TAPAs: Is It Time to Change Your Cellular Service Account?

We all have acquired several accounts to service our personal and business needs respecting information transfer and communications. Those accounts will likely include, to name just a few, one or more mobile cellular (wireless) accounts, one or more landline or VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) telephone accounts, and one or more Internet service provider (ISP) accounts. Many of us may well have a variety of other service accounts for various entertainment and business purposes. While some, if not most, of the comments made in this column will apply equally to those accounts, they do not serve as the focal point for this column. This column will focus on mobile phone accounts, sometimes called cellular service or wireless telephone service accounts.

Start from the premise that none of the mobile service providers have the infrastructure to provide the same quality service in every location. Most of the service providers have their heaviest infrastructure in or around large urban areas with sizable populations. That represents a reasonable business decision, as the provider wants the best service where it will garner the most customers, and it needs to have the ability to service many customers concurrently where it has the largest collection of customers. The farther you are from an urban area, the less likely you are to have better than fair service from any provider. That said, even in densely populated urban areas where a provider has a solid infrastructure, the location of its distribution points and the surrounding construction may impair reception and transmission of signals, resulting in poor connections, dropped calls, and even dead spots (meaning areas where you get little or no signal). Verizon even joked about it, sort of, in a series of commercials some time ago where a user would keep asking, “Can you hear me now?” How many of you have asked that same question over the years?

Service providers like to change their plans from time to time, generally to increase their profit and often by charging more for the same or less service.

Below are tips for reviewing and changing your service plans.

Tip 1. Review Your Service Agreements Regularly

To protect yourself and ensure you get the best deal you can, you should make a point of reviewing your service agreements regularly. We recommend doing this annually, at a minimum. Twice a year works even better. When you review, you want to look at the services you receive and the price you pay. During the review process, you need to contact your provider to verify the service you receive and its cost.

Tip 2. Inquire about Your Provider’s Other Plans

When you contact the provider to verify the current service, inquire about other plans the provider has made available. From time to time, providers do offer plans that give you a better deal than you had before. Usually, this entails adding a service of some sort, so be careful what you do. Once you give up a plan they have sunsetted for new enrollees, they won’t likely let you go back to it.

Tip 3. Check Out the Competing Providers

Before you make any decisions about what to do with your service, check out the competing providers. You will want to look at network maps (generally available online) that show where the provider offers the broadest coverage (and which provider offers the broadest coverage in your area). You will want to see what plans each provider offers that might suit your needs, what the various plans cost, and how they compare to what you already have. Don’t be afraid to change providers if another provider will give you a better deal for the same or better service, or even just better service. Switching from one provider to another does not pose a major problem. Number portability means you can take your number with you to the new provider. If you have an unlocked phone, your equipment should also transfer without a problem. Also, remember that most providers tend to offer much better deals to new subscribers than continuing ones. Accordingly, if you have an account with Provider A, Provider A likely offers better deals to new subscribers than it will to you; conversely, Provider B will likely offer you a better deal to switch to its service than it offers to its existing customers.

Caveat. The one potential problem you may face in switching providers relates to your phone. Long ago, providers came up with the idea of luring customers into their fold by providing favorable financing terms when purchasing a new phone. That grew in popularity as the prices of the phones continued to increase. The quid pro quo the providers demand is a commitment to stay with them for the duration of the financing term, usually three years these days. If you buy a phone using a provider for financing, know that they will lock the phone to their system using software, and that lock will prevent you from using the phone with another provider. Unlocking it requires inputting an unlock code, which the provider will reluctantly provide once you have paid off the financing loan in full.

Tip 4. Look at the Service Maps and the Nature of the Service

When you look at network service maps, pay attention to the nature of the service. The 5G service came out long enough ago that many areas have well-established 5G service. You want 5G service as much as possible because it provides far better and faster service than 4G. In most areas, 4G and 5G service co-exist, and your phone will take whatever it can grab. The greater the concentration of 5G service in your area, the more likely you will get the benefit of using it. You can also go to the Apple App Store or Google Play store and get an app called “Coverage Map” or one called “Coverage?” to help you with the process of comparing coverage from different providers in your area.

Tip 5. Buy an Unlocked Phone

If you plan to switch providers or want to keep that option open, buy an unlocked phone. You can buy an unlocked phone from the manufacturer and then attach it to an account with any provider without having the phone locked. That means that you can freely move your service from one provider to another at any time without the need for an unlock code (as it was not locked). Many manufacturers offer their own financing, either directly through the manufacturer or through a third-party financial partner. In our experience, provider financing has proven less upgrade-friendly than we prefer, generally restricting upgrade eligibility to once every two or three years. We have found manufacturer financing more upgrade-friendly, generally allowing you to upgrade annually by terminating one financing agreement upon the return of the hardware and executing another one in connection with the new phone.

We have tried it both ways, and each has its appeals and its drawbacks. As a general rule, you will pay less for the hardware if you use provider financing, as they will often offset a part of the cost to induce you to commit to them. Buying the unlocked phone will cost a bit more but lets you upgrade more frequently and preserve your freedom to switch providers at will. By the way, if you plan to travel internationally and use a local provider for service, you will need an unlocked phone to make that work.