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Trucker Mobile Phone Plans
A trucker should pick a cell phone plan carefully to avoid big expensive surprises. While there is not cell phone plans designed for truckers exclusively, you can create your own trucker mobile phone plans with a small amount of effort on your part.
Careful consideration should be given to the following:•Do your runs take you across country? If so; you will want to select a plan from a national company without long distance and roaming charges. Beware of companies who don’t charge you roaming charges for their cell towers but do charge you when your phone call has to connect through a competitor’s cell tower. You could see charges of .50 cents per minute and more that you were not expecting.A national plan such as Cingular’s family plan could be the way to go if you want to stay in touch easier with family and friends. The second cell phone in the plan could be left with a wife, other family member or a friend. Bottom line is double check any free roaming claims by any cell phone company to see if this hidden fee will bite you on first phone bill.
Check to see if a data plan is included with the monthly package plan in the event you use the cell phone to access the internet. Many companies charge extra or require you to sign up for a data plan to transmit data such as email and files.
Remember, once you sign the contact you will be stuck.
•What are your communication habits? Free weekend minutes and a 5000 minute allowance at night are great but what are your communication needs during the week day? Are you an independent trucker who will be using the cell phone frequently during the day trying to find loads, getting directions, using email and faxing contracts? Maybe you’re a company driver who was not given a company cell phone but find yourself always using your own personal cell phone to find a location. Maybe you’re calling back home during the work day more than you anticipated.
Think hard about the minutes that you may use for each work day in the month. Selecting too small of a weekday minutes package will cost you dearly because of the higher rate per minute they charge after going over your monthly weekday allotment. It’s almost like you are penalized severely for not choosing the right minute package once you discover the next level minute package would have been cheaper in the first place.
Do ask for this option because it could mean keeping $75 to $100 a month in your pocket instead of their pocket by monitoring your minute usage.
If you don’t want to monitor your minutes that close, choose a plan that will allow the unused minutes of a higher monthly minute package to roll over to the next month. •If you are a trucker who travels regionally, you may save money by going with a regional cellular carrier who resells minutes bought at a discount rate from the large cell phone carriers. Listed below are several to check to see if they can fit your strategy to have good trucker mobile phone plans that save you money.
Best Type of Cell Phone for the Coast to Coast and Rural Trucker:
While the digital system provides a better quality of service; the analog system provides a wider area of coverage especially in the rural areas of the United States. Some rural areas only receive the signal from the analog system.
If it is time for you to purchase a new cell phone, serious consideration should be given to buying a Tri-Mode cell phone to utilize both digital band signals and the one analog band serving the United States. Many of the internet services such as email, internet browsing and file transfers require the newest digital signal band.
With new technologies evolving rapidly with Tri-mode handsets now available to allow easier wireless internet access, you’ll have to make the personal decision to spend the extra money to have access to the additional digital network.
Confer with the cell phone manufacturer of your choice because you may decide to utilize your cell phone as the connector to link your computer with wireless capabilities to conduct business without leaving the comforts of your truck. With Sky-Fax service from Skymira , you can fax and receive documents while sitting comfortably in your truck by utilizing cellular, Wifi or satellite internet connections. Use the compact Pentax DS Mobile scanner and Pentax PocketJet 3 Thermal printer recommended by SkyMira to print and resend signed documents straight from your truck at a cost definitely cheaper than the average of $1.00 to $2.00 per sheet typically charged for faxing documents.
Another reason to think hard about how many minutes you need for the month.
Who Has the Best Cell Phone Service?Actually that is a tough question.Local service is usually good for the large cellular companies. The strongest customer dissatisfaction with major cell phone carriers is the service disruptions when traveling cross country.
A review of forums on the internet show many people rate Cingular as the best when traveling cross country yet some people swear Verizon is the best.
From personal experience, we rate the top three as Cingular, Verizon and Sprint/Nextel respectively.
Why rate Cingular as Number One?
Having the use of all three cell phone services in the last three years, here is what happened? 1.Sprint/Nextel service stopped three miles outside a major city away from an interstate. Their service stopped 45 miles outside a major city along an interstate corridor.
2.With my company phone using Verizon as the service provider and my personal cell phone using Cingular/ATT as the service provider; I had both phones sitting side by side in my boat in the middle of the lake. The Cingular/ATT phone worked and the Verizon phone could not "hear me".
3.While all cell phones lose their signal at times, we’ve had more success in rural areas and on top of mountains with Cingular/ATT.
Big Rig Central.com hopes you see the value in creating your own trucker mobile phone plans. Return to Top of Trucker Mobile Phone Plans
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