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Every cell phone carrier has roaming agreements, whether you have a huge network like Verizon or a small, regional one like U.S. Cellular. This is so customers can travel around the country and not be denied service. Sometimes, these roaming rates are far higher than normal rates. What’s worse, many times features like your Mobile Web and GPS are disabled when outside of the network’s primary calling area. This is quite problematic for people who travel, since they oftentimes rely on GPS. Alltel has eased some of those concerns, as they now offer GPS in roaming settings.
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So the week is about to close, and I’m hoping I don’t have to hear the word “unlimited” for quite a while. Though I know I will, since Sprint still hasn’t committed to anything. They will eventually one way or the other, but in the interim, I’m hoping to talk about things other than unlimited plans. Since we’re at the end of the week, though, I thought I’d completely exhaust the topic and discuss what the cell phone carriers really gained by introducing unlimited calling plans starting at $99. Please keep in mind that despite my reading a slew of telecommunications news, this is still an outsider’s opinion.
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If you saw the title of this post and you had to take a minute to scratch your head and wonder . . .”WTF is a cell phone charm?” , have no worries, you are not alone. When my boss suggested I write this article I had the exact same reaction.

I thought to myself, charms, like the braceletes that my 8 year old cousin wears? It had to be those! The only other charms I am familiar with are of the Lucky cereal variety and I can’t see them having any place on or around a cell phone, despite their strikingly similar aversions to liquid.

A quick Google search results in anywhere from 200 thousand to 2 million+ pages featuring the term “Cell Phone Charms”. A similar search of Technorati reveals more than 500 blog posts associated with the term. Clearly there is a strong market for cell phone charms online.

Join me now as I jump into the weird, wacky and wonderful world of cell phone charms.
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If there ever was a time to switch to Alltel, now is it. See, they ran the 50th Daytona 500 recently, and Alltel’s No. 12 Dodge won. This is special not only because of the landmark 50th running, but because Alltel’s time in NASCAR is limited. They’ll be thrown out soon, along with AT&T, as Sprint Nextel flexes their muscles as NASCAR’s exclusive telecommunications sponsor (because they sponsor, you know, the entire sport activity). So Alltel wants to celebrate by giving 500 free minutes to new subscribers.
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In the middle of last year, T-Mobile launched HotSpot @Home, a service that focused on making calls from your cell phone which are routed over the Internet, rather than T-Mo’s GSM network. This was greeted with much hoopla. There was the positive: No more wasting money on a home phone. And there was the negative: You had to buy a new handset to take advantage of the service. And it was $20 per month, which is around or just slightly less than many home phone services. Now, though, T-Mo has made efforts to vastly improve the service. In fact, if their test run works, you truly could use it to completely replace your landline.
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Just to be clear, I realize that Sprint’s unlimited plan, which I spoke about on Monday is just in a trial run. And yes, I criticized the company for dipping their feet in while the rest of the industry did a cannonball. But now it looks like they might have something up their sleeves. As rivals Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile entered the fray with a $99 unlimited offering, Sprint still has the opportunity to undercut its rivals. And they very well may do that. According to analysts, they could offer their unlimited service for as low as $60.
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Ever since it was first announced, I’ve been a big fan of the Palm Centro. The Treo is a mighty fine offering, but the Centro seems to have a bit more of a consumer tough to it. It’s touch-screen, just like it’s sister phone, which is always a draw. The keyboard — full QWERTY — is also well-spaced, especially for a phone of its size. I know a few friends who picked this up on Sprint, and they absolutely love it. Well, Sprint’s three-month exclusive deal is up, and AT&T has pounced on the device. As I’ve said before, if it was a hit on Sprint, it figures to be a remarkable success on AT&T.
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So if Sprint and Verizon are offering unlimited voice plans, where does that leave AT&T and T-Mobile? Nowhere if they don’t do anything. But they’ve both responded to the quick maneuvers by the Nos. 2 and 3 carriers in the nation, and have announced their own brand of unlimited voice plans. This actually makes Sprint look a little silly. I know it might have sounded otherwise yesterday, but they’re just running trials of unlimited. Their fiercest competitors, though, have taken the splash without testing the waters. Is it just me, or does this perfectly symbolize why Sprint is losing out?
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Most new cell phones have their own standard installations of wallpaper, ringtones and games. My latest cell phone comes with four wallpapers, ten ringtones and five games standard. One gripe I have is that there are only four wallpaper designs to choose from. Every time I would flip open my phone (doing my impression of Captain Kirk with his communicator), I would get to see a background of only, well, colors. It was the best choice over the circles, windows and manufacturer logo. But best does not always mean good.
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Our long wait might be coming to an end. T-Mobile, long rumored to be rolling out a 3G network, has said they hope to have it fully operational by summer. Of course, this was an inevitability. T-Mo won an auction back in 2006 that allowed them to launch a third generation offering. They had planned to do it in September of last year, even offering an initial phone that works on it. However, the previous occupants were and still are taking their time getting off the airwaves, thus delaying T-Mobile’s plans. But things seem to be in order now, so you can use that selection of 3G phones — there are three now, I believe — to their full capability in the near future.
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