Cell Phone Monopoly

[cgannon64]

I just noticed this, and its got me annoyed. My mom got her new color phone, and it came with a three month online plan. Anyway, I went online, seeing if I could download some ringers or games or something. I went online, and then went into the ringers section. I noticed some of the ringers that were songs were a dollar to download, which makes sense, as they are copyrighted. Anyway, then I saw the "Basic Rings" section, which I assumed was some normal rings that you could download for free. Wrong. They ARE normal rings (with names like "Short Beep" or "Regular Ring") but they cost money! One ring, called "Regular Ring Long" was a dollar (with tax, of course) and deleted itself after a month.

I found this ridiculous. It costs money to download a ring that should have been included with the phone?!?? (All the rings with the phone were songs or very odd rings.) I thought I would try to find some shareware site on the phone that I could get free rings from, but then I found the second half of the monopoly. You can't go to any sites that aren't owned by, sponsered by, or received approval of Sprint. So any shareware site would obviously not receive approval of the phone company.

Are other phone internet services like this, or is Spring just evil? And is there any regulation in this new industry? Not allowing people to go on any site they want seems pretty illegal, or at least potentially illegal, to me...

I find internet on phones pointless. I had dreams for it - checking news, downloading rings, going to sites...but with the ridiculous price, I don't think I'll be doing any of this after the free trial expires...

 

[Civddict]

Cell phones companies bussiness model is like this : charge them monthly charge. if they need anything else, we will gladly give it to them, with draconian price.

 

[The Troquelet]

The whole point of giving you extra stuff to do on your cell phone is to extort you for it.

That said, I don't own one and intend to never own one

 

[Jeratain]

Always read the fine print before doing anything with a phone. They know there's clueless / careless people out there (especially young teens) who are going to do everything that is cool to their phones, so they'll log online without knowing the hidden costs, start using instant messenger with their phones, start downloading stuff, just not caring about any fees. I'm not saying you're one of those people, but these are the perfect traps for young teens.

 

[Kakashi]

i dont even see the point of going online on a cell phone any way you cant download any fuul songs or internet sights or anything fun its pointless(no offence)

 

[Hurricane]

This has changed. Two years ago there were dozens of sites with hundreds of free ring tones, logos and stuff. Now, each and every one of them charge money for that same stuff. So I still use the same Monthy Python and the Holy Grail melody I downloaded for free in 2000.

 

[Raijer]

Don't own one of these... things... but CG, I'm sure there's a way around your problem on the good ol' internet. Just type "free sprint ring" or some such into google. Maybe you'll get this. It may work, it may not.

 

[thestonesfan]

If you look hard enough, you can find ANYTHING on the internet. Free or not.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by Jeratain
Always read the fine print before doing anything with a phone. They know there's clueless / careless people out there (especially young teens) who are going to do everything that is cool to their phones, so they'll log online without knowing the hidden costs, start using instant messenger with their phones, start downloading stuff, just not caring about any fees. I'm not saying you're one of those people, but these are the perfect traps for young teens.

Don't worry. My mom wouldn't even consider the online plan until she convinced them of a free 3 month plan. I know of the people you talk about though - my friend has like 40 ringers on his phone...each of them about a dollar each. I ask him is it worth it, when you can only use one at a time?

Originally posted by raijer
Just type "free sprint ring" or some such into google. Maybe you'll get this. It may work, it may not.

Thanks for the site. But, if you look at the first headline on that site, it says "Buy 1 Get 1 Free".