Answered: Burning Qs about cell phones

Suddenly there's plenty of meaty help for families bewildered by all those cell-phone plans and options out there. CNET put together a comprehensive cell-phone-buying guide (flip phones, camera phones, smart phones, candy bar-style phones, you name it!) that includes lots of information on the carriers too. On the latter, with each company - Sprint, Cingular (just acquired AT&T Wireless), Nextel, Verizon, T-Mobile - the guide asks the questions, "Where can I use this service?" and "What should I know about this carrier?" It even looks at phones by personality type - teen/fashion, commuter, gear head, etc. At the Washington Post, techie writer Rob Pegoraro is a little more DC-specific in his just-released "How to Make the Right Call on Cell Plans," but he asks some great questions everyone should hear if they're considering new or different phone service. Questions like: Do you want to make calls from rural areas or overseas, or what service do your friends and relatives use? He notes, too, that if you want to use your phone to go online or if you want a phone with lots of bells and whistles, these criteria may affect your choice of carrier. Here's the Guide itself.