We have ATT postpaid for years. No problems. Excellent customer service.
Verizon makes me skittish. Last week someone hacked my debit card to purchase something through Verizon in California. I am on the east coast, have no contacts in California, and the card never left my possession. I realize debit card fraud can happen anywhere, but Verizon never asked for ID or anything, which would have proven “they” were not me. Verizon accepted the debit card purchase. It took a week for my bank to straighten things out.
We have the ‘senior’ TMobile plan. Unlimited everything. $60/mo. for 2 lines including tax. We pay an extra $10/mo for the ability to tether my tablet to the phone if wireless is unavailable. That has a data limit, but I rarely use it anyway. I’ve been very happy w/ TM. The only problem was occasional lack of service when hiking in rural areas, and I noticed my children still had service on Verizon. However, 99% of our calls are urban, and have never had a problem. Loved the free text, data and low calling rates when traveling in the EU. Wireless calls are of course free, but occasionally we would be on the road and need to make a quick call without wireless. I think it was $.20/min. I’ve also been very happy with the friendly service I’ve always received in their stores. I tend to drop in if my OLD phone (or user) has any issues, and they’ve always been extremely generous with their time. Only once did the sales staff try to sell upgraded equipment – and to be fair, I really should.
We never pay extra with our TMobile 55+ plan for the ability to turn our phone into a hotspot and use with other devices that aren’t otherwise connected to internet. Never heard of an extra charge with them but some others carriers wanted extra for that ability.
T mobile really are throttling here now. We have really noticed this the last month. Never had a problem until the data breach/fraudulent port out issue. I really need to sit down and sort it out, but now magically t mobile has proper billing info on line. I never had THAT before.
The virtual / reseller carriers (Project Fi, Consumer Cellular, Ting, Page Plus, TracFone, MetroPCS, Straight Talk, Virgin, Boost, etc.) add a multitude of other options not mentioned in the above short article.
I have been with Verizon for years and sometimes look into changing but I get a 20% discount because my oldest son works for USPS and I added him as an account manager. As for customer service, two of my sons recently went to the store to exchange one boy’s phone (still on warranty). The store claimed not to have the machine available to transfer the data over so the boys bought at $75 device to do the transfer at home. Yesterday, oldest son went to the store to return it. The store refused because it was a few days past the deadline. I went on live chat and the representative agreed to send an override that will permit me to return the device. I have generally found that I have better results with live chat than with going to the store.
I’ve been with MetroPCS for a few months and like it very much. Nice free phones, 4 lines for $100 (2 for 80, 3 for 90 etc) with unlimited everything, and data is very fast. Uses T-Mobile’s network. I have the LG K20 Plus which is the only one that has 32 gig internal storage which IMO is critical to have as many apps as I need. Only complaint is the camera is just so-so (I had a Nexus 5x before which had the Google flagship camera at the time).
You can BYO phone too if you want, their web site has a list of compatible phones (all the iphones, pretty much).
Phones that are free with the plan can be unlocked after 90 days which is key because I’m traveling out of the country this month and can buy a local SIM when I arrive and use that.
I’ve had Verizon (HATED it and it was by far the most $$$), Virgin Mobile (was cheap but data wasn’t very fast), Google Fi (too much $ for data though), and now Metro.
@TooOld4School I took my Fi phone to Jamaica last year. It worked well, and when we didn’t have wifi I used its free hotspot so the kids could get online too. I don’t use a ton of data generally, so it was OK. I switched because my phone broke and i didn’t feel like paying $500 for a replacement.
Fi is on T-Mobile most of the time, sometimes on Sprint or US Cellular. In Jamaica I forgot to see what network it was on, but I had good coverage and we did travel around a lot. Only lost it in the mountains.
I just got off of AT&T chat and I think I am going to switch to the prepaid for my family. It looks like I would save about 60 a month at least and our data would be parsed out in increments where everyone will have to be responsible for their usage rather than one person (teenage son) eating up the majority of the family’s data. It sounds like a win-win! I was concerned because we still have phones we pay on but this is not a big issue as the rep said I can make arrangements to pay them off in increments or all at once.
I’ve had Sprint for years but recently switched to Cricket and am very happy with their service. I believe I get 5GB of data, unlimited talk and text. I haven’t come close to that 5GB, in fact under 2GB every month. All for $35/month. Bought an Iphone SE (same as 5) for under $100 as an offered promotion.