@OHMomof2 - Project Fi looks interesting, but for what I pay now we would only get 9 Gb of data. For our usage pattern, Verizon is actually pretty competitive with the plan we have now.
You have four people on a plan so you should be able to get a better deal.
Since we were only two people the tracfone plan worked for us.
Dd also has a tablet that she uses more for internet. She uses the wifi at school for that. Has never had a problem. I have Verizon fios at home.
I don’t miss the bills, paying for a phone, taxes, or all those misc fees.
It’s hard to tell from TracPhone’s web site what it would cost, but collectively we use 2000-3000 minutes per month, 4000-5000 text messages, and 12-16GB of data. I don’t think we could do this with TracPhone for $175.
We pay $220 for 5 iPhones on ATT. 4 of the phones are on the Next plan, the 5th is paid for. I can’t recall what amount of data we have but 2 of my kids are data hogs. We have unlimited talk and text, unused data rolls over.
We live in an area of town with not great service. ATT provides the best service and even with that it’s not great. For this reason we keep a land line. My I laws live in a semi rural area and they use Verizon for similar reasons. They also use Verizon for their laptops and tablets as they don’t have internet available on their road. Which is crazy since they live in the Santa Ynez valley.
Most people in our area have Verizon or ATT as they give the best coverage. I have had quite a number of friends who have switched to low cost carriers and are all excited about what they are saving until they realize they can’t get good coverage around town. They usually switch back.
@OHMomof2 - D is very happy with her Google Fi phone/account. She got and used it spring semester at school and now is overseas with it. D texted she has data overseas but she’s usually on wifi so it’s not much of an issue. I’m tempted to do Project Fi for myself but I don’t know if my data usage would be as low as hers. She was thrilled to find Project Fi teaming with US Cellular because that actually has the best coverage and reception at her midwest, rural school. Verizon and ATT are non-existent there; I think T-mobile is the second best there.
The one issue, still unresolved but I haven’t pushed it, was creating the actual Project Fi account. When I first bought the phone but Project Fi put me on the account (my Gmail address/account) and we wanted my daughter on the account (her Gmail address/account). Moving the account from my Gmail/Google to her Gmail/Google took one phone call to resolve but now I can’t seem to create a Project Fi account for myself again.
Our. ATT bill is for three smart phones, and our DSL Internet. It’s $152.18 a month including all taxes.
From what folks are posting here,sounds like we have a decent deal.
Thumper, that is a good deal.
People still use DSL??? 
What data rate are you getting?
I am pretty sure ATT and Cricket use the same cell towers as Cricket is owned by ATT. Don’t quote me on that tho
I have no idea what our data rate is on DSL but it more than meets our needs.
Our only other choice is Charter Cable…and they are bigger crooks than ATT.
I still use DSL. The other option in my neck of the woods is Comcast, and I despise them. We do not stream movies on multiple devices, and the speeds are adequate for one movie on one device on those rare occasions when we actually watch TV.
My d had a phone and plan through Republic Wireless. It’s the only way she have possibly afforded to pay forever own smartphone and plan. Se has to get the phone through them, so it cost a bit more. Just over $200 for her moto g, but her plan is $10 plus tak a month (roughly $13 a month) and includes unlimited data and calls and wifi only for data. The unlimited texts were what made it better than tracfone.
They are changing things next month. You can ring certain unlocked phones and use them with the plan, and the plan price she has will go up to $15 a month. It’s still a good deal for her needs.
We have DSL and it is way better than cable in our area. 3 of us stream movies at the same time without any problem.
@SlackerMomMD can’t you check your current plan to see? I have 5 days left in my month and have used 850mb. I’m on wifi a lot of the time, and Google Project Fi puts you on wifi automatically when it’s available as you travel as well.
I go to Jamaica once a year or so and own a Jamaican cell phone, but this would let me use my own, and data too! Hello Google Nav in my rental car 
Looks like the phone deal ends July something so I need to decide fairly soon.
Tracfone provides nationwide coverage from Verizon and Sprint.
Listen at 3:45 for the coverage area. This is the exact phone that I have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxsLrH9q0zw
I just signed up for Project FI. With the new phone (paying over 2 years, no interest) it’s $7/mo more than I paid with VM. I will be able to sell my old VM phone for $100 or so and the new phone is much nicer and I can ditch my Jamaican cell phone. Whee Thanks @SlackerMomMD
@OHMomof2 - I wasn’t talking about being able to see my data usage. I was talking about, um, disciplining myself to not use so much data. I use about 4 GB (sometimes more). The reason why I’m leaning toward Ting is because I can limit my data by just cutting the service off when I reach a limit. that’s what I did with my son (who blew through 3GB in one day). I hope Project Fi works for you.
I’ve been texting my daughter in Seoul and it seems to be pretty fast and reliable.
TMobile. 4 phones unlimited talk, text and data for $120 month. 4G LTE data speed is limited to 6 gb per phone, after that at 2 G speeds, but none of us ever use anywhere near 6gb of data per month, since there is almost always wifi access.
I am sure there will be some great deals this July 4th holiday.
We switched to T Mobile a while ago, it’s $120+ for 4 lines, unlimited talk & text and 10GB data each line including roaming in Mexico and Canada, which is perfect for us, as we live near the border.
But I recently made a cross country drive trip and all through middle America, I was mostly ATT, fine for calls, but roaming for data. I made so many calls to T Mobile, trying to shut off all places that check data, so that I could flip on cellular data for the phone and only check my work email. What a pain, turn off cell data on each app, turn off back ground refresh each app, turn off over all background refresh, still Facebook would show the little red circle of new info. And I would blow right through the gift of 50mb of data. Finally I whined on Facebook and was given 1GB of ‘roaming data’ so, all though flyover country, I was data roaming, but in Canada, that data is not roaming for me. Most annoying is that the phone would switch back and forth from ATT to T Mobile.
I had ATT for nearly 15 years as they used to be fantastic at fringe roaming, but apparently something changed and they were done with that niche.
T Mobile has been good to deal with, I just learned on my drive trip that the social media people have more power to add things than the phone people; phone people kept trying to help, but the computer would not let them do it.
If you have trouble in your own home, ask your company about a booster or a wi-fi calling hub, each company seems to have an option to get an in house improvement in service, it was free from T Mobile and I argued my way into a free one from ATT.
Yeah, tried that with ATT a while ago. They have a map where our house is apparently located in the “perfectly fine” signal zone and does not entitle us to a free booster. Need to try it once more because now I have leverage - no more binding contracts.