In 12 months I will be done with Verizon.

[JohnDaleswife]

Ok, so after nearly 20 years with Verizon, this time next year I will be out of contract with all four of my lines and I am going to go pre-paid for the cost savings. Right now by bill is $220 a month for 4 lines. Two of those lines have the unlimited data on them. At the end of this year both of those lines will no longer be under contract and Verizon will be raising the price of them by $20 each!

But by July of next year, all four lines will be done, and I will be done with Verizon. I am thinking of going with either Straight Talk or ATT Go Phone. Any advice on either. I live in the North Georgia/Tennessee Valley area. I travel here and there in this area, also in North East Alabama, and to Dalton and Calhoun in Georgia. And to Orlando, of course.

Unless Verizon can offer me a more reasonable priced plan at the end of this year, I am going to be done with them.

 

[bababear_50]

Wow that is a huge amount of money for a phone each month. (even with a data plan)
Why do you need four lines or is this split up with 4 people using a plan?
Best wishes on finding a better plan.
Hugs Mel

 

[nugov2]

Go to sprint for the cut your bill in half deal. We Pay 160 for 5 phones. Sprint has come a long way as far as service. We have had no issues at all in the 6 months since we switched from Verizon to Sprint. They also paid our disconnect fees.

 

[descovy]

I don't live in your area, so I can't help with which is better signal wise.

At $220 for 4 lines you are paying $55/line. Keep that in mind when you are price shopping. How many gigs of data can you get for $55/line? Also if you've had unlimited, how much data did you actually use monthly? That would be something else good to know when shopping plans.

When I was alone it made sense to do prepaid, but with 5 in my household it made more financial sense to do a family plan.

For example, ATT is $100 for 15gb and $15 a phone. In your case that is $160 for 4 people to share 15gb. In my household some members use more data than others so it makes sense to share.

$160 is $40/month/line. Can you do better prepaid in your area? In my area, I cannot. T-mobile is cheaper but poor signal. So I stick with att.

So look at the price per line, and maybe keep an open mind on traditional post paid plans as well.

 

[havaneselover]

Straight Talk is great (had it for three years). With more than one line I would also look at cricket.

 

[Albort]

It really depends on your usage and your location. If your data users, id suggest like tmobile or sprint, but it can vary based on your location...

Page Plus is a Verizon MVNO, so if your okay with your phones, dropping to them would be good. using verizon network still, but cheaper than verizon.
Dont forget though, u pay for what u get.

 

[Vijoge]

I'm paying $125 for four lines, 10GB Data (really unlimited-it just slows down after 10) with T-Mobile.

 

[havaneselover]

It really depends on your usage and your location. If your data users, id suggest like tmobile or sprint, but it can vary based on your location...

Page Plus is a Verizon MVNO, so if your okay with your phones, dropping to them would be good. using verizon network still, but cheaper than verizon.
Dont forget though, u pay for what u get.

I pay $40/month for straight talk (pay annually) and get 5 gb of data and I've never had a service issue. I don't think
I can get that with any of the major carriers for one line. So I'm not sure paying more would get me a better service.

 

[Albort]

I pay $40/month for straight talk (pay annually) and get 5 gb of data and I've never had a service issue. I don't think
I can get that with any of the major carriers for one line. So I'm not sure paying more would get me a better service.

straight talk is a strange one. I couldnt figure out how to do BYOD for verizon... Is it possible now? I know you can do tmobile/ATT, for awhile, they would only sell tmobile ones...

Edit: yes, you wont get that price anywhere, but also you get treated like a 2nd class citizen though... haha. throttled, degraded service... I used to have both att and att straight talk... switched to tmobile for cheaper service. $30 100min, 5GB of unthrottled data. VOIP for more min.

 

[havaneselover]

straight talk is a strange one. I couldnt figure out how to do BYOD for verizon... Is it possible now? I know you can do tmobile/ATT, for awhile, they would only sell tmobile ones...

Edit: yes, you wont get that price anywhere, but also you get treated like a 2nd class citizen though... haha. throttled, degraded service... I used to have both att and att straight talk... switched to tmobile for cheaper service. $30 100min, 5GB of unthrottled data. VOIP for more min.

I've used straight talk since January 2013 and never felt like a second class citizen. I'm not a heavy data user so 5 gb of data before you're throttled is way more than I need. I'm on at&t's network and have read they have priority but I've never noticed an issue with data speeds.

I have brought two different aT&t iPhones but yes, you can bring your own Verizon device.

 

[Rhie]

Go to sprint for the cut your bill in half deal. We Pay 160 for 5 phones. Sprint has come a long way as far as service. We have had no issues at all in the 6 months since we switched from Verizon to Sprint. They also paid our disconnect fees.

I second Sprint. I have had every mobile company's service at some point in my life and Sprint is by FAR the best at customer service, signal reliability, and price. Three phones, one tablet, everything with unlimited talk and text and some data for under $200. And, if we go over the data cap, they just drop it down to the 2G instead of the 3G, no overage fees or service cut off. So its effectively unlimited data. And as I make about one phone call a week (to Mom) and use data and text all the time its a steal at twice the price as they say

 

[havaneselover]

I second Sprint. I have had every mobile company's service at some point in my life and Sprint is by FAR the best at customer service, signal reliability, and price. Three phones, one tablet, everything with unlimited talk and text and some data for under $200. And, if we go over the data cap, they just drop it down to the 2G instead of the 3G, no overage fees or service cut off. So its effectively unlimited data. And as I make about one phone call a week (to Mom) and use data and text all the time its a steal at twice the price as they say

I'm confused. You're on 3G not 4G?

 

[Hikergirl]

If Verizon has the best coverage in your area check the prices for Verizon MVNOs. We are limited to Verizon network, its the only carrier where we get a signal at our house (and that is even bad).
Straight Talk uses both Verizon and ATT networks. Not sure if you have a choice depending on your area, but I know they use Verizon here.
Walmart offers a new Verizon MVNO called Total Wireless. Its $110 for 4 lines but you share data. I think these oly offer 3G.
We use Page Plus, which is a Verizon MVNO and it uses 4G. I pay $90 (less because I buy discounted PINS) for 3 lines, but we only get 1GB of data each.
I have never had any issue with Page Plus, I get Verizon coverage but I don't have to pay an arm and a leg for it. We aren't heavy data users so it works for us.

 

[Hikergirl]

Forgot about Tracfone OP, they also use Verizon's network and have reasonably priced plans.



Also if you do the pre-paid thing for one that uses Verizon, you can use any Verizon off contract phone. You don't need to buy the pre-paid ones directly from the MVNO.
I'm sure that is the same for other carriers too, I just mention it because you already have VZ phones.

 

[verleniahall]

we have Verizion and pay about 200 for 3 lines a month with 6 gigs of data but we are dropping to 4 until right before vacation

maybe you need to see what promotions can be applied to your account

 

[NinaBella]

Right now I pay $352 a month for 5 lines with 20 GB. That includes the 15% military discount. My employer discount is 20% but I haven't switched the discount yet. I mentioned it the last two times I was in Verizon then got distracted and left before finishing it up. There is a way to do it from my employer's Intranet too I believe.

I dislike Verizon, their salesmen have been shady a few times; however, in Tampa they have the best coverage. My husband employer blackberry gets spotty service with AT&T and T-Mobile (company switched contracts). With T-Mobile the blackberry wouldn't work in our neighborhood. With AT&T there are a lot of dead spots on his hour (traffic congestion) commute to/from work.

 

[neatokimmo]

I was a sprint customer that switched to straight talk. In TN, and along the east coast, I had a better signal than my husbands sprint line.

That being said, I only use data for a few facebook updates, and maybe some shopping apps. I realized I was wasting the $50 unlimited plan with Straight talk and switched over to ringplus. Back on the sprint network.

I have unlimited calls, unlimited texts. I gig of data. For $9.

I was only using data at home (wifi), gymnastics (wifi), and a few stores (most had wifi too). I was worried about going over on data but I am using about 30 MB a week. I feel dumb for wasting my $50 all this time.

So I went from a $10 old phone and a $50 unlimted plan, to an iphone on a $9 plan lol The iphone also allows me to make a phone call on any wifi connection. It says it works in Europe too, I will know for sure next year.

 

[kristenrice]

We have Sprint. On our plan, we have (5) iPhones, (2) Galaxy Tabs and (1) "stupid" phone (no data capability). We have 40GB of shared data across all of the devices, along with unlimited talk/text. Three of the five iPhones as well as the "stupid" phone have the $11/month (per phone) insurance plan on them. Our bill last month was $248. Our data resets on July 7 and so far this month, we've used just over 18GB. We are actually on the 20GB data plan, but when we signed up, there was a promo offering an additional 2GB per device with a max of 10 devices. The rep at the Sprint store was AWESOME and gave us "credit" for the max of 10 devices, even though we only have 8, so that is how we ended up with 40GB of data. We can add two more phones or tablets if we want and we'd only have to pay the activation fee. He said he looked at our account and saw that we'd been with Sprint since 1998 so he wanted to "reward us for our loyalty". I think he also did it because I was so nervous about changing our plan. We had been on the unlimited data plan with 1500 shared voice minutes and unlimited text. Since I run my Pandora non-stop at work (unless we are streaming Netflix!) I was terrified of having a data limit. When he told me that I could activate our old iPhone 4's (which we gave to our daughters) AND still save $30/month, it was a no-brainer. He also told me that he analyzed my usage over the past two years and our data usage never exceeded 12 GB in any given month. That reassured me a bit, but I was still nervous, knowing that my two daughters (ages 10 and 13) would now have data access on their tablets AND their phones. The girls have actually done very well with their data usage. They used to have a 2GB plan on their tablets so they typically only used Wi-Fi and always asked permission to turn on their data. They are doing the same now with their phones. They Skype and text a lot, but rarely even have their cellular data turned on. I am so happy that I made the switch/

 

[tvguy]

I just thing the whole cell phone industry is a scam. When I price shop for 4 lines with any carrier, it always seems to come out to the same price of right around $215 a month. I am Verizon by default because my carrier, Pactel Cellular, got bought up by Airtouch, who got bought up by Verizon.
Then we started taking some weekend trips to kind of remote areas of California and discovered I will have to stay with a provider that uses the Verizon network because NONE of the other carriers has service in these fringe areas.
I will be retiring in 3 or 4 years, and I will go to to a pay as you go phone on the Verizon to keep in the car for emergencies. My landline will remain my main phone.

 

[akayek31]

I had Sprint for 5 years and they lied to me about getting a "free" tablet (it was a second line that they conveniently left out) and said that a LG 4 would take the best pictures over the Galaxy 6 that I wanted to buy for my trip to Disney. My mom upgraded to a Galaxy 6 before the trip and her pictures were so much better than mine. I complained to customer service and no one to this day has still not contacted me. In March I switched to T-Mobile. Got a Galaxy 7, one year of free Netflix, 6 GB of data, and a VR glasses thing that I have no idea what it does. I have rollover data if I don't go over 6 (I never go over 2) because of binge on with Netflix, Hulu, and being on Wi-Fi. I live in the country so my calls are made over Wi-Fi. I love my phone and the customer service is great. I also got $650 to pay sprint for leaving them. My bill for both lines (I had to bring the stupid tablet line over too) is about $135 a month because I pay $28 for the phone each month.