Franken-Cell

Remember when a cell phone  was intended for emergencies?   Remember how the phone usually lived in a box or case under the backseat of your car waiting for you to have car trouble or pass someone on the road who had car trouble?

Now we have a computer the size of a candy bar where we can check email, news, and generally play office.  And horror stories of how the services and tools have led to outrageous bills because someone didn't clearly understand details.  Some of the tales may be urban myths, but they have some value if they make us sit up and take notice.

Many of us are still mentally working with the emergency phone  where we had a base rate we paid and were very aware of the high cost per minute of a call on the cell phone.    We are inclined to ignore what could be happening to our bill with text messages and computing.  

The service providers  have managed to stay legal without making it REALLY clear what their little monster is clocking up to your account.  The onus is on YOU to be informed and careful.

Your TEXT plan may not qualify for all numbers, particularly 900#s.  You can be charged for random advertising TEXT MESSAGES and EMAIL that are basically spam.  You can go to your service provider and block spam, but you should expect to have to pay for the messages that you let get past you before you caught on.

Your browser plan that lets you check email and weather on your cell phone may not extend to the idea of using the phone as a MODEM to connect your computer to the Internet.    Because the connections are different,  may is too tentative.  You can be pretty certain that the service doesn't cover your computer connection and that there will be some very high fees for the time you are online.   A few minutes may be very well worth the cost, but using the service all day for weeks will 'break the bank'.

Your plans may be for VOICE or text transmission only.  Or the plans may truly be for the whole basket of fruit. It would be sad to have elements of your service that you neglected to use because you didn't know about that part.  If the fine print is difficult to digest, call the customer support department for your service provider before you begin using a designer service.  Get solid information and write it down.