D from BC said:
I asked the ~phone guy~, "I would gladly pay $100.00 extra for a phone
where I can enter my monthly minute allowance (350 daytime Mon to
Fri.) and see a minutes used countdown on the display.."
It's a conspiracy. See:
<
http://digg.com/tech_news/Verizon_very_upset_with_a_Minutes_Used_Firefox_Extension>
<
http://verizon-minutes-used.blogspot.com/>
Verizon and others apparently tried to pressure Mozilla into removing
the program from their web pile. It's still there. However, you'll
need a smartphone that runs Windoze Mobile 5 (WM5) and Firefox in
order to use it. My Verizon XV6700 does all that. I scribbled a web
page on the phone to give you a clue as to its features:
<
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/xv6700/XV6700.htm>
The problem with this particular phone is that it has every feature I
could ever want, but all of them are broken in some minor way
sufficiently to drive me nuts. Still it's better than most.
There's also another conspiracy theory that suggests the absence of
Wi-Fi from most cell phones was precipitated by cell phone provider
pressure. I believe it as Verizon will barely admit that their XV6700
has Wi-Fi. They don't seem to like VoIP via Wi-Fi.
There was about 15 phones on display..
"I'm sorry sir...there are no phones with that feature.."
It would have been useful to know which cellular provider you were
interrogating.
Fkn!! ..fkn!! @$@#@....10 zillion nearly useless features on these
phones but a "save you money" feature.. Unbelievable..
Fk the camera
Fk the bluetooth
fk the mp3 player
piss on the phone cell browser
piss on the fancy ringtones
I can see you're not a candidate for the new iPhone. Without all
those features, you're just not "cool". You gotta plug in the ear
phones, turn up the volume to the threshold of pain, and strut down
the street showing off the phone which you just overpaid. Having the
phone ring with my own composition is the ultimate in "cool".
Incidentally, you left out location based services and push to talk.
I WANT MY "SAVE YOU MONEY" MINUTE TRACKING FEATURE.
Get a pre-paid phone. Verizon has some key combination you punch to
tell you how many minutes you have left on your account. Think of it
as the modern version of the pay telephone. Please insert 10 cents
for the next 3 minutes. You can also get your minutes remaining
online.
My XV6700 and most phones have a usage timer in the phone. That's
useless for several reasons:
1. It has no way to reset the monthly usage counter at a
pre-specified date and time.
2. It does not accurately reflect various billing rates, such as free
minutes. Only the cellular providers billing machine has all that.
Those sneaky cell phone providers..
In the US, almost all cell phones are subsidized by the cellular
providers. The price you pay for the discount is that they have a
rather large say in what features are still functional when you
activate the phone. In Europe, users either rent or buy their phones
with very few subsidies. Fewer features are disabled or missing.
Note the disabled features:
<
http://support.vzw.com/pdf/BT_Chart_Handsets.pdf>
What can I do??
D from BC
1. Thou shalt not abbrev.
2. You might try asking the same question in one of the 200 assorted
alt.cellular.* newsgroups, preferably in the one for your unspecified
prospective cellular provider.
3. Write your own program.