Costing of services is clearly my biggest concern, and even the providers cannot explain it in simple and justifiable terms. And there seems to be no way to protect oneself from exorbitant costs no matter what one does.
I observe everyone with smartphones doing things (which must involve the Internet and concomitantly incur major costs) such as videophoning,'couponing', diddling around in time-wasting fashion, etc. I find it hard to comprehend what the 'charm' in any of this might be. And I find it aggravating that they have to invade my personal space to do it.
There are multiple components of phone plans including:
- Talk time
- number of text messages
- MegaBytes of data transfer where data is anything other than Talk or Text messages
The range in plans runs the gamut from prepaid phone plans that include a given number of talk minutes and nothing else to high end plans with unlimited talk, text, and data. There is often a
catch in the unlimited data plans that after a given number of MegaBytes of data at high speeds (4G LTE service) you are cut back to virtually dialup data speeds until the end of the billing period or you pay typically $15 more for another increment of high speed service. If you like to stream movies, video, or even music there are plans that do not count that against your data limit if it is from certain content providers (but I don't see that as being a big thing for you 😃)
FWWI I will share my personal experience and that may provide some guidance for you. I started with a plan that included a given number of minutes, a set number of texts, and unlimited data. It was pricey but with rollover phone minutes (i.e. minutes not used in any given month could accumulate into future months) it was pretty much limitless so I kept it. Then I found I wanted/needed to create a WiFi hotspot to use with my iPad (an iPad without built in phone data capabilities saves $100 to $200 on the purchase price and $15 a month or so for the often unused data connection) but my provider would not permit that with my unlimited data plan.
For the first time I took a long serious look at how I used my iPhone (and iPad for that matter) and realized the great bulk of all my data downloads or uploads were via WiFi (at home, in hotels, campgrounds, Starbucks®,
etc. and did not count against my data plan. I confirmed this by checking my phone billing statements. So I actually needed far less data than I had originally anticipated needing. Likewise even on a family plan shared with my wife who uses her iPhone for calls much more than I do and talks far longer than I do, we seldom got anywhere close to the maximum number of talk minutes on our plan. What had changed is we have found that for various reasons we text far more than we ever thought we would and that a short text could easily replace a long telephone call.
My current plan offers unlimited talk and text (we don't need or use that much of either, but that has become the "standard" bottom line offering from our carrier), 3GB of high speed data with rollover data — and unlimited low speed data after that, and we can create a hotspot to share our phone data connection with our iPads. It is a LOT cheaper than the original plan and when I look at our usage data we seldom, if ever, get close to the limits.
To be truthful, I don't think you can really imagine how or when you would use a smartphone until you have one and have used it for a while. I also think how you use it will evolve and change over time. I know more and more people who no longer have or want a landline phone. (
NOTE: with smartphones there is no distinction between local and long distance calling the minutes cost the same)
Given you are relatively remote your first consideration in choosing a carrier should be which carrier has the best coverage in your area and in other areas you often visit. The individual carriers all have coverage maps and some have interactive coverage maps that get very specific. For example there are some hills and a steep valley within a half mile of my house. Down in that valley there is virtually no coverage from any carrier. We are at the peak of the high ground, but all the cell towers are located in nearby lower lying areas so we are lucky to get 1 bar signal strength and our carrier finally installed a microcell attached to our internet connection.
