Understanding Cell Phone Pricing

Ever wonder why each cellular provider offers different level of pricing plans? It really all boils down to total airtime minutes, and how and when you use them. Quite simply, airtime minutes is the total time spent talking on a cell phone. Keep in mind that the total airtime usage is calculated from BOTH the outgoing and incoming calls you receive on your cellular phone. Remember your airtime minutes are being used even if someone calls you. Today's standard unit of measure for total airtime minutes is a month. WHEN you use the phone kicks in the different level of cellular pricing.

The higher the cellular plan price usually means daytime calling

Basically, there are two levels of cellular minutes: Anytime minutes, and nights and weekend minutes.

Anytime minutes mean that you can use these minutes to call without any time restrictions; that is you can use your cellular phone 24 hours a day if you like. Anytime minutes is also the biggest factor on cellular phone pricing, even bigger than the cell phone!

There is a direct relationship between how many anytime minutes you have to how expensive your cellular plan may be. For example, if customer '300' has 300 anytime minutes compared to customer '600' 600 anytime minutes, customer '300' may be paying as much as $15-$20 less then customer '600'.

With plans today, the other 'type' of cellular minutes; nights and weekend minutes, are usually unlimited. This means that anytime you receive or make a call after a certain time in the night or during the weekend, you can talk for as much as you want and it won't count against your billable airtime minutes. Get unlimited nights and weekends usually is a bonus in most plans. If you plan to talk a lot on nights and weekends, of course keep in mind to find an unlimited plan for you. Tip: Each provider has a different timeframe for just when a night begins. For some, it's 8:00 in your area. For other carriers, it's 9:00. Keep this in mind while shopping.

It is interesting on just how the carriers come up with these different pricing methods based on when the minutes are used. Think about it; does it really cost anything extra to use the phone during the day then at night? When you ask a cellular provider, the common answer we get is during the day the line is used more, and it takes extra juice and energy to connect calls and keep cellular users online. We guess that no one will really know for sure but the providers.