Rollover Minutes

How do rollover minutes work? The plans says that they only last for one
year, but it doesn't explain how this actually works. For example, let's
say that in February of 2005, I had 200 excess minutes that went into
rollover and in April I had 100 more minutes go into rollover. Assuming I
used the exact minutes in my plan in the other months, that would give me
300 rollover minutes. In June, I exceed the minutes in my plans by 100
minutes, so these have to come out of the rollover pool. Do the 100 minutes
come out of the total I accumulated in February (FIFO) or do they come out
of the April pool (LIFO)? Or does the plan not keep track of where the
minutes come from?

In either case, I should now have 200 minutes left in my rollover pool.
Let's say that for the rest of the year I use the exact minutes in my plan
and I don't add or subtract anything from the rollover pool. How does this
one-year expiration now come into play? In February of 2006, the original
200 minutes I rolled over in February 2005 would theoretically go away if
they are pulling minutes out on a LIFO basis, which means I should now have
no minutes left. But if they pull them out on a FIFO basis, then I should
still have 100 minutes in the pool. And if they don't keep track of how the
minutes are pulled out, I'm not sure what they would do. How does this all
work?

---

› See More: Rollover Minutes

Rick wrote:

> In either case, I should now have 200 minutes left in my rollover pool.
> Let's say that for the rest of the year I use the exact minutes in my plan
> and I don't add or subtract anything from the rollover pool. How does this
> one-year expiration now come into play? In February of 2006, the original
> 200 minutes I rolled over in February 2005 would theoretically go away if
> they are pulling minutes out on a LIFO basis, which means I should now have
> no minutes left. But if they pull them out on a FIFO basis, then I should
> still have 100 minutes in the pool. And if they don't keep track of how the
> minutes are pulled out, I'm not sure what they would do. How does this all
> work?

Call Cingular seven or eight times, and post the answer that you get the
most times.

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <r0EUf.7431$%[email protected]> on Thu, 23 Mar 2006
21:01:11 GMT, "Rick" <[email protected]> wrote:

>How do rollover minutes work? The plans says that they only last for one
>year, but it doesn't explain how this actually works. For example, let's
>say that in February of 2005, I had 200 excess minutes that went into
>rollover and in April I had 100 more minutes go into rollover. Assuming I
>used the exact minutes in my plan in the other months, that would give me
>300 rollover minutes. In June, I exceed the minutes in my plans by 100
>minutes, so these have to come out of the rollover pool. Do the 100 minutes
>come out of the total I accumulated in February (FIFO) or do they come out
>of the April pool (LIFO)?

February (FIFO).

>Or does the plan not keep track of where the
>minutes come from?

It does keep track.

>In either case, I should now have 200 minutes left in my rollover pool.
>Let's say that for the rest of the year I use the exact minutes in my plan
>and I don't add or subtract anything from the rollover pool. How does this
>one-year expiration now come into play? In February of 2006, the original
>200 minutes I rolled over in February 2005 would theoretically go away if
>they are pulling minutes out on a LIFO basis, which means I should now have
>no minutes left. But if they pull them out on a FIFO basis, then I should
>still have 100 minutes in the pool. And if they don't keep track of how the
>minutes are pulled out, I'm not sure what they would do. How does this all
>work?

FIFO.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

In article <r0EUf.7431$%[email protected]>, 72242.3605
@compuserve.com says...
> How do rollover minutes work? The plans says that they only last for one
> year, but it doesn't explain how this actually works. For example, let's
> say that in February of 2005, I had 200 excess minutes that went into
> rollover and in April I had 100 more minutes go into rollover. Assuming I
> used the exact minutes in my plan in the other months, that would give me
> 300 rollover minutes. In June, I exceed the minutes in my plans by 100
> minutes, so these have to come out of the rollover pool. Do the 100 minutes
> come out of the total I accumulated in February (FIFO) or do they come out
> of the April pool (LIFO)? Or does the plan not keep track of where the
> minutes come from?
>

Almost certainly FIFO. As an ex-fulltime now-casual programmer here's
how I would have done it. Store an array of 12 slots in your account,
say slot1 to slot12, containing the number of minutes not used that
month (relative not calendar). If you need minutes start at slot12 and
work forwards subtracting minutes if available and moving to the next
slot if not--pulling minutes out of as many slots as needed. That would
in effect use older minutes first. Then for the final step move the
contents of slot11 to slot12 (thus loosing any remaining minutes there
if there were any), slot10 to slot11, and so forth. Once slot1 was
moved to slot2 then store the current months overage, if any, there
otherwize zeroing the slot. With that logic a customer could only loose
up to the number of minutes put in a year ago and then only if they
weren't needed this month. That would be an easy and compact way to
keep track of things--I'm sure they're doing something similar if not
that exactly. I doubt if they're keeping a detail record of each
minute--that could run into the thousands of records to store in your
account--example in my case I'm on an old GAIT plan and not using half
my minutes each month so the rollover total is 3000 or something but I
want to hold onto the GAIT plan for awhile yet.
--
Jud
Dallas TX USA

Jud Hardcastle wrote:
> As an ex-fulltime now-casual programmer here's
> how I would have done it. Store an array of 12 slots in your account,
> say slot1 to slot12, containing the number of minutes not used that
> month (relative not calendar). If you need minutes start at slot12 and
> work forwards subtracting minutes if available and moving to the next
> slot if not--pulling minutes out of as many slots as needed. That would
> in effect use older minutes first. Then for the final step move the
> contents of slot11 to slot12 (thus loosing any remaining minutes there
> if there were any), slot10 to slot11, and so forth. Once slot1 was
> moved to slot2 then store the current months overage, if any, there
> otherwize zeroing the slot.

DING DING DING DING... Jeff, I thing we need to give the Geek Award to
Jud.