Steps
- What type of coverage will actually be used? Where is the phone going to be when it is used? People often say ?I need my phone to work at the lake.?. Does it? How often are you at the lake? Is it worth paying more money every month so your phone can work at the lake once per year, in the case of an emergency?
- How many minutes per month will be used? The simple fact is, you are either paying for coverage or minutes (or your bill is a ton money). Which one is more important, coverage or minutes?
- What is the monthly budget for the phone? Take the answers from the previous two questions and start looking at plans. You?ll quickly see that having a lot of minutes and great coverage is really expensive.
Tips
- Make sure you go to a cell phone store that deals with more than one carrier.
- It?s always better to have more minutes than to go over your allotted minutes.
- Cell phones for kids have completely different needs. Their phones need to work close to home. They need minutes, not coverage.
- If your phone doesn?t work when you need it to, it?s worthless.
- Carriers ? This is the company that provides the cell phone service. Examples include: T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T (formerly Cingular), Verizon, AT&T, Cricket and MetroPCS
- Cell Phone Stores ? There are two different types of cell phones stores: 1. The store that is owned by the carrier and 2. the type that is owned by a third party. Telling them apart is simple, the first store only sells service for one carrier and the other sells service for many carriers.
- Phones ? The actual phone itself. Phones are made by different manufatures. Examples include: Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG.
- Accessories ? These are the items that you can purchase to enhance your phone. Examples include: car chargers, headsets, cases, face plates, car kits and blinking keypads.
- Deposits ? If you are signing a contract (and not choosing a pre-paid carriers) your credit may come back with you requiring to pay a deposit. The cell phone store can not negotiate this. You have to pay this amount if you want service with that carrier.
- Contracts ? There are two different types of service when you get a cell phone: contract and pre-paid. When you sign an agreement to have service for a certain amount of time (i.e. ? two years), you are signing a ?Contract?. Generally speaking, you will have better service, better customer service, pay more for your minutes and get cheaper phones and accessories when you sign a contact.
- Technophiles, be aware that carrier-imposed technical limitations could affect you. Some carriers require you to use their "branded" phones, and sometimes branded phones cannot upload/download images or ring tones except through the carrier's network (and not for free). If you want to transfer files on or off your cellphone via Bluetooth or a USB cable then you should find out if the branded phone allows you to do so.
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Choose a Cell Phone Service. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.