Ting Phone Service

[Person3]

I've been reading this blog/forum for a while, and I keep seeing people talk about Ting. I looked into it and it looks like a much better deal than the verizon that I have, but I'm worried about the service. I live in GA but my family lives rural TN. I get great service with verizon, but I'm not sure I'd get that with Ting. Does anyone use Ting and live, or have relatives who live, in rural areas? Thanks in advance!

[geekette]

You should be able to check coverage maps here - https://ting.com/coverage

My sister's in eastern TN, and swears nothing but Verizon offers the coverage she needs.  She's not inclined to push things, though, being happy to pay through the nose.

[AnonymousCoward]

Here's my anecdata: I use Ting and visited Lebanon TN (a bit east of Nashville) and I had to walk around to find a strong enough signal to make a call.

[FiftyIsTheNewTwenty]

I've been very happy with Ting after 20 years with Verizon.  No signal problems yet, and my bill has been cut by 2/3.

Note:  I'm not a big data user.  If you are, there may be cheaper options.

[Bobberth]

My wife and I switched to Ting earlier this year after Ptel shut their doors suddenly. My wife was excited because Ting's coverage map showed that her work (teacher at a rural district) would be in a coverage zone. She never got service there. She called and talked to Ting and their response was basically "Meh." Apparently only teachers with AT&T could get service there. I didn't have any problems with Ting but I was paying a lot more than I was at Ptel due to not using a cell phone much.

My trusty slide-out phone made its way to the bottom of the Missouri River last week so I mentioned to my wife that I may be ready for a smart phone since I need a new phone anyway. She sent me info that a friend had posted about Google FI. She really wanted to try it as they use several carriers instead of only one, depending on which is the strongest signal. She got her phone last night and is super excited that she was able to receive and send texts at work this morning. Google FI is $20/month for unlimited talk & text and basically $.01/MB for data-You pay $10 for 1GB up front and then get credited back if you use less or charged more if you go over. For me, I was generally paying about $20/month with Ting for the monthly charge, texts and minutes but I would go over that at times when I had vacant rentals or projects going on. So I made the switch to cap my expenses. The data will be a new thing for me so that would have been a wild card with Ting or FI and FI has cheaper data rates to pay per usage. The downfall for Google FI is that you have to have a Nexus phone as it is the only one able to bounce off of different carrier's towers. So that will be a start up expense. Not so bad in my situation needing a new phone anyway. Our numbers were ported and active within 2 hours.

We are going to keep our daughter at Ting for now, she only uses limited texting so that seems the best for her right now.

[Petuniajo]

With Ting, you can sign up with either CDMA or GMA coverage. We switched (from Verizon) earlier this year, and had to go with CDMA for our local area. CDMA uses the Sprint network. In our local area (in Alabama), it works great. We've traveled to Chattanooga and had fine coverage there too, but can't comment otherwise for TN or GA. But, we drove to visit family in the upper midwest and had very little coverage when we were on the road (no data, and questionable text...), and poor coverage at our destination (e.g., could only receive some text messages, iffy access to data, etc.).

I think it is not great for rural areas, but it is so cheap that we just deal with it, since it works great for the areas we are in 90% of our time. However, I have heard GMA has better coverage--we just couldn't get GMA in our location.

[mindaugas]

I actually bought a pay as you go burner phone that uses Verizon's network so I could make calls in the middle of no where on a long road trip. Verizon has a lock down on coverage. So on those rare occasions you need a cell phone somewhere you can't get CDMA or GSM, just put $10 on your burner phone. Plus I like saying burner phone. Sprint and T-Mobile's networks outside of major metro areas sucks.

but Ting is so worth it. Paying $30/month for my wife and my phone (fancy LG G4 and OnePlusOne) is awesome. Use wifi, all the time every time. Google voice, hangouts, skype, FB messenger, etc. I rarely make a real phone call.

[bleumanchu]

We live in northeast GA (about 35 minutes outside the perimeter of ATL traveling north on I-85), and my wife's folks live in TN about 30 minutes south of Knoxville. We've been with Ting since early 2015, and I have had no real issues in either area. We average around $45/month for the two of us, and could be quite a bit lower than that with more discipline on our data usage.

Where we live, Ting's CDMA coverage for voice and 3G is better while we get better 4G on their GSM partner's towers. I get nearly zero signal with their GSM coverage in the building I happen to work in. Because of this I'll be switching back over to CDMA for my phone soon, but again, coverage in your specific area may differ. If I recall correctly we don't get great data coverage at my in-laws' place, but we're usually on wifi anyhow so it doesn't really bother us.

Good luck, hope it works out for you.

[robartsd]

There are a couple of VMNOs that use Verizon's network. I've been using Page Plus with my old Verizon flip phone for about 4 years (wish I had switched earlier). There are a few areas where Verizon customers actually do roam off network, so coverage is not 100% of Verizon's on most VMNOs. I.P.Daley pulled his recommendation for Page Plus when it was acquired by TracFone. While not quite meeting his requirements for a full recommendation, I've seen I.P.Daley point to Selectel where using the Verizon network was important to people (and they claim to include roaming so coverage could be identical to Verizon).

[Digital Dogma]

Service is different from place to place but my advice is to just try it for a month or two, the whole idea is that youve got no skin in the game to stay with that company if it doesnt work out for your needs. You can always go back to your expensive carrier for "premium" coverage and a multi year contract to lock you in.

My regular ting bill is about 40 bucks a month

[Paul der Krake]

In my opinion, Ting really shines for two things:

- families with disparate usages that can combine "buckets" in an advantageous way
- international roaming (it's not cheap, but it exists)

If neither is a selling point, there is better value to be had with other MVNOs.