So, I definitely like the general concept of Ting's billing for what you use. But, what about for the case of someone who uses an average of 1400 minutes, or something along those lines. Why is it that they would have to pay $35 for those minutes, but we can see that the cost of 1000 minutes is $18 and the cost of 500 minutes is $9. So, could we conceivably pay for just 1500 total minutes and only spend $27 instead of $35?
The thing that bothers me is that the groupings get so much bigger when you move to the next spot over. So, when someone ends up on the lower half of the next category, they are still spending too much money based on what those minutes really cost. Just round up to the nearest 100 minutes and then figure out the cheapest combo based on the established prices.
So, a couple examples:
200 minutes = $6 (instead of $9)
250 minutes = $9
600 minutes = $12 (instead of $18
1600 minutes (1000 + 500 + 100) = $30 (instead of $35)
Otherwise, these plans become so much less appealing when you get up in the upper ranges of these scales.
Comments
This has been brought up several times and I agree completely. At what point are there too many tiers. So let's say there is a 1000 and 1500. If I normally do 1100 I am going to feel just as cheated. Cheated is too strong a word but I hope you get my point. Tings research shows them that they couldn't market plain pay-as-you-go so they had to make some descisions.
One side effect of changing from 1000-2000 to 1000-1500-2000 is they might have to raise the price point for the 1000. I'm not sure as I don't work for Ting, but they may have "breakage" figured in that allows the 1000 to be cheaper because the ones of us doing 1200 are paying for those not doing as much. This is nothing new in business and there is nothing wrong with it.
My 2 cents.
I'm not proposing that extra tiers be created. The point of the tiers is to set points at which you get a discounted price per minute. So, rather than creating more, use the existing tiers to determine how the price is figured. Basically, the whole "only pay for what you use" concept only works if you are near the current tiers. Someone who uses 1200 minutes isn't exactly feeling that when they are paying for 800 minutes they don't use.
I would first like to say I paid a penalty to go with Ting and I'm not sorry, in fact I have been talking Ting up whenever I can.
I don't know who sees these comments but I have to agree with Jason. I like that Ting does not penalize for going into next zone but there is a kind of penelty for not going enough into that zone.
Example 100 megabytes = $3 , 101 megabytes = $13 or $10 for 1 megabyte. The reason why we switch to Ting is to get away from that type of overcharge. Why not charge for 100 X 2 = $6. It would go like that till you hit the next zone. Like jason says above no extra zones just combine zones to give best cost for use. The other way would be to pay a fee for use of a service then go per min, example $3 for first 100 megabytes then $ .02 cents per megabyte rounded up to next whole cent for any other. Example 101 megabytes would be $3 plus 1megabyte X .02 rounded up to 2cents for $3.02(thats $60.00 / 3000 megabytes, the top tier).
I'm sure others could come up with other possibilities.
I hope someone at Ting sees these comments and could respond with a answer.
I would also like to note that this is pretty deceptive for new users. I just signed up within the last month and I'm just now coming to the realization that I have to pay the 500 minutes price for going just slightly over the 100 minutes tier. Like Chris mentioned above, that 101st minute actually costs me $6!
I think this is deceptive because when I signed up all I heard was "pay for what you use". That is only a half truth. What should be advertised is actually "pay for a specified tier of use". All along, I had gotten the impression that if I used a fractional amount of a tier, I would be charged a prorated amount. Needless to say, I'm a bit disappointed in Ting because nowhere is this fact ever expressed. Perhaps at least put some verbiage on the "Plan" page?
It's difficult at times to know how explicit the wording needs to be for some people to fully understand a concept. Perhaps you didn't read the many posts here before joining Ting. I agree the wording may need to be changed but I don't know at what point you could be assured everyone will understand.
Perhaps it's best for the person that isn't sure how it works, to post a question or two for clarification. The good news though, Ting doesn't make you sign a contract, so you have the ability to find other carriers that might fit your usage patterns better. I for one haven't found any,
Well, you don't have to go digging through the forums to find that answer. Zach, it IS on the plans page. They explain it, and there is a video on that page that shows several examples of exactly how it works. They even changed their marketing slogan on that page because people brought it up. It used to say, "More flexibility. No waste." Several customers brought up that "No waste" is not accurate. Their service is good, and there is less waste than most other carriers, but they didn't need to exaggerate it like that. I think a lot of people have been a little too excitedly using phrases like "Pay for ONLY what you use." when they tell people about it, and so some people come in with overly high expectations and are frustrated, where they could have been satisfied if they had taken a little more time to read and understand what they were getting.
Please sign in to leave a comment.