I received a text message from my cell phone provider indicating that my monthly plan is going up $5 starting in March. In total, that would mean I’d pay $45 a month going forward. I know many people pay much more than that a month for cell phone service but I think that’s almost criminal. For my $45, I get 6 GB of 3G data (not LTE), unlimited North American calling and texting. It’s fairly standard.
I don’t need 6 GB of mobile data though. With the work from home situation, I’m never on public transit anymore, which was where I used most of my mobile data. I checked and last month, I used 250 MB of mobile data, out of the 6 GB that I paid for. Even when I was commuting, on a high-usage month, I’d use between 1 and 2 GB of mobile data.
With the looming price increase, this was a good time to check out plans from other providers. While I haven’t chosen anything yet, it looks like I could change providers and for $36 a month, I could get 4 GB of LTE data, and the rest of the plan is almost identical to my old plan. The only difference I can see is that I don’t have unlimited calls to the U.S., which I can’t remember the last time I called an American number.
The highlight of this new plan would be the faster LTE network and the cheaper price. I guess I have to thank my current provider for raising prices because it pushed me to get a better deal. I wonder if their analysts did the math and calculated that more people would stay and accept the increased prices than leave (and thus get no more revenue from them). Companies don’t make these decisions lightly.