What to consider before buying a cell phone plan
We live in an increasingly connected world. It’s not enough anymore to just have a few digital machines and that’s it. From digital televisions to tablets to computers and beyond, there’s an increasing demand to be always present, always there. The online has bled into real life in increasingly complicated ways, from personal to professional. Some argue that there’s not really an online anymore at all. Not really. And there’s some truth to that statement, anyway. After all, who logs into the internet anymore? It’s everywhere, in our pockets and on our computers, in front of our eyes and keeping us awake late into the night. Describing it this way can make it sound a little dystopian, can’t it? It sounds like the end of some long golden era of privacy that we can never get back. It’s certainly easy for it to sound like this, with all of the massive changes but don’t be fooled. This interconnected spread, with all of its potentially scary changes, is actually a good thing. It’s going to help more people learn more about the world and, hopefully, be more open and tolerant than ever before. But this process starts with the small things. It spring into the air fully formed as this huge, grand venture that everyone is undertaking. Let’s start with a more concrete series of examples and work out from there.
- Mid twenties daze
Natasha Bowlingreen is a 27 year old woman who lives in the midtown section of Bangor Maine. She works as an assistant to an executive fashion firm in the city and, therefore, has a lot of assumed responsibility. One day she’s tasked by her boss with finding a new cell phone provider because he’s a little sick of his old one. Natasha agrees, of course, because it’s her job but also because she’s also in the market for a new cell phone plan and she’s been meaning to undertake a search on her own. So she starts to search for different cell phone options for her boss and used cell phone options for her. After a few days of searching, she stumbles on a few cricket locations that suit her needs perfectly. So she heads inside and begins to browse through all the different plans they have. But, before she makes a decision, she stops and starts to think. She has to make the best decision for both herself and her boss’s financial constraints, right? So how does she do this? What, exactly, does she have to think about when deciding on a new cell phone plan?
Starting with service
Well, the first thing she has to decide is what service works best in the area she’s in. Most cricket locations have a plethora of options in this direction, she just needs to pick one. But let’s take a step back and actually think about this for a second, both inside Natasha’s mind and inside of our own real, solid reality. Where is it exactly that Natasha lives? Yes it’s in a major urban center with many cricket locations but it isn’t exactly New York or Los Angeles. It’s in Bangor Maine which, while suitably sizable, isn’t enormous. It’s also near huge tracks of wilderness as well. So, to start, she’s going to want a service that sticks even when away from major or small metropolitan areas. She’s going to want to get phones that work well in the woods, in other words.
Thinking about finances and pricing
Armed with that knowledge, there’s only one other decision that Natasha is going to have to make. She’s going to have to decide what sort of prices are good for both her and her boss. This sounds simple but it’s not exactly as easy as you might think. There are a lot of disparate problems that go into this, including data usage and data plan. She has to know how much her boss actually uses his phone and for what. Thankfully, the cricket locations also have plans that work for any budget. All she needs to do is page through them and pick the right one.