Become A Happier Cell Phone Owner

A majority of cell phone owners find their carrier wanting when it comes to reception, rates, or customer service, according to surveys.

It may be time to consider switching carriers, or enrolling in a new plan. But with so many choices available, how do you decide what's best for you? Vera Gibbons, a special correspondent for Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, has some advice for viewers of The Early Show Thursday.

There are 176 million cell phone subscribers and only five major carriers. So competition for your money is strong.

Still, Consumer Reports magazine recently found that customers' overall satisfaction with their cell phones is much lower than for any other industry the magazine measures, even insurance companies.

Twenty-five percent of cell phone customers switched carriers last year, and 35 percent may change this year, statistics show.

So how do you know if you should make a switch? And if you do, what should you look for?

Gibbons says the reason people cite most often for changing carriers is poor coverage and reception. This is becoming even more important as more people make cell phones their only phones. So if you experience a lot of dead zones, dropped calls or fuzzy reception, you should certainly switch.

You need to find out which carrier has a good service reputation in the places where you expect to use your phone. J.D. Power and Associates ranks all the major carriers in each region and says Verizon and Sprint tie for the top slot in the Northeast, Verizon wins out in the Mid-Atlantic region, T-Mobile in the Southeast, Nextel in what J. D. Power dubs the North Central United States, T-Mobile in the Southwest, and Sprint in the West.

Price is the second reason people decide to switch carriers. Experts agree that, if you haven't changed your plan in the last six months, you're probably paying too much. Phone companies are constantly offering new plans and new deals. Often, these aren't widely publicized.

Gibbons points out that carriers basically offer the same types of plans. The phone companies can be compared to the airlines: They're in stiff competition with each other, and if one suddenly offers a great deal, the others are likely to follow suit.

To figure out if you're spending too much for your cell service, closely examine your phone habits over the past six to 12 months. How much do you pay each month? How many "anytime minutes" do you have? How many weeknight, weekend and daytime minutes do you have? Most importantly, how many do you actually use?

Most people have no idea how many minutes they use each month. They may be going over their limits -- and paying steep fees -- or only using a faction of the minutes they pay for. Once you've determined your usage habits, it will be easier for you to pick a planthat best suits your needs. Gibbons recommends buying a plan with slightly more minutes available than you think you'll use, to avoid overuse fees.
You also need to determine where you use your phone. Local or regional plans are cheaper than national calling plans. However, if you use your phone more than 30 minutes each month outside your regional area, you'll actually save money by enrolling in a national plan.

You may also want to consider a family plan. Basically, it allows you to add another wireless user to your existing service for as little as $9.99 a month. Families are clearly deciding that such plans are the way to go. Forty-five percent of teenagers with cell phones are part of a family plan, according to Yankee Group's 2004 Mobile User Teen Survey.

Carriers know you'll be less likely to leave them if you're part of a group, as opposed to having an individual account, Gibbons says.

You can really save a bundle if you combine a family plan with free in-network calling, or mobile-to-mobile calling. Executives at Cingular Wireless say the company lost money at the end of last year as a direct result of customers signing up for family plans. Instead of families buying more minutes once they enrolled in a family plan, they were able to keep their same amounts of minutes. Because many of the calls families in the plan make are to each other, free in-network calls mean they don't draw from their pool of minutes to call each other. While phone companies may not like to hear this, it's great news for customers. However, if your family does exceed its allotted number of minutes, you'll be looking at ugly overuse fees.

For some people, cell phone service is all about the phone itself: They want the coolest, newest phone available. Remember, new phones often come with very specific plans. The plans are not always the cheapest available or what's best for you. If you want the phone, you have to buy the accompanying plan, and the phone itself. Most carriers offer free pones or very low prices on certain models with particular plans.

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