4 ms·

Only skimmed through this, but it seems to miss one important point: In Germany (1st spot for self-sufficient teenagers in this study) it is perfectly possible

by jonemo 13y ago

Only skimmed through this, but it seems to miss one important point: In Germany (1st spot for self-sufficient teenagers in this study) it is perfectly possible to pay for the normal phone/text/data coverage as a teenager by using cash or maybe a bank account. In the US, however, you need a social security number, good credit, proof of address (i.e. unrelated items teenagers often do not or can not get) to purchase your average cellphone plan.

Crito 13y ago
I wonder if their survey captured the difference between teenagers who have their own plans, and teenagers who reimburse their parents (thus "paying" for their own phone bill).
- thedufer 13y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. I don't know how it is in Europe, but here in the US I, and a lot of people I know, do this to get in on family plan discounts that we'd otherwise be excluded from.
ajasmin 13y ago
Do you have to provide all that info just to get a prepaid plan? Can a tourist get a SIM card in the US?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- retroafroman 13y ago
  No, I got a prepaid SIM in Germany by walking into a shop and plunking down 10 Euros. You can buy traveler SIMs that work with all sorts of carriers abroad, but it will be more expensive. If you can wait till you get there, it's not a big hassle.
- cbhl 13y ago
  It's a PITA to get a SIM card when visiting the US -- for example, I had to order online from T-mo's website, and they limited the number of SIMs to some arbitrary limit per calendar year (so good luck if you are in shared housing and the previous set of interns/tourists has exhausted the limit for the year). Getting a SIM card in store seemed to require signing a multi-year contract, so I ran as far as possible before I could figure out whether they wanted my SSN or not.
  - nocontext 13y ago
    The SIM cards for T-Mobile & AT&T prepaid come packaged with cheap (~$20) feature phones and are available in almost every national chain drugstore, supermarket, and general retail store in the US.
    - cbhl 13y ago
      It seems wasteful to buy a feature phone if I know I have a phone that works on their networks, though.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  In major cities, it's quite easy and becoming even more common to find prepaid SIMs available at small shops on every block. Here in New York, prepaid carries such as H2O and Simple have long been accessible and in-demand due to large tourist and immigrant populations who might not have established credit. These sorts of plans are gradually spilling over into the tech community, as those with the means to purchase their phones up front for full price, see the value of a contract-less plan.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  It can be easy to get a SIM in the US. But the companies make it difficult for some reason. Everyone is obsessed with credit. Get cable TV? They want your SSN to check credit. It's bizarre. Even on a T-Mobile prepaid plan, they insisted on an SSN after a year and refused to charge my Amex. I told them I was Canadian, so they asked for a SIN. They said Amex required it. Only after getting Amex involved did T-Mobile back down. There's about zero risk for them on a prepaid system. The risk is someone trying to exploit a hole in their billing platform, which is really quite minuscule.
wolfgke 13y ago
This IMHO proves the dependence of US-american teenagers on their parents.
- Crito 13y ago
  It shows a sort of artificial dependence imposed by society, but these teenagers could otherwise be independent in terms of emotional maturity and personal responsibility. My father and his brother both 'ran away' from their (abusive) family when they were 16 and 15 respectively, in the late 60s. Bought a car with cash they had saved up, drove across the country, rented an apartment for a few years and worked various jobs before joining different branches of the military and eventually going to college. A few decades later, I imagine this sort of thing as being near impossible for today's teenagers. Not because they are "wussier" or immature for their age, but because the world has changed and expectations that people have of teenagers and young adults have changed. Everything has more paperwork, everyone seems to expect background checks and credit checks. Teenagers and young adults seemingly need cosigners for damn near everything for their first few years away from home. I had a lot of friction with this stuff in the 90's/early 00's when I was that age as my father's philosophy towards cosigning was "tell them that you can afford it yourself, and them to go fuck themselves." As late as 22 years old I had landlords that were hesitant (although ultimately not unwilling) to rent to me without a cosigner, even though I was gainfully employed and had fine credit. Even for that age range a lot of them seem to think that people being dependent on their parents is the norm.
jacalata 13y ago
That's a good point. When I was 17 and wanted a phone in Australia, I needed an adult to sign the contract for me. My mother wouldn't do it, mostly because I would have had to take her to a store during a work day, so I got my 19 year old sister to put it in her name - I paid the bill myself (just as I would have if my mother had signed it for me). (I don't remember if prepaid wasn't an option or just wasn't as good a deal).
protomyth 13y ago
Plus, in the US, even if your paying the cost of your plan wouldn't it be dumb not to be a phone on a family plan? Splitting the family plan bill seems to be a lot cheaper than an individual plan.
marquis 13y ago
T-Mobile is moving this way. I grab a T-Mobile SIM when I'm in the US and it's cheaper to discard and get a new one when I need it rather than top-up. I wait for the day of multi-use SIMs.
- rahimnathwani 13y ago
  How so? I have a T-mobile Sim for visiting the US. The plan is 2USD per day for unlimited calls and 2G-speed data, and I only top up the amount I need each trip (11 days means I top up 22USD). If I were to get new SIM card each time I went the cost would be similar, if I were able to get a free sim (with no credit) or more if they don't have a free sim offer at the time. Is there some deal with new sims of which I'm not aware?
  - marquis 13y ago
    I see my sentence was misleading: when I leave the U.S. I discard the SIM because, as you'll know, it expires after 3 months of no use and it's cheaper to get a new one for $20 on the next trip than keeping topping up while back home.
    - rahimnathwani 13y ago
      That makes sense. I didn't realise it expired in as little as 3 months. If you need to do this regularly, I recommend keeping an eye on slickdeals.net, as people post there whenever T-mobile do their free or 99 cent sim promotion. IIRC you can order two sims at a time, and it seems like you get a cryptic error message if you've ordered a free sim from them in the previous 12 months.
breser 13y ago
Actually I don't think paying for the plan is the problem. There are many prepaid providers in the US. Many retail stores sell inexpensive phones and prepaid service for cash (hell even my local grocery store sells them). I tried several of these recently with my new Nexus 5. T-Mobile didn't even ask for anything other than a first name when activating and I got the impression that was so the customer service rep could call me by name. So if obtaining service is really not the problem what is? Quite simply the problem is that most of these prepaid services don't sell the phones that a teenager is going to want (smart phones in general but iPhones in particular). It's only very recently that these sorts of phones have been supported at all by the prepaid industry. Even when the phones are supported the American phone market is distorted by carrier subsidies. Many people don't realize how much cheaper buying a phone and using a cheaper service can be. The prepaid market on the other hand is not significantly subsidized (if at all). So kids and/or parents don't even consider buying a phone outside of a postpaid provider on a contract. It's possible to buy a used phone for a fairly reasonable price, but then you're dealing with a potential mess of issues. You have to make sure to buy a phone that your chosen carrier will activate. Even some seemingly compatible systems won't activate phones sold by the other (Verizon & Sprint in particular). The phone might work and be allowed by the provider, but not have the proper bands for 3G/4G service (some iPhones on T-Mobile). Your carrier might refuse to activate service since they might say the phone is still under contract or stolen. For that matter the phone might still be carrier locked to another provider. Even if a teenager has the cash to pay for their plan they often won't have the cash to buy the phone they want. So I suspect a lot of parents buy phones. As others have pointed out a lot of the carriers have seemingly low charges for adding additional lines. So combined with the additional line charge and the subsidized cost parents just add their kids to their own postpaid service. Often times though these additional line fees are misleading, since they typically tack on more fees for data capabilities. Which racks up the price. Since this isn't clearly advertised a lot of people don't understand it and don't consider it in price comparisons with prepaid providers. So in my opinion it's almost entirely about phone selection and phone subsidization. Those things drive tons of people to postpaid plans which of course do have the issues you point out. But as soon as you are willing to accept less fashionable phones those sorts of issues erode and there's nothing stopping a teenager from obtaining service (or for that matter even paying for a phone).
rb2k_ 13y ago
No you don't. I'm German and I've gotten cell phone service with several providers over the last few years even before I had a SSN / credit history / ... So far I tried: Redpocket / T-Mobile (30$ Walmart/online plan) / AT&T Go Phone / T-Mobile Monthly plan / ... All of them give you Voice Minutes, Data and Messaging. I just popped those SIM cards into my (unlocked) GSM phone and that was that. I guess what you can't get are those 100$ / month with a "subsidised" phone plans. But I don't know why anybody would want these. Any of those options cost me less than 55$ / month. I'm currently on the T-mobile 30$/Walmart/Online plan. 100 minutes talk, Unlimited text, First 5 GB at up to 4G speeds. No need for any of the mentioned things. p.s. and the ones I picked are only a small subset. H2O and Simple are even available at a lot of supermarkets.
- thedufer 13y ago
  What you've missed is that those 100$/month subsidized plans are about 30$/month if they're a new line on a family plan, whereas the other options don't have a cheaper grouped option. So they are the most economical (or close to it), and they look an awful lot like a teenager's parents are paying for it, even if they're paying their parents back in cash. I'm 23 and don't live with my parents and its still by far the best option.

by jonemo 13y ago

Crito 13y ago

I wonder if their survey captured the difference between teenagers who have their own plans, and teenagers who reimburse their parents (thus "paying" for their own phone bill).

thedufer 13y ago
I was wondering the same thing. I don't know how it is in Europe, but here in the US I, and a lot of people I know, do this to get in on family plan discounts that we'd otherwise be excluded from.

ajasmin 13y ago

Do you have to provide all that info just to get a prepaid plan? Can a tourist get a SIM card in the US?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
retroafroman 13y ago
No, I got a prepaid SIM in Germany by walking into a shop and plunking down 10 Euros. You can buy traveler SIMs that work with all sorts of carriers abroad, but it will be more expensive. If you can wait till you get there, it's not a big hassle.
cbhl 13y ago
It's a PITA to get a SIM card when visiting the US -- for example, I had to order online from T-mo's website, and they limited the number of SIMs to some arbitrary limit per calendar year (so good luck if you are in shared housing and the previous set of interns/tourists has exhausted the limit for the year). Getting a SIM card in store seemed to require signing a multi-year contract, so I ran as far as possible before I could figure out whether they wanted my SSN or not.
- nocontext 13y ago
  The SIM cards for T-Mobile & AT&T prepaid come packaged with cheap (~$20) feature phones and are available in almost every national chain drugstore, supermarket, and general retail store in the US.
  - cbhl 13y ago
    It seems wasteful to buy a feature phone if I know I have a phone that works on their networks, though.
colinbartlett 13y ago
In major cities, it's quite easy and becoming even more common to find prepaid SIMs available at small shops on every block. Here in New York, prepaid carries such as H2O and Simple have long been accessible and in-demand due to large tourist and immigrant populations who might not have established credit. These sorts of plans are gradually spilling over into the tech community, as those with the means to purchase their phones up front for full price, see the value of a contract-less plan.
MichaelGG 13y ago
It can be easy to get a SIM in the US. But the companies make it difficult for some reason. Everyone is obsessed with credit. Get cable TV? They want your SSN to check credit. It's bizarre. Even on a T-Mobile prepaid plan, they insisted on an SSN after a year and refused to charge my Amex. I told them I was Canadian, so they asked for a SIN. They said Amex required it. Only after getting Amex involved did T-Mobile back down. There's about zero risk for them on a prepaid system. The risk is someone trying to exploit a hole in their billing platform, which is really quite minuscule.

wolfgke 13y ago

This IMHO proves the dependence of US-american teenagers on their parents.

Crito 13y ago
It shows a sort of artificial dependence imposed by society, but these teenagers could otherwise be independent in terms of emotional maturity and personal responsibility. My father and his brother both 'ran away' from their (abusive) family when they were 16 and 15 respectively, in the late 60s. Bought a car with cash they had saved up, drove across the country, rented an apartment for a few years and worked various jobs before joining different branches of the military and eventually going to college. A few decades later, I imagine this sort of thing as being near impossible for today's teenagers. Not because they are "wussier" or immature for their age, but because the world has changed and expectations that people have of teenagers and young adults have changed. Everything has more paperwork, everyone seems to expect background checks and credit checks. Teenagers and young adults seemingly need cosigners for damn near everything for their first few years away from home. I had a lot of friction with this stuff in the 90's/early 00's when I was that age as my father's philosophy towards cosigning was "tell them that you can afford it yourself, and them to go fuck themselves." As late as 22 years old I had landlords that were hesitant (although ultimately not unwilling) to rent to me without a cosigner, even though I was gainfully employed and had fine credit. Even for that age range a lot of them seem to think that people being dependent on their parents is the norm.

jacalata 13y ago

That's a good point. When I was 17 and wanted a phone in Australia, I needed an adult to sign the contract for me. My mother wouldn't do it, mostly because I would have had to take her to a store during a work day, so I got my 19 year old sister to put it in her name - I paid the bill myself (just as I would have if my mother had signed it for me). (I don't remember if prepaid wasn't an option or just wasn't as good a deal).

protomyth 13y ago

Plus, in the US, even if your paying the cost of your plan wouldn't it be dumb not to be a phone on a family plan? Splitting the family plan bill seems to be a lot cheaper than an individual plan.

marquis 13y ago

T-Mobile is moving this way. I grab a T-Mobile SIM when I'm in the US and it's cheaper to discard and get a new one when I need it rather than top-up. I wait for the day of multi-use SIMs.

rahimnathwani 13y ago
How so? I have a T-mobile Sim for visiting the US. The plan is 2USD per day for unlimited calls and 2G-speed data, and I only top up the amount I need each trip (11 days means I top up 22USD). If I were to get new SIM card each time I went the cost would be similar, if I were able to get a free sim (with no credit) or more if they don't have a free sim offer at the time. Is there some deal with new sims of which I'm not aware?
- marquis 13y ago
  I see my sentence was misleading: when I leave the U.S. I discard the SIM because, as you'll know, it expires after 3 months of no use and it's cheaper to get a new one for $20 on the next trip than keeping topping up while back home.
  - rahimnathwani 13y ago
    That makes sense. I didn't realise it expired in as little as 3 months. If you need to do this regularly, I recommend keeping an eye on slickdeals.net, as people post there whenever T-mobile do their free or 99 cent sim promotion. IIRC you can order two sims at a time, and it seems like you get a cryptic error message if you've ordered a free sim from them in the previous 12 months.

breser 13y ago

Actually I don't think paying for the plan is the problem. There are many prepaid providers in the US. Many retail stores sell inexpensive phones and prepaid service for cash (hell even my local grocery store sells them). I tried several of these recently with my new Nexus 5. T-Mobile didn't even ask for anything other than a first name when activating and I got the impression that was so the customer service rep could call me by name. So if obtaining service is really not the problem what is? Quite simply the problem is that most of these prepaid services don't sell the phones that a teenager is going to want (smart phones in general but iPhones in particular). It's only very recently that these sorts of phones have been supported at all by the prepaid industry. Even when the phones are supported the American phone market is distorted by carrier subsidies. Many people don't realize how much cheaper buying a phone and using a cheaper service can be. The prepaid market on the other hand is not significantly subsidized (if at all). So kids and/or parents don't even consider buying a phone outside of a postpaid provider on a contract. It's possible to buy a used phone for a fairly reasonable price, but then you're dealing with a potential mess of issues. You have to make sure to buy a phone that your chosen carrier will activate. Even some seemingly compatible systems won't activate phones sold by the other (Verizon & Sprint in particular). The phone might work and be allowed by the provider, but not have the proper bands for 3G/4G service (some iPhones on T-Mobile). Your carrier might refuse to activate service since they might say the phone is still under contract or stolen. For that matter the phone might still be carrier locked to another provider. Even if a teenager has the cash to pay for their plan they often won't have the cash to buy the phone they want. So I suspect a lot of parents buy phones. As others have pointed out a lot of the carriers have seemingly low charges for adding additional lines. So combined with the additional line charge and the subsidized cost parents just add their kids to their own postpaid service. Often times though these additional line fees are misleading, since they typically tack on more fees for data capabilities. Which racks up the price. Since this isn't clearly advertised a lot of people don't understand it and don't consider it in price comparisons with prepaid providers. So in my opinion it's almost entirely about phone selection and phone subsidization. Those things drive tons of people to postpaid plans which of course do have the issues you point out. But as soon as you are willing to accept less fashionable phones those sorts of issues erode and there's nothing stopping a teenager from obtaining service (or for that matter even paying for a phone).

rb2k_ 13y ago

No you don't. I'm German and I've gotten cell phone service with several providers over the last few years even before I had a SSN / credit history / ... So far I tried: Redpocket / T-Mobile (30$ Walmart/online plan) / AT&T Go Phone / T-Mobile Monthly plan / ... All of them give you Voice Minutes, Data and Messaging. I just popped those SIM cards into my (unlocked) GSM phone and that was that. I guess what you can't get are those 100$ / month with a "subsidised" phone plans. But I don't know why anybody would want these. Any of those options cost me less than 55$ / month. I'm currently on the T-mobile 30$/Walmart/Online plan. 100 minutes talk, Unlimited text, First 5 GB at up to 4G speeds. No need for any of the mentioned things. p.s. and the ones I picked are only a small subset. H2O and Simple are even available at a lot of supermarkets.

thedufer 13y ago
What you've missed is that those 100$/month subsidized plans are about 30$/month if they're a new line on a family plan, whereas the other options don't have a cheaper grouped option. So they are the most economical (or close to it), and they look an awful lot like a teenager's parents are paying for it, even if they're paying their parents back in cash. I'm 23 and don't live with my parents and its still by far the best option.