has really improved my quality of life. I love to brag about making the change, in hopes that others might be inspired to follow suit, thanks for the opportunity.

German resident here. I have pre-pay with a Vodafone subsidiary with a €10 data flat rate as an additional add-on.

My wife just has pre-pay and we have free calls between each other. Our total monthly bill is ~€20 per month.

The idea of paying $65 per month, per person is crazy. Is that a standard average cost?

I am tracking my productivity day-by-day. It's generally sloppy, but there were a few outliers where I got done a lot. All these days had one thing in common: I forgot my smartphone at home.

$65 a month?! shit,that's high! For 1GB od full speed internet, and after that unlimited lowspeed, with morze then enough calls, I pay $7.34 in Poland.

Article is from 2.5 years ago, during more recessionary economic times, and possibly meant to influence the 2012 election by the focus on economic pain - you might recall the BS 'Obamaphone' meme from that time.

I stopped using a cellphone when I moved to US --it was way more expensive than what I used to have in my home country (so I just simply said "nope."). Now when people ask my phone number, I just give my Google voice (which is free text/talk within US). If I am traveling to a conference, for the sake of emergency, I just use a potato phone with prepaid credit -- which I connect its number to Google Voice, so everyone who calls my Google voice number are automatically being redirected to my temporary phone. So I get that going for me.

This is the big reason why I switched to T-Mobile. Yes, the coverage is limited outside of urban and suburban areas. I live in a major city so it works for me. My AT&T Wireless bill had crept up to about $280 and that's with one line "grandfathered" onto their smartphone data block. (AT&T started requiring that smartphones have a data package or be blocked entirely from data if the smartphone was already on the account. This one already was so the block was put in place. Six months later, AT&T declined to exempt MMS "data" from the data block, so the user's picture and group messages died. Tech support said I could put a $30 data feature on there to restore MMS.)

Now, for ~90% of the coverage I had with AT&T, I pay $179 and that's with interest-free financing of my wife's new mobile phone. Once that is paid off in a year, the bill drops to $160. That's seven SIMs, or five mobile phones and two data-capable tablets, and now the smartphone user who couldn't have MMS on AT&T has it, just like all five lines have 1GB of high speed data (going over is free, but rate-limited).

If I wanted to go cheaper, there's Cricket Wireless, MetroPCS, Red Pocket Mobile, Harbor Mobile, Page Plus, or any number of MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) and resellers that have popped up in the past year or so. Heck, Cricket could drop my bill to $100, though I'd lose the tablet data. Family plans have never felt so inexpensive.

It is possible to get by with a mobile device without cell service. Just need occasional email checks at open wireless spots. All the more reason to setup a router with EFF's open wireless. https://openwireless.org/

The purposes of the Communications Act of 1934 were "regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide, and worldwide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority theretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the 'Federal Communications Commission', which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act."[1] In other words, it was preventing, or rather, dismantling, a telephone monopoly.

The Communications Act 1996 expanded it to support “a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition..."[2] In other words, it was expanding it to cover more than radio and phones.

I wonder if the cellphone lock-in policies mentioned in the article (e.g. Carlene, who can't afford the early termination fee) are considered anti-competitive, and therefore could potentially fall under the scope of the 1996 Communications Act?

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[1] http://www.criminalgovernment.com/docs/61StatL101/ComAct34.h...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934#cit...

Can we update the article headline to include "(2012)" please?

I've not had a cell phone for over 10 years, except for a period of time when my job wanted me on call, so they paid for a blackberry... even then however I very rarely used it except a way to check my email without having to get out my laptop.

In any case, I haven't found it inconvenient hardly at all, except in the occasional situation such as a car breakdown. I do find it inconvenient when traveling however, but I usually only travel once or twice a year so I usually just load some minutes onto an old tracphone for those occasions

It is not really a money issue for me because I could probably afford to stay up to date with the latest and greatest gadget if I wanted to, but it is more of a philosophical issue for me. It seems phones today are designed to command as much of your attention as possible, and it seems that most of the phone usage that I observe is not a necessity. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I do believe it makes it more difficult to live a balanced life. It is essentially the same reason that I don't watch or pay for television and movies.

These days, I'm not even sure it is less convenient to live the way I do... with all of the security & surveillance issues that have been cropping up, I am glad that I have inadvertently sidestepped a lot of the issues that are being revealed.

It's not a big deal living without a cell phone. I have been living without a cell phone and have only bought one recently because I grew tired of having to justify myself every time someone asked why I didn't have a bloody phone. For me the reason for buying a phone is 100% social pressure, it does not make my life easier or more pleasant in any way, au contraire.

I'm still in the dark ages when it comes to phones. I have a pay-as-you-go flip phone of approximately 2008 vintage, and I've never owned anything more powerful phone.

I pay a couple hundred a year depending on usage.

If I want to get on the Internet when I'm out and about, I just find a place that offers free wifi (such as a library or fast food restaurant). Then break out the laptop or tablet.

Judging by what others are saying about their cellphone bills in this thread and elsewhere, this simple life hack has saved me thousands of dollars over the years, and will save me thousands more.

I think most people massively overpay for their cellphone plans -- the minor increase in convenience isn't worth the four-figure price tag.

It's amazing how people think the only options are unlimited or nothing. A prepaid ptel 5c/min 2c/text plan is great for essential communication. Combine with a forwarding service like Google voice where you can turn on/off text and call forwarding and the costs are extremely low. But the fear of overages and unwillingness to manage the details drive a lot of people to choose no service.

All those stories about thousand dollar bills were great marketing that drove tons of low usage customers to unlimited plans.

Old article but I switched carriers recently to cut costs.

We switched from sprint to ting and went from $160 a month to like $70 for two lines. I didn't like having to watch my data usage so we switched to t-mobile and we've got unlimited everything for I think around $80-90.

We ended up buying used one generation old iPhones (5s) which were about half the cost of buying the same model in the store. With t-mobile they do wifi calling, so I don't really care if the signal is weak in my basement.

I have been paying like $99 for a plan with a bunch of data and minutes I don't use. I changed the plan and its down to I think $60. I should have cancelled and found something cheaper than a regular Verizon contract. Only reason I didn't was because it would take some work to find the right alternative. I know I am still getting screwed though.

A happy compromise is using a bar phone. I use a nokia; it doesn't distract me plus people can still call me in case of disaster.

I recently switched to ConsumerCellular. My wife and I share 750 minutes, 1500 texts and 150 mb of data. All for $40 per month. Plus we can call each other for free. Data might seem low, but our data usage away from home is extremely low. At home we use our WiFi. And best of all, no contract required.

Everyone should immediately drop cellphones and wireless equipment for health reasons. I did so more than ten years ago after developing headaches from the radiofrequency exposure from cellphones. Then I began looking into the science. Deep. Some people will develop symptoms quicker than others and the reason is yet unknown but everyone is affected. Its a matter of time and exposure before symptoms manifest. In the beginning the symptoms of exposure are predominantly neurological, like headaches, fatigue and poor sleep. Ignore that and the ultimate end-point will be cancer as your immune-system competence will be reduced to a point where cancer will be able to take hold. Yes, radiofrequency radiation, especially 3G/UMTS is an excellent cancer-promotor as has just been confirmed in a robust replication study from Germany. An overview here: http://microwavenews.com/news-center/rf-animal-cancer-promot...

I know many are addicted to their mobile devices and I'm not against technology (I'm an IT consultant myself) but I'm against the wireless industry basing their delivery infrastructure and end-user devices on a long-time known hazard: pulsed radiofrequency radiation. Known hazard you ask? Yes, even declassified US army reports and east-bloc scientific literature from the 60's, 70's warn of the neurological and genotoxic effects of low-level microwaves: http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/7915657 See, they were researching low-level microwaves as a stealth weapon against dissidents & adversaries. Now you've practically got military grade weaponry in your pocket.

Please don't be naïve. Reduce your exposure now.

I'm not frequent user of mobile phone and paid around 10$ per month in Russia before ruble fall, now it's around 5$. It's per-minute/per-megabyte tariff.

Funny, every time I asked a mobile carrier sales rep about going pre-paid, they discouraged me. "You'd hate it" they'd say. But I've saved a lot of money since doing so, and with no more mysterious charges on my cellphone bill that no one can account for.

1st world problems...

Edit: As a lower-middle-class American, my (budgetary) choice to be without a cell-phone has not impacted my quality of life in any noticeable way. The linked story says nothing more than "life without modern conveniences is relatively inconvenient." How is that illuminating, in any way?

But yeah... my original comment is kinda deserving of downvoting, if I'm honest.