Going from a carrier to no contract

[wellyes]

We are up to $140 a month for 2 phones (Verizon) and that seems ridiculous.
If you switched to a no-contract, did you regret it?

[belovedgandp]

I've loved it. I'm a year into being with Virgin Mobile after many years with T-Mobile. The up front cost of the phone was a bit of a shock after years of doing long contracts and cheap phones, but it's definitely already paid for itself.

We used to work some family plans with DH, myself and my parents cominbed, but DH has an employer provided phone now and my parents went on their own, so a single phone was getting nutty expensive.

[AngB]

We are a year plus in. We use straight talk with att towers. (I like with straight talk you can pick which signal/towers you use and easily switch if it isn't working.) We pay 45/mo unlimited talk text and data a month for each phone. (Tax is like $2 total so maybe 47ish in reality.)

If you can bring your current phones over then its an even better deal but we bought Motorala Moto G smart phones which work perfectly for us and were under 200 each (more like 120ish) even buying without contract, and we have 4g, decent cameras, Sd card slots to expand memory, etc. I even use it to swipe credit card sales when I do direct sales parties.

[twowhat?]

Just switched about 6 months ago. It's great. We went with AT&T. It's cheaper, I get a $5 discount for signing up for automatic refills. Now we just pay $60ish/month on each phone (accounting for the $5 discount), 2 GB data (plenty if you are usually connected to WiFi), unlimited talk/text. Verizon was really starting to get ridiculous with their family plan pricing and the limits on buckets of minutes. And $10 extra a month just to get 1000 texts? Robbery. No thanks, had enough. We put the grandparents on prepaid phones since they use theirs very little.

DH, who travels a ton to not-so-major cities, says Verizon coverage tends to be a bit better when you're off the beaten path (so you may not have much of a choice if you're in a "dead" area for other carriers) but other than that, it has been GREAT to BREAK FREE from Verizon and their nickel and dime-ing.

[vludmilla]

We switched to virgin mobile over 3 years ago and we love it. We live in the NYC metro area and coverage has been great here and when we travel but perhaps there are areas with worse coverage. We pay less than $40 each a month and we use Samsung Galaxy phones.

[jgenie]

We switched to virgin mobile over 3 years ago and we love it. We live in the NYC metro area and coverage has been great here and when we travel but perhaps there are areas with worse coverage. We pay less than $40 each a month and we use Samsung Galaxy phones.

Can you do this with an iPhone? Is there a store front to set it up or is it all online? TIA

[liz]

DH and I switched about 3-4 years ago. We have the Walmart/Tmobile plan for $30 and have been very happy with the service. We bought Samsung Galaxy phones. I have also heard great things about boost mobile and straight talk from co-workers. Definitely do your research to see which company and plan works best for you. I would also ask around to see if friends/neighbors get good coverage (ie cell towers) in your area. You can also look online to see coverage maps and DH said there are apps to find out this info as well.

[klwa]

I switched from Virgin to Straight Talk when DH switched from Verizon to Straight Talk. I had always had a very basic plan, and even though my cost went up, the amount his came down more than covered the extra for mine. And, we added data at that point, which neither of us had. We made sure to get phones that work on the Verizon towers, since that works the best for us. This article is a little old, but it will show you how to figure out which network each phone can run off: http://www.prepaidphonenews.com/2011/12/how-to-get-tracfone-net10-or-straight.html

[crispychicky]

Try ting or Republic Wireless. If you want to keep your existing phone, I'd start with ting. We pay under $50 per month for 2 phones. Zero regrets.

[zukeypur]

We are up to $140 a month for 2 phones (Verizon) and that seems ridiculous.
If you switched to a no-contract, did you regret it?

We are paying $180 for two smart phones and a basic phone with verizon. And that's with a discount.

[athompson]

DH did and he loves it. He uses Straight Talk...$45/month unlimited data, talk, text.
I use TracFone and love that as well. No monthly fee, you just buy time as you need it. Very basic phones which I don't mind. HSN has one right now for 1200 minutes & a decent Android for $150. The phone also has triple minutes for life. That time will last me forever because I disable mobile data and mostly just use wifi. I love not having a monthly bill.

[zukeypur]

According to Ting, i can use both the ATT iphone 4 and the Verizon iphone 4s, but they have to be unlocked. How do you do this besides taking it to the ATT store? The phone is from my dad's girlfriend who lives 10 hours from us. It took us 6 months just to get her to give us her icloud password so that we would restore the phone for DD's use. I guess i am stuck using ATT go phone if i can't figure out how to get it unlocked.

[rlu]

Nope, did not regret it. I have Virgin Wireless which goes over the Sprint network. I have a basic phone though that I mainly use for emergencies. Will be revisiting when it is time to get DS a phone.

DH is on trac-phone.

[bcafe]

I had VM for years and when we moved I switched to Republic Wireless since DH had them. I have no complaints what so ever.

[vonfirmath]

Just switched about 6 months ago. It's great. We went with AT&T. It's cheaper, I get a $5 discount for signing up for automatic refills. Now we just pay $60ish/month on each phone (accounting for the $5 discount), 2 GB data (plenty if you are usually connected to WiFi), unlimited talk/text. Verizon was really starting to get ridiculous with their family plan pricing and the limits on buckets of minutes. And $10 extra a month just to get 1000 texts? Robbery. No thanks, had enough. We put the grandparents on prepaid phones since they use theirs very little.

DH, who travels a ton to not-so-major cities, says Verizon coverage tends to be a bit better when you're off the beaten path (so you may not have much of a choice if you're in a "dead" area for other carriers) but other than that, it has been GREAT to BREAK FREE from Verizon and their nickel and dime-ing.

My sister had to stay with Verizon due to coverage issues where she lives but I recently switched to AT&T pay as you go. Bought my own iphone 5 from glyde.com and have been quite pleased.

I wanted to check out ting but they didn't get their T-Mobile affiliated service up quit fast enough.

[ang79]

Switched from AT&T to Net10 using AT&T towers (also had AT&T GoPhone for a bit). GoPhone service was good and an easy switch (they did it for me in an AT&T store), but it was more expensive than Net10, and I can get some roaming with Net10 that I couldn't with AT&T (when visiting my family in northern rural PA where Verizon is most used). For 2 phones with unlimited talk/text and 3GB each of data for around $93.55 (that includes taxes). Can't beat that price for unlimited and we've never gone over the 3GB of data per month. The only downside is that it can take awhile to get through to CS if you call with a problem but we haven't had to do that much since we got the plan 1.5 yrs. ago. We are on auto pay, but you can buy discount minutes cards each month online at callingmart.com to save a bit more (we just wanted the convenience of auto pay and not having to remember to add new minutes).

Forgot to say that we took our own phones (iphone 3gs) with us. They were both locked to AT&T so we had to use a company that uses AT&T service (and AT&T coverage is better at our house than anything else)

[lele]

I live in Europe right now, but will be moving back to the US soon. The insane prices for cell service scare me. Right now I pay $18 and get 2gb data, 2000 texts, and 100 minutes of talk time (charged at .15 per minute against the $18 a month I pay). It includes 60 minutes a day free to callers on the same network. I don't understand why they can do it so cheaply and it is so much more back home.

[ang79]

According to Ting, i can use both the ATT iphone 4 and the Verizon iphone 4s, but they have to be unlocked. How do you do this besides taking it to the ATT store? The phone is from my dad's girlfriend who lives 10 hours from us. It took us 6 months just to get her to give us her icloud password so that we would restore the phone for DD's use. I guess i am stuck using ATT go phone if i can't figure out how to get it unlocked.

We tried to get my iphone 3gs unlocked (it was originally my brother's, then my mom used it, then passed it to me). I was told by both AT&T people and someone at a cell phone repair store that iphone's are very hard to get unlocked now. They used to do it pretty easily over the phone if the original customer asked for the unlock code after using the phone for a certain amount of time but now they have tightened up on it because people were getting the phones for cheap with a plan, then paying the fee to get out of the contract early and walking around with a brand new unlocked iphone for cheaper than retail.

[wellyes]

We're going with Straight Talk, this has been VERY helpful. Thank you all!

[zukeypur]

I bought a SIM card for ATT gophone today. Before opening the package, i decided to chat to make sure i could activate the SIM with the iphone and pay for $4.99/200 texts on the $.10/min plan. They said no. Is there a way to activate the SIM
On the iphone for talk and text only? I dont want or need data, and i dont want or need another basic phone. I need the iphone activated.

[vonfirmath]

I bought a SIM card for ATT gophone today. Before opening the package, i decided to chat to make sure i could activate the SIM with the iphone and pay for $4.99/200 texts on the $.10/min plan. They said no. Is there a way to activate the SIM
On the iphone for talk and text only? I dont want or need data, and i dont want or need another basic phone. I need the iphone activated.

That is what I was told too; you can not have a smartphone on the gophone plans without data.

[zukeypur]

I have an old Razr. I am wondering if it will work if i activate online and enter the IMEI from the RAZR and the code from the SIM card. I have been looking on Howard Forums but haven't found an answer yet.

My second option is to get an H2O wireless SIM and do the $10/90 days plan, but I cannot find a SIM card locally that is not attached to the $30/mo plan. I can get a SIM for $.01 on amazon, but i don't know where to get a $10/90 day card. I called H2O customer service, and they said to keep looking locally. They only sell the SIM cards attached to a plan.

[arivecchi]

We're going with Straight Talk, this has been VERY helpful. Thank you all! This thread piqued my interest and I looked at their site. They have speeds of 3GB for the first month but then can go way down after that. I wonder if that is indeed the case.

[AngB]

This thread piqued my interest and I looked at their site. They have speeds of 3GB for the first month but then can go way down after that. I wonder if that is indeed the case.

It's the same speed every month until you've used x amount of data (can't remember how much it is but fairly large amount) and then it's slower speed. DS1 uses up all my fast speed data streaming netflix in the car and everywhere else we go on my phone but even the slower speed has been fine for me, I haven't really noticed a big difference even with the slower speed. Most of them that say 'unlimited data' say up until x in the fine print.

[zukeypur]

I ended up making some big changes, thanks to this thread!

I disconnected DD's basic verizon line and got her a pay-as-you-go through Consumer Cellular. I'm not sure I will keep them (still contemplating H2O), but they offer a 30 day guarantee and a $10 credit with the purchase of the sim card, which basically makes the SIM card free. They run off of AT&T towers, so I was able to use the AT&T iphone 4 that we have laying around. I went with the most basic talk for emergency only ($10 bill per minute) and the cheapest text and data plan ($2.50/mo) for a total of $12.50/mo. This increases her bill by $2.50, but allowed us to change up the verizon plan significantly and allowed her to use the iphone instead of carrying an ipod and a basic phone.

We decided to stick with verizon. DH has one year left on his contract with an ETF of $220, and i have been out of contract for over a year. I hesitated to change my plan because i had a grandfathered unlimited, but i have used less than 1gb this month and our billing cycle is 80% over. Clearly, i don't need unlimited data. By dropping DD's line and adjusting ours i was able to change our plan from $147/mo before taxes to $95/mo before taxes. We ended up with 2 iphones on the More Everything 3Gb plan. Because of DH's employer discount we saved $11. They also had two promotions (one for each line) that extended our contract 1 year from today. DH's really only extended by one month because he is currently under contract, and mine for 1 yearl. However, it saved us $12/each line and doesn't affect my ability to upgrade. It also gives us 3Gb of data to share (which we would almost never hit) and an additional 2gb for DH's line. ETA: this plan also allows unlimited talk and text. Before, while I had unlimited data that i never used, we only had 700 minutes of talk. With all of DD's doctors offices calling me constantly, it was very hard to stay under 700 minutes. Also, sometimes DH does conference calls on his cell phone which ate up a ton of minutes.

If you are currently stuck with verizon, you might call and ask about any promotions. This is the third verizon person i have talked to over the past week, and the first person to mention these promotions.

In total, our phone bill will go from $179/mo to somewhere between $120-$125, depending on taxes. I realize that some people can do better going completely with pay-as-you-go, but i hope this might be helpful if you want a newer phone or if you are still under contract with verizon.