We need to get new phones and perhaps a new carrier

[Halftime Hope]

We've been with AT&T.  Don't need to continue overpaying. 

What are options have you been happy with?  I need absolute reliability, and no customer service hassles. We use about 6GB of data on our phone between two of us, and don't want to deal with data slow-downs/throttling (not sure that's the right terminology.) . 

Thank you!

[Katy]

We use Verizon, but it isn’t cheap. I also really liked T-Mobile, but it doesn’t have as good of coverage in rural areas. 

[whitestavern]

We just left AT&T for T Mobile. Got 4 free iPhone 13s, a $200 Visa card per new line, free Netflix on all, and it’s $100 less per month than what we were paying with AT&T. No brainer. 

[Lecka]

Mint Mobile is working well for us.  There are various things we don’t need in a cell service now that my husband no longer travels for work.  
 

The base plan is for 4GB/month.  

[Kanin]

My friend uses Tracfone and gets great Verizon service. She pays something like $10 or $20 per month, and she's got some kind of Samsung smartphone. She swears by it! We're going to switch to Tracfone ASAP. 

[Bambam]

We do prepaid here. 
Kids have two lines with Hello Mobile (TMobile) - $25 a month for two lines, I think, 2 GB/user. 
I use Republic Wireless. 1GB Date/$20 month. This is looking more iffy since DISH bought them and things don't seem to be going as well (also, new customer rates are high)
DH uses Tracfone. He doesn't use his phone much, so it is a good solution for him.
I'm considering GoogleFi next time. When I looked about a month ago, they would give you $500 toward a new phone if you were a totally new customer and ported over your old phone number. A friend's husband uses it and is happy with it. 

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bambam

[mum]

I recommend Consumer Cellular. It has top notch 100% US based customer service. We have had help with everything from new phone, to SIM cards for international travel. We pay $45 a month for 2 lines and more data than we use-and we do use a fair bit of data. It uses AT&T towers, and then T mobile. No slowing with increased data use. No variation in the price. No hidden fees. No penalties for using more data, they just charge you for the next tier that month if you go over your current tier. It is by FAR the simplest, most transparent mobile phone company I've dealt with. And I have never had a place I didn't get coverage, and I travel coast to coast (but not super rurally).

[Corraleno]

DS and I have cheap prepaid plans with ATT — it works out to $25/month for 8 GB of data, but it's prepaid annually ($300). If you occasionally need more than that, you can add extra data through the app, but I've never needed more than 8 GB, even when traveling (but I don't stream movies on my phone or anything like that).

[Tree Frog]

2 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

DS and I have cheap prepaid plans with ATT — it works out to $25/month for 8 GB of data, but it's prepaid annually ($300). If you occasionally need more than that, you can add extra data through the app, but I've never needed more than 8 GB, even when traveling (but I don't stream movies on my phone or anything like that).

They recently offered a $25/month, paid annually ($300), for 16 gb if you handled everything online. We looked into switching, but had some problems and chose not to. We are staying with Verizon for now, but might switch to T Mobile as it is supposed to be less expensive and have good coverage in the areas we travel.

Dh and I just got new unlocked phones. He got a Motorola G5 Stylus 5G and I got a OnePlus 9 Pro 5G. I think we're both pretty happy with our phones, but OnePlus doesn't play nicely with Verizon's 5G. T Mobile would be better for my phone. 

[Pawz4me]

You may be asking for personal experiences, but I'll post this just in case it's helpful -- Clark Howard is usually a very good source for info on cell phone plans

[LauraClark]

We've been using Republic wireless for a few years and have been pretty happy until recently. Once we can find the time we're going to switch to Tello.

[mom31257]

We use Verizon and have excellent coverage. There are a couple spots I know of that are far out from towns where we have no service. We pass through them to a couple places we like to visit. They are very small areas, though. 

We do paperless and autopay, and unlimited service is $35 a month on each phone. We have my dad's iPad on there for $20 a month unlimited. We also have a jet pack at his house for $20 a month because he had no internet service at all. 

We were given a free phone or discounts when we added lines, but we don't get free phones on our existing lines. 

[LuvToRead]

We use Total Wireless which uses Verizon towers.  4 phones, 100 shared gbs of data, $106/month ($100 for the services, $6 in taxes).  A 2 line plan is $57 (plus probably $3 in taxes?) and you share 30 gbs of data before throttling.  We've been happy with me.

When we switched from Verizon years ago, the first thing I did was research which pay as you go plans used Verizon towers (that's all we have where I live)  So I would recommend deciding which towers to use first, then look at pay as you go plans.

 

[TravelingChris]

13 hours ago, Katy said:

We use Verizon, but it isn’t cheap. I also really liked T-Mobile, but it doesn’t have as good of coverage in rural areas. 

That is why we have kept Verizon so far.  

[kirstenhill]

We use Google Fi and have been happy with it. I feel like the price is good and generally I have better coverage than I did with TMobile a number of years ago.  One thing I like about it is built in Wi-Fi calling/texting.  My MIL lives in what is basically a cell phone dead zone, but has pretty good internet now.  I used to not be able to do any calls or texts at her house, but with Google Fi I can due to the wifi calling/texting ability. 

[Tree Frog]

2 hours ago, mom31257 said:

We use Verizon and have excellent coverage. There are a couple spots I know of that are far out from towns where we have no service. We pass through them to a couple places we like to visit. They are very small areas, though. 

We do paperless and autopay, and unlimited service is $35 a month on each phone. We have my dad's iPad on there for $20 a month unlimited. We also have a jet pack at his house for $20 a month because he had no internet service at all. 

We were given a free phone or discounts when we added lines, but we don't get free phones on our existing lines. 

Is your Verizon pre pay or post pay? We pay nearly $50/line and would love to drop it to $35!

[Pawz4me]

40 minutes ago, Tree Frog said:

Is your Verizon pre pay or post pay? We pay nearly $50/line and would love to drop it to $35!

Ours is $35 per line for unlimited cell service except for my phone, which is $45 because I also have unlimited hot spot usage. We pay monthly, autopay, paperless.

[J-rap]

13 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

Ours is $35 per line for unlimited cell service except for my phone, which is $45 because I also have unlimited hot spot usage. We pay monthly, autopay, paperless.

We have Verizon and pay about $35 per line for unlimited cell service too.  We have 8 family members on our plan.  Somehow, the plan originally allowed one phone to have hot spot usage without an extra charge, so I chose mine.  😏   I don't know if the hot spot usage is unlimited, but it's always been enough so I've never bothered to find out!

[Lady Florida.]

We're happy with AT&T. Well, as happy as you can be with any cell phone provider. We pay $50 per line (3 lines), unlimited data, unlimited hot spot usage, and free HBO Max. I've learned over the years that with AT&T you might have what was their best deal at one time, but if they have a better deal the only way you'll find out is if you look into it.

I really think your choice should be based on the type of service you'll get with a particular carrier. When we first moved here 2 years ago we looked into switching carriers. I decided I'm not willing to pay Verizon prices especially since the service isn't better than AT&T. I looked into TMobile but was told by many people here that the service stinks. My cousin lives 1-1/2 hours away and has great service with TMobile. While Iooking into different carriers I learned we can get a better AT&T deal than the one we had. As I said above, they won't tell you about deals if they can continue to get more money from you.

Bottom line - look at the cost but also consider the service you'll get for your money.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Lady Florida.

[Pawz4me]

2 minutes ago, J-rap said:

We have Verizon and pay about $35 per line for unlimited cell service too.  We have 8 family members on our plan.  Somehow, the plan originally allowed one phone to have hot spot usage without an extra charge, so I chose mine.  😏   I don't know if the hot spot usage is unlimited, but it's always been enough so I've never bothered to find out!

We just upgraded to unlimited earlier this year, mainly because our adult sons (who are on our family plan but pay their portion) kept going over whatever our former data limit per line was. Hot spot usage under our old plan was free, though. Even with the unlimited plan and paying extra for one hot spot now the deal to upgrade was so good that we're paying less than we were for the older plan with limited data. Plus we got a super, super good deal on new phones.

Cell phone plans are so confusing, and no doubt that's on purpose!

[Tree Frog]

27 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

Ours is $35 per line for unlimited cell service except for my phone, which is $45 because I also have unlimited hot spot usage. We pay monthly, autopay, paperless.

 

8 minutes ago, J-rap said:

We have Verizon and pay about $35 per line for unlimited cell service too.  We have 8 family members on our plan.  Somehow, the plan originally allowed one phone to have hot spot usage without an extra charge, so I chose mine.  😏   I don't know if the hot spot usage is unlimited, but it's always been enough so I've never bothered to find out!

I just looked at our bill 2 months ago. (We had a problem last month, so it's not an accurate month. It should be accurate again next month.) Looks like we are paying $25/line (corporate discount), but have a $42 plan charge. Our bill comes out to around $100/month for 2 lines. I find the bill confusing to read. Do you also pay for a plan or is it included in your line charge? I find the fees and charges confusing.

[J-rap]

5 minutes ago, Tree Frog said:

 

I just looked at our bill 2 months ago. (We had a problem last month, so it's not an accurate month. It should be accurate again next month.) Looks like we are paying $25/line (corporate discount), but have a $42 plan charge. Our bill comes out to around $100/month for 2 lines. I find the bill confusing to read. Do you also pay for a plan or is it included in your line charge? I find the fees and charges confusing.

Our plan used to have a flat plan charge that included one phone, and then every additional line was an added on fee.  In recent years they've changed it, and now there is no plan charge, or rather, it's built into each line fee.  So there's no additional fee beyond the $35 per line, besides taxes, etc.  It did require a minimum number of lines to bring it down to that cost...maybe 4 or more?

[City Mouse]

It would probably be helpful to ask people who live in your area.

Where I live, ATT has the best coverage, so any of the other providers who use ATT towers have decent coverage. I accidentally bought a pay-as-you-go hot spot that uses Verizon towers and that is practically useless at my house. However, There is one particular place in our state where there are only Verizon towers, so if I lived there I would consider changing providers. 

[Pawz4me]

6 minutes ago, Tree Frog said:

 

I just looked at our bill 2 months ago. (We had a problem last month, so it's not an accurate month. It should be accurate again next month.) Looks like we are paying $25/line (corporate discount), but have a $42 plan charge. Our bill comes out to around $100/month for 2 lines. I find the bill confusing to read. Do you also pay for a plan or is it included in your line charge? I find the fees and charges confusing.

No, we don't have a plan charge, it's included in our line charge. Our total cost right now is $242.92 for four lines, but that includes payments on phones. Without the phone costs our bill would be about $170 for four lines. Their bills are super confusing to me, too.

[J-rap]

12 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

We just upgraded to unlimited earlier this year, mainly because our adult sons (who are on our family plan but pay their portion) kept going over whatever our former data limit per line was. Hot spot usage under our old plan was free, though. Even with the unlimited plan and paying extra for one hot spot now the deal to upgrade was so good that we're paying less than we were for the older plan with limited data. Plus we got a super, super good deal on new phones.

Cell phone plans are so confusing, and no doubt that's on purpose!

I agree it's confusing!  And it seems like whenever I call them with a question, they just happen to have another plan available they can switch ours to that's a little better.  They seem to be switching things around all the time.  My dd who lives abroad can't get over the high cost of cell phone plans here compared to Europe.  

[gardenmom5]

We've had verizon - good service, expensive

T-mobile for a weekend - it didn't work in dh's office - and we are close to their US headquarters!  

Currently have xfinity which we got on a special deal.  (uses verizon towers).  Not sure what their current new customer rates are, but we needed to expand and add a phone and the guy at the xfinity store was commenting on how cheap our plan was. (plenty of gigs for six people.)

1ds and 2ds had had Ting (as did dudeling up until we put him on our plan), which worked for them until it was cheaper for everyone to do xfinity. uses verizon towers.

Edited August 21, 2022 by gardenmom5

[mom31257]

2 hours ago, Tree Frog said:

Is your Verizon pre pay or post pay? We pay nearly $50/line and would love to drop it to $35!

We do paperless billing and auto pay out of our checking. It's not a prepaid type plan, if that is what you mean. We used to pay that until we did those two things and went to unlimited. For some reason it was cheaper than paying for smaller amounts of data. We have 4 phones plus the iPad and jet pack, so I don't know if the number of lines helps the price, too. 

[Ann.without.an.e]

23 hours ago, whitestavern said:

We just left AT&T for T Mobile. Got 4 free iPhone 13s, a $200 Visa card per new line, free Netflix on all, and it’s $100 less per month than what we were paying with AT&T. No brainer. 

Where do I find this deal 😂

[kbutton]

We've been Tracfone users for years and have been extremely happy. We have three phones through them, all purchased at various times. None of us have a plan--we get 365 day service cards and add things a la carte, but they have a TON of options for how you want to handle your service. 

[Ellie]

We've been with Verizon for, gosh, almost 20 years, and we've been satisfied.

[whitestavern]

1 hour ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

Where do I find this deal 😂

https://www.t-mobile.com/?gbraid=0AAAAAD79WuXGtJszAKimZfu9Eduh-b1ve&&cmpid=MGPO_PB_P_EVGRNBHV_43700070651103757_593938944718&gbraid=0AAAAAD79WuXGtJszAKimZfu9Eduh-b1ve&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyMCRr5TZ-QIVoQiICR1ejASVEAAYASAAEgJQHvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
 

We just went in and they gave us all the details. The link above doesn’t mention the $200 per line Visa card but I’d definitely ask about it and/or other current promo deals. 

[Tap]

You really have to look at what has the best coverage for your area. Here it is Verizon but i was just in a city that Att is the better choice and while rare, Tmobile has some great coverage sometimes. 
 

Some 3rd party programs run on different networks, so consider those as well. But, i have been told that people who are on the actual network ( on verizon vs trac phone) get faster speeds/better service. Don’t know if it is true or not. 

[heartlikealion]

I was on AT&T but had to switch due to moving. Now I'm on CSpire but I don't care for it. I'm looking into Pure Talk which runs off of Verizon towers I think? My dad uses it and I asked if his phone worked ok when he visited me so I would have an idea of how well it functions here. I think I have at least a few more months to fufill an obligation with CSpire. 

Pick out a carrier and use the map with your zipcode to see coverage and prices? If I switch to Pure Talk it is definitely going to save me money. I just don't know all the details yet. 

Completely unrelated to coverage, it drives me bonkers that CSpire chops up long text messages. If someone send sends me 3 long texts it will chop them up and reorder them. It's horrible. Then you're trying to decipher your messages. AT&T never did that. 

[domestic_engineer]

Earlier this summer we switched from AT &T prepaid to US mobile with no issues.   With US mobile, you can choose whether you want to be on Verizon’s network or T-Mobile network. They offer a simple unlimited plan but also many options. (Although If you can research the myriads of homeschool curriculum options, then you can figure out which plan works for you.). I chose a pooled plan where each phone pays $9/ mo + regulatory fees to join the pool. Then you pay for the amount of data you want to share at $2/GB. This gives me the option to hotspot too, whereas some of their other plans do not. 

I have not experienced throttling with usmobile (the same cannot be said for AT &T prepaid).  And the times I reached out to customer service via their chat were fine; no issues. 

You do have to bring your own device (edit:  I ‘m wrong; they offer phones for sale. But I don’t see them using any phone deals as promotions like other carriers do), but if you’re phone is one of the lucky ones, you can do an eSim card/activation and not have to wait for a SIM card in the mail.   That was pretty neat for me to experience. 

ok - the walking advertisement is over. I’ve been surprised to read the comments and see it missing from the suggestions. But I’m definitely a satisfied customer!
 

Edited August 24, 2022 by domestic_engineer
I was wrong abt BYOD

[Soror]

We switched to Cricket from Tracfone when dh needed more for work and we had teens out and about. For 5 lines we pay  $25 per month per line - unlimited text, data, and phone. They say it will throttle back if areas are busy this has only happened a couple of times when we were at a super duper busy place, even then I didn't notice it but dh did. The kids use tons of data (dd used to watch videos on the bus ride every morning). They use At&T towers so if they have coverage for you so will Cricket. We've never had an issue with them at all. The only time we needed customer service is when we were signing up. We looked at Mint but they don't have service in our area.

[Lady Florida.]

I will add that all three of us (ds is on our plan) have unlocked phones. I spent years being tied to a provider due to getting a "free" phone from them or paying off a phone for 2 years. I finally decided we shouldn't have that issue anymore and thankfully dh and ds agreed with me. The initial output is expensive but if we want to switch carriers for whatever reason we're finally free to do so.