How to Choose a Cell Phone Plan

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Ben from the Cellphone Broker in San Jose, California. Today, I'm going to show you how to choose the right wireless rate plan when you go purchase your new cell phone. There's a couple of things to take into consideration. There's definitely price and there's definitely what you get for the price. Let's say if, for example...for example, this company right here offers a rate plan that has unlimited minutes, unlimited text messaging, unlimited data usage, which is your Internet, and that's all for 99 dollars a month. However, if you only want 450 minutes a month instead of having unlimited, this is only 450 minutes for 39.99 a month. So for almost twice the price, you get a lot more for your money because on this 450 minutes, that only includes your talk time. That doesn't include your text messaging or your Internet usage if you do use the Internet. Also, a lot of times, they have some additional features that you can add on to your rate plan in addition to what your rate plan just includes -- just the basics. You can add on Internet, definitely. You can add on text messaging. Usually they'll have variations in those packages like 300 text messages for five dollars a month; unlimited text messaging for 15 dollars a month. Lately, though, a lot of the wireless carriers are including that with the base rate plan. Another feature that you can add on would be international calling. They'll have, maybe, a 10 dollar a month calling package, which will bring down the international calling rates from maybe two dollars a minute down to a dollar a minute. You can also buy handset insurance, also called total equipment protection. What that does is if you...if you lose your phone or if your phone breaks, you can pay a premium or a deductible and get a replacement phone or get your phone repaired. However, that does usually come with a monthly charge. On average, it's about seven dollars. I'm Ben from the Cellphone Broker in San Jose, California. You can check us out online -- myspace.com/cellphonebroker."