My cell phone contract was up and I figured it was a good time to review and see if there was any way to save some money. I found an excellent savings tip and I thought I would share it: unless your job pays for it, cancel the service. Ultimately, thats what I did, so if you have my cell phone number scribbled anywhere, erase it.The Sony Erricsson T68i I had picked out was a GSM phone. At the time I was sure that GSM would soon dominate and there was some coolness factor to having a “world phone”. Besides, I like open standards. The phone had bluetooth so I could connect it to the Mac… It had infrared so I could beam contacts to business friends. It had an address book and calendar that could sync with the palm. It was small, and the battery lasts for days on end. You could play games on the color screen. It was GPRS capable so I could get stuff over the internet, connect with my palm pilot, etc. Wow, really sounds great, hunh? Yeah, until you realize how much of a waste of money it is.

I had originally gotten the phone when Erin was on the way so that I could be sure I got “the call”. I thought that a $39.99 plan would be cheap enough, so I even picked up the $7.00 data “add-on”. And it wasn’t $39.99+7.00. They forget to tell you you’re going to be paying another $7 in taxes and fees. I already pay all those fees and taxes for my “land line”, and AT&T wireless doesn’t offer any “combined billing” plans to eliminate those double fees.

The convenience of having a cell phone is almost a misnomer. I received more wrong numbers than calls from people who knew me. I got more ads for more useless services than text messages from my buddies. The phone never worked where I desperately needed it to work. I found I used it mainly to call home and say “I’m on my way” when I got in the car. If I break down on the road (highly unlikely given my penchant for Toyotas and Hondas), I live in one of the most densely populated areas of the country - I imagine I could find a phone within 5 minute walking distance anywhere along my route. Do I really need to be able to check my email on the road? I commute 15 miles/day and its illegal to use a cell phone while driving in the state. Do I really need to check the weather while at the park on the cell phone? I can check it on the weather radio even more easily anyway.

The phone promised to be my new digital link to the world! What a sham. The coverage I had on AT&T wireless’s GSM service for the last year has been spotty at best and non-existant at worst. AT&T wireless was just bought up by Cingular, and Cingular primarlily uses the 850MHz band. My phone is “tri-mode” meaning three modes of GSM (1800, 1900 and 900MHz). Cingular plans to move their newfound customers to their 850MHz network, and so recently I had received a “free, no strings attached” T226 phone from Sony-Erricsson”. It arrived un-announced via UPS. Upon inspection, the new phone doesn’t have infrared or bluetooth. It lacks a lot of the things the T68i had, but it was labeled “upgrade” all over the packaging. They even kidnly provided a return service package so you could ship back the T68i! Well, I’m keeping the T68i which still functions well as a bluetooth remote control for iTunes, and if anyone wants to buy a T226, I’ve got one - cheap!