Why do Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and A.T.&T all have wireless plans that offer 5 gigs for $59.99 or $60, with only Verizon's Alltel unit offering a $59.99 plan that does not immediately specify a usage cap. Is this some form of corporate collusion?
And why are certain websites really badly designed from an information organization standpoint? T-mobile in particular does little to clarify which data plans are for which device, or the differences in data plans, until you have selected the phone. How about spelling out the exact differences when listing all the data plans?
Sprint's current website is also not fun. On my limited system, it seems quite sluggish, and one has to pay attention for a few moments and weed through the oxymoron of titling plans with the word "Everything" followed by their particular focus, like "Everything Data". Clearer language with less visual manipulation is in order. Once you get used to the voice plan page, it does have a logical order, moving from high price to low. But one imagines it could be a lot simpler and brighter visually.
The companies need to really be clear on what the various data plans offer, and if they offer more than one, explain, for example, how one data plan at $39.99 offering unlimited is different from the other data plan offering capped service for $59.99. (I think it's T-Mobile that leaves this contradiction a mystery until you pick a given phone and discover what data options are actually required).
Ideally someone needs to offer a 500 anytime minute, 10 favorite, 2000 text, unlimited nights and weekend, unlimited data with tethering (hooking up to your laptop or pc) plan in the range of $50 to $75. The permissability and cost of using the phone as modem (tethering), accessing data over the phone, and what kind of data (the internet or company sponsored data) needs to be made much clearer. And the companies need to stop branding their house products in ways that don't clearly specify what they are offering, or the usual limitations of the offerings.
Finally, why is T-Mobile not allowing some people to access updates of their Favorites via Google's Chrome browser after their recent website update? It's about time most company website updates circa 2009 are compliant with not just IE, but Opera, Chrome and Safari, not to mention Firefox. When you are using Chrome and the website is not allowing a function, telling you that you are on Safari, that's a problem.
It's annoying having to keep multiple browsers on hand, or having to default to the worst (in terms of features and speed), IE, in order to take care of business.
(Not my usual post but had to get that off my chest)
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