Anyone here using TING?

[peterthebee]

I think me and the wife are going to buy out our current iPhone 6 (s) from Verizon and start using TING.

Yes yes I know it's not very mustachian to use anything but coconuts for phones, but this should drop our phone bill from $150 a month to about $40-50 a month. If we practice good data usage habits the savings should pay for the phones in 9-12 months.

I'm wondering what other's experiences with TING have been like.

[NotJen]

Ting has been great for me for the past few months!

Switching cost $14 for the sim card, since I took my phone and was way out of contract on it.

My monthly bill has been $18 or less (I don't talk much, text for free with GoogleVoice, and sign into wifi whenever possible). I actually have only paid $6 for 4 months of service because of their generous sign-up and referral offers.

Sure beats the $288 I would have paid to AT&T over the same amount of time!

[snuggler]

I use them. It was the best deal I could find to entice my sister and brother-in-law to get cell phones, because it is only $6/month per extra line.

I have generally liked them. The plans are reasonably priced.

However, I think they use Sprint's network, which can be very spotty in areas. For example, I vacationed in a more rural part of the Northeast recently, and my phone was pretty much dead the whole week. The other people I was traveling with had Verizon service, and their coverage was infinitely better than mine.

In my hometown, however, the coverage is great.

[peterthebee]

Thanks for the replies everyone, sounds like everyone is pretty satisfied.

[skunkfunk]

Yes, it's great. The best part is that if you have a problem, there's no computer system over the phone. Somebody answers the phone immediately.

[Duchess of Stratosphear]

Ditto what others have said: coverage can suck in certain areas, but customer service is good. I will probably stay with them until this phone dies and then switch to another carrier with better service where I live.

[vhalros]

It's worth noting that they now have a GSM option (using T-mobile's network) in addition to Sprint's CDMA network. I don't know if coverage on that network is better overall, but it might be better in specific areas.

[RyanAtTanagra]

I think me and the wife are going to buy out our current iPhone 6 (s) from Verizon and start using TING.

Yes yes I know it's not very mustachian to use anything but coconuts for phones, but this should drop our phone bill from $150 a month to about $40-50 a month. If we practice good data usage habits the savings should pay for the phones in 9-12 months.

I'm wondering what other's experiences with TING have been like.

You can't take Verizon devices to Ting (unless this has changed, but check), just Sprint, or you can buy a device directly from them.

I've been using them for about 6 months now, no complaints.  My bill us $28-35/mo without even trying to control data usage.  I had been with Sprint since 1998, so don't have any problems w/ coverage since I guess I'm used to it.  If I'm somewhere without cell phone coverage, I'm there for that reason.

[FIRE me]

I've been with Ting for 3 years. My typical monthly bill is $11.11. That covers 100 voice minutes or less, no text, and typically no data (I use free Wi-Fi for data), and all taxes and fees. I'm real happy with them.

https://ting.com/rates

As already mentioned, be sure to check both Sprint and T-Mobile coverage maps to see which is better coverage for your locations.

http://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp?ECID=vanity:coverage#!/

http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html

Look before you leap if you intend to being your own phone. 

https://ting.com/byod

[wtjbatman]

I had transferred my Galaxy S3 from Sprint to Ting about a year and a half ago. Everything went smooth and worked great. A couple months ago I broke the screen on my GS3 and decided it was time for an upgrade. I wanted something that would last me a long time so I went all out.

It wasn't cheap or mustachian, but I ended up purchasing a Google Nexus 6 (unlocked GSM). The only extra thing I had to do was purchase a SIM card ($15 or so) from Ting, and I got my numbered ported over to the Nexus 6 and everything has been smooth sailing since. My average bill has gone up from $18 to $27 since buying the new phone, I believe because I've been using cellular data more often now than I used to with my old phone. I expect that usage to die down as time goes by, and the newness factor of my phone wears off.

[kpd905]

My wife and I have phones on Ting. Our bill is around $45 for both of us. We hardly use any data.  If you use data, Ting won't be a good deal for you.

We decided to get one phone on their Sprint network and one on their T-Mobile network just to increase our likelihood of having some coverage when we are in the middle of nowhere hiking and camping.

[Beaker]

I switched to Ting several months ago. It's been good, my bill is either $26 or $32/mo depending on data usage. They seem to be a great option if you don't use your phone that much.

Keeping under 100mb of data has been a bit tough for me, because I'm on call a lot and the on-call apps use data. I ended up going through most of my apps and disabling background cellular data, which mostly took care of the problem. I also stopped compulsively checking email, which I think is a good thing both for lifestyle and data usage.

I would like to get the wife onto Ting as well, but she likes her Verizon phone which isn't compatible. I signed her up for Verizon Prepaid for now. It's not nearly as cheap as the discount carriers ($45/mo) but it's cheaper than postpaid, is still a really generous plan (unlimited talk/text, 1GB data). More importantly, the switch took nothing but a phone call. So that might be a good stopgap solution if you get hung up on buying new phones or whatever.

[Brilliantine]

Umm.. What am I missing?

I've been with Airvoice Wireless 25 months now, since I read about it on MMM's blog.

I own my phone outright.

I bought a SIM card from them for $4.99.

I load $10 every month. I can use this for 250 minutes or 500 texts or 30MB data or any combination of these three.

Some months I have to load another $10. One moth I had to load a total of $30. In fact I just went into my receipts, in 25 months, I paid a total of $300 to Airvoice for minutes/texts/data which brings my average to $12/month.

They use the ATT infrastructure.

[kpd905]

Umm.. What am I missing?

I load $10 every month. I can use this for 250 minutes or 500 texts or 30MB data or any combination of these three.

100 minutes, 100 texts and 100 MB of data at Ting would cost $15.

or 100 minutes, 1,000 texts and no data would cost $14.

Seems pretty similar to what you're getting.

[Miranda]

I've been with Ting for years. They're great for people who don't use a ton. If you're a heavy user, especially with data, they won't save you money. Their customer service is awesome. They do use Sprint's network, but they also have free roaming. I've traveled many places where Sprint's network was not good, but as long as another network provided coverage I could roam for free.

I have my phone set with data off and use wifi most of the time. If I am someplace without it and need it, it's easy to turn on. I've never paid more than  $3 for data.