<p>I’m starting to hate phone shopping as much as car shopping! DH has a business phone, but my 2 boys and I have reached the end of our Verizon 2 year contract. We use almost NO phone minutes, but need unlimited texts and would like to have unlimited data. Don’t really ‘need’ unlimited - but don’t want to worry about going over!</p>
<p>Can anyone recommend a good plan for us (can purchase phones separately if that saves $$$)? Yes, the boys would love iPhones (and if DS1 gets an A in OChem I am tempted to splurge), but will be paying for 2 in college soon so need to keep costs down!</p>
<p>We have the AT&T family plan but while my unlimited dataplan was grandfathered in, I had to pay for a set amount for my D when I got her an iPhone this year. All mobile-to-mobile calls are free. We have family unlimited texting. For three phones – two iPhones and one regular cellphone-- the monthly cost is about $185. The coverage has been good for my D who is in DC and for me in Hawaii.</p>
<p>It is important to figure out where everyone’s coverage will be best. If coverage isn’t an issue, there are some very low cost pre-paid plans that provide unlimited text and data, as well as voice. I haven’t explored them because I find I do well with the $30 pre-paid plan on T-mobile that gives me 1500 texts and/or voice minutes plus 30mb data. We also have a family plan for unlimited texts for 3 phones with no data for $100 or so. Haven’t explored how much more it would be if we added data.</p>
<p>Do like the coverage of Verizon but NOT the expensive prices. It seems their phone plan is slightly to much higher than the others I’ve looked at but at least I CAN reach the kids wherever they are. We had reception problems with TMobile.</p>
<p>You get what you pay for. They charge more but in turn have more towers/better coverage. People with t-mobile don’t even get reception where my parents are from. Like, at all.</p>
<p>We are leaving t-mobile as soon as our contract is up. It doesn’t work at my Mom’s house or my brother’s house or our vacation cabin in Vermont. (Though admittedly not much works there.) In addition we can’t always even get a signal in our very own house. It’s gotten worse weirdly enough. I’m pretty sure we’ll end up with Verizon. Not looking forward to paying more!</p>
<p>Yea, one summer, my kids had 5 apartments between them and I couldn’t reach them in ANY of their apartments with tmobile but we could communicate fine with Verizon, so we switched. Sadly, tmobile is SO MUCH cheaper.</p>
<p>We’ve been OK with Verizon’s coverage, but am not too happy with their prices.</p>
<p>Exactly! Verizon data plan is just prohibitively expensive. My project mgr at work has a TMobile plan that is “unlimited” data but after some amount at 4G the rest is slower (that would be fine for us), but of course no iPhones on TMobile :-(. Also, you can get a plan without the phones and buy the phones cheaper on ebay…sigh…too many options and all are expensive!</p>
<p>I’m going to investigate Sprint, but I bet they will be too expensive and I will end up back to tMobile. We had tMobile before Verizon and the coverage was fine. We get a discount via my DH’s company with Verizon, but it doesn’t make enough of a difference.</p>
<p>Page Plus is a pre-paid carrier with the same coverage as Verizon. All four of us (DH, S1, S2, and I) used to be on the plan – not as family, but each one with the individual plan that most fit that person’s phone usage. I think we saved a lot of money each month that way.</p>
<p>Then S1 decided to get an iPhone. At the present time, iPhones don’t work with Page Plus, so S1 went with Verizon. The rest of us are still happily on Page Plus.</p>
<p>We are on a family plan with Sprint. Three of us are in SoCal with college D in NYC. Our plan gives us 1,500 minutes of talk (we never come close to using), unlimited text and unlimited data.</p>
<p>I am fortunate that through my employer I receive a 20% discount with Sprint. My total bill each month with the discount comes to just over $165 for the 4 lines. Coverage is sometimes spotty in parts of our house, but otherwise Sprint works for us.</p>
<p>SPEND SOME MONEY TO UPGRADE YOUR SYSTEM!!
Can YOU hear me?</p>
<p>I have a tower next to my farm, 1/3 mile from my home. I lose phone network all the time, and I don’t even have a dataplan, especially when the high school lets out and at 5pm.</p>
<p>We’ve remained with Verizon despite their higher prices because it’s all about having reception- which we didn’t have with T-Mobile or Sprint. Eldest son on the west coast has AT&T but his calls vanish repeatedly, which is more than annoying.
After several troublesome Androids, I’ve gone with an iPhone and would never go back!</p>
<p>D/S will be off to Winthrop next fall, so I just bought him a Samsung Dart t499 Android phone at Walmart for $99 and will buy him a $30 T-Mobile prepaid card that gives Unlimited Text and Web and 100 minutes of Talk per month.</p>
<p>We like Sprint. Cheapest plans…unlimited data included…great coverage all over Northern California. We left AT&T years ago…if it won’t work in your living room that is a bad sign.</p>
<p>If you don’t need data or smartphones, Metropcs’ unlimited talk and unlimited text family plan with 4 phone services for $100/ month including tax and excise fees is a good deal. Metropcs works better in some areas than others; it’s not for everyone! You can buy some of their feature phones for only $20 outright and you don’t have to sign a contract.</p>
<p>We have 5 phones on Verizon family unlimited talk/text. 3 smart phones with unlimited data, purchased when it was $30 a month for each. Not sure when H and I will upgrade our dumb phones, it will cost more for data plans. We are paying $225 a month, since one line has a discount through H’s employer.</p>
It seems their phone plan is slightly to much higher than the others I’ve looked at but at least I CAN reach the kids wherever they are. We had reception problems with TMobile.</p>