Jump to content
Required Reading for any Longhorn ×

Best of Cell Phone Plans

Dbeasy

By Dbeasy
in Can You Help Me With This?

 Share

Recommended Posts

Dbeasy

Dbeasy 15093

Posted
Posted

We just booted our kids off our cell plans. We now sit at $162/month all in for 30 GB shared between 2 people, with no HD video restrictions, unlimited talk and text, and ability to tether a computer to the cell phone.

 

I’m researching plans it doesn’t seem like we can beat this? I’m stunned. We’ve had the plan we’ve had for several years and I thought by now there would be something cheaper we could get without losing functionality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Longhorn Fever

Longhorn Fever 267

Posted
Posted

I am a shag uh surly poor, so laugh at me all you want:

 

we we were with sprint for a LONG time only because they offered inexpensive service and great retention discounts on phones for a long time. The discounts were significant enough that we overlooked the slow “unlimited” service we were offered.

 

Those great  discounts slowly disappeared over time. I finally decided to switch carriers. I wanted to test ATT networks where we lived so I bought Cricket SIMS for our phones and had good service and coverage.

 

I ultimately tried Verizon and T-Mobile to get a great discount on iPhone 8 pluses a couple of years ago, but ultimately switched back to Cricket (ATT) because we found the service better than the other 3 networks where we live and travel most. Long story I won’t share now, but managed to get 4 new iPhone 8 Plus phones for about $250 each.

 

I currently have 4 unlimited lines of service (throttled after 22gb/month/line).One line has tethering capability. We pay $110/month and I have no complaints and no contract.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dbeasy

Dbeasy 15093

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I am a shag uh surly poor, so laugh at me all you want:
 
we we were with sprint for a LONG time only because they offered inexpensive service and great retention discounts on phones for a long time. The discounts were significant enough that we overlooked the slow “unlimited” service we were offered.
 
Those great  discounts slowly disappeared over time. I finally decided to switch carriers. I wanted to test ATT networks where we lived so I bought Cricket SIMS for our phones and had good service and coverage.
 
I ultimately tried Verizon and T-Mobile to get a great discount on iPhone 8 pluses a couple of years ago, but ultimately switched back to Cricket (ATT) because we found the service better than the other 3 networks where we live and travel most. Long story I won’t share now, but managed to get 4 new iPhone 8 Plus phones for about $250 each.
 
I currently have 4 unlimited lines of service (throttled after 22gb/month/line).One line has tethering capability. We pay $110/month and I have no complaints and no contract.
 

Do you ever have to travel internationally and if so any issues?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Longhorn Fever

Longhorn Fever 267

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:


Do you ever have to travel internationally and if so any issues?

Just took a trip to Italy with my wife and youngest daughter over the holidays. I just bought local SIMs for use in country. As far as I know, you can only travel to Canada and Mexico with Cricket. I think they have an inexpensive plan add-on for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
elfenix

elfenix 34333

Posted
Posted (edited)
47 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

 

We just booted our kids off our cell plans. We now sit at $162/month all in for 30 GB shared between 2 people, with no HD video restrictions, unlimited talk and text, and ability to tether a computer to the cell phone.

 

I’m researching plans it doesn’t seem like we can beat this? I’m stunned. We’ve had the plan we’ve had for several years and I thought by now there would be something cheaper we could get without losing functionality.

 

i'm paying less than half that on tmobile for 2 lines unlimited errrthing.  that plan fucking sucks.

Edited by elfenix
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Nueces River Rat

Nueces River Rat 5539

Posted
Posted

Now you have me looking at T-Mobile as a real choice to replace fricken AT&T as my carrier as they increased my rates without any sorts of heads up other than an email the day they did it.   The only reason I went with AT&T is they have coverage in parts of the Hill Country (talking about Concan and Leakey)  and the mountains of West Texas as the others didn't a few years ago.   Or the coverage was sporadic at best.    Is this still true?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Soldierhorn

Soldierhorn 206

Posted
Posted

I'm cheap and I'm not a heavy cell phone user. I find the little screens annoying. If I had to go back to a flip-phone, it wouldnt bother me very much as long as some apps work such as home security, home cameras, smart home plugs & electronics, email manager, and stuff like that. 

That being said, I've had Boost for a long time with a new LG phone at $30 a month and very satisfied with both.  Unlimited text and two or three gig data or something like that. I hardly ever text and never come close to the data limit.  I think Boost uses the Sprint network backbone and that's more than sufficient for me. And, for the money, it does everything I need except one thing but I dont think anyone else does it either for same price... so mute point. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
elfenix

elfenix 34333

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Nueces River Rat said:

Now you have me looking at T-Mobile as a real choice to replace fricken AT&T as my carrier as they increased my rates without any sorts of heads up other than an email the day they did it.   The only reason I went with AT&T is they have coverage in parts of the Hill Country (talking about Concan and Leakey)  and the mountains of West Texas as the others didn't a few years ago.   Or the coverage was sporadic at best.    Is this still true?

you can download opensignal on your phone to look at the coverage maps.  sensorly shows some tmobile lte coverage in concan but not in leakey.  but i dunno if anyone uses that anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Handcruser

Handcruser 2805

Posted
Posted
Now you have me looking at T-Mobile as a real choice to replace fricken AT&T as my carrier as they increased my rates without any sorts of heads up other than an email the day they did it.   The only reason I went with AT&T is they have coverage in parts of the Hill Country (talking about Concan and Leakey)  and the mountains of West Texas as the others didn't a few years ago.   Or the coverage was sporadic at best.    Is this still true?

Yeah you might lose some coverage in those spots. I lose coverage between Cuero and Gonzalez consistently. And a 5 mile stretch between Houston and Victoria. Other than that it works great almost wherever I go.

You could also buy an Att sim and use it when your in Leakey/Concan.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Link to comment
Share on other sites
crash_davis

crash_davis 23115

Posted
Posted

AT&T has the best coverage in the hill country, even on the guadalupe in just up from new braunfels.  helps that they merged/are old southwester bell (SBC).  i've tried both VZ and TMO in the hill country, both suck shit through a straw.

tmobile is not quite yet VZ and AT&T in ubiquitous coverage, but they are getting much better.  when you have LTE, which is the vast majority of the time, they are faster than VZ.  the great thing about TMO is that their advertised price is the price, taxes and other bullshit fees included.  VZ and AT&T add access line fees and taxes so that $40/unlimited per line plan is really like $50-60ish dollars per line.

i made the switch from VZ to TMO.  there are some places where i just do not have coverage where i used to have it with VZ.  i can't think of the reverse scenario where TMO has coverage where VZ didn't.  but i'm paying a $50-60 less per month so i'm happy.

TMOs plans.  you can mix and match the plans.  my family has magenta and i have magenta plus.  i hotspot a shitton and like the unlimited internet on american and delta.

https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans?icid=WMM_TM_Q117TMO1PL_H85BRNKTDO37510

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Longhorn Fever

Longhorn Fever 267

Posted
Posted
20 hours ago, Nueces River Rat said:

Now you have me looking at T-Mobile as a real choice to replace fricken AT&T as my carrier as they increased my rates without any sorts of heads up other than an email the day they did it.   The only reason I went with AT&T is they have coverage in parts of the Hill Country (talking about Concan and Leakey)  and the mountains of West Texas as the others didn't a few years ago.   Or the coverage was sporadic at best.    Is this still true?

Too proud to use Cricket? It is a wholly owned subsidiary of ATT and uses the ATT network.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
zork

zork 629

Posted
Posted

H20 wireless which means it uses the AT@T towers and GSM phones.  You bring your own.  If it worked on the AT@T network before, it will work on the H20 plan.

There are no family plans, each phone is a separate deal.

$35.71 per phone for unlimited talk, text and 5GB of regular data then it throttles unlimited after that.(this is on their auto-billed plan)

We bought one Sony Xperia phone, unlocked about $250 at best buy, and I used my old Amazon fire phone for years.  Then I bought an Xperia when I decided to retire the fire phone.

It has been great.  The customer service is people who speak english but many times it is possible it was not their first language.  However it is a pretty simple setup to get it going buying the sim from best buy or walmart, etc.

We've used them now for about 5-6 years.  If you don't want the unlimited data, (5gb then throttled unlimited) then you can take about 5 dollars off.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Borachio

Borachio 417

Posted
Posted

Another happy H2O customer here.   3GB of LTE data for $28 a month.   I rarely use over 1GB, I'm on wifi at home and at work. 

They use the AT&T network so coverage is great. 

AT&T was charging me $52 for the exact same plan.   Like someone mentioned above,  AT&T has a line access fee which is like $20.  Ridiculous!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Soldierhorn

Soldierhorn 206

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, zork said:

H20 wireless which means it uses the AT@T towers and GSM phones.  You bring your own.  If it worked on the AT@T network before, it will work on the H20 plan.

There are no family plans, each phone is a separate deal.

$35.71 per phone for unlimited talk, text and 5GB of regular data then it throttles unlimited after that.(this is on their auto-billed plan)

We bought one Sony Xperia phone, unlocked about $250 at best buy, and I used my old Amazon fire phone for years.  Then I bought an Xperia when I decided to retire the fire phone.

It has been great.  The customer service is people who speak english but many times it is possible it was not their first language.  However it is a pretty simple setup to get it going buying the sim from best buy or walmart, etc.

We've used them now for about 5-6 years.  If you don't want the unlimited data, (5gb then throttled unlimited) then you can take about 5 dollars off.  

 

2 hours ago, Borachio said:

Another happy H2O customer here.   3GB of LTE data for $28 a month.   I rarely use over 1GB, I'm on wifi at home and at work. 

They use the AT&T network so coverage is great. 

AT&T was charging me $52 for the exact same plan.   Like someone mentioned above,  AT&T has a line access fee which is like $20.  Ridiculous!

Yeah, I think I'm going to check in on H2O.  Same data and text but cheaper and on the AT&T network backbone sounds like a winner.  I've been on Boost for a long time and I really dont have any complaints but if another product is better then it's something to look at. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Buzzrock

Buzzrock 14944

Posted
Posted

I have my daughter on Cricket but be aware that data speeds max out at 8 mbps. That’s fine for her but that’s pretty slow in the 4G LTE era.

The unlimited plan is capped at 3 mbps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cricket+wireless+data+speed&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS749US749&oq=cricket+wireless+data+speed&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.7445j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Link to comment
Share on other sites
midtown

midtown 3348

Posted
Posted (edited)

If you are usually around wifi then you can look at Google Fi.    It's $20 a month plus $10 per gig of data.    They use TMO and Sprint towers.    If you are using data while not on wifi its going to get expensive.   And you will have to have a certain phone but there are probably 10-15 now.    Internationally its amazing.  Works in almost every country with a few exceptions. 

Edited by midtown
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Longhorn Fever

Longhorn Fever 267

Posted
Posted (edited)
19 hours ago, Nueces River Rat said:


Nope. Not at all. I just have to finish paying off my existing phones I have with AT&T and all options are open.

This motivated me to share my story on long story phones. As I mentioned, I had been a long time Sprint customer. With the lack of deals on phones that they were doing at the time I was ready to switch, I started looking at ATT & Verizon. I decided if I was going to pay Sprint's going rates at the time with no phone deal any better than VZW or ATT, I wanted to get better coverage. Thus I tested our unlocked iPhone 6 phones on Cricket to test ATT. I loiked it, but still heard that Verizon was best.

 

In the meantime, I had seen an ad for a T-mobile offer called "Get Out of the Red" where they were offering to pay up to $650 per line for people willing to switch from Verizon. The catch was that you had to have been a Verizon customer for 60 days. Since I wanted to test each network, I went ahead and purchased 4 iPhone 8+ from Verizon while they had a buy one-get one promotion on an installment plan using monthly credits. I stayed with them for my 60 days and switched under the promotion to go ahead and give TMO a chance. I immediately sent in my authorizations for the $650 credit per line. I think all in, the rebate for $2600 on a Mastercard debit card came in at about 40 days. This was just in time for my final bill from VZW. I paid off my phones.

 

I used TMO for 2 months and decided it was not for us. So, after giving each major network a 2 month run, we decided that the ATT network was best for us where we lived and roamed to most often. I've now been on Cricket for almost two years with no complaints.

 

Now for the bad:
The 4 unlimited lines for $100 plan is technically throttled at 3Mb/s and videos are typically shown at 480p rates. On a phone, I have not noticed a problem with video quality even if I use AirPlay to our Apple TV 4th gen. Note that I still have a 1080 p TV and no 4k Apple TV. I have seen rates occasionally up to 10-15 Mb/s. Cricket does, or at least used to, offer a plan with higher speeds. I think it was a whopping $160 for 4 lines. We decided that the "slower" plan worked for us. I have been able to watch games streaming on WatchESPN while we were at HS marching band competitions in NC, Atlanta and Indianapolis. Now that my youngest is in a college marching band/dance line, I have had trouble streaming at her Div IA school football games in rural Alabama with attendance of about 12,000. However, when I carried a VZW phone for work I had the same issues to some extent. I think there it is just a lack of network build out for all the carriers. I am sure as a CW customer, I get less priority than a full-fledged ATT customer. BOth of my daughters are heavy users. The youngest has gone over 22gb in a month twice, but said she did not notice a significant drop off. She was able to still watch videos on the phone and cast to the TV. The phone was her primary television device rather than cable or satellite. We all also routinely stream Netflix, DirecTV Now, Hulu and/or Amazon Prime Video while on road trips.

Edited by Longhorn Fever
speed and usage correction
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Longhorn Fever

Longhorn Fever 267

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

I have my daughter on Cricket but be aware that data speeds max out at 8 mbps. That’s fine for her but that’s pretty slow in the 4G LTE era.

The unlimited plan is capped at 3 mbps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cricket+wireless+data+speed&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS749US749&oq=cricket+wireless+data+speed&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.7445j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

 

8 hours ago, elfenix said:

Limited time offer: Verizon's Visible service unlimited unlimited for $40/month:

https://gizmodo.com/verizons-visible-is-offering-truly-unlimited-cell-data-1835879423

 

(Though video is capped at 480p and hotspot at 5 Mbps)

 

 

 

 

That seems to be a good deal on the VZW network. I wonder if they will let users keep the plan if they have no plan changes after the "limited time offer" expires?

 

6 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

I have my daughter on Cricket but be aware that data speeds max out at 8 mbps. That’s fine for her but that’s pretty slow in the 4G LTE era.

The unlimited plan is capped at 3 mbps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cricket+wireless+data+speed&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS749US749&oq=cricket+wireless+data+speed&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.7445j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

 

This is correct. Although, we have never noticed a real difference. AS I mentioned above we routinely stream video from the major streaming services with no problems except as noted above at the FCS football stadium in a rural area.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
elfenix

elfenix 34333

Posted
Posted
42 minutes ago, Longhorn Fever said:

That seems to be a good deal on the VZW network. I wonder if they will let users keep the plan if they have no plan changes after the "limited time offer" expires?

 

 

per the article:

Furthermore, Visible says that anyone who takes advantage of this limited-time deal will be able to keep their unlimited data speeds “for as long as you’re with Visible.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites
NoName

NoName 16407

Posted
Posted
On 6/26/2019 at 9:45 AM, crash_davis said:

  i've tried both VZ and TMO in the hill country, both suck shit through a straw.

it 100% depends on where you are and where you need service. 

for example, where I am, VZW is significantly better than ATT and TMO. less congestion, larger coverage area. 

tiny sample size, but...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SDG

SDG 3319

Posted
Posted

Att one line with unlimited data and tethering (they can throttle after 22GB), one iPad with unlimited data, and one iPad with 1gb.  I get free watch ATT and Pandora which stream without counting against your plan.  All in my bill runs around $95 per month.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tokamak

tokamak 6442

Posted
Posted
On 6/27/2019 at 2:20 AM, Buzzrock said:

I have my daughter on Cricket but be aware that data speeds max out at 8 mbps. That’s fine for her but that’s pretty slow in the 4G LTE era.

The unlimited plan is capped at 3 mbps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cricket+wireless+data+speed&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS749US749&oq=cricket+wireless+data+speed&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.7445j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

I'm a Cricket user and have never noticed the speed limit. I don't stream a lot of video, but it seems fine for watching a quick YouTube video or whatever. Of course, it's more than adequate for music, email, maps, etc.

Another nice thing about Cricket (and the other prepaid services I'm sure) is that occasionally Target, Walmart, etc will have sales on prepaid cards. Usually 10% but sometimes 15% off. I loaded up on cards last time Target had a 15% off, and now my cell service comes out to less than $30/month.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
Cajun

Cajun 11747

Posted
Posted
On 6/25/2019 at 9:10 PM, Revolution512 said:

T-Mobile has cell towers all over Austin. Great coverage 

I switched from T-Mobile to AT&T two months ago.  

Big mistake.  Coverage is terrible and speeds are very inconsistent.  Don't even get me started on their billing and upsell attempts every single fucking time you interact with them.

Back to TMobile in about a week.  Never had any of those problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Dbeasy

Dbeasy 15093

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I switched from T-Mobile to AT&T two months ago.  
Big mistake.  Coverage is terrible and speeds are very inconsistent.  Don't even get me started on their billing and upsell attempts every single fucking time you interact with them.
Back to TMobile in about a week.  Never had any of those problems.


You didn’t have to sign a contract with AT&T to get the best pricing?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
crash_davis

crash_davis 23115

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, immamac said:

Wow I didn't realize how fucked up AT&Ts fee structure was. 165/mo for 3 lines of unlimited plus (plan doesn't exist anymore) and then 60 fucking dollars a month for access fees. What kind of trash is that? 

access line fees are pure margin for these assholes.  vz and at&t love them.  most people with those carriers just assume everyone charges them.  nope.  tmobile doesn't bullshit with access line fees.  i'm sure others don't either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gyroprotagonist

gyroprotagonist 2595

Posted
Posted

as others have said, CW get demoted in priority.  My hood (east dallas) sucks for ATT coverage anyway, but when the power was knocked out to a large swath of the area, it was impossible to get signal when everyone was using their mobile phones.  3 solid days of no connection when at the house.  

I want to look at switching to Verizon, but I would have to get a new phone and all single phone plans seem to suck from the big carriers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
crash_davis

crash_davis 23115

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, gyroprotagonist said:

as others have said, CW get demoted in priority.  My hood (east dallas) sucks for ATT coverage anyway, but when the power was knocked out to a large swath of the area, it was impossible to get signal when everyone was using their mobile phones.  3 solid days of no connection when at the house.  

I want to look at switching to Verizon, but I would have to get a new phone and all single phone plans seem to suck from the big carriers.

all the mvnos and wholesale customers get lower class of service.  during any network congestion or outage, the carrier's customer get priority.  part of trade off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
crash_davis

crash_davis 23115

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Gil Bang said:

 

good for sprint customers.  sprint by far has the shittiest network because they have not had the revenue to invest capital in their network like the other 3 have been and are doing.  

for the last decade, tmo has competed primarily on cost and significantly increased their market share.  with the increased revenue, they were able to build out a robust network.  it's not totally no par with vz and att, but it's now a damn good network.  previously they were comparable to sprint.  with the sprint merger giving them 90M customers (at&t and vz have > 100M), i'm not sure they need to be as focused on price to compete.  dare i say prices may start to increase, especially if tmo starts increasing prices.  OR tmo may use the additional customer base as a foundation to compete even harder on price to drive new customer acquisition.

interesting times ahead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Orange&White

Orange&White 5539

Posted
Posted
On 6/27/2019 at 8:26 AM, midtown said:

If you are usually around wifi then you can look at Google Fi.    It's $20 a month plus $10 per gig of data.    They use TMO and Sprint towers.    If you are using data while not on wifi its going to get expensive.   And you will have to have a certain phone but there are probably 10-15 now.    Internationally its amazing.  Works in almost every country with a few exceptions. 

They also cap the data costs at 10GB. Meaning, at 10 GB, you aren't paying any more. So the highest your bill will ever be is $125 for a single user or $145 for two people.

I have had this for three years for my son and I and I love it. He is in his last year at UT so he is usually always around wifi. During the school year I am usually paying $105 out the door every month for both of us. Right now he's in LA for the summer for an internship so we are maxing out the 10GB every month.

I will say that this has worked great in urban areas in this country and abroad (Sydney, Gold Coast, London) but in rural areas, it can be spotty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...