So what is the cheapest cell company now?

The Lurker

The Lurker

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Now that TMobile only offers two plans it seems, regardless of which you pick you are basically in for at least 120 bucks + tax. This is only if you either buy the phone out right or bring your own. I dont want to pay 150+ with the phones and I sure as shit do not want to shell out at least a thousand bucks for two handsets.

I have been with Tmobile for the last 8 years and now I am starting to wonder. 150+ a month for two phone lines is asinine IMHO.

Is there any cheaper alternative?

If not, I am going to keep my 1000 minute family plan, ditch the insurance and just pickup two Google Nexus 4's and fuck it all.
 
I have Tmobile, but I dont use Unlimited on our two phones thanks to prevalent wifi (I pay $90 now with only 2gb on one and 500mb on the other). My old 1000 family plan with $10 data and text charges was more expensive but maybe you have a nicer grandfathered plan. TMobile new pricing is actually pretty good overall and while they do not subsidize phones they basically offer interest free financing if you opt to pay a monthly charge instead of buying the phone upfront.

Quick price comparison of the major carriers http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2013/03/26/how-t-mobiles-new-prices-compare-to-competition/
 
Really depends on how voice/data much you use and how good coverage is in your area (T-mobile's prices don't mean anything if you can't use it in your area). If you're low usage I'd recommend Ting, and for high usage T-mobile.
 
Generally T-Mobile, but coverage sucks unless you never leave the city.
 
Did some quick math and basically concluded that the difference in doing the BYOP + two Nexus 4's and the new unlim plan and two Z10's is $440. Purely in the price of the phones.

My current plan once insurance is removed will be no better than the BYOP plan in terms of price but offer worse services.
 
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The Lurker said:
Unless my math is wrong somewhere.
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You are comparing two different service plans, one with double unlimited data and another with only increased data on one phone. Data is the real price issue. Also their Galaxy Nexus 4 pricing is nearly $150 more per unit than buying from Google. So whichever plan you choose buying the phone directly makes more sense. As for insurance, there are several third party solutions, I personally have used Squaretrade.

new plan math with less data ( using 24 mo as I think you incorrectly said 48 mo)

$80=$50+$30 for two base plans
$20=Unlimited data on one handset (deduct $10 for 2gb)
$14= Squaretrade x2 monthly for 24 mo ( can be cheaper if you pay $125 x2 upfront)
$114 monthly charges x 24 mo = $2736

$2736 monthly + $600 phones= $3336 (can be $3250 if you buy squaretrade up front)


I would have also considered a reseller or TMobiles own prepaid options but I use wifi calling too often to give up their premium plans.

TMobiles small business plans have the same pricing but receive free mobile Hotspot tether if you need that option.

EDIT: I see you edited your post. Ill just leave this here anyway for others who may want to see how the math works.
 
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If you want to use Verizon, Page Plus is pretty good. I've switched over my entire family plan to it. You don't get 4G LTE, and it takes some effort to flash newer phones (good news is bad ESN sprint galaxy S3s work well and really aren't terribly difficult to flash). We pay $26 a month for each line with 1200mins/3000txt/250mb data.
 
Prav said:
You are comparing two different service plans, one with double unlimited data and another with only increased data on one phone. Data is the real price issue. Also their Galaxy Nexus 4 pricing is nearly $150 more per unit than buying from Google. So whichever plan you choose buying the phone directly makes more sense. As for insurance, there are several third party solutions, I personally have used Squaretrade.

new plan math with less data ( using 24 mo as I think you incorrectly said 48 mo)

$80=$50+$30 for two base plans
$20=Unlimited data on one handset (deduct $10 for 2gb)
$14= Squaretrade x2 monthly for 24 mo ( can be cheaper if you pay $125 x2 upfront)
$114 monthly charges x 24 mo = $2736

$2736 monthly + $600 phones= $3336 (can be $3250 if you buy squaretrade up front)


I would have also considered a reseller or TMobiles own prepaid options but I use wifi calling too often to give up their premium plans.

TMobiles small business plans have the same pricing but receive free mobile Hotspot tether if you need that option.

EDIT: I see you edited your post. Ill just leave this here anyway for others who may want to see how the math works.
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Thanks for the math. I blindly kept putting in 48 months; no idea why. I realized my mistake and after running the numbers comparing staying on my current plan and buying new phones and getting a new plan/insurance with phones I discovered that I would not be paying any more or less from a plan/insurance perspective. Same for a BYOP plan except gaining unlim talk/text/data. But the cost difference was strictly in the price of the phones.

I pay 125 per month now. If I got the BYOP plan i'll wind up paying the same thing but have to buy phones for 600. If I get a plan/insurance with phones from them I wind up paying the same 120. The only difference with the later is I get less data and a free loan.

Its all a wash in the end. Ill probably wind up getting phones from them just because of the free loan and insuring them through square trade as you recommended.

I also use UMA a lot and I really do not want to lose that feature.
 
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Depends on your usage. I just switched to Ting and I'm paying like $30/mo because I don't use many minutes and most of my data transfer is done on wifi. But Ting isn't worth it if you use your phone a lot. There are other MVNOs that do offer unlimited for pretty cheap, and there's always Metro PCS as well but I haven't tried that.
 
I hardly use any data anymore so I went with the page plus $39.99 a month plan. Unlimited calling unlimited text and 200mb of data. Get the great VZW coverage and the plan is cheap. I've got a few friends to dump verizon and go to page plus. Even the $55 a month plan is good and that gets you 2gb of data
 
my problem is i end up paying for service i don't need. I don't need unlimited talk minutes. i only need like 250. i could use unlimited text but i use google voice so i don't really need that either. i could also get by with 2 gigs of data. thats where these damn plans get you. you don't get any benefit for not using the services you pay for and they don't offer plans that truly fit a person's needs.

has anyone tried Net10?
 
Net10 only offers "unlimited" (emphasis quotes). Check out Ting.
 
Just checked out Net10 and Ting with our usages in mind.

Last month my wife and I burned:

1700 minutes both whenever and mobile to mobile. (we dont have a home phone)
800 messages
950 mb's

To be safe on Ting we would have to pay 95 + Surcharges. On Net10, unlimited everything for 90 + Taxes would work too. Certainly a bargain compared to 120+tax on Tmobile.

What do I have to lose besides UMA? How's the data speeds?
 
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Ting comes out to $76 a month for two devices for what you're using (unless you're including stuff like insurance).
 
I'm with AT&T using the Motorola Atrix HD and use about 10GB of data a month. I pay $165a month :(. Is there a carrier I can switch to that you guys recommend?
 
Catsonar said:
I'm with AT&T using the Motorola Atrix HD and use about 10GB of data a month. I pay $165a month :(. Is there a carrier I can switch to that you guys recommend?
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Is T-mobile coverage good in your area? You could switch to them (if AT&T will unlock your phone). Otherwise I think you're out of luck.
 
Did some research.

This is what I came up with as the cream of the crop.

http://www.straighttalksim.com/
https://ting.com/plans (highly configurable, buy only what you need)
https://www.gosmartmobile.com/compare-prepaid-cell-phone-plans (Up to 5gb at 3G then 2G)
http://www.mysimplemobile.com/simple-mobile-plan.aspx
http://www.net10wireless.com/#/plans (cheapest unlim with family plan)

If someone would like to do a once over of my conclusions please chime in. I am having a hard time identifying the carriers that have the BS data terms where the first X amount of MB's are 4G and the rest are at 3G.

Edit: Apparently net10 has horrible customer service reviews. Thoughts on this?
 
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I had Net10 for some time (with a non-smartphone) and their CS was alright. They got it done, but it was obviously outsourced.

Also, I suspect their "unlimited" isn't true unlimited (e.g. they might cut you off after X gigabytes), but I'm not sure on that. Straight Talk on the AT&T network definitely did.

There's also T-mobile prepaid.
 
Straight Talk's data caps *are* BS. They will cap you or cancel your service for going over. I use Ting Mobile, like another poster mentioned, it's great for low usage. And their CSR's operate out of Canada, they give pretty good service.
 
Wife didn't go for Net10. She read some horror stories, got me to read them and we just decided to stick to what we have known for the last 10 years. I called Tmobile, moved my plan to the $80 unlimited talk/text with 2.5 gb of data. It comes to 100 after tax/fees. I also get 500mb's of tethering apparently.

Also ordered two Nexus 4's. It turns out it doesnt do wifi calling OTB and I am not spending 1200 bucks on phones that do.

But this gives me hope: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2012468&page=56

Thank you for all your wonderful input everyone.
 
kumquat said:
Generally T-Mobile, but coverage sucks unless you never leave the city.
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That's the rub. If you don't live in a major city , your T-Mobile coverage will be complete and total ass.

When I lived in Atlanta my coverage was pretty awesome but the moment I moved to a smaller city it tanked to one bar if I was lucky. And forget getting anything better than 2-3 megs even in the most covered parts of a city.

Of course they are upgrading networks across the board now so and they picked up MetroPCS so that's even more coverage to gain.

T-Mobile is without a doubt the best DEAL but in terms of actual coverage it varies WILDLY from town to town.

And I hate to say it but At&t has probably the best overall coverage around the country. Regardless of how small the town you live in , in general its pretty solid.
 
Godmachine said:
And I hate to say it but At&t has probably the best overall coverage around the country. Regardless of how small the town you live in , in general its pretty solid.
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Also the best non-metropolitan high speed data coverage.
I have been with ATT for years now (I highly value their global data plans, just get out of the plane in europe and there's your email for $30/mo, no monkeying around with sim cards, other phones, etc.). The thing that sucks with ATT are their domestic data plan prices, $20 for 300MB when I can get 3GB for $20 from a regional provider.
 
price wise between the major 4 carriers t-mobile would be cheapest, but like others have said it doesn't matter if their coverage sucks in your area. I keep my siblings on a t-mobile value plan which has 3 smartphones with 1000 minutes, unlimited text and 2GB of data per line. Comes out to 80 bucks a month which is pretty good. service works for them since they never leave the city.
 
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