High school senior’s phone is ready to die. We are NOT interested in paying $800 for a new iphone, but he does need on soon. Thinking of changing carriers and getting a free phone with new lines. We’ve been with verizon for over 10 eyars now. I’ve never shopped for a cell provider - just added onto my sisters plan. Who do you recommend? What do we need to look for?
Here’s our thoughts:
we’re an Apple phone family - does NOT have to be the lastest
No other gadgets, other than phones
We’ll have 3+ phones switching over. Not all need to be upgraded.
Unlimited talk, text, data - no gaming happening or anything extravegant
We don’t upgrade often - meaning I still have an iphone 8. This high school senior has an 8 also.
We have verizon so need to swich from that - one reason we were with verizon is the rate was locked in at $25-30/mo/phone for many years
I think paying hundreds of dollars for cell service is crazy
How do you know if you’ll actually get good coverage and good customer service?
Are the plans that sort of like piggy-back on the large providers actually any good?
4 new lines for $26.25/line, plus 4 iPhone 14 ON US.
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Limited-time offer; subject to change. Plus taxes & fees; with AutoPay. For well-qualified customers. If you cancel before 24 credits, credits stop & balance on required finance agreement may be due; contact us.
How old are you? T-Mobile offers discounted plans if you’re 55 or older. We pay $121/mo for 2 phones, 2 watches, and a payment towards one of the phones, a 14 Pro Max.
The question - is Tmobile good in your area? How are we supposed to know that? And then this is our area, but we have young adult children that may be in any area…
No we have not talked to Verizon, but will plan to do that. Thanks. All adds say phones are only for new lines. In past they seemed more interested in new customers than keeping old, but will follow up.
We went with Cricket a few years ago and are very happy (costs $70 a month for 2 phones). However, we are finding that they will not offer any discount on upgrading our phones at this time (or any time for that matter). So we are sitting on 4 year old iPhones and not sure what to do when they die (or stop fully charging).
We also switched to Cricket - we have 4 lines unlimited data $100 a month.
No new phones were involved in the switch, but I believe they do offer such things.
The upside of Cricket is that they have stores, just like the Big 3.
We’ve been happy with the service.
Also an Apple family and we just buy them unlocked, whether new or refurbished - not a fan of adding phone debt to a utility bill.
We follow the same philosophy as you - except we have t-mobile and it is an older plan - $99 family plan unlimited everything. We realize how much of a bargain it is when we hear what others pay. We always buy our phones outright and have hopefully taught our kids to do the same.
Another thought, is anyone in the family military? My H is retired military and we have a T-mobile unlimited plan, 4 lines for $100. That might be a grandfathered Sprint plan but maybe other carriers have something similar?
This was definitely something we had to seek out - we had been on a plan that was at least twice that price, until I started looking at options.
If you’re an Apple family and you don’t mind not having the latest phone, you could go for an iPhone SE or iPhone 12. You can buy them fully unlocked for under $400 on Amazon. This would allow you to go to any carrier you want without being locked in until…forever. You could just shop around any plan that suits you.
Regarding the plan, it pays to shop around. There’s lots to choose from. You can buy from the big 3 directly, or you can buy from a subsidiary carrier like Cricket, Metro, Straight Talk, etc. Here’s a comprehensive list of carriers.
My 2 daughters and I have Mint Mobile and are quite happy with it. We buy our phones outright, unlocked, and our current plan runs us about $40 per month per line. Unlimited everything. Before that we had Ting, I prefer Mint. We use our phones for about 4 years before upgrading.
We have four lines for 35 dollars each on Verizon. I’m surprised Mint is more. We also buy our phones unlocked separately, and don’t upgrade till they basically don’t work anymore.
We got a few months free when we signed up. Also, no taxes or fees on that. Apparently if I pay 12 months total in advance it would be $30 a month per line.
OK here’s another stupid question. Anyone know the answer to this. We we go from verizon to someplace else can we even “take” our phones with us - if we bought our phones through verizon - 3-5 years ago?
It depends on how old they are. I believe anything 14 and newer, and unlocked, will work on any carrier. Older phones will be restricted to Verizon, Sprint and the companies that piggyback off of them…I think. A little Googling will answer it completely.
Very reasonable, buy or bring your phone including iPhones, great service. What I love most is call screening: if I get a call from an unfamiliar number, I can opt for the caller to receive a response from my “virtual assistant” asking them to identify themselves.
If you decide to go with Google Fi, message me and we will both receive $20 off once you’ve been on for a month.