what is the absolute best deal(s) on unlimited cell phone plans?

[SparklyUnicorn]

for 2 users...title says it all

 

edited...with unlimited data too and not prepaid

 

 

Edited July 4, 2016 by SparklyUnicorn

[crazyforlatin]

Republic wireless without data. Both Dh and Dd have this unlimited plan for $10 per month each. With data it'll be more.

[Noreen Claire]

Republic wireless without data. Both Dh and Dd have this unlimited plan for $10 per month each. With data it'll be more.

 

I second Republic Wireless. I have the 0.5GB data package ($17.50/mo), and get a credit back each month for the data that I haven't used. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Oh darn.  See I meant with data too.  I don't know how this stuff works. 

[Lanny]

Data is the most expensive part of cell phone service.  We went to Prepaid service, because we were paying for a lot of capability that we were not using, with plans where they sent us a bill each month.  I forget the initials, but suggest that you look at the companies that are "Virtual" operators who do not own their own infrastructure.  Some of those, I believe, are actually owned by the carriers whose networks they use.  Unlimited Data I think would cost a lot of money, but possibly you can find a plan like that?

 

The next time we go to the USA (hopefully April 2017 for the Star Wars convention in Orlando) I am going to probably sign up in advance for US Mobile, which is Prepaid, for a couple of our phones.  I like the way they have a "Menu" and you select what you want, and you can change if you want to or need to.  That's Prepaid and you indicated you don't want prepaid. 

 

My impression, from the last time my wife and I went into the office of the largest provider here, is that they have a "Plan" for almost every day of the year, and the only people who really understand the different plans, are their employees.  We are doing better, having purchased phones that are "Unlocked" (Free) when they left the factory, not branded by a carrier, and then select our own plans, whether Prepaid or Pay every month.

 

Very confusing, whichever country one might live in.  Here are a couple of links that may get you started in the right direction:

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476684,00.asp

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/comparing-wireless-carrier-plans-us/

[Ailaena]

Iirc it ranges from $75 at sprint to $100ish with AT&T. If you're going to be tethering, there are usually limits.

 

That is per user, but second user sometimes gets discount.

 

 

Eta helpful link: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/utilities/best-unlimited-data-plans/

Edited July 4, 2016 by Ailaena

[MEmama]

We use Consumer Cellular. For $10 per line/month we get more cell time and data than we could ever use. You can build your own plan, and change it whenever you want (even within a billing cycle) without penalty. They use the AT&T network and have awesome consumer service.

[Dmmetler]

I have Virgin Mobile with unlimited everything for $35 a month on the Sprint network-great in cities, not so great outside of it. I put DD's PAYG phone on TracPhone because it uses T-Mobile here, and has better coverage in rural areas. 90% of the time, my phone is awesome, but it only took once getting lost in rural TN to decide I wanted more chance of being covered!

[Noreen Claire]

Oh darn.  See I meant with data too.  I don't know how this stuff works. 

 

Republic Wireless is built to run off of wifi. If you are in your house, Target, library, or any other place that provides wifi, the phone runs all calls/texts/etc off of the wifi, so you don't use any cell data. That's how they keep their prices so low. 

[Mabelen]

PagePlus cellular has great plans for Verizon phones. I have a $12.00 a month for text and voice and a little data. My college daughter uses the $39.99 plan and it works great for her. She has unlimited voice and text, first 3GB 4G, then 2G. You save if you sign up for automatic renewal but you can cancel any time with no penalties. We pay a lot less now for three users, all with text, voice and data than when we were with Verizon for 2 users, one just basic voice, the other limited text, voice and data.

[crazyforlatin]

I use Google Fi so if that is in your area I prefer that over Republic Wireless. It's $25 per month for unlimited calls and texts and 1 GB with money back on any unused data. I like the Google integration but not everyone does.

[DawnM]

Why do you need unlimited data on your phone?  How much do you actually NEED?

 

I don't think plans offer true unlimited data anymore.  Some say they do, but they throttle after a certain amount.

[crazyforlatin]

That's true, Dawn, unlimited data is for people who really are on the road a lot.

 

I think OP should choose a plan that gives back money on unused data. Google and RW both switch to wifi where it's available.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Iirc it ranges from $75 at sprint to $100ish with AT&T. If you're going to be tethering, there are usually limits.

 

That is per user, but second user sometimes gets discount.

 

 

Eta helpful link: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/utilities/best-unlimited-data-plans/

 

what is tethering?

[SparklyUnicorn]

Why do you need unlimited data on your phone?  How much do you actually NEED?

 

I don't think plans offer true unlimited data anymore.  Some say they do, but they throttle after a certain amount.

 

Well I wondered if we could replace our internet/phone with this, but no after reading around it's not that great.  So this is probably not something I want.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Republic Wireless is built to run off of wifi. If you are in your house, Target, library, or any other place that provides wifi, the phone runs all calls/texts/etc off of the wifi, so you don't use any cell data. That's how they keep their prices so low. 

 

Huh, well that is interesting.

[scoutingmom]

Boy phone rates are cheap in the States!

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[SparklyUnicorn]

Boy phone rates are cheap in the States!

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

 

I think they are ridiculously expensive.

[Ailaena]

what is tethering?

 

Tethering is when you use your phone as a hotspot. Like, other people can use you for wifi, or you can run some other device wirelessly using your data. Most places have a limit of 3ish gb/mo. AT&T doesn't let me do it with my unlimited plan at all. Throttling usually starts at around 20gb.

 

Also, like everyone is saying, most people don't need unlimited data. I roll around town in the car using Pandora and YouTube, play hearthstone, and pretty much do everything ever without wifi and barely use 4/5 gb. My daughter, however, snaps tons of videos and uses Pandora and sometimes YouTube and uses 8-10gb.

[Night Elf]

Republic Wireless is built to run off of wifi. If you are in your house, Target, library, or any other place that provides wifi, the phone runs all calls/texts/etc off of the wifi, so you don't use any cell data. That's how they keep their prices so low. 

 

I don't know what this means. Does it mean the phone literally only works with a wifi connection? What if you're in your car? The most important reason I carry a cell phone with me is if my car has a flat tire or breaks down. I'm terrified of getting stuck on the side of the road at the mercy of strangers. What if no one stops to help? What if they do? yikes!

[whitestavern]

Tethering is when you use your phone as a hotspot. Like, other people can use you for wifi, or you can run some other device wirelessly using your data. Most places have a limit of 3ish gb/mo. AT&T doesn't let me do it with my unlimited plan at all. Throttling usually starts at around 20gb.

 

Also, like everyone is saying, most people don't need unlimited data. I roll around town in the car using Pandora and YouTube, play hearthstone, and pretty much do everything ever without wifi and barely use 4/5 gb. My daughter, however, snaps tons of videos and uses Pandora and sometimes YouTube and uses 8-10gb.

That's odd. We have AT&T and I tether quite a bit. We have crappy internet service at home and it stops at my door. So anytime I'm outside I tether my iPad to my phone. We have 4 people on our plan--it's not unlimited data, but we never hit our limit. Dd is a heavy user but still uses our home service most of the time.

 

We've been looking around and may switch to Cricket. It's AT&T's budget service and so far for us it's coming out the least expensive, about $100 a month. We own all our phones.

[Noreen Claire]

I don't know what this means. Does it mean the phone literally only works with a wifi connection? What if you're in your car? The most important reason I carry a cell phone with me is if my car has a flat tire or breaks down. I'm terrified of getting stuck on the side of the road at the mercy of strangers. What if no one stops to help? What if they do? yikes!

 

The phone *prefers* to work on wifi, and is preset to smell out the wifi, if it can find it. (If wifi is free, then it saves money this way.) When I'm in the car, or somewhere else that doesn't have wifi, the phone switches over to cell service. All calls/texts are free, and I use my data if I do things like search the web, use twitter, or use my gps. 

 

The phone works everywhere, all the time - it switches seamlessly back and forth between wifi and cell to be the most cost-effective it can be. Sorry I was confusing before!

Edited July 5, 2016 by Noreen Claire

[Lanny]

Over the years, I've read, more than once, that a higher percentage of people with Prepaid service are happier with their service/plan, than those who get a statement from their provider each month.  When we had PostPay service, every year, our provider increased our monthly charge, and also the amount of minutes we could talk. We never used that many minutes. Since changing to Prepaid, we have saved (total for 2 phones, my wife and me) hundreds of dollars. Probably several thousand dollars.  I think we switched to Prepaid in approximately 2009.  There was an issue when we had Post Pay service, with the phone I'd gotten from our Provider, in a bundle, which they don't do these days. The phone had an issue (White Screen of Death) which I learned was very common, after they sent it to Bogota for Service, because they didn't have service in Cali, as they'd always had before. They told me it could not be fixed. I paid them, got my phone back, and reinstalled the Firmware from a web site on the Internet, for  about USD$8.  That phone was in use for several years after that.  The ONLY time they really had interest in us was when we cancelled the contracts. "But you've had service for years, you are long term customers".  That certainly got us no help with the phone that had an issue. My contract was set to renew, a month after the problem with their "Service" for my cell phone and my wife's contract was set to renew a month or two after that. Cancelling was a huge pain and we had to    talk with more than one person, to get them to cancel our contracts.

 

Now, we go into a large superstore in Colombia (Alkosto) where they have a large selection  (about 110 models usually) of phones that left the factory unlocked, not branded for some provider, and we can use them with whichever carrier we want to. When my wife bought a new Motorola Turbo phone at the end of January, she signed up for Virgin Mobile, which runs on the network of Movistar, the 2nd largest provider in Colombia.  The next week, I bought a phone and had my cell phone number "ported" to Virgin Mobile.  When I log into the Google App store, it shows my phone is on Movistar.  Movistar has a tower about one block from our house. 

 

I told my wife about this thread last night and that I'd written the providers probably have a cell phone plan for almost every day of the year and that none of their customers has a possibility of knowing which of those plans is best for them. She agreed with me. And, about how great it is that we can increase or decrease the capability we need, with Virgin Mobile, without any problems, if and when we need to.

 

The articles I linked to yesterday can hopefully point one to providers who have plans that are easier to understand.

[Laura Corin]

Boy phone rates are cheap in the States!

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

 

I was thinking how expensive they are!  We run four phones for £42 (about USD 55) per month.  Three of them have 750mb of data, the fourth has 1.25 GB.  I think we have 500 minutes of speech and 5,000 texts included on each. 

 

I suspect having a concentrated population helps.  The UK also standardised on a different technology - I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

[Ailaena]

That's odd. We have AT&T and I tether quite a bit.

It's just my plan that doesn't allow me to do it. I'm on the grandfathered-in, ultra-cheap, unlimited plan and they hate me for not yet upgrading to the Nextplan, or whatever it's called ;)

Edited July 5, 2016 by Ailaena

[Caroline]

That's odd. We have AT&T and I tether quite a bit. We have crappy internet service at home and it stops at my door. So anytime I'm outside I tether my iPad to my phone. We have 4 people on our plan--it's not unlimited data, but we never hit our limit. Dd is a heavy user but still uses our home service most of the time.

 

We've been looking around and may switch to Cricket. It's AT&T's budget service and so far for us it's coming out the least expensive, about $100 a month. We own all our phones.

I tether with AT&T, too, because I'm on a limited data plan, but rarely come close to using it. But my DH is still on the unlimited plan (we have been with AT&T since they took over Cingular) from when we first got iPhones the day they came out. DH cannot tether.

[DawnM]

Well I wondered if we could replace our internet/phone with this, but no after reading around it's not that great.  So this is probably not something I want.

 

 

If you plan to teather or use your phone as a hotspot, the pre-paid don't allow this, so that won't work unless you want to do 100% of your internet stuff ON your actual phone device.

[DawnM]

I was thinking how expensive they are!  We run four phones for £42 (about USD 55) per month.  Three of them have 750mb of data, the fourth has 1.25 GB.  I think we have 500 minutes of speech and 5,000 texts included on each. 

 

I suspect having a concentrated population helps.  The UK also standardised on a different technology - I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

 

 

You can get that here with services like Page Plus on their $12 each phone per month plan.

 

But I talk WAY MORE than 500 min. per month.   

 

And we use far more data.

 

We have 5 phones and a tablet on our AT&T plan.  We have unlimited talk and text, plus 15gb of data, with 10gb rollover.  

 

We pay right around $100 plus tax (after DH's work pays his portion and he gets 25% off the plan)

 

We do have to buy our own phones.

[BlsdMama]

We used AT&T and used our phones as a hotspot.  Even without trying things like Netflix through the BluRay we were near maxing out our 30-40 gb of data every month.  And it was wicked expensive (usually around $300 with taxes, five phones, etc.) 

 

We're under $2oo/mo now but it's because we found rural internet service that is unlimited.  We did not find it reasonable to use our cells as replacement for internet.  I couldn't find unlimited data that wasn't eventually throttled for speed and it was wildly expensive.

 

 

[DawnM]

DH works from home 3 days per week and is on the work server all day.  My oldest son is a gamer and is in the game development program at his community college.

 

We average 200gb to 300gb every month on our HOME network.

 

No way we could do just phones.

 

My middle son commuted to school over 30 min each way last school year and would go online the way there and the way back, so he used about 7gb of data.  Now, he would have been fine had we told him he couldn't, but since we had it, we told him he could use up to 7gb per month and he had his phone set to track how much he used.

[Laura Corin]

You can get that here with services like Page Plus on their $12 each phone per month plan.

 

But I talk WAY MORE than 500 min. per month.   

 

And we use far more data.

 

 

I guess we're not that chatty!  I only have to buy more talk minutes when there's some kind of family crisis going on (someone in hospital, for example).  We don't use that much data because we have wifi at home, at school and at work, so most of the time our data needs are covered by that (which kicks in automatically).

 

[MEmama]

The phone *prefers* to work on wifi, and is preset to smell out the wifi, if it can find it. (If wifi is free, then it saves money this way.) When I'm in the car, or somewhere else that doesn't have wifi, the phone switches over to cell service. All calls/texts are free, and I use my data if I do things like search the web, use twitter, or use my gps.

 

The phone works everywhere, all the time - it switches seamlessly back and forth between wifi and cell to be the most cost-effective it can be. Sorry I was confusing before!

Isn't this just a function of all cell phones? Or can you not turn it off? I never connect to unknown wifi, for security purposes. You might save data minutes but you are risking your privacy. It's pretty unreal how quickly you can be hacked on public servers.

[Farrar]

Step one: Go back in time.

Step two: Get an AT&T unlimited plan back when using data on cellphones was new and everyone thought it was way overpriced.

Step three: Never, ever drop the plan. Watch yourself be grandfathered in past every change.

Step four: Stream way too much stuff. Laugh maniacally when others bemoan their data limits.

 

Assuming you don't have a time machine, I have no clue.

 

(Sparkly, I'm assuming you won't take offense at this tongue in cheek advice, which I would not give to everyone here...)

 

 

[scoutingmom]

I think they are ridiculously expensive.

Not compared to Canada...

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[Lanny]

I paid, in the supermarket, awhile ago, for my wife's Virgin Mobile prepaid cell service. At today's exchange rate, I paid approximately USD $12.00.  That gives her up to 1 GB of Data, 150 minutes of Talk and 50 SMS messages.  This is in Colombia.

 

She also has a SIM for another carrier in her phone, as I do in mine.   Basically, we have that level of Data we can use if we are out of the house and need  to use Data.  The big thing for us is that if there were a disaster with our ADSL,  I could go to the supermarket and pay for a bunch of Data and DD could continue with her studies.     IMO the flexibility we have here in Colombia, or that one would have with US Mobile or another carrier in the states, being able to select a plan like that, or a "cafeteria" plan, like on US Mobile is a big plus.  Flexibility is not something one gets with a plan where they are on contract and receive an Invoice from the cell provider each month.

 

Android phones can be used either for Tethering one phone to provide Data to another phone, or as a "WiFi Hotspot" where several phones can connect at the same time.  

 

For Apps, surfing, etc., Android phones will always default to WiFi (assuming it is enabled) before they consume Data.

 

For myself, I usually pay Virgin Mobile about USD$6.75 a month and I have up to 550 MB Data, 70 minutes Talk, and 10 SMS messages. I have a SIM for another carrier that I use for SMS messages and my backup carrier.

 

When my wife went out of town in June, I paid for more credit on her cell services. Don't pay for more than what you actually use. That's what we were doing, for years, when we had plans where our cell provider sent us an Invoice every month...

 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Step one: Go back in time.

Step two: Get an AT&T unlimited plan back when using data on cellphones was new and everyone thought it was way overpriced.

Step three: Never, ever drop the plan. Watch yourself be grandfathered in past every change.

Step four: Stream way too much stuff. Laugh maniacally when others bemoan their data limits.

 

Assuming you don't have a time machine, I have no clue.

 

(Sparkly, I'm assuming you won't take offense at this tongue in cheek advice, which I would not give to everyone here...)

 

Sounds a lot like what happened with us and our T-mobile pre paid.  Basically we can carry over unused minutes forever so long as we $10 worth of minutes once per year.  We have some of the original minutes from when we got the phone oh ten years ago.  That is how little we use it.  They no longer offer that, but allow us to continue with it. 

 

But there is no data or anything.  This is just phone. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

If you plan to teather or use your phone as a hotspot, the pre-paid don't allow this, so that won't work unless you want to do 100% of your internet stuff ON your actual phone device.

 

no no...I'd get a regular phone...not a prepaid

 

but again, this is not as good as it sounds for what I was hoping it would do

[SparklyUnicorn]

in terms of phone calls is concerned I don't make any phone calls.  I have the prepaid only for emergencies or when someone expect me to give them a cell number.  I was thinking some sort of configuration could replace our home phone and Internet, but that does not seem to be the case.

 

 

[Noreen Claire]

Isn't this just a function of all cell phones? Or can you not turn it off? I never connect to unknown wifi, for security purposes. You might save data minutes but you are risking your privacy. It's pretty unreal how quickly you can be hacked on public servers.

 

It is set to run this way to be less expensive. You can turn it off, on this phone and on any other phone, but the way Republic Wireless runs is to use wifi for all calls/data/texts as first choice. Most other phones DO NOT run their calls/texts off of wifi, just the data. That's where Republic Wireless is different.

 

I'm not concerned about being hacked. Their have been no known instances of this happening to RW customers, as far as I know.

[TranquilMind]

Why do you need unlimited data on your phone?  How much do you actually NEED?

 

I don't think plans offer true unlimited data anymore.  Some say they do, but they throttle after a certain amount.

 

I still have it, but it costs through the nose.  I am positive that the moment I cancel it, data needs will increase exponentially.