<p>We have enjoyed tmobile’s unlimited data plans, by now that they’ve done away with contracts and subsidizing the phone they are less attractive to me.</p>
<p>Can anyone with a Verizon plan tell me if you can make sure that some errant app left running won’t gobble up data and put you over the limit? We really don’t use much data, but I don’t want to have to closely monitor the usage. Any good solution?</p>
<p>I probably can’t fully answer your question, but I will tell you this. Consider how much of your time is spent in wireless places. We have 5 people on our Verizon data plan and we have 4 GB a month but we have rarely even used 2 GB a month total for the 5 of us. Home is wireless, work is wireless, campus is wireless - so a good portion of all of our day is spent in wireless. </p>
<p>Verizon will send you data useage alerts. You’ll get a text or email that says ,“You’ve reached 75% of your data useage for the month”. DD constantly blows through her data so we purchased the family control feature that automatically shuts off her data when she reaches the limit. It also has other features as well.</p>
<p>You can look at your data usage on the verizon site at any time. You can download or at least copy an activity report for each line. </p>
<p>There shouldn’t be apps running on and on. A few to watch are more habits, as in “download podcasts and other streaming media to your phone on wifi or to your computer and then sync to the phone rather than listen over cell”.</p>
<p>I’m an idiot, but maybe my Verizon experience will help someone else. D was starting to exceed her data after moving to a new city and having a different lifestyle. I stopped at the Verizon store and discovered that I could switch to an entirely new family plan, one that hadn’t been available last time we looked, that gave D an additional 1 GB of data AND saved us $100/month! So don’t be like me, keep up on your provider’s plans. They aren’t going to tell you that you could be paying less.</p>
<p>Verizon actually calls me fairly often to go over my plan. They’ve actually suggested 2 changes that saved me money. </p>
<p>We just lowered our cell phone bill by a LOT doing mobile share. 10gb of data, unlimited talk and text. First phone $100, added phones $15 each. Our old plan had 550 anytime minutes and free nights and weekends. We paid $50 for the first line and $9,99 for each additional…BUT we also had to pay $25 for unlimited text, and additional for the data for each phone. And we had only 3 GB data each (which we NEVER used). DH called them to,say we were canceling…and they told us about this. They did NOT say a peep when we upgraded phones!</p>
<p>So thumper what is your total bill now? (or have you gotten one yet) We are paying $285 for 5 lines, with 2 kids still on unlimited data and 3 of us on 2 GB each. I rarely use my data, except one month when I spent a lot of time in an area of our house where the wifi is spotty for the phone (works fine for the Ipad though) I think we could share 10 GB between the 5 of us.</p>
<p>I’ve posted about this before. We have TMobile. Even without the free upgrades, it is by far the best deal going. Now you can get a new phone whenever you want. And, if you don’t want to pay upfront, you can divide the cost of the phone into 20 equal payments for no extra charge. Even with those payments, the monthly bill is still substantially less than any other plan. </p>
<p>I have 5 phones. Unlimited Talk. Unlimited Text. Unlimited data (but 4G speed is limited to 5gb PER phone–rest of data is at the 2G speed–since we’re almost always w/in Wi-Fi reach none of us every tap out the 5gb). </p>
<p>$110/month. </p>
<p>scubasue, I think you mean 500Mb at 4G, right? That is the plan I see online for 4 lines at that price. That is VERY little data.</p>
<p>We have 2.5Gb at 4G which is $150 for 3 lines. I’m just coming off contract, looks like I can get that reduced to $120 now. Still though…these $600 phones x 3 of us is $1800 which I will have to plunk down for tmobile, so if I can get the phones for $100 from Verizon I can afford to pay a little more for the plan and still come out way ahead.</p>
<p>Decisions decisions…</p>
<p>Ahhh…yes…sorry about that 500MB per phone. But, we have 2.5 Gb all together for the 5 phones–same total high speed data as your plan right? Plus we get free 2G data after we reach that limit. I don’t think that is the case with Verizon. My 2 college kids are connected to their phones all day long every day. They never come close to reaching their data limit because they almost always have Wi-Fi access. </p>
<p>Verizon’s 3 (they have a special right now) Gb of data–shared–is $60/month. +120/month for the service. So you’ve got $180/month for phones with limited data +300 for the downpayment on 3 new phones. The 2 year cost then is $4620</p>
<p>The 3 line charge at TMobile is $90/month.+$1800 for the 3 phones is $3960 over 2 years. That’s a $700 savings for a comparable plan. Some might say it’s a better plan, since the data is unlimited, there are no contracts, and international roaming (I think calls only) is included. </p>
<p>I know I sound like a TMobile salesman. 
I think they owe me some kind of commission. </p>
<p>I sounded as positive as you did a year ago, but now that I’m faced with paying full price for 3 phones I am less excited. In fact, I raved on this forum at my great deal!</p>
<p>Yes, I went to Costco and got all the current pricing tonight. I still think we’d want the 2.5Gb package so $120/month for our 3 lines. So TMobile actually prices $60 more BUT…the S4’s have already dropped in price and should continue with the S5’s coming out 4/11ish, so I THINK I’ll stick with TMobile and avoid the contract. I"ll wait until April to purchase the phones (will get S2 a $30 phone to last him for the next 6 weeks or so).</p>
<p>You do have a great point about the wifi so maybe I’ll consider doing the lesser plan. That would save some money. I like to stream while I walk though. I’ll check our past bills. This is really my big splurge item – I think my smartphone has improved the quality of my daily life more than any other “toy” I could purchase.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info! </p>
<p>Our bill includes,our DSL, a wall phone (yes we have one), two iPhones, one dumb phone, 10gb of shared data, unlimited talk and text. I’ll let you know the new total when we get the bill!</p>
<p>AllThis…TMobile lets you pay for the phone in 20? (or 21 maybe?) equal installments on your phone bill for no extra charge (i.e.–phone costs the same whether you pay for it up front or in payments–there is no interest). </p>
<p>Assuming your phones are set to connect to any available Wi-Fi, you can look at your TMobile bills to get an idea about how much data you typically use. </p>
<p>But, regarding your original question: not sure about Verizon, but I think that most of the newer smart phones have a setting that lets you monitor/limit data usage. </p>
<p>Yes, you can limit data on iphones.
I dont though cause my wifi is slow, but it only costs $.83 a day, so Im not inclined to upgrade.</p>