At the moment, my partner and I are on a $35/month (for both of us together) 'family' mobile phone plan that will expire in April and, because its provider has been bought out by someone else, can no longer be renewed. We currently use the plan overwhelmingly to keep in contact with each other, which is free under the current service - whoever's with the kids tends to send photos and updates through the day to whoever's working (we have organised our work schedules so that we can split child care). We also each use our phones to respond to work emails, which lets us be untethered from the office and work fewer hours, while still being available to put out random fires. We almost never make any actual phone calls - perhaps a couple a month each, for various official purposes. We don't have a landline, although our home internet does include some sort of VOIP option that we've not actually set up.
I've been trying to work out what to do when the current contract expires, and I can't immediately see anything that looks anywhere near as cost effective. Of course, technically the new plans and prepaid options I'm seeing are much 'better' - hugely higher data allowances (currently, we share a data allowance of 250MB each - if one of us runs over, which is rare, the plan allows us to 'borrow' excess data from the other person), much bigger features, etc. But we don't need any of that, and it seems stupid to pay more for not using it.
At the same time, we're looking at adding a phone for our older son when we change plans (he currently borrows one of ours when he goes out on his own, so he can text us for any odd situations - he's only just gotten old enough to start going places on his own, and he feels more secure if he can check in). He doesn't currently want to talk to friends, although I'm sure that will change, so for the moment we're looking mainly at texts and calls to us while he's out.
I've looked at the 'major' providers and resellers - everything looks to be at least double what we've been paying for the past couple of years. There must be more minor providers I'm not stumbling across that offer better deals. Any suggestions?