Archive for May 12, 2008

Cell Phone Price Wars: The Death of the Landline?

May 12, 2008 by admin.

Cell Phone Price Wars: The Death of the Landline?This is the first of a series of articles outlining the recent unlimited minute offerings cell phone carriers have made and whether or not this will ultimately mean the demise of traditional phone service as we know it.

 

In the past several months, the top 4 major carriers, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have either begun offering unlimited minute cell phone plans or reducing the price of their existing plan (Sprint). What does this mean for the customer? Well, it is the first sign that prices will come down and overage charges may be a thing of the past. While Sprint had unlimited service for $199/month and had been testing it in select markets for $119/month, it wasn’t until the top 2 carriers, Verizon and AT&T, announced plans to offer unlimited minutes plans that the war was on. Soon after, T-Mobile joined the fray and Sprint dropped the price on their unlimited plan. Another regional carrier, US Cellular, followed as well. The country’s fifth largest carrier, Alltel, does not yet offer unlimited calling, but with their MyCircle plans, most customers can get virtually unlimited minutes for less money.

 

For those of you living in cities like Tampa, Pittsburgh, San Francisco or Dallas, there are regional carriers such as Cricket and MetroPCS that have been offering unlimited minutes plans for some time. Perhaps it was these companies expansions into new markets such as Las Vegas, Oklahoma City (Cricket), Detroit and Los Angeles (MetroPCS) that prompted Verizon and AT&T to react. Or maybe it was just a natural evolution of the business as companies try to retain customers that are demanding more from their carriers and are less likely to stay loyal if they are unhappy with their service.

 

So how did Cricket and MetroPCS react to the big 4 getting into the unlimited minutes game? They slashed their rates to $50/month and offered more. Here is a rundown of the cell plans offered by each company:

Carrier Price per mo.* Shared Plan Unlimited Text/Pix/Video Unlimited Data Roaming Included? 411 Included? Contract Required?

Of course, while MetroPCS and Cricket are far cheaper than any of the big 4, they are only available in select markets and you cannot roam out of those markets without an extra charge. But if you don’t travel often and you live in these areas, they are a great bargain, especially MetroPCS family plans, which you can get your service for as low as $25 per month for each phone.

 

In the next part of the series, I’ll take a look at how this could potentially affect traditional phone companies and VOIP companies as well.

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Tip The Server Too!

May 12, 2008 by Dave.

As a follow up to the post I wrote on tipping pizza delivery drivers, I caught an article that relates to tipping servers in restaurants.   It’s from Thomas A. Mason at www.tip20.com titled Why Should You Tip?  Here are some of the things Mason points out that many people might not know regarding servers:

  • Hourly wages are typically significantly less in the service industry, because tips are considered part of the servers income.
  • Your server does pay income taxes. In absence of proper documentation of tips, the government will look at the servers food and beverage sales and base their taxable tip income on a percent of it.  So if you do not tip the server, it has actually cost the server money to serve you. See the IRS tipping tax laws.
  • Believe it or not, servers do not always get a paycheck. Sometimes, because of the taxes they pay and/or deductions, servers must pay in to the company rather than get a check.
  • Your server has to tip too. It is very common for a waiter or waitress to have to tip out their supporting staff, ie; the bartender, buss person, food runners and others. Bartenders may have to tip out their bar backs. These tips are based often on the sales of the server, so if you don’t tip them, in addition to the 8% the government gets they often have to shell out money to the support staff putting them further in the hole. Sometimes the support staff is tipped a percent of the servers tips. So not tipping the server is the same as not tipping any of the hard working support staff in the restaurant.
  • Servers do a lot of work that they are not tipped on also. It is called side work and it is work that is done for no more than their hourly rate. Side work usually involves cleaning the restaurant, stocking supplies and getting the store ready for the next shifts business. Side work can be time consuming and at times physically straining.

    • The author makes some very good points, which most people don’t know and are I know are accurate from personal experience.  When I served I made good money.  However, I tipped out the busperson 10% of the cash I made and the bartender 10% on all alcohol sales.  Since they have to claim tips too, it seems like double taxation, but that’s another post altogether.  If someone ran up a large bar tap and tipped poorly, I could potentially be waiting on them for free since my money would go directly to the bartender.  Because of having to claim tips on a certain percentage of cash sales (at least 10%), many times, I would be forced to claim MORE than what I actually made because the majority of sales were credit card sales, which I had to claim 100% of the tips. 

    Regarding the sidework issue, one thing the author says but doesn’t make clear is how much less servers’ base pay is.  In Pennsylvania, they are paid $2.83/hour plus tips.  So if they are doing sidework and have no tables,  they only get paid $2.83/hour.  Would you work for $2.83/hour?  Probably not. 

    Think about these things the next time you go out to eat.  Bad food?  Don’t take it out on the server, they didn’t cook it.  Bad service?  See a manager; most managers will be more than willing to take care of any problems. 

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