<p>Probably a lame question but I’m really not sure…</p>
<p>Can you purchase a smart phone but not activate the data plan right away???</p>
<p>We have Verizon. S has a phone that is falling apart - neither we nor he is at the moment wanting to pay the extra $$ per month for a smart phone plan - with 5 phones on our account (currently 2 smart, 3 dumb) our bill is high enough each month and S has not secured a job at school yet that could guarantee him being able to pay the data fee - he is also not fully feeling like he needs data (of course it’s nice) but the phones without data are so unappealing - and don’t seem like the best idea for the next 2 years for him. </p>
<p>So just hypothetically wondering, - if we/he bought a smartphone (not an Iphone) any chance you can not activate data or choose to activate it at a later date???</p>
<p>I’m really guessing the answer is “no” but thought I’d ask the CC professional question answerers. :)</p>
<p>I bought a Google Galaxy Nexus a few weeks ago for our daughter. This is a smartphone made by Samsung running Android and it’s $350. I took the SIM card out of her old feature phone and put it in the Galaxy Nexus and it worked for making phone calls and doing text messages. I had the data turned off. I tried turning the data on and doing an email sync and it cost $0.05. This is with AT&T Go Phone (prepaid). It costs $0.25 per minute for voice, $0.20 per text message and $0.02 per megabyte of data. She has WiFi available most of the time so has very little in the way of data needs. At the moment, this approach costs us $100/year for service.</p>
<p>I would guess that you could do this with a cheaper phone too.</p>
<p>I do not know whether or not Verizon has something similar. I recall getting nickle and dimed to death on the last Verizon phone that we had.</p>
<p>We definitely need to stop in to a Verizon place…just was wondering out loud. </p>
<p>I’ve said this a MILLION times in real life and here on CC - I HATE the data plan trap!!! I cannot believe the monthly cost of phones + data + replacement insurance + taxes…it’s outrageous!!! </p>
<p>I switched to the new Verizon Share Everything plan and saved about $30.00 a month. You choose the amount of data to share so you would choose without adding any in for your son. Just make sure he doesn’t use any. My D and have the minimum amount of data and just do everything on wifi.</p>
<p>So (another dumb question…since I am not one of the 2 smart phones in the family…) when you are in wireless areas (like home, work, S at school) you can set the phone on a setting or something that uses the wireless connection, not the data???</p>
<p>AT&T and Verizon stock have been doing well this year - they essentially have a duopoly and it feels like it is very hard to get a combination of services without paying through the nose for it. A few of the families in the office told me that they pay around $170 per month for mobile phone services.</p>
<p>Yes, wherever there is a wireless connection, you can turn off the mobile data (very simple to do) and simply rely on the wireless connection to do everything. I never use my data plan at home. I use it when I’m out driving around or where there is no wifi. I also don’t use much data generally. Data hogs are downloading videos, music and spending lots of time on websites that constantly update - like Facebook.</p>
<p>Well, this could be a great thing! If we go on the data share plan and ask everyone to use wireless whenever possible (S will always have wireless on campus) then it might be doable to go ahead with the smart phone! I am encouraged! The occasion that he needs to turn on the data would probably not be a big deal…</p>
<p>Our daughter’s smartphone is running Ice Cream Sandwich (Android operating system version) and there’s a settings screen that allows her to turn on/off WiFi and another to turn on/off mobile data. This is with an unlocked phone - locked phones usually have the software modified by the carrier and they can do whatever they want to.</p>
<p>On my Motorola RAZR unlocked phone, I can send pictures to my laptop via Bluetooth at no cost. On the Verizon version, they don’t allow that - the only way to get pictures off the phone is to email it to yourself incurring a charge. The phone can do the transfer at no cost but their software doesn’t allow you to do it. That’s why some people jailbreak their phones.</p>
<p>BCEagle, I think $170 is cheap. That’s about what we pay for 3 non smart phones and 1 smart phone. It’s crazy. That is for the cheapest (700) minutes + texting. I can’t even imagine what mt SIL pays for 4 iPhones, one non smart phone (soon to switch to an iPhone) and a mi fi hot spot. Boggles the mind.</p>
<p>abasket, check how much data you’re using now among the phones. You might be surprised how little it is. I use my mobile phone for everything so the unlimited minutes on the Share Everything plan produced my savings. Both D and I had text plans and the Share Everything includes unlimited texting too. To be honest, I didn’t know how much less data I could use until the Verizon service person told me to use wifi for everything I could. She walked me through making the switch and then factored that in on recommending the smallest data plan for us.</p>
<p>That boggles my mind but yes, most people are probably fine with that number.</p>
<p>We pay $25/month for two feature phones and one smartphone. I also have a MiFi for $50/month but I got that for working remotely for about four months where I was out of the office a lot. I could get the office to pick up the tab if I weren’t too lazy to file the paperwork. It’s a pure luxury now and I probably should get rid of it.</p>
<p>I would like to get an iPhone 5 but I’d want an unlocked version and I think that I’d have to wait until next summer for something like that. I’m considering getting a Samsung Galaxy S3 for now.</p>
<p>I’m a huge fan of prepaid but we don’t make a lot of calls. If I need to make a really long call, then I’ll do it over WiFi.</p>
<p>My home phone was expensive, with all the features - voice mail, caller ID, etc. I got rid of that so the mobile bill doesn’t look so bad any longer. </p>
<p>My monthly access charge for 2 smart phones is $140.00. There is another $10.00 in taxes and fees. We use less than 1 gb of data per month but over 2000 minutes.</p>
<p>I was told by Verizon that we could not use the smartphone without activating the data plan. Ie, no way to avoid that charge, regardless of, say, whether you turn off data and rely on wifi. Reality check here? Thx.</p>
<p>It’s an issue because I need to replace my own phone. Now have 2 smarts.</p>
<p>Just to make sure I understand this correct. Our house currently has 2 smart, 3 dumb. The 2 smart have 2 GBs (or whatever the correct data lingo is) each. Neither uses it up. </p>
<p>We could get a 3rd smart, go to the new data share plan and still try and survive on 4 GBs of data IF S, D and H all agree to try and use wireless when able (at home, at work, etc.) Maybe we could even get by with 3 MBs…(and then maybe I can get one soon too!)</p>
<p>Does this sound right??? So S would have the capibility, but we would encourage usage only when necessary outside of the wireless??</p>
<p>Edited to say, I think you have to choose data in even numbers - so 2GB or 4 or 6…</p>
<p>I had a look at the Verizon and AT&T Pay as you go plans. Verizon has various plans for voice and text but data is $0.99/day unlimited and I guess that’s only if you use it on a particular day. AT&T requires that you have a data plan if you use a smartphone but the guy at the store indicated that we could just use the metered approach that we had with our feature phone. My guess is that you would have to get a plan if you bought one of their phones or brought your smartphone in for activation but moving the SIM from a feature phone to an unlocked smartphone seems to get around the requirement for a data plan for a smartphone.</p>
<p>It generally depends on where you are when you need mobile services. If you spend most time in the office and at home, then it may work well. I prefer WiFi anyways because performance is much better. I’d guess that I would do fine with 200 MB/month. I’m not a big consumer of high-bandwidth applications - if your family does YouTube or streaming music, then you may need more.</p>
<p>You should have the ability to see what you are using in your current accounts. Just keep track of it for a few months with their online web display or the Verizon app - you might be using much less data than you need.</p>