In 12 months I will be done with Verizon.

[Rhie]

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

Its on the 4G network until we hit our data cap. Then it drops to the 3G network. There are both running at the same time around here.

 

[MimiOfTwo]

I'm paying $265.00 for unlimited text, talk & data on 4 IPhones with AT&T. All phones are paid for and my plan is grandfathered in. They did recently raise it from $245.00 to $265.00. This is with an employer discount.

 

[havaneselover]

I'm paying $265.00 for unlimited text, talk & data on 4 IPhones with AT&T. All phones are paid for and my plan is grandfathered in. They did recently raise it from $245.00 to $265.00. This is with an employer discount.

That seems high. I think cricket (basically AT&T) would charge you $220 ($70*4-$60).

 

[wenrob]

I'm paying $265.00 for unlimited text, talk & data on 4 IPhones with AT&T. All phones are paid for and my plan is grandfathered in. They did recently raise it from $245.00 to $265.00. This is with an employer discount.

Woah. That's crazy high for phones that are paid for and a discount. Does everyone actually use the unlimited data?

 

[Immadismom]

I'm paying $265.00 for unlimited text, talk & data on 4 IPhones with AT&T. All phones are paid for and my plan is grandfathered in. They did recently raise it from $245.00 to $265.00. This is with an employer discount.

I just upped our plan to unlimited data yesterday with AT & T. We also bundled with their internet & Direct TV to get the unlimited. But, for 4 iPhones with unlimited data, talk & text, and paying for 3 of them still on the Next plan, my bill is $225. One phone will be paid off next month, which will then drop my bill to $195 a month. So I agree that $265 sounds high.

We were averaging $260 for 15 gb, and went over a couple of times at $15/gb, which is what prompted the switch. Between the phone savings & bundling our tv & Internet, we'll be saving almost $120 a month.

 

[JohnDaleswife]

One thing that I will not be doing is any type of installment payment plan on a phone. I just cant handle the thoughts of that.

 

[MimiOfTwo]

We all use the unlimited data. i don't think other carriers have good service in our area so I'm stuck with AT&T.

 

[ICF]

You might want to check out consumer cellular.

My son and wife are on them -- and I might be once my ATT contract is up.....they have good rates and you can pick the amount of minutes/data you want to sign up for.

 

[havaneselover]

We all use the unlimited data. i don't think other carriers have good service in our area so I'm stuck with AT&T.

Cricket is basically AT&T and I use the AT&T network with Straight Talk.

 

[JohnDaleswife]

I will add it looks like with ATT, after the first month, you sign up for the auto-refill, they will lower the $45 price tag a month to $40 a month. I think that is about as good as it is going to get with price. And I am completely satisfied with that price. Looks like the coverage is good as well.

 

[Jonny_Duck]

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.

We pay $100 for Cricket for 2.5gb each phone until it slows down to 2G speeds. They throttle the internet speeds down to 8 meg downloads which imo is more than enough. GoPhone doesn't throttle down the speeds but that's about the only difference between GoPhone and Cricket other than store support is probably better with GoPhone. Considering your needs for a family plan I'd choose the Cricket personally and there are no taxes added onto the $100 for 5 lines.

Total Wireless is best deal for Verizon prepaid imo. It is 4G now unlike what someone previously mentioned but they do throttle it to 5 meg downloads. They also charge taxes and are a bit more than Cricket....But they're as good as it gets imo if you need a family plan on Verizon towers.

Straight Talk is ok but could be confusing as well since they run on all 4 networks and they don't offer discount for mult lines.

Our contract with Verizon is up in two months and I am trying to figure out what to do as well. We have 4 lines with unlimited talk and text and 10gb data for around $250 a month.

My problem is that all our phones are breaking or broke. Sons IPhone 6 was completely destroyed when he dropped it and my two daughters and myself have phones that keep locking up or ****ting off. Even had Verizon look at them to see what the problem was. Had them all reset, etc....still don't work great. One was an LG G3 and other two were Samsung Galaxy 4 and 5.

So now we all need new phones and of course the three teens want the latest and greatest which is ridiculous to pay out of pocket.

Not sure what we will do yet. It is such a scam. Right up there with cable tv.

By reset do you mean restarted them or did you actually clear everything back to factory reset? It's not likely that 3 phones that are semi recent have somehow magically slowed without a reason. You might have too many pictures and apps taking up most the space on the phone. Those are decent Android phones that shouldn't be a problem.

Lots of good mid range phones now but most are unlocked but most don't work on Verizon, Except Nexus phone...But if it were me browsing a budget board idt I'd be getting teens a "latest and greatest" device. Esp after one of your kids just dropped a $600 phone. I got my teen Nephew a ZTE Z Max 2 for $60 and works pretty darn well imo. Not saying you'd need to go that cheap but there are some good deals out there to be had. Swappa also is a good place to check used phones.

I personally think phones are more of a scam than the plan...Although both are pretty bad. But you can get a laptop for $99 but somehow a new iPhone is $700? How does that math sound right.

One thing that I will not be doing is any type of installment payment plan on a phone. I just cant handle the thoughts of that.

The installment plan isn't too bad since it's 0% interest but I am one who usually buys phones much more budgetly than the brand new $700 phones. Cricket also on Black Friday the last few years has had the latest Galaxy on sale for $199(I'm planning to try to grab one this year) so that is a nice current phone deal that wouldn't break the bank if they run the promotion again. Since Cricket runs on ATT there are a lot of nice budget unlocked phones, Gophone phones, ATT phones or even Verizon phones should work with it. While Verizon phones might not have all the bands the new ones are GSM unlocked so depending on which phones you have currently you could prob just put your SIM cards in there and use those until you get something more permanent.

Edit - Just wanted to point out while Cricket runs on AT&T towers it is AT&T native coverage and doesn't roam. GoPhone iirc has a little roaming but it's not the same as postpaid. That said At&T native coverage is very good and I don't have many complaints from where I've used it.

 

[DisHmsklMom]

We highly recommend Republic Wireless. If you want to save money on the purchase of your phone, they sometimes have great deals on refurbished ones.
We have Moto X's and Moto G's. They are coming out with more phone choices the end of July.

 

[starry_solo]

Since your phones seem to be on different contracts, when one ends try out one of the prepaid lines just to make sure coverage is good.

We have 4 phones in our family. Two with Verizon contract that we get 10GB data and pay the phones on an installment plan and we pay $110-ish (including taxes and fees). Two are with Tracfone that we buy the $100 refill cards yearly and it lasts (parents have the flip phone). I made sure we got phones that actually use the Verizon network (researched that) because we don't have coverage with AT&T or Sprint around here (well, we have really bad coverage with tons of dropped calls). I still see the neighbors outside talking on their cell phones (iPhones through AT&T and I asked why they were outside so we already know that's horrible coverage)

 

[Jonny_Duck]

Well I have a good 6 months to really look and shop around. If Verizon were to offer me a deal that was affordable, I would go with that. One thing I am going to do is not base my monthly price on an employee discount. That might come and go with employment, so I don't want to be dependent on that for pricing. I just think that is a good rule of thumb going forward.

I don't use a whole lot of data, around 3GBs a month I guess if I stay on wi-fi. I just have a 20-year-old and a 11-year-old who do use a lot of data. One reason being is that they have the two lines with the unlimited data. Imagine that. So if I were to go to prepaid with ATT, they would get like 5GBs of data and the rest is throttled. I think that might be right. That would be a major concern off of my mind. And to refill a line each month through Walmart is $45.75. Hardly any taxes at all on that. I just don't think I can beat less than $185 a month for 4 lines.

Bad thing is that if I go this route, at the end of this year I will have to pay another $40 a month on my bill for 6-7 months until the last two lines run out.

Tbh $180 a month is pretty bad. You could get postpaid Verizon with 16gb of data for about $150 plus taxes and with them you'd be able to get specials by financing phones like the BOGO's they offer.

We highly recommend Republic Wireless. If you want to save money on the purchase of your phone, they sometimes have great deals on refurbished ones.
We have Moto X's and Moto G's. They are coming out with more phone choices the end of July.

I personally wouldn't recommend this. I've driven around TN area with T-Mo and back down to FL and there are a ton of dead spots....Pretty sure I lost signal completely through one state. So while T-Mo is nice when you're in a nice big city, if you leave that area you're gonna have a lot of problems. If they went with the current Sprint network it runs on then it's probably about the same. Although admittedly it's been a long time since I've used Sprint because back when I had them their network just couldn't support smartphone data needs....I still think there are prob a lot of holes judging by the map of their prepaid carriers.

Plus you can't buy any random unlocked phone and use it with republic which means you miss out on a lot of nice phone options and sales on phones.

 

[scrapquitler]

Honestly, if you aren't going to be changing until next July (one full year from now), there's no point starting shopping now because there's no way of guessing what kind of new plans or promotions will be offered then.