First of all, I am one of them and we still contact. The article states, and I repeat, "they don't talk on the phone as much." We have to communicate by other means. It's not about being cheap. It's about being smart. You can always use your home phone, IM, or visit, etc. I shouldn't have to pay $250 a month b/c I don't want to communicate in other ways! So who will be the loser when you check your cell phone bill and it's more than your car payment? Thanks, I have my answer.

Jeez. With text messaging, email, instant messaging, and social networking sites, how wouldn't you stay in contact with them?

This is dumb. Who really cares what 18-24 yr old's calling habit are?

Talk about superficial. I have no idea what most of my friends use and I don't care. I don't even care if *gasp* they don't own a cellphone!

i shun all of you that have cell phones and it is not a necessity of you making a living. specifically you, the on the phone driver, who can't drive anyway, but for good measure is completely preoccupied chatting about your latest ring tone to your friend, whom you are currently on the road to see in five minutes.

First, I admit that I do know at least some of my friends companies, but it's not a huge issue. My phone plan has 5 lines and rollover minutes (yeah cingular, I mean AT&T...). We honestly rarely use all our minutes and every month we lose a handful of rollover ones (which doesn't matter, cause we just add more). According to my mother (the official name on the bill, I pay it straight to her) the last time we used all of our minutes was just over 2 years ago when I got married.

Now, text messages we've gone over more than I like to think about, but we usually find a plan that better works and change (example: for awhile, my husband would go over mostly because we were texting each other and both our accounts would get dinged for both messages. We then changed his account so that he had unlimited messaging to cingular customers and 1000 to everyone else, which is many of his friends).

I have never even thought about losing a friendship over something as dumb as cell phone carriers...

I would never damage a friendship over something trivial like this. Period. However, I will call people in a different order to put M2M calls first (ie before 6PM) and others later. No need to waste minutes unnecessarily, even though I have plenty.

Fortunately, we have enough minutes to where we don't have a problem going over. Still, I felt misled when I found out the truth.

Otherwise my average phone call is about 2-3 minutes anyway, just because I hate talking on the phone.

wtf @ article

PREPAID @ contract monkeys

I'm surprised people even know the difference. I can't count how many times as a csr a customer would say "What do you mean mobile-mobile doesn't include all mobile phones?".
All kidding aside, companies are on to this anyway with altels circle, tmobiles myfaves(scam), etc. Get a plan like that and it won't matter. Also, most cell phone plans aren't exactly designed for hours of talk time daily. You wouldn't believe how many 1000's of minutes some people will go over on a 1000 min plan, and at $0.40/min where I worked, could cost over $1000, and some even gladly pay it.
I don't expect my friends to call me on their cells. They can IM, e-mail, drop-by, etc. I know how expensive it can be. Also, there's this great, much cheaper invention for local calls, its called a pay-phone.

Bwerk. Have fun with that slow T-Mobile. My AT&T gets UMTS or HSDPA almost everywhere I am in NYC. T-Mobile doesn't even know what 3G is yet....

If you stop talking to someone over who they use for cell service, you're not much of a friend anyway.

I have Cingular and Sprint, both provided by work. So I can make mobile to mobile calls to 90% of everyone that I need to speak to for personal phone calls. My friends on Verizon are in Cali, I'm in Chicago, So by the time they get off work, my 7PM nights are kicking in (6pm on Sprint) and I'm enjoying free calls!

If the only way you can be "friends" with someone is if you have the same cell carrier or can only maintain a friendship via texting, you have no idea what friendship means

is this for real?

it sounds like the plot for a really bad episode of Friends or something.

@Toof_75_75:

Exactly. Nothing is more tedious and inane than listening to my mom and friends discuss which plan they have and what minutes give you this and that.

Who care - I make calls, I assume the recipient is capable of handling their own cell phone arrangements.

Oh well, I live in China- (in USD)2cents/min for local calls and 10cents/min for calls to the States for me (prepaid, postpaid is too much hassle for me and quite a few people here). Who cares about what carrier there's on when there's no such things as free M2M here (we have discounted M2M at 0.7cent/min but that applies to all carriers except for the PHS carrier which is treated like a landline)?

Now that I've read the article, this actually is a big plus. All these morons are waiting until free nights to call their friends, meaning they won't be yapping on their cell phones instead of paying attention to the cashier at the grocery store.

This is one of the most retarded things I've ever read.

Consumerist, you owe me 3 IQ points!

It's funny though, my fiance knows what carrier all of her friends are on. She doesn't even have to keep track of minutes or keep them to a minimum, she, for some reason, must have talked to most of her friends at some point about what carrier they have. I don't get it, but I just let her go about her way :-p

@Toof_75_75: I've never even considered asking my friends who their carrier is.

No, I don't shun them. I need someone to laugh at when their Cingular phone won't pick up a signal and my T-Mobile phone is making and receiving calls like a champ :D