I certainly appreciate your attempting to elucidate the ins and outs of smartphone service. Unfortunately, while I understand the English words strung together, I really don't comprehend the content in any way that I could act on. (When I said I needed "Smartphones for Dummies", I really meant it.)

For example, "MegaBytes of data transfer where data is anything other than Talk or Text messages": How would one have a clue how to determine in advance (or ever) the first 4 words and thus to calculate the cost of same?

Texting, to my mind, is a complete and utter waste. I find it particularly odious and rude when someone with whom I'm carrying on an interaction does it in media res. It takes most of my self-control not to just bat it out of his/her hands.

My telephone usage is primarily for purposes of dialup Internet access (such as right now), with perhaps a couple of outgoing calls per day.

WiFi scares the crap out of me because of privacy and security concerns — and none of previous discussion in these forums has allayed any of my fears in that regard. (If I were to lose dialup Internet access, I'd likely go 'dark', with only voice calling and faxing.)

So, it's back to square 1 ....