It’s hard not to sit on a bus, walk by a fellow pedestrian or stand in an elevator without a person looking at his or her phone and staring endlessly at Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, an application and countless other mobile websites available through a data plan.
With the introduction of the BlackBerry, iPhone and other smartphone devices, clerks encourage customers to order a data plan upon purchase of the phone. Whether or not a consumer needs the data usage is a different story.
The key question is: are cellphone data plans worth the cost? It really depends on the person’s lifestyle.
If the owner of said smartphone is a reporter and constantly needs real-time, breaking information then it is vital. If the owner is an entrepreneur then it is also important. If the owner works as a store clerk or is a data entry operator, then it may not be as a crucial as the aforementioned occupations.
In this tough economy where the cost of living is soaring and the value of a nation’s currency devalues, it’s quite important to judge what a necessity is and what isn’t. A data plan subscriber certainly does not need all of the add-ons that come with such a plan and he or she certainly does not need to be on Facebook or Twitter all day long.
One must analyze the total costs to get a complete understanding of how much it is to maintain a data plan. In Canada, a mobile phone user can pay between $30 and $100 per month on a plan that comes with an unlimited data plan. In the United States, it ranges in the same ballpark. How much will this cost a customer after 30 years? Take a $35 per month plan and times that by 30 years. This equals $12,600 in total, which is an exorbitant amount just to check daily updates on favorite social networks.
Does the average person need to use dozens of gigabytes each month? Does the average person need to constantly communicate with his or her friends all day long? Does the average person need to watch videos while he or she is out running errands?
These are important questions to ask to determine if a data plan is worth all the headaches, complications and costs. Remember, either a customer needs to buy a $300 phone without a contract or needs to sign up for a three-year contract to avoid paying $300 for an advanced piece of equipment, which could break and cause even more migraines.