Help with a phone plan

[Cwadda]

Hi all,

I have an IPhone 5. My mother has an IPhone 5 as well. We pay a ridiculous amount of money for AT&T (facepunch plz). The contract for AT&T is finally expired for the two of us (facepunch again). We are interested in keeping our current phones for a long time, until they no longer work.

What is a good phone plan to switch to? We are located in CT, I'm not sure if that'd influence anything. We use calling, texting, and a bit of data.

[geekette]

Have you looked through the guide?

I am quite happy with the $10 plan with Airvoice, but they have other plans as well.

[Spork]

as mentioned, IP's guide is the one stop shop.  Since you mentioned AT&T, I'll also say I have so far been happy with Consumer Cellular (which rides on AT&Ts network).  I am only on month 3 or 4... so take that with a grain of salt.  2 people with voice, text and data -- currently running $40 a month.  We keep tweaking the plan based on usage (and they'll let you do that seemingly as often as you like) and may get that lower as we get a better idea of our average usage.

[an1m3n00b]

Go with basically any prepaid plan. They're all about the same (except verizon for some reason). My ATT prepaid plan is $40/mo for unlimited everything (1.5GB data until they throttle). They also have a $30/mo plan without data. And I believe they still do pay as you go, which you should consider if you don't use your phone much. I'm not sure who in their right mind still goes with contract phones anymore now that prepaid phones and plans are so much cheaper... Probably the same people who still have landlines and cable TV.

[catccc]

Another vote for airvoice's $10 plan, if you can live with no or minimal data.  I think you really need to look at some usage data to determine if the $10 plan is sufficient.  But they have other reasonably priced plans, too.

[Scandium]

Go with basically any prepaid plan. They're all about the same (except verizon for some reason). My ATT prepaid plan is $40/mo for unlimited everything (1.5GB data until they throttle). They also have a $30/mo plan without data. And I believe they still do pay as you go, which you should consider if you don't use your phone much. I'm not sure who in their right mind still goes with contract phones anymore now that prepaid phones and plans are so much cheaper... Probably the same people who still have landlines and cable TV.

Good advice, but those prices don't sound that great though

My preference, based on my usage, is the 500 MB plan with unlimited talk/text from H2O for $27/month
https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/mainControl.php?page=planMonth
Maybe I could save some with the $10 plan from airvoice but I couldn't be bothered to count my minutes and pay per text.. Call me lazy

If you need more data the $35 plan from cricket (owned by AT&T even) will give you 2.5GB
https://www.cricketwireless.com/cell-phone-plans

[an1m3n00b]

Go with basically any prepaid plan. They're all about the same (except verizon for some reason). My ATT prepaid plan is $40/mo for unlimited everything (1.5GB data until they throttle). They also have a $30/mo plan without data. And I believe they still do pay as you go, which you should consider if you don't use your phone much. I'm not sure who in their right mind still goes with contract phones anymore now that prepaid phones and plans are so much cheaper... Probably the same people who still have landlines and cable TV.

Good advice, but those prices don't sound that great though

My preference, based on my usage, is the 500 MB plan with unlimited talk/text from H2O for $27/month
https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/mainControl.php?page=planMonth
Maybe I could save some with the $10 plan from airvoice but I couldn't be bothered to count my minutes and pay per text.. Call me lazy

If you need more data the $35 plan from cricket (owned by AT&T even) will give you 2.5GB
https://www.cricketwireless.com/cell-phone-plans

Hmmm. I'm guessing since Cricket is owned by ATT they MVNO through ATTs network? (important because only att works at my job) Might be worth getting an unlock code... $5 less for 1GB more through the same company... what's the catch lol?

[Daley]

Hmmm. I'm guessing since Cricket is owned by ATT they MVNO through ATTs network? (important because only att works at my job) Might be worth getting an unlock code... $5 less for 1GB more through the same company... what's the catch lol?

Crappy, nickel and dimed customer service. Learn to live on less data and spend your money supporting a higher quality, independent AT&T MVNO instead. MVNOs aren't given or provided equal access/pricing to the parent networks in this country, yet their prepaid, wholesale resale model and pricing is what's helped force the primary carriers to get more competitive price-wise. Now the major carriers are trying to poach back the customers they lost and drive their own wholesale customers out of business with the lure of ridiculous amounts of "cheap" data that most people don't even realistically approach using. What do you think will happen to these "cheaper" mobile prices from the major carriers like AT&T in a deregulated market once the wholesale competition goes under because they can't compete on the cost of data with greedy customers who care more about quantity than quality?

My preference, based on my usage, is the 500 MB plan with unlimited talk/text from H2O for $27/month

Airvoice is still the best independent AT&T MVNO deal available. Between the $20/month "unlimited" talk and text with 100MB of data and $30/month "unlimited" talk and text with 1GB of data (half throttled), they've got H2O beat again by small margins.

[Scandium]

Hmmm. I'm guessing since Cricket is owned by ATT they MVNO through ATTs network? (important because only att works at my job) Might be worth getting an unlock code... $5 less for 1GB more through the same company... what's the catch lol?

Crappy, nickel and dimed customer service. Learn to live on less data and spend your money supporting a higher quality, independent AT&T MVNO instead. MVNOs aren't given or provided equal access/pricing to the parent networks in this country, yet their prepaid, wholesale resale model and pricing is what's helped force the primary carriers to get more competitive price-wise. Now the major carriers are trying to poach back the customers they lost and drive their own wholesale customers out of business with the lure of ridiculous amounts of "cheap" data that most people don't even realistically approach using. What do you think will happen to these "cheaper" mobile prices from the major carriers like AT&T in a deregulated market once the wholesale competition goes under because they can't compete on the cost of data with greedy customers who care more about quantity than quality?

My preference, based on my usage, is the 500 MB plan with unlimited talk/text from H2O for $27/month

Airvoice is still the best independent AT&T MVNO deal available. Between the $20/month "unlimited" talk and text with 100MB of data and $30/month "unlimited" talk and text with 1GB of data (half throttled), they've got H2O beat again by small margins.

Just FYI I agree with you on the politics/consumer advocacy of avoiding the big 3-4. I just mentioned options.

Airvoice plans might be a better deal $/gb, but for the amount of vocie/text/data I use (yes; want to use, not need) H2O at $27 is the right amount for the lowest price. And I find customer service is ok.

[Daley]

Just FYI I agree with you on the politics/consumer advocacy of avoiding the big 3-4. I just mentioned options.

I figured, but Animenoob wanted to know the catch... I laid the catch out for 'em.

Airvoice plans might be a better deal $/gb, but for the amount of vocie/text/data I use (yes; want to use, not need) H2O at $27 is the right amount for the lowest price. And I find customer service is ok.

I don't disagree and I wouldn't recommend you switch (especially if you're happy), but plans on this end are all beating by small margins between the MVNOs. I was just pointing out on the general rule of thumb. People should still price compare between the better MVNOs to make sure they get the right package for their needs.

[an1m3n00b]

Just FYI I agree with you on the politics/consumer advocacy of avoiding the big 3-4. I just mentioned options.

I figured, but Animenoob wanted to know the catch... I laid the catch out for 'em.

Airvoice plans might be a better deal $/gb, but for the amount of vocie/text/data I use (yes; want to use, not need) H2O at $27 is the right amount for the lowest price. And I find customer service is ok.

I don't disagree and I wouldn't recommend you switch (especially if you're happy), but plans on this end are all beating by small margins between the MVNOs. I was just pointing out on the general rule of thumb. People should still price compare between the better MVNOs to make sure they get the right package for their needs.

If only I could cure my data addiction that $20 airvoice plan looks pretty attractive...

Also, $0.02 regarding regulation and MVNOs:
I'm guessing that the only reason MVNOs exist is due to FCC CLEC access requirements for telcos. However, it's also entirely the FCCs fault that there are only 3.5 real carriers in the country - due to the way it auctions off bandwidth behind shady insider deals and closed doors. lots of bribing and kickbacks are a guarantee in government - business interactions of that scale.

Although I suppose I should be glad this isn't Canada, cell phone rates are ridiculous there.

[Daley]

If only I could cure my data addiction that $20 airvoice plan looks pretty attractive...

Start here for some lateral thinking on the subject to reduce usage.

Also, $0.02 regarding regulation and MVNOs:
I'm guessing that the only reason MVNOs exist is due to FCC CLEC access requirements for telcos. However, it's also entirely the FCCs fault that there are only 3.5 real carriers in the country - due to the way it auctions off bandwidth behind shady insider deals and closed doors. lots of bribing and kickbacks are a guarantee in government - business interactions of that scale.

It's not even entirely quite that (the PSTN LEC regulations don't impact mobile network regulation as much as you might think), the MVNOs in this country solely exist due to the available wholesale bulk pricing for airtime on the networks. Mobile prices are literally just so expensive in direct consumer sales that it is actually cheaper to introduce a middle man reseller with markup to split out costs into more reasonable price points... and they still make money doing so. It used to be, the MVNOs weren't really denting the bottom line, but now they are. Intro the big four undercutting their wholesale prices with in-house boutique brands. Unfortunately, as there's no safeguards or fair access and pricing to the network...

...intro cronyism and everything else you namechecked.