Hi all! My wife and I have had free cellphone service for the past few years through work but we're about to need to start paying for it ourselves. We both have 2 year old Galaxy S2 smartphones that were on AT&T's network. I'm quite happy with my phone but I'm not certain what direction to go in now. It seems I have three reallistic options:
1. Find a small carrier that uses the same bands as AT&T and switch service there - let's us keep our phones
2. Sell our phones (ebay around $100 each) and switch to another cheaper smartphone carrier (Republic?) - more options for potentially cheaper service
3. Sell our phones and get dumb phones
I've come to rely on having access to data. I use the GPS heavily for tacking busses and when traveling. I'm a vegan and use Google in grocery stores and when forced to eat out to look up ingredients. I also do a lot of class work on my phone in public locations which have sketchy wifi coverage. Wifi access is very poor where I live. I could, of course, live without a smartphone but I need a phone of some sort.
I don't know a whole lot about cellphone plans as I've never done the shopping for one myself. I could live with <300mb of data, I talk less than 100 minutes per month, and I use Google Voice for texting. My wife texts a ton but I suspect GV wouldn't be a problem for her once I show her how. She can cut down on her minites with Skype. For me, anything with data and a reliable dialtone will work.
We live in Tallahassee, FL. I'm not sure where to begin to compare plans. Feedback or suggestions wanted.