Ting - Pay for What You Use Service

NoNRG

2[H]4U
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Dec 16, 2007
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I saved a good amount of money by switching to Ting, so I thought I would spread the word to all of you. If you use a large amount of data / minutes / texts, then you may not save money, but checking is worthwhile. I am on wifi nearly all day (at home and at work) so it works for me. Data gets expensive if you are a heavy user. Compare your average usage on your current service to the pricing table at the link below.

https://ting.com/plans

I went from paying $88 a month at Sprint, to $33 a month at Ting. Ting allows users to bring Sprint devices to their service, making the switch kind of easy. I brought over my Samsung G2 Epic 4G Touch and ported the same number I was using on Sprint. The following devices are currently supported:

  • Samsung Nexus S
  • HTC EVO 4G (A9292)
  • HTC EVO 3D (X515C)
  • HTC EVO Shift (A7373)
  • Samsung Galaxy SII Epic 4G Touch (SPHD710)
  • Samsung Epic 4G (SPH-D700)
  • LG Optimus S (LS670)
  • Motorola Photon 4G (MB855)

Ting uses the same towers as Sprint, so service should be comparable if you are transitioning from Sprint. My service actually seemed to get better in my area.

Save $25 by using my referral link if you are making the switch:
https://zooqns67q1.ting.com/

Don't hesitate to ask questions about my experience with the transition.
 
does phone or data service roam for free on verizon (like it does on sprint)? One thing that did catch my eye with ting is hotspot is free.
 
Ting is ridiculously good if you're a low usage user. It's pretty much the only way to get a usable amount of data for less than $20 a month.
 
it would cost me 38 a month, which is a hell of a lot better than sprints 89... but given how much sprints network sucks in this area (0.13mbps down on average) I really see no reason to continue using it, even with the cheap price
 
it would cost me 38 a month, which is a hell of a lot better than sprints 89... but given how much sprints network sucks in this area (0.13mbps down on average) I really see no reason to continue using it, even with the cheap price

That's why the high data prices don't matter- you'll never use that much on Sprint's network.
 
sprint data will slowly get better as they roll out 4g and make other improvements. Mind you it will be no where as good as at&t. I'm on verizon myself and why they have excellent fringe reception (esp for the phone in the northeast) I suspect nation wide at&t has a lot to offer. Having said this in a year or so I will strongly consider switching to ting given the price point and how i use my phone (1GB is more than enough for me even with tethering and I rather pay $40-$45 than $80-$90 verizon wants)
 
sprint data will slowly get better as they roll out 4g and make other improvements. Mind you it will be no where as good as at&t. I'm on verizon myself and why they have excellent fringe reception (esp for the phone in the northeast) I suspect nation wide at&t has a lot to offer. Having said this in a year or so I will strongly consider switching to ting given the price point and how i use my phone (1GB is more than enough for me even with tethering and I rather pay $40-$45 than $80-$90 verizon wants)

Heh I jumped the spring bandwagon 2 years ago -- I remember hearing the same thing back then "oh spint will be awesome when they roll out wimax, that failed, then the same thing was said about LTE"

Went to verizon -- and yeah paying 98/month sucks but the coverage is tops. I even get 4G LTE in the middle of no where while at work.

Ting sounds like a cool idea -- if I was in your boat I'd have switched too.
 
sprint data will slowly get better as they roll out 4g and make other improvements. Mind you it will be no where as good as at&t. I'm on verizon myself and why they have excellent fringe reception (esp for the phone in the northeast) I suspect nation wide at&t has a lot to offer. Having said this in a year or so I will strongly consider switching to ting given the price point and how i use my phone (1GB is more than enough for me even with tethering and I rather pay $40-$45 than $80-$90 verizon wants)

Sprint San Diego

trust me, its not getting better, it's actually getting worse, and that result is no fluke and in an area showing 5 bars and 3G.
 
Sprint San Diego

trust me, its not getting better, it's actually getting worse, and that result is no fluke and in an area showing 5 bars and 3G.

I've actually gotten around 50 kbps at different times in the past couple of weeks. The performance I've been seeing from Virgin is getting worse and worse, and I can't wait to switch.
 
switching over a line to test out -- we'll see how it goes!
 
Joe Rogan says they are a good company. I agree except for the Sprint part of it all. I barely use any data as most of my DL is podcasts which I DL over my home wifi.

Where I live sprint is pretty iffy about reception. Verizon is the best unfortunately.
 
I've actually gotten around 50 kbps at different times in the past couple of weeks. The performance I've been seeing from Virgin is getting worse and worse, and I can't wait to switch.

Virgin used to be better, but it's pretty terrible lately.

I ran a couple of speedtests next to my wife's new Straight Talk (AT&T) Nexus 4 last night.

She got 2,000k down, 900k up.

I got 100/50 and then 200/100 on my VM phone.

It used to be a lot better than that.

Still, I'm probably staying on Virgin because I don't need that much phone. I don't use it a lot. I send maybe 100 texts a month, go through about 100 minutes, and I've never cracked 1GB of data.
 
Sad. No voice coverage in my area? Weird bc it looks like there is but when I went to buy a phone and it asks to check coverage, I enter my address and it says no voice coverage?

zip is 24016
 
Sad. No voice coverage in my area? Weird bc it looks like there is but when I went to buy a phone and it asks to check coverage, I enter my address and it says no voice coverage?

zip is 24016

Here's a support thread for a similar issue seen in Sioux City, Iowa. Long story short, you should be able to call customer service and setup an account and buy a phone. Their CS is very responsive.

https://help.ting.com/entries/22446692-Coverage-Local-Number-Issue

The service provided in the city is through a Sprint affiliate (Switel in this case) which puts Ting in a grey area where it is roaming, but data works. They may not be able to supply a new local number, though.
 
I think T-Mobile is the better option if your in a decent area. I pay 45$ a month for 1500 mins, unl text, and 2GB data (10$ more gets unlimited data no caps)
 
T-mobile's much better if you're a high-volume user (especially with the $30 5GB plan and the $70 full unlimited plan) and their network is arguably better (much faster data but worse coverage), but Ting wins easily if you're low usage (<500 min talk, <1000 texts, <500MB data) or you need multiple devices.
 
I think T-Mobile is the better option if your in a decent area. I pay 45$ a month for 1500 mins, unl text, and 2GB data (10$ more gets unlimited data no caps)

tmo has nothing near that for new customers (i've been with them for 8 years)

individual you have 2 options - classic 500 which starts at $39 and quickly get's into the $60/$70 range - and classic unlimited which starts at $59 - as soon as you add text and data to either you're paying $70 a month, minimum

family is the same way - classic 1000 and classic unlimited, obviously these start higher than the individual plans

my bill every month is $70 and i have 500 minutes talk, unlimited text and a measly 200mb of data ... it was the cheapest i could get ...

you must be grandfathered in to some older plan cause tmo doesn't offer 1500 minutes of anything anymore
 
tmo has nothing near that for new customers (i've been with them for 8 years)

individual you have 2 options - classic 500 which starts at $39 and quickly get's into the $60/$70 range - and classic unlimited which starts at $59 - as soon as you add text and data to either you're paying $70 a month, minimum

family is the same way - classic 1000 and classic unlimited, obviously these start higher than the individual plans

my bill every month is $70 and i have 500 minutes talk, unlimited text and a measly 200mb of data ... it was the cheapest i could get ...

you must be grandfathered in to some older plan cause tmo doesn't offer 1500 minutes of anything anymore

You need to look at the T-Mobile prepaid plans.
 
Too bad sprints data is just about worthless

I live in San Francisco and used to own an EVO4G. In the middle of downtown, I barely got 4G reception and their 3G data rates were laughable. It would take minutes to load a single web page. That's my experience. The price structure seems good but I'd be hard pressed to leave AT&T LTE for what I have to assume would be a really poor user experience.
 
You need to look at the T-Mobile prepaid plans.

links:
prepaid plans
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans

prepaid addons
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-additional-services

the cheapest is $30 and that comes with 30mb of data and 1500 messages/talk - that 1500 number is a mix of both so if you text 1000 then you only have 500 talk minutes

the other $30 plan is only 100 minutes of talk with unlimited text and web (4g speeds up to 5gb)

both pretty good deals but neither are $45 a month with 1500 talk and unlimited text and 2gb of data

the other plans are pay by the day and pay as you go - in which there is no combination of the plan you listed earlier

i'm not trying to be an ass or combating you in any way, i'm just trying to let new users know they can't get the deal you listed currently with tmo - i wouldn't want anyone new getting hype about that deal if it's not available
 
Initial take on Ting is pretty favorable. A really no-nonsense porting process.

I ordered a refurb Transform Ultra, it arrived in 3 days. Activated the account, ported the number, and synced my contacts and reloaded my apps / settings and was ready to go in about 120 minutes (had dinner in the middle and was updating my HTPC to a NUC at the same time -- while spotify albums were downloading to the new phone and whatnot).

I'll update here as I get into the usage a bit. I estimated a little high on my mean talk/text/data usage for my current family plan (two lines) since if this turns out favorably, my wife will be following me to Ting; with that said, initial monthly costs look to be less than 38% of what they were with AT&T (that's including the second line if I follow-through). This should be a neat experiment.
 
Call quality is decent and there has been no major change in my phone usage -- pretty seamless switch. Webpages seem to load just fine. I had a bit of a battery life issue, but that was due to the phone itself (and not having juice defender installed :p)

I really like the fact that they only bill you for what you use and the dashboard view of your usage is absolutely awesome.
 
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