Cell Plans for Students: Back to School Tips

Students going to high school, college, or university have even more choices when it comes to cellphone plans. The question is, are the plans promoted to students really better? Students also have a number of unique issues to think about to wisely choose a suitable plan. The Cell Plan Experts have some advice for you about what to look for, what to consider, and what to watch out for.

Airtime and Long Distance

Airtime and long distance are the big ticket items on most bills. Don’t forget about incoming long distance when you are outside your home calling area - this is especially important to commuter students. Many providers have small calling areas, so it is even possible that your high school might not be local. If this is an issue for you, look for plans or features that substantially reduce these costs like nationwide long distance, MY5 type features, or nationwide network calling. Some family plans allow free local or long distance calling between members on the same bill. Remember that features that are advertised for "local" calling will still cover the airtime portion of your long distance calls (but not the long distance rate).

Moving to a different calling area for school?

To avoid paying incoming long distance on all your calls, you should probably choose a new phone number in your new city. Be careful though: if you spend summers back home or elsewhere, you’ll be stuck with incoming long distance on all calls made during that time. If this is going to be an issue, check if your provider will let you add an option for cheaper or unlimited long distance for just those months. It'll probably be cheaper than paying extra all year on a plan with included long distance (A nationwide plan).

Also, if you're moving to Saskatchewan, Manitoba or the Atlantic provinces, be sure to take advantage of the cheaper plans available there.

Heading to the States (for Reading Week)?

It's a long time away yet, but if you're going to the US for reading week or at any other time, check the "roaming" rates before you go. Better yet, check them before you commit when you're still shopping for plans! The new providers have brought some sanity to pricing and offer rates that are over 85 percent cheaper! If that's not an option for you, make sure to add a US roaming package before you leave. This can greatly reduce voice, text, and data rates which could otherwise give you a very painful bill hangover.

Student Promotions

Promotions plans can be a great deal... if it's for something you needed anyways. Many feature National "MY5" type features and include data service as well. However, pay attention to the drawbacks. 3 Year contract only? How about the less prominent rates for using extra. Most of all, make sure it matches your usage. Don't get locked into a larger monthly bill than you need to.

Don't Pay For It At All!

There are many freebies at school and on campus. Wireless Internet is usually available free everywhere on campus, at coffee shops, the pub, and in student houses. Get a wifi capable phone to take advantage of this and scale back or eliminate your cell plan's data plan costs.

If most of your long distance is going to be with the parents back home, arrange to use free voice services like Skype instead. Make sure their computer is setup with the software and a headset and they know how to use it before you leave.

Negotiate!

In case you haven't noticed, there's a price war on right now! Do your homework. Research the competition. Our free calculator can help of course:

Then negotiate!
Mention competing plans to put the pressure on. Especially with the higher priced incumbents' plans, the sales rep has authority to throw some extras in. The people with the most authority to give you concessions are usually the phone-in sales representatives during business hours. Mention your parents' customer loyalty and see if any "retention" plans are available. (They can sometimes be better than student promotional plans)

Review Your Bill

Look over your bill when you get it. If it’s not working out, remember that you can still switch plans and options with the same provider even when on contract.

Advice for Parents

It can be very difficult to keep on top of your kids' cell phone bill and determine what's really necessary and what isn't. And of course, they'd like to have unlimited everything. Our advice is to let them have a "cell plan allowance". Give them a limit as to what you're willing to spend, and possibly some consequences if they go over. Then let them figure out how best to spend it. It's an excellent lesson for them in consumer economics, and believe us, between them and their friends, they'll figure out the best value for the dollar!

Think Outside the Marketing Box

Part of the strategy of the marketing is to tout one feature while playing down the other costs that are part of your bill. It's important to know how you intend to use your phone to pick the best set of features for your money. For example, an "unlimited" texting plan is often a bad choice unless you actually only use texting. Texting can almost always be capped at $10-15 by adding an unlimited option. Voice, long distance and data, on the other hand, cannot usually be capped and can potentially greatly increase your bill. That's why other feature plans like unlimited incoming voice or "MY5" and other options have the potential to save you much more.

Unfortunately it's very difficult to know and understand all the options and features and figure out what is the best value for you. That's why we created Cell Plan Expert. You only have to do your best to fill out a profile, which is also a good way to determine what your actual needs are. We then work out our best recommendations from a database with over 16 million plan and option variations. It then lets you compare plans based on what it will actually cost at the end of the month based on your usage profile. For the moment it's completely free. Just click the button below to get started.

Please Note:

The Cell Plan Expert does not currently support in our estimates the cost of data or mobile browsing, but we do include the student versions of such plans in the results. We are working on it, but in the meantime, the calculator will still give you a very good starting point for finding out what plans for you, assuming you still are using voice, texting and so on. The extra cost of data options and plans is quite uniform across most providers.