AT&T to discontinue subsidizing phones with contract this Friday Jan 8th

[bgenew1]

Malibustyle 23, can I ask how pleased you are with with straight talk? thinking of making the switch from ATT. How is the coverage and data speed?

 

[havaneselover]

Malibustyle 23, can I ask how pleased you are with with straight talk? thinking of making the switch from ATT. How is the coverage and data speed?

I have had st for three years and it's no different from having AT&T service for me. I would highly recommend it.

 

[havaneselover]

Not sure if it's regional but my straight talk plan is unlimited data. The first 5 GB is at a higher speed than the rest though. I usually have mine to pick up wifi at home, work, etc so it hasn't been an issue with speed thus far.

That's what mine is as well. I'm just moving from 3gb to 5gb and never went over 3 so I've never hit the reduced speed. I also mainly use wifi.

 

[bgenew1]

Thanks, havaneselover. We currently pay around $130 a month for ATT for 2 phones. Mine has the unlimited plan that is going up $5 a month, hubby has the 3GB plan. My calculations are $130 a month x 12 is $1560. With straight talk yearly plans for both of us, I can save $500 a year. That seems huge to me.

I checked the mobile share plan and that would actually cost us $180 a month for 15GB of data. My usage fluctuates from 3-7 GB and I never switch to wifi. Hubby uses less than his 3 that he is allowed. Can anyone tell me how they switched? Do I order the straight talk sim card first to have on hand for when I cancel? and can I cancel ATT online or do I have to call or go in the store (which I really don't want to do)?

 

[Malibustyle23]

Do you want to have the same phone number or get a new number?

I went to Wal-Mart (you can only do straight talk orders online or at Wal-Mart) bought a new phone (although they have the bring your own phone package as well). Went home called the number and selected port my phone number from another carrier and it was all automated I believe.

We went from Verizon to straight talk. During the call it tells you it could take from 30 minutes to 12 (I think that's right) hours to become active and port the number. My husband's number transferred automatically almost instantly. My number had an issue. Honestly, I dont think the request went through. Not sure whose fault it was but they both blamed each other. I waited 24 hours and tried again and it worked fine almost immediately just like Dh's did.

I didn't need to talk to Verizon at all except for my number transfer issue to try to solve that problem.

 

[havaneselover]

I didn't port but it was an easy process. I ordered the SIM card and did everything else online. I brought my own phone and switched it out recently.

 

[Malibustyle23]

Malibustyle 23, can I ask how pleased you are with with straight talk? thinking of making the switch from ATT. How is the coverage and data speed?

Like Hava. stated I haven't seen any difference in my service from before to now. We've had their service since June. I may be completely wrong but I don't think they have their own towers I think they bounce off of Verizon, ATT or whoever they are linked with that you are closest to. I think we still have Verizon service towers in use.

 

[bgenew1]

Yes I would be using the phone I have an iPhone 6s and want to keep my number. So I would buy the sim card and do mine online then? does porting the number automatically cancel your service with ATT?

 

[SuzanneSLO]

Interesting

 

[havaneselover]

Yes I would be using the phone I have an iPhone 6s and want to keep my number. So I would buy the sim card and do mine online then? does porting the number automatically cancel your service with ATT?

Yes on the SIM card. I bought from Walmart and did in store pick up. I think it cost $1.

For porting, the number has to be active so I guess you request st port it and then cancel AT&T if it's not automatic. I think you select active my St service with a number from another company. You may need your AT&T account number and password.

 

[mjkacmom]

I upgraded my mom to an iphone in June (she was on my plan for years, with a dumb phone). She passed away in November. In order to cancel her line, I had to pay for the phone in full - monthly payments were no longer an option, since the phone was linked to her number.

 

[DebbieB]

I got my iPhone 6 in September 2014, it was $749 or $31.25 a month but the Next plan gave me a $15 a month discount. So it was really $390. I can't remember what the cost of the phone would have been with a contract but the salesperson said it was slightly cheaper that way. This month is payment 15 of 24, so I guess when it's paid off it will go down $31.25, I hope I keep the $15 credit.

 

[manning]

The last day is today. the new plan starts tomorrow. That's what the associate told me when I picked up my phone.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

DH and I both have the unlimited data, when we added DS it was no longer available so he only has 3GBs. The problem is in order to go to the Next plan you have to give up your unlimited, if I am remembering correctly. We thought about going to a shared plan but why give up unlimited? Of course now they have upped the price 5.00 a month.

I had unlimited data on two of my AT&T phones, which I was reluctant to give up. Then I realized between 4 iPhones and 3 iPads, we barely use 5 GB of data monthly. I dropped the unlimited data for a 15 GB data plan, which we don't come close to using and save over $100 a month.

 

[1tripandIfell]

we barely use 5 GB of data monthly

I could probably get away with using less but I use 5+ alone and DS uses average about 5 so we probably could share and will probably end up going that route soon.

 

[flowerboy]

The problem with dropping unlimited plan is data usage keeps going up year by year. Back in 2007 barely used 200mb with edge phone now I use close to 8 gigs on 64 m phone. You may be ok now switching plan but when you need more data it will cost much more than if you stayed with the unlimited plan.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

The problem with dropping unlimited plan is data usage keeps going up year by year. Back in 2007 barely used 200mb with edge phone now I use close to 8 gigs on 64 m phone. You may be ok now switching plan but when you need more data it will cost much more than if you stayed with the unlimited plan.

I guess I personally don't find this an issue, as I can almost always find free wifi away from home (especially because I have Xfinity) where ever I go, except in my car!

 

[SuzanneSLO]

The problem with dropping unlimited plan is data usage keeps going up year by year. Back in 2007 barely used 200mb with edge phone now I use close to 8 gigs on 64 m phone. You may be ok now switching plan but when you need more data it will cost much more than if you stayed with the unlimited plan.

We are in a similar quandary of neurotic indecision. We have 2 iPhones and an iPad with unlimited data, and certainly don't use it all. Without tge subsidized phones, we will at least pay less if we cancel the unlimited data plan. It never made made sense to cancel when the plan plus the phone subsidy was less than the Shared Data plan. -- Suzanne

 

[robinb]

O-M-G the sale person I got at AT&T was a total maroon. I had one simple question: "How much would the 5GB mobile sharing plan be with my DH's work discount?" Currently, I only get the discount on phone and data portions of my ancient rate plan, not not the texting and I was not sure what portion of the new plans get the discount. First she wanted to know what phone I wanted to buy. I told her that I was interested in the RATE PLAN cost, not the phone cost. Apparently the only way she knew to do her job was to enter a new phone sale into the system. So ... we wasted a bunch of time at that game. THEN she started to try to sell me on a different plan that would end up costing me MORE. I patiently tried to tell her I didn't want to change my minutes to a 900 minute plan for $16 more and leave everything else the same. I want the pricing 5GB mobile sharing plan. FINALLY she tells me that I can't get that plan as an individual and that I needed multiple people on the plan because it was ... well ... a sharing plan. That was the last straw. Nearly 20 minutes into the phone call with multiple "please wait"s I said. "Thank you very much, I'll call back and get someone who can help me." She tried to stop me from hanging up but I was GONE. I called back, got someone with a clue and found out that my DH's discount was on the data portion of the plan (the $50 5GB plan would be $38.50) but not the $25 handset fee. All in about 5 minutes.

Pre-tax cost would be $63.50 and my current plan is $58.90 pretax which will go up to $62.75 with the $5 increase. The plan the other agent was trying to sell me would have been $73.15. This is in addition to about $9 worth of taxes and fees. If I buy a new phone, my handset charge goes up $15 per month to $40 to cover part of the subsidization so I would only save $75 off an iPhone over 2 years, or $3.13 per month.

I think I will go with Cricket, unlimited talk and text with 5GB 4G LTE data on the AT&T network for $45 all-in with autopay. My average data usage is about 4 GB and I can increase to 10GB temporarily for $10 more if I need to. I'll be saving about $25 per month over AT&T.

ETA: Thank you AT&T for being greedy so-and-sos. You made me get off my butt and pay someone else for my cell phone service.

 

[Albort]

Im not sure why they dont want to continue down the 2 yr plans. This only makes me want to try other carriers now. I probably get a phone line plan with Apple and can jump carriers whenever i feel like it.