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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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).
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).
I'm 24, US, and I'm paying for my parents' and sibling's plans. I must be doing something wrong.
For the US though, perhaps the reason is that many teens start off on family plans and simply never move off because it's slightly more reasonably-priced on the whole?
I pay the additional cost ($10 line + $30 data) for my phone on our family plan.
This is drastically different from "paying my own phone bill" which would be $100/mo for equivalent service.
Lots of people now are taking advantage of family plans to get reasonable pricing. Even my personal finance teacher (fourtysomething) is on a family plan with his extended family - it's allowed and it's cheaper.
I've got news for you. You're getting ripped off by AT&T. Unless you are a heavy user $40 is more expensive than what you'd pay on a prepaid provider. There are a number of options such T-Mobiles $30 prepaid plan (that's somewhat hidden and includes 5GB of 4G data, unlimited texting and 100 minutes of voice), Ting (which can be very cheap if you are only a moderate user and as low as just $15 with up to 100 minutes, 100 texts, and under 100 MBs of data), and a bunch of other cheaper options.
I'd encourage you to look at your actual usage and reconsider these all you can eat plans. They really are not that great of a deal unless you're a high usage user, which a lot of people are not.
Another point I'll make is be careful about looking at your reported usage. I'm not sure about AT&T since I haven't had an account there in a while, but Verizon can be very missleading (often showing your usage rounded up to the next nearest whole GB e.g. 100MB shows as 1GB on the usage part of your bill). In the case of Verizon I had to retrieve a CSV file and add my own usage up to realize I wasn't using as much as I thought I was.
You know, I pay my own phone bill, but I don't really care if someone's mother paid their phone bill.
I can't understand articles like this one that want anything and everything to appear as a scathing indictment of millennials (or perhaps only millennials in the US).
Even if it were, so what? Parents don't live forever and if some are too dependent, they won't always have the luxury.
Nothing in the post indicts millennials, and in the post linked by this one, they even say that millennials find themselves "screwed by financial storms caused by another generation".
I am always skeptical of studies that make "teenager" a combined demographic with regards to their expected responsibility (as opposed to likes/dislikes, etc). Being 19 is worlds apart from being 15. At 15 I still lived at home, worked on some farm for ~nothing and my dad provided me with everything a parent should. This is pretty much what was expected at the time. (It was a while ago so a cell phone was not even really an option). But at 19 I had already moved out and was 100% supporting myself. This is also pretty much what is expected, at least by parents. :) So to lump them into the same group in a situation like this strikes me as odd.
Well, times are chanching and the adulthood is coming later than in the 70/80/90's nowadays. We have that whole adulescent[0] hing lasting well into the early 20's.
[0] Adulescent is a french word that is the contraction of the "adulte" and "adolescent" words. Basically: extended teenagehood into the 20's.
I think the main thing is that on most of the major national carriers here in the US, it's cheaper to either pay your parents (or someone else) your portion of the line on the family plan (usually $9.99 + data plan), or in the case of the new share plans, $30-$40 for a smartphone. Compared to setting up your own individual plan which would cost even more.
Now, from experience, my sister (36) only just got off my parent's family plan this June. I myself (22) do not plan on getting off my parent's Verizon plan anytime soon because I want to retain unlimited data as long as it's available.
If it does get to the point of where they want be off their plan, I will have to go with T-Mobile or another pre-paid carrier because there is no way in hell I will pay $100/month with Verizon just to have a single smart phone.
It'd be interesting to look at how much of the 20-24 demographic is college students. In the US at least it's pretty normal for parents to pay for their children's phone bills while their in college[1]. Since about half of the 20-24 demographic is likely in college (in the US at least), I'm not too surprised to see that about half of the people in the US have their phone bill payed by their parent.
I'd be interested to see the demographic breakdown as high school, college, or not in school. I think it would offer more insight into a trend.
[1] This is anecdotal. I'm in college currently and most of the people I know are on family plans.
I don't get why that should be normal even if in college? I'd guess that 95-100% of my university class mates paid their own bills when I was in that age group in Iceland.
Personally I've been paying my own bill since I got my first mobile at 14 in 1999...
But I do wonder if this does actually include PayAndGo correctly?
From my experience, phone plans in the US today are kind of like rent-controlled apartments: The prices for new entrants keep going up, so you have a very strong disincentive to switch plans.
I have a 4-or-so year old plan with a major carrier. I looked in to switching during the most recent round of phone upgrades, and found that my grandfathered plan was at least 15% cheaper than anything on the market that matched my usage.
I suspect this is also a major disincentive to leave your parents' plan. Even if you pay the whole bill!
This looks like another one of those shallow statistics that people use to say "Ha, look at these kids, they're lost without us!"
I feel like a lot of people think like that because they don't realize that working with computers IS a job, even if you aren't working 9-5 every day unclogging sinks.
So if I don't pay my own phone bill then my Mom is paying it? There are other possibilities. Maybe my employer pays my phone bill. Maybe your mom pays my phone bill.
Mobile carriers in the US offer substantial price cuts for bundled phone services and very high average subscription prices. There's not enough information here to be useful.
In Brazil, it's a luxury to pay for phone/text/data, teenagers and young adults have to pay for themselves because their parents can't pay the bills anyway.
[+] [-] jonemo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rb2k_|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Crito|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marquis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajasmin|12 years ago|reply
Can a tourist get a SIM card in the US?
[+] [-] jacalata|12 years ago|reply
(I don't remember if prepaid wasn't an option or just wasn't as good a deal).
[+] [-] wolfgke|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] breser|12 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] z2|12 years ago|reply
For the US though, perhaps the reason is that many teens start off on family plans and simply never move off because it's slightly more reasonably-priced on the whole?
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TrainedMonkey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superuser2|12 years ago|reply
This is drastically different from "paying my own phone bill" which would be $100/mo for equivalent service.
Lots of people now are taking advantage of family plans to get reasonable pricing. Even my personal finance teacher (fourtysomething) is on a family plan with his extended family - it's allowed and it's cheaper.
[+] [-] breser|12 years ago|reply
I'd encourage you to look at your actual usage and reconsider these all you can eat plans. They really are not that great of a deal unless you're a high usage user, which a lot of people are not.
Another point I'll make is be careful about looking at your reported usage. I'm not sure about AT&T since I haven't had an account there in a while, but Verizon can be very missleading (often showing your usage rounded up to the next nearest whole GB e.g. 100MB shows as 1GB on the usage part of your bill). In the case of Verizon I had to retrieve a CSV file and add my own usage up to realize I wasn't using as much as I thought I was.
[+] [-] adregan|12 years ago|reply
I can't understand articles like this one that want anything and everything to appear as a scathing indictment of millennials (or perhaps only millennials in the US).
Even if it were, so what? Parents don't live forever and if some are too dependent, they won't always have the luxury.
[+] [-] icebraining|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jack-r-abbit|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|12 years ago|reply
[0] Adulescent is a french word that is the contraction of the "adulte" and "adolescent" words. Basically: extended teenagehood into the 20's.
[+] [-] JoshGlazebrook|12 years ago|reply
Now, from experience, my sister (36) only just got off my parent's family plan this June. I myself (22) do not plan on getting off my parent's Verizon plan anytime soon because I want to retain unlimited data as long as it's available.
If it does get to the point of where they want be off their plan, I will have to go with T-Mobile or another pre-paid carrier because there is no way in hell I will pay $100/month with Verizon just to have a single smart phone.
[+] [-] vault_|12 years ago|reply
I'd be interested to see the demographic breakdown as high school, college, or not in school. I think it would offer more insight into a trend.
[1] This is anecdotal. I'm in college currently and most of the people I know are on family plans.
[+] [-] Hansi|12 years ago|reply
Personally I've been paying my own bill since I got my first mobile at 14 in 1999...
But I do wonder if this does actually include PayAndGo correctly?
[+] [-] squeed|12 years ago|reply
I have a 4-or-so year old plan with a major carrier. I looked in to switching during the most recent round of phone upgrades, and found that my grandfathered plan was at least 15% cheaper than anything on the market that matched my usage.
I suspect this is also a major disincentive to leave your parents' plan. Even if you pay the whole bill!
[+] [-] yoloswaggins|12 years ago|reply
I feel like a lot of people think like that because they don't realize that working with computers IS a job, even if you aren't working 9-5 every day unclogging sinks.
[+] [-] dfrey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cliftonk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] designium|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slig|12 years ago|reply
I spend ~$5 (R$ 10) a month on my prepaid data plan. I have to put ~$17 (R$ 35) in credits every 90 days or so.
[+] [-] gcb0|12 years ago|reply
price here is awful, so, the more the merrier.
[+] [-] ahussain|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevoski|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beautybasics|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parasitius|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] elf25|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LizVerano|12 years ago|reply
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