<p>Sigh, my phone just stopped working on our expensive vacation. Luckily our 2 year plan just expired. Looking for a new plan for myself and my 2 boys (h has a work phone). We need lots of data and texting, but we hardly use any talking minutes.</p>
<p>Any ideas?</p>
<p>T-mobile has an interesting prepaid plan they’re selling now. $100 for four lines, unlimited talk, unlimited texts, and 500 MB of 4G data per line. After that you get throttled to a slower speed. For $10 extra on whichever lines you want, you can get it bumped to 2.5 GB. For another $10 you can get unlimited 4G.</p>
<p>They also have another plan where I believe you get 5 GB of high speed data, unlimited texts, but only 300 minutes of talk time.</p>
<p>Each of these plans don’t come with a subsidy for your cell phone, so it’ll be a higher expense at the start, but should save a considerable amount of money in the long run.</p>
<p>Also, be sure to ask whichever carriers you wind up looking at if they have any sort of discounts. Many offer it for AAA members, and will also offer discounts based upon your employer. My dad’s a teacher, and Verizon gives him something like 15-20% off any plan because of his employer.</p>
<p>AT&T has a family Mobile Share plan. You select your plan and you buy a certain amount of data each month and it’s shared amongst the family. </p>
<p>That said, set your phones up to use an area’s WiFi for downloads whenever available to save on data use.</p>
<p>there are some deals out there, and places like Costco often have phones bundled so you get more stuff.</p>
<p>We have Sprint. In Dec 30, 2012, it was $128 for the iPhone 5, with unlimited data and texts and combined 1500 minutes per month for the combined 4 lines at $225. We got waived free activation from AAA and also from being credit union members. We also got $100 credits per line for being credit union members and transferring from another company to Sprint. We got our phones at BestBuy, who was willing to match prices with WalMart (or Amazon.com or any other ads we could produce).</p>
<p>Not sure that it’s the lowest price, but it was what S wanted, with the unlimited data. My friends all decided they liked the lower prices of Tmobile and are paying $20 a month plus some down payment for their phones. Tmobile also allows up to 500mg of free tablet data per month.</p>
<p>Some folks swear by the pre-paid plans by Virgin Mobile and others. Straight talk gets as low as $30-35 a month per line, I believe, with price going down every 6 months of on-time payments. Have no personal experience with these carriers.</p>
<p>T Mobile for us with AAA discount of 12%</p>
<p>We have the unlimited everything plan for 3 lines. I pay about $100 less/month than my friend with comparable service with AT &T</p>
<p>We are on Verizon and I feel like we are getting gouged. I have one child in Minnesota (about 30 miles from MSP) and another in Kansa City. we are in the North Bay Area. How is the coverage with TMobile or Virgin. The thing that has kept us with Verizon is the excellent coverage.</p>
<p>Same here, rhumbob. We’ve stayed with Verizon because we’re scattered in 3 different states with business travel cross country. Verizon seems to have given us the best coverage, but I’d switch if another company could give us the same coverage.</p>
<p>I was in AT&T today…</p>
<p>The iPhone 5c is $99…the 5s $199</p>
<p>there’s a deal for Galaxy phones that you get a tablet for $99.</p>
<p>We just switched to T-Mobile a few months ago after years and years with Verizon. I refused to get a new phone with Verizon and be locked into another 2 year contract. I had a smart phone (iPhone 4) and 4 dumb phones. Our bill was over $150 per month at Verizon. At T-Mobile we have 5 smart phones (2 iPhones and 3 Windows phones) and my bill is about $110 per month. DH’s job gets us a discount.</p>
<p>The really nice thing about T-Mobile is they don’t care where your phones come from. You can go over to Walmart and buy the cheapest T-mobile branded prepaid smart phone for $99 and bring it to the store to active on your plan. </p>
<p>That said, T-Mobile voice quality isn’t as good as Verizon. However with T-Mobile I can be on the internet and on the phone at the same time which I could never do with Verizon.</p>
<p>I posted some of this in the nickled and dimed thread, but my D’s phone died a couple weeks ago, just 14 days before the end of her contract with Verizon. I was planning on leaving Verizon because they won’t grandfather us in on unlimited data anymore. I tried to get her a Sprint phone online that she could just pick up at the local store but it wouldn’t go through online so I sent her to the Sprint store herself. That contract is in her name now instead of mine but I’ll pay her bill. She got the iPhone 5s for $99 with porting her number over. Verizon charged me $120 early termination fee but I called and they did give me a credit so I’m just paying her regular bill through the end of her contract (Christmas Eve). My son’s phone is having the same issues (their charging ports get messed up- I think they are reckless with unplugging their phones from the charger or something- I never have this issue) and his screen is cracked and his contract was up two days ago. My contract doesn’t end until January 17th. I’m trying to figure out how to proceed. I don’t know that we can piggy back on my D’s contract now since it is in her name. I may have to do a separate contract. She is complaining about spotty internet service with Sprint so I don’t know that I want to go that route. Then again, I barely have bars on Verizon when I’m in my own house. There are areas of the house where I can’t talk on the phone now. </p>
<p>I’m considering T-Mobile but S does need a new phone and he’s willing to go with one that is free through another company. It kills me that these phones are hundreds of dollars for something that is disposable within a couple years. I am definitely not ending my contract with Verizon early so I can wait a few more weeks for my phone. Mine is fine and still works and everything anyway. Ugh.</p>
<p>As a note, for people with unlimited talk plans, you can buy home phone systems that connect to your cell via bluetooth. When your cell phone rings and you’re at home (provided your phone is within bluetooth connection distance of the main receiver) then all of the phones in your house will ring, and you can use those instead of your cell to talk. If you really wanted to keep your home phone number, there are various ways to go about porting it to Google Voice, where you can get automatic call forwarding to any number you want (e.g. your cell phone). If you’re paying more than $10 a month for home phone service, this is a trick that could pay for itself within a few months.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago I left Verizon for Virgin Mobile (Sprint network). My plan has unlimited data and text and 300 minutes for $25 a month. Recently they raised the rate to $35 ($30 if you set up auto pay) but I’m grandfathered. So the kids and I each have 300 minutes, unlimited data (slows down after 2 gig but not noticeable to D who is the only one who uses that much),and unlimited texting for $75/mo. I bought the phones but made that money back in like 3 months.</p>
<p>When my family switched to T-Mobile my brother also switched to T-Mobile. He had 3 phone lines at Verizon and one was still under contract. At the time he was going to switch only 2 and add the third later when the last contract was up. T-Mobile offered him a $150 credit to cover the early termination fee if he would switch the 3rd line at the same time. </p>
<p>Also some of the phones have WiFi calling meaning if you are in an area that has bad cell service but you have WiFi your phone will use the WiFi to make calls. I know the Windows phones do. </p>
<p>Another feature that cost extra on Verizon but is included on T-Mobile free is making your phone into a hotspot. Very easy to do with T-Mobile.</p>
<p>AT&T comes with a great offer in 2013 as a $20 or less than that for unlimited nationwide calls jut if you tack the service with an existing AT&T wireless plan.it will be profitable choice for you if you have a good signal at home.</p>