Talking with someone is main use for a cell phone, yet due to poor reception how often do calls not go through, or important calls "dropped" due to flaky coverage? Let us not forget, that in a time of tragedy, lines were congested and resounding "all circuits busy" messages were heard from coast to coast. There is certainly room for improvement if you want to reach out and touch someone.

The alternative to voice communication is traditional text messaging, enjoyed by young as SMS, a 'hip' communication method, and older as tried and true paging, a trustworthy means of communication. A carrier receives pages or text messages via a traditional dial up modem or Internet connection to their terminal, and then broadcasts messages over their network to appropriate wireless device. How instant is sending a text message? The answer might surprise you...it depends.

Traditional means of sending text messages is surprisingly reliable and fast. However, many cellular carriers, wishing to merge technologies while keeping costs down, have opted to utilize email technology to send text messages. Why not, an email is nothing more than a text message, using Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). On surface this sounds like a great idea, nearly everyone has email access, and use of Internet streamlines sending of messages.

Many long distance companies charge a monthly fee in order for you to get a particular rate for long distance. Other long distance service providers, have monthly minimums you must meet or you are assessed an additional charge.

The key to getting a good deal on your long distance service is to know your usage. The key things to know, how many minutes do I use in a month, does it vary a lot from month to month, and are there particular states I place most of my calls to.

Armed with this information, you can take ?additional? charges you are likely to pay, divide it by your usage, and add that to rate per minute your long distance service provider is charging you. That will give you a true cost per minute which can be compared between providers.

Some examples will probably help. Lets help Mary, Joe, and Mike figure which of three plans to select. The plans are as follows:

Plan A

$.04/minute, plus monthly fee of $5.95

Plan B

$50.00 for 1200 minutes, plus $.07/minute over 1200 mins.

Plan C

$.10/minute, no other fees.

Each of them gets out their phone bills for last year, and checks their long distance usage.

Mary

Mary used 14,400 minutes of long distance service in last 12 months, an average of 1200 minutes each month. She would use 600 minutes one month, than 1800 minutes next, pattern repeating throughout year. For Mary costs of plans would be:

Plan A

600 min. months: ($.04 x 600) + $5.95 = $29.95

1,800 min. months: ($.04 x 1800) + $5.95 = $77.95

Her total bill for year: (6 x $29.95) + (6 x $77.95) = $647.40

Total cost per minute: $647.40 / 14,400 = $.045/minute

Plan B