The 411 on choosing cellular service: dialing zero won't help, but here are some tips to make the right choice.

Selecting a mobile phone plan is not easy. It's hard enough to choose a plan for yourself, and it becomes even more complicated when you have to make a decision for an entire agency. It seems as if cellular phone carriers make it needlessly complicated to compare one company's plan with another. That probably partially explains why wireless companies constituted the second lowest-ranked industry in a University of Michigan customer satisfaction index report (only cable television companies are disliked more).

Another reason for this complexity is that cellular phone networks in the United States still lack consistent quality and coverage, because of the country's size and a lack of investment by mobile phone companies. In the United States, per capita mobile phone use is about the same as in Jamaica, a much poorer country (57% of Americans use cell phones versus 54% of Jamaicans), but we have a lot more territory to connect. Because the major U.S. metropolitan areas already are covered, adding a small number of users in large, sparsely populated areas doesn't make the investment in expanding service cost-effective.

Ironically, the fact that infrastructure for traditional land-based phone service is so good in the United States means that our cellular service often lags behind that of poorer countries. For example, in Mexico City it can take two years to get a landline installed versus one day to obtain a cellular phone. When it comes to providing phone service, many Third-World countries have opted to skip a generation of technology and go straight to cellular.

Behavioral healthcare providers have a stake in cell phone pricing. Outpatient facilities that provide transportation services need a way to connect with drivers when emergencies or appointment cancellations force route changes. Staff providing home care might use mobile phones to stay in touch with in-office personnel, and they might use cellular technology to connect their ...