<p>How do folks handle data plans with their college age kids? We have a family cell phone plan for talk and text that covers all 5 in the family. My feeling is any of my kids that want data can have it as long as they cover the additional cost per month. What do other families do?? We been having some “drama” about the necessitiy of data:)</p>
<p>Both younger D & I have smart phones which have separate plans but talk & text is under a family plan.</p>
<p>Data is a separate expense for D who has an iPhone in our house.</p>
<p>We cover the text an phone charges, and each child is required to pay for their own data, if they want it.</p>
<p>We covered the $9.99 per month for the cell phone…everything beyond that the kids covered…including data and text message capability.</p>
<p>We gave data to our oldest as a Christmas present one year. Now he’s telling us not to drop t-mobile because it’s unlimited data and we won’t get that with a new plan! The first few years we paid the $10 a month which included some texting which neither kid ever went over.</p>
<p>We don’t pay for data. There are lots of other devices that can get campus Wifi for free- ITouch, Ipad etc. We do pay for unlimited texting with the understanding that they answer our texts to them!</p>
<p>baystateresident, you may be interested in iMessage- it debuts tomorrow.
[AppleInsider</a> | Apple’s free iMessage expected to undermine carriers’ high-profit SMS business](<a href=“http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/11/apples_free_imessage_expected_to_undermine_carriers_high_profit_sms_business.html]AppleInsider”>Apple's free iMessage expected to undermine carriers' high-profit SMS business | AppleInsider)</p>
<p>Emeraldkitty- cool! Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m with thumper on this one. We pay for the phone & S pays for any additional text/data charges.</p>
<p>We actually pay for the data plans on the cell phones our D’s have. We told them we would pay for this until they finish college. Our oldest D is a college sophomore and our younger D is a high school senior. I get a discount through my employer with Sprint. Our family plan has 1,500 talk minutes and unlimited text and data for $165 a month. We never go over on the talk even though I use mine occasionally for work also.</p>
<p>We have 4 phones w/unlimited data plans and 1 w/text. 1400 min talk time. Our bill is almost $225. Time to comparison shop…</p>
<p>OP, we pay for college kid’s data plan but our HS sr pays for hers. We gave her the choice to wait until next year when she leaves for college and get it for free or pay for this year.</p>
<p>We have family plan w Verizon for unlimited talk & text. D1’s phone died a few weeks ago, so we stopped in (she’s a freshman, 40 minutes away) & took her out for a new phone. She chose a Droid, with an extra $20/month data plan, which we are covering. S1 is a HS freshman and is pushing for a smart phone, which we have nixed citing he can’t cover the $30/month data and we don’t see why a HS freshman needs a smart phone. He continues to lobby for it & will have a lifeguard job next summer, so we may need to revisit it. </p>
<p>Guess we fall in line lilmom that it’s worthwhile for a college kid, but a HS kid would need to pay their own.</p>
<p>We got D1 a droid w/ data plan as part of her HS graduation gift. We have always treated cell phones as a privilege and not a right. They get their first cell phone with texting when they start Middle School (7th grade) and they will get data when they start college. </p>
<p>I am glad we got D1 the data plan since she receives many school emails through out the day and she doesn’t get the opportunity to pull out her laptop often. It is nice that her emails go to her phone. She can also use her phone to track the school shuttle buses, which came in handy when she was trying to catch the last shuttle one evening after attending a music recital.</p>
<p>We also have S2 cover the cost of texting and do not have a data plan. DH is researching alternatives now that he needs a data plan. With only the 2 of them on a “family” plan the costs are pretty high, even for the basic services we have now (my phone does have a data plan, but is provided by my office). S2 uses an iPod Touch as well as a phone since he has wireless access at home and on-campus.</p>
<p>S1 removed himself from our family plan 3 years ago when he was a college sophomore and we would not provide a data plan with the phone. He also needed to switch providers because of access issues at the time.</p>