<p>Oldest D is now working a full time job, paying her own way, etc. She has a non-smartphone on our family plan. She’d like to keep her number but get herself a smartphone and a plan with another carrier.</p>
<p>My question is this: I wonder if the present carrier of my family plan (ATT) is going to charge me a “service charge” to eliminate one line and take the number elsewhere. Her two year contract was completed months ago, so there is not early termination. My fear is that the phone companies seem to have a service charge or fee for everything.</p>
<p>I know it would be cheaper to keep her on the plan and have her pay her fair share, which she would do without question, but there are reasons I don’t need to get into why we are taking this approach.</p>
<p>I figure if anyone’s done this before, it would be a CC’er!</p>
<p>We did this; cancelled two accounts when dd and partner moved abroad, spun DS off onto his own plan and switched to GO phone accounts. Since our AT&T accounts old, the cancellation charges were much smaller than I had expected. We are SO glad we have done this!</p>
<p>There should be no cancellation fee if she is no longer on contract. There should be a way to verify that she is on month-to-month status.</p>
<p>The carrier she goes to will take care of “porting” the number and will notify her old carrier.</p>
<p>We just did it twice in a month–we were past our contract period with Verizon, went to a no-contract plan with T-Mobile, and then switched back to Verizon in less than a month. </p>
<p>One thing to know is that the porting can take a day–she might be without a phone for a bit, so don’t switch right before some event where it’s crucial that she have service.</p>
<p>Our kids (one in grad school, one newly employed) are both still on our AT&T plan (one iPhone, one dumb phone). I can see the merit in letting the kids handle their own expenses but it seems like overall it would be much more expensive to have three independent contracts. I consider it a gift and would rather they put the money towards a car or down payment on a house. Is this a bad idea?</p>
<p>We have one kid on our plan still, and another with his own plan. There are pros and cons to both set ups. We really wanted to put DS on our family plan (he has never been on it…got his cell phone before,that was an option)…but he has an OOS area code and AT&T won’t put him on our plan.</p>
<p>We did the math, and the cost differential with a smart phone and data plan…and family unlimited text plan was really not much different either way.</p>
<p>DS ft job, wanted a smartphone.
He knew that we wouldnt keep him on our family plan if he opted for an iphone.
Besides, it was just time for him to manage his own bills.</p>
<p>We did a conference call with verizon to iron it all out. Rep walked him through setting up his own account with phone and data, etc.
We verified the 3 lines that would stay on our old plan.
Magically, it all turned out as expexted on the first bill.</p>
<p>Still have D & S on family plan…D now has FT job, so she pays 1/4 of the family plan & text option…plus pays her smartphone data plan. Through work, she is also eligible for AT&T discount, which we apply totally to her portion…so she ends up paying about $30/month for her cell. </p>
<p>Didn’t see the benefit of making her get her own plan (at this point), as it would have been over double what she pays staying on our plan. She’s appreciative–and banks what she saves. Dropping her would have incurred costs, and she would have had start up costs, so didn’t make sense to us.</p>
<p>But to the OP’s question about service charges…anytime I deal with AT&T, seems like there are some mystery service charges/fees that I get dinged with.</p>
<p>kajon, I asked AT&T that question a few times, as S has unlimited data…got contradicting answers, so he’s hanging tight–not gonna rock that apple cart…</p>
<p>We dropped DD from our plan in 2010 when she was leaving the country for two years. No problem, and no fee (we have been off contract for years). In Jan 2013, we added her back on to the plan. SHE has a two year commitment. The rest of us are still off contract. AT&T came up with a bunch of fees…and DH graciously asked them to waive the fees. Surprisingly, they did! They did come on the first bill, but we had a credit the following month.</p>
<p>Oldest DD is in grad school and I have been wondering about this as well. Her contract is up next Spring and I have told her she has to get her own plan at that point. It turns out to probably be more fortunate as she gets very poor reception from ATT in her current location so she will probably jump to Verizon if things don’t get better.</p>
<p>She has an iPhone and when I got the iPhone for her our agreement was she would pay the data charges. She worked FT all year and lived on her own and made no move to pay the data charges so I am cutting her off.</p>
<p>Mostly my S wanted to switch from AT&T to Verizon and his company offered a discount so we are on his account and I pay him. :). We went from 4 phones to 3 smartphones, H decided to drop his personal phone and use his work iPhone. It was going to be me so I’m on S’s plan and recently he added his girlfriend since her parents didn’t want to get new phones. No fees for switching or dropping a line. </p>
<p>It’s been a great feeling being on the kids bills ;)</p>
<p>My neighbor booted her Ss (23 and 25) off her plan when she realized they were each making more than she and her husband did combined. She should have done what you did!</p>
<p>You should have had them pay the bill because the shared data plans become cheaper for all compared to individual plans. </p>
<p>We keep one kid on our plan. It means $40/mo for the smartphone and maybe $10/mo for another bundle of data a month. Can’t get unlimited messages, unlimited calls with data for $50/mo. </p>
<p>It also means that we have sort of a pool of upgrades available. Someone has kept a phone for long enough that the one who needs a new one can use the upgrade.</p>
<p>My S1 (25) is no longer on the family plan. His contract was up, so he bought his own smart phone (Galaxy ??) & signed up for Walmart’s $45/mo plan (no contract, unlimited data, text, voice), which uses the T-mobile network. It is nominally more than his share on our family plan. And as soon as my Verizon contract expires in Jan, I plan to upgrade my dumb phone to a smart phone, tell Verizon to “bite me,” and switch over too.</p>
<p>It is more expensive to buy the phone outright vs. buying a subsidized phone with a 2-yr contract. However, if you calculate the cost per month of the major service providers, the phone will pay for itself within 9-12 months. Plus you are not tied to a contract. </p>
<p>I learned this from previous CC discussion threads & articles on CNET.</p>
<p>Both of our S’s (23 and 26) have been off our plan since they graduated from college and got jobs. I don’t recall any kind of fee when they went off our plan. We have Verizon and both S’s stayed w/ Verizon but with their own accounts.</p>
<p>If D stayed on our plan and added a data plan, her share would be $65 per month (35 for plan + 30 for 3G of data, I believe).</p>
<p>Going on her own on Sprint would cost her $15 more per month, with an unlimited data plan. She indicated she would stream a lot of music if she could, so the unlimited plan seemed more attractive.</p>
<p>I think the cost would be not in her coming off your plan if she is not under contract but the fees would come from starting new service in her own name.
We all are still on the same plan. I have my S write me a check for 6 months of phone service at a time. This is much easier.
I do the same thing with his car insurance except now that he has money in the bank I charge him the full year of car insurance. We no longer have to remind him to pay us each month. Much easier for both sides.</p>