... And Here!

by Russ Sumida

Since I am currently not under contract with any provider and Oceanic Time Warner announced the release of their @rrmobile service and their Intelligo router I decided to try and compare the pricing for these services to see which one is actually the best buy.

The assumption here is that all three are exactly the same service technically and that the only difference between the three is pricing. It is from that perspective that I did some calculations (with the help of my wife @mel808, well ok, she actually did all the calculations, I am just writing the blog entry) and here are the results.

The way the three companies have chosen to price this service/equipment is very different from each other but all required a two year contract commitment and so the analysis is done on the total price of the service over two years.

NOTE: I am currently a Road Runner subscriber and therefore the comparisons are made from that perspective. If you are not a RR subscriber then the analysis that we did here does not apply. Neither of the two other services offered a discount as far as we could tell based on being current subscribers to their service.

In looking at the services it was easy right off the bat to see that Sprint would be the most expensive. Their price for nationwide 4G/3G coverage was $59.99/month and that didn’t even include the fact that you need to still buy the equipment.

Sprint Monthly Rate (Click to enlarge)

Clear was a little more complicated since they offered both a purchase your equipment option as well as a lease option. We used the lease option so that we were able to somewhat compare apples to apples because with the lease option if something goes wrong with your equipment you can get it taken care of as with purchasing insurance with @rrmobile as you’ll see.

Clear has an online special going on right now too where you get the first month free which is reflected in the screen cap here.

(Click to enlarge)

So for $55 + $5.99 per month you get the service and the equipment and the equipment is covered because it is a lease. You don’t own the equipment though. You also get a discount of $27.50 for the first two months which is how they are giving the “free month discount”.

Now lets do some math. 23 months (2 year contract with 1 month free) x $60.99 = $1,402.77

Now lets look at the Oceanic Time Warner solution (ordering options). Theirs requires a purchase of the equipment at $99 but they are also offering a $50 rebate so the net cost of the equipment (I know we don’t get back the tax part but that is too much math for me) is $49. They are also charging for shipping so add on another $13.65 to the one time cost of the equipment as well.

Because you own the equipment they offer an equipment protection plan for $3.99/month that will cover theft, damage, etc. BTW – I looked at the “more info” link and it isn’t covered if war is declared or nuclear disasters. Wouldn’t you think that if you were close enough to a nuclear disaster you would have bigger things to worry about than having your wireless router replaced? Anyways, I digress.

Now as mentioned above I am a current Road Runner subscriber so my monthly price is $49.95/month as shown below.

(Click to enlarge)

So we do the math here and 24 months x ($49.95 + $3.99) = $1,294.56 + cost of equipment $49 + $13.65 = $1,357.21

The end result over a two year period is that the Oceanic Time Warner solution will be cheaper by $45.56 and you own the equipment.

So theoretically it could be sold after the contract is up and you could save even more. Also, additional savings of $3.99 x 24 months could be subtracted if you didn’t want to pick up the additional equipment protection which is an additional $95.76 savings. I kind of want the protection because it is a mobile device and I plan to kick the crap out of it. Hahaha. Nah, just kidding @rrmobile if you’re reading this! I treat my equipment really well, but do plan to use this a lot in the field.

One more thing to note, the Oceanic Time Warner plan comes with both unlimited 4G AND 3G. The others have a 5GB limit on them before there are additional charges. Now, that is a lot of data, but still thought I would note that there is that difference also.

In any case, I wanted to do this because there has been an ongoing discussion on why choose one over the other since it is all the same technical service. This helped me a lot and I think I am ready to “click that button” now. Please let me know if you see something I missed, even though it may be too late by that time.

NOTE: I was NOT paid nor compensated by @rrmobile in any way. Well maybe that is not completely true. They did provide entertainment and some good pupus at their launch event that I did partake in. Oh yeah, and a cool swag bag (check out Segment 1) with some RR logo items in it. In case things like that actually matter to you and make a difference on how you live your life.

Posted by @ParkRat via myMobile Hawaii

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