Cell phone carries, whatcha got?

[Sam1]

Understood. I've never priced shopped them, mainly because they are the only game in town if you want service a lot of places I go.

 

That's the one thing you will never hear anyone complain about, VZW has the most coverage of any company in the business.

[xjsnake]

Look into Page Plus. It's a bring your own phone monthly service that uses Verizon's towers.

 

I've had an iPhone 4s with them for about 9 months now and the service has been flawless. $40 per month for unlimited talk, text and 1gb of data.

[tnguy]

I'm running a rooted Galaxy S3 with NET10 on AT&T. $50/month unlimited everything. They say you'll get throttled back after 2GB's but I've yet to see that happen. I've had this now for a year and 2 months. No complaints and no plans on switching.

Doing the same with the wife's phone since work pays for mine, I can't take advantage of a family plan. I do have a couple of tips for this:

Callingmart offers a small discount off the regular net10 price, no tax and if you sign up for their emails, they frequently have up to 7% off. They also have a "family plan" which apparently is just 3 PINs at a discount so you can apply them all to the same phone (unfortunately, the only time I tried this, something went funky with the purchase and they ended up refunding me)

Another tip is to consider porting your number to Google Voice. This gives you many options for changing your service but still keeping the same number. It's not as seamless as I'd hoped but it works. Edited August 19, 2014 by tnguy

[tnguy]

I think it will work well for me.  I would like to have the ability to look something up and check weather when need be.

Then I'll just take this opportunity to plug my app. It's free :D

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rtcons.android.tnradar&hl=en

[10-Ring]

What's wrong with Verizon? I used them for years, and am quite happy with their service thus far.

I was with Verizon from 2002-2011.  Their coverage is second to none, as is their bill.  I was paying $105 a month for one smart phone.  I had problems on a near monthly basis with my bill and would have to spend about 20 minutes each month getting it straightened out.  When I cancelled my service I told them that I was just not going to pay that much for a phone anymore, I was not countered with any kind of offer to lower my bill.  Plus I don't want to be in a contract. 

[10-Ring]

New phone came in the mail today.  Wasn't supposed to get here until at least Monday.  Ordered it on Friday, figuring in the weekend there that's pretty decent shipping time.  Although it is a used phone it looks to be in perfect condition.  About to get activated and all that mess.  So far so good.  I'll give a report on Ting once I've used it for a couple of days.

[GlockSpock]

[quote name="10-Ring" post="1181283" timestamp="1408486448"]New phone came in the mail today. Wasn't supposed to get here until at least Monday. Ordered it on Friday, figuring in the weekend there that's pretty decent shipping time. Although it is a used phone it looks to be in perfect condition. About to get activated and all that mess. So far so good. I'll give a report on Ting once I've used it for a couple of days.[/quote] What phone did you buy? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[10-Ring]

I got a HTE Evo4

[Grunt67]

In my area, Verizon is the only one with service. As for the phone, I currently have a Motorola Razor Max. When my contract

expires, I'm going back to the old flip phone ( if I can still find one ). Smartphone is too expensive, + don't use the 'net

on it all that much.

ATT will never get another penny from me.

[gregintenn]

In my area, Verizon is the only one with service. As for the phone, I currently have a Motorola Razor Max. When my contract

expires, I'm going back to the old flip phone ( if I can still find one ). Smartphone is too expensive, + don't use the 'net

on it all that much.

ATT will never get another penny from me.

Me either!

 

I just got a new flip phone at the Verizon store in Gallatin about a month ago. It wasn't on display, but I asked for one, and the salesman got one from the back. It was $40 with no contract! It works great. I only have to charge it once weekly.

[Grunt67]

Me either!

 

I just got a new flip phone at the Verizon store in Gallatin about a month ago. It wasn't on display, but I asked for one, and the salesman got one from the back. It was $40 with no contract! It works great. I only have to charge it once weekly.

 

 Sounds good! Gotta track down when my contract expires.

[Camaro_nut2001]

I was with Verizon for years and had great service. I think I was paying around $55.00 a month for unlimited talk and text. My best friend moved into his new house about five months ago and where he lives I had several no coverage areas. He is with U S Cellular and said he never has that problem so I switched over to them. I had to sign a 2yr. contract, got a Motorola Moto X smart phone for .99 cents, unlimited talk, text and 300mb off data, I don't use the data but have to have it for this kind of phone, and I pay $61.68 each month set up on auto-pay. I even had my home landline turned off and after getting use to answering and talking on this cell phone only I am a happy feller. I was paying $40.00 a month for my landline.

[Murgatroy]

My wife won't let me turn the landline off. That means we have four phone lines, and after we get our daughter a phone, we will have five.

 

I have yet to understand why I have a landline. Other than the NON STOP bill collectors calling for someone who I don't know, and have never known, I don't use it. What bothers me the most is that I have had that number for three years now, why are they still calling for someone else?

[tnguy]

The landline was a thorn in my side for a long time. For a while, we had to have it for the DSL. Then we ditched the DSL (they said they couldn't upgrade our speed though I could throw a stone from our house and hit the CO). Then my wife didn't want to get rid of it. In the end, I researched VOIP phones and came to the Oomla. It costs as low as just the regulatory fees per month (though the premium is pretty cheap, you may not need all the features). Cost $25 to port the number I think (though that might have come for free with the premium package). When I tested it, the sound quality was fine but I don't think that phone has hardly been answered in the meantime.

 

As it stands right now though, it's turning out that even that isn't really necessary. But it's proven the point and saved a few hundred dollars in the meanwhile

Edited August 23, 2014 by tnguy

[Sam1]

My wife won't let me turn the landline off. That means we have four phone lines, and after we get our daughter a phone, we will have five.

 

I have yet to understand why I have a landline. Other than the NON STOP bill collectors calling for someone who I don't know, and have never known, I don't use it. What bothers me the most is that I have had that number for three years now, why are they still calling for someone else?

 

Same here, no clue why she wants it.  unlimited minutes on a cell does wonders and our alarm works off a cell signal too.  But, I did pull a switcharoo on her... Cancelled the comcast phone service and bought an Ooma device.  Now our monthly bill for the phone $0, and we only have to pay like $3/month in taxes or whatever the .gov calls all of those unnecessary charges now.

[btq96r]

My wife won't let me turn the landline off. That means we have four phone lines, and after we get our daughter a phone, we will have five.

 

I have yet to understand why I have a landline. Other than the NON STOP bill collectors calling for someone who I don't know, and have never known, I don't use it. What bothers me the most is that I have had that number for three years now, why are they still calling for someone else?

 

Just unplug it and keep it around for emergencies or power outages since it's run separate from the power lines.  That's about the only advantage of a landline these days.

 

Unless you have one of those landlines that run off of a cable modem...then you're buggered regardless.

[Sam1]

Wanted to bump this back up.  Right now Sprint is doing a family plan that's a killer deal... $100 for unlimited talk + text and 20+gb of shared data (now it's 20gb + 2 gb additional per each line) for a total of up to 10 lines per account.

 

Starting January 2016, they will tack on an extra $15 per line per month charge so if you had 4 lines the bill would go up from $100 to $160/month but that's still looking at $40/month per device phone bill which is pretty darn good.  We're paying that much for 2 verizon phones and only 3gb of shared data.

 

Plus they are offering $350/line refund to get you to cancel your current carrier and pay the ETF.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Sam1

[tnhawk]

I've used ATT for over 20 years for my personal cell phone.  My company provides Verizon for cell and computer use.  Both have given good service in most areas.  I've had to change plans a few times to keep the price on the ATT reasonable.  I've never seen the bill from Verizon but it gets a lot of time on it every month.

[Sam1]

Well, that Sprint deal isn't much of a "deal" wanted to share with everyone after looking into it further.  Sounded awesome, but here's the catch:

 

First thing they did over the phone was get my info and then they wanted my SSN before we even talked about how much everything was going to cost.  That was a big no go.  Next they explained how the $100/month thing only works if you buy a phone on their wonderful "easy pay" plan or whatever it was called.  Basically it means you have to buy a phone with them and make monthly payments on it to qualify.  So for us looking at the Galaxy S5's there was no $99 or $199 phone for signing up on a two year contract, instead you have to pay full price for the phones, spread out over 2 years worth of payments.  So the $100 service is now $155/month for two years because you have to pay for the phones @ full price.

 

Now, if you buy phones outright or if you already have your own phones, they charge you an extra $15 per line on the account per month.  2 phones = $130/month bill.

 

Just wanted to let everyone know on that sham before you waste any time on it like we did.