How To Choose The Best Cell Phone Service Provider
August 12th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
You may have heard it said that a cell phone is only as good as the network it communicates with, and that is a very true statement. So although choosing the right cell phone for your personal use will be important, the most important decision you can make when buying a cell phone is which network you plan to use.
Unfortunately, it’s not very easy to compare cell phone providers head-to-head. This is because most phones that work on one network will not usually work on any of the other cell phone networks. So it’s hard to make a direct comparison using the same equipment. It’s also hard to compare cell phone providers because service can vary dramatically from one location to another. So how can you make an honest comparison of cell phone providers regarding their performance and service?
Perhaps the best way to compare cell phone companies is through massive consumer surveys that get opinions from people all across the country on the various cell phone provider networks. Actually, several of these consumer surveys have been conducted by some well-known consumer groups and magazines. One such survey collected information from over 50,000 people in 18 major cities across the US. Another polled over 24,000 households regarding their cell phone usage. So by compiling the data from these large consumer surveys, some very clear patterns began to emerge that can be useful for the average person when they are buying a cell phone.
On most of the surveys that were conducted, two companies did extremely well in both performance and customer service, and they are Verizon and T-Mobile. It also became apparent through most of the surveys that the companies offering the cheapest service plans are usually not able to offer the best service or cell phone network performance, so essentially you get what you pay for in a cell phone plan.
These independent reviews establish that both Verizon and T-Mobile had excellent reputations for performance with fewer dropped calls and circuit overloads than most of the other carriers. In general, several reviewers were of the opinion that Verizon’s service was slightly better than T-Mobile’s, but the differences were very slight, and hardly worth mentioning.
It should be noted that T-Mobile uses a GSM network that is compatible with most networks overseas, making it an excellent choice for consumers who travel internationally and want to be able to use their cell phone when they do. Verizon on the other hand works on the CDMA network instead, and is not compatible with other international cell phone networks.
If you would like to examine the results of the cell phone surveys even closer, you can find them at the web sites for Consumer Reports, PC World, and J.D. Power and Associates, as well as others.
Steadman Issenburg writes on many consumer related topics including communication. You can find a cell phone plan comparison and cheap cell phone plans and more by visiting our communication website.
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How To Save Money And Be Smart When You Buy A Cell Phone
August 9th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
With all the decisions to make when buying a cell phone, it can get pretty confusing at times. After all, you have to decide on which cell network to join, which one of their service plans to choose, which phone to buy, and more. But here is a step-by-step guide to how you can buy a cell phone the smart way and save money too.
1. The very first step in buying a cell phone is to decide on which carrier network you plan to join. This is necessary because specific phones that work with one carrier will not work with another one, so the first place to start is with the carrier and not the phone.
2. To decide on which carrier network will work best for your needs, you need to do some research in advance. The first place to go for information is the internet as there are web sites available that help rate the individual cell phone networks by service and performance. But another way to get good information on which cell phone carrier works best in your area is to simply ask your family and friends about their experiences with cell phone networks. Usually, you can get plenty of valuable information very quickly with this method.
3. Of course, you also want to check on the coverage area for each cell phone carrier to be sure that they offer complete service in your local calling area.
4. When you have selected the cell phone carrier that you feel will be the best choice, it’s time to select your plan. Remember too that all cell phone service providers will allow you to easily upgrade to more minutes on a plan, but very few of them will allow you to downgrade. So when choosing your plan, try to estimate the number of minutes that you will need overall through the month and then choose a plan that fits that need as closely as possible. Most cell phone users don’t come anywhere close to using all of their minutes in a month, so you can save money on your plan by simply buying the minutes that you need and then upgrading later if you have to.
5. Although most cell phone companies will try to sell you a lot of extra features with your cell phone plan when you first start out, you can usually save a lot of money by just starting with a basic plan first and then adding extra services later on if you decide you need them.
6. You can also save money on cell phone plans if you only plan on using the cell phone for local calls. Most cell phone service providers have plans that allow you to just call locally without adding in long-distance calls. These local service plans often cost much less than the full service plans that they usually promote more heavily. So only buy the cell phone service that you really know that you will need.
If you follow these simple suggestions on how to select a cell phone service provider, a cell phone plan, and the cell phone itself, you should be able to find exactly what you need and save money when you do.
Steadman Issenburg writes on many consumer related topics including communication. You can find a cell phone plan comparison and cheap cell phone plans and more by visiting our communication website.
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How Cell Phone Works
August 6th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Millions of people around the world use the cell phone for communication. Cell phones are used extensively for
1. Communication
2. Speed Text messaging
3. Internet Access
4. Integrate other devices such as GSMs, PDAs
5. Camera
But anyone wondered how cell phones work? How small equipment has the features like text messaging, internet access, to name a few. cell phone is nothing but a radio-sophisticated radio.
Before the age of cell phones, radio was sole the mode of communication. The people who really needed mobile communication used to install a radio device in a car and a powerful antenna above it. The Antenna is the sole operator of radio. It snaps the analog signals which are necessary for communication. The only disadvantage of an antenna was it has to be installed in an open space which requires some financial investment.
The cell phone works through “cells”, these cells contains the analog and digital signals and it works on “frequency reuse” techniques. For a cell phone to work, a metropolitan area has to be divided into many cells. The communication between two human beings in the same metropolitan area is carried out by numerous cells which as said above works on frequency reuse. The technique of a cell to work on the frequency of the previous cell and the frequency of its own is called “frequency reuse”. A powerful transistor is needed to transfer the information from one cell to other, so a group of cells in one particular area is controlled by a transistor and group of transistors are controlled by “physical towers”.
A Metropolitan area is divided into group of physical towers, the area between two towers is divided into a group of transistors and the area between transistors is divided into groups of numerous cells. The end result of working of the above is the communication between the human beings.
The station Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO) controls the working of cell phones. It has the responsibility for distinguishing cell phone calls from land line calls and also identifying appropriate land line numbers for which the cell phone calls were made.
More information on cell phones and their related technologies can be obtained from http://www.cellphoneforums.com/forums
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