Know what, Verizon? I can play this game alllllll night.

[Dasota]

Next time I can get $200 together, I'm getting an Android on the Virgin Mobil plan. It's a half way pre-paid phone. No contract, but 25-30 bucks a month includes unlimited texts, unlimited Data and 300 minutes. totally within what I use a month anyways.

[Geek King]

That doesn't sound right...unless the plan is tied to the phone (older phone, older portion of the network/billing tier). Even still it doesn't quite make sense

This "new contract when you use your phone upgrade option (or change your plan)" thing has been around for awhile. It's used by the companies to keep users tethered to a contract, and to get rid of old contract rates they don't want to honor anymore. There's a good reason why the cell phone industry is consistantly in the bottom five for consumer happiness each year.

[Eisa]

T-mobile blows. A lot.

I want to lower my plan 'cause it's costing $65 a month for unlimited text and 300 minutes. I have the faves thing, but still. Damn. But I don't want to end up in another 2-year contract since like I said, T-mobile blows.

[Becks]

T-mobile blows. A lot.

It does.

The MOTH got it for me and him in NJ. Worked okay, for the most part. Spotty coverage in the place of employment, but no biggie.

Move to WI, try to get a Green Bay/surrounding area number. Closest I could get was from some town even I've never heard of. (I had just upgraded my phone complete with a new 2 year thing a day or two before his jerk parents decided to evict us.)

Lizziebeff talks me into joining her Verizon plan. Don't use the T-M phone, but don't cancel it. The MOTH uses his as needed.

Eventually (about a year after moving), start getting calls and letters from T-M, saying they're going to cancel service because we're out of range, and oh, yeah, gotta pay early termination fees.

The MOTH FIGHTS with them over this. Eventually he won, but I will never use T-M again.

[Kogarashi]

I know very few people (if any) who still have T-M at this point, mostly because of shenanigans like this. Sprint has done fine by us. AT&T has done fine by my parents. Verizon has done fine by my friend. Sure, each has their hit-and-miss moments, but I've never heard such consistent problems as I've heard from people with T-M. Oi.

[Dreamstalker]

When I upgrade my phone every two years, it's the free (or money toward) option, yet my plan doesn't change, it just gets renewed. The only thing I have to watch out for is switching my plan, because some of the features I can't get back once I voluntarily go away from them.

That's what we have with AT&T.

[Mystic]

Good thing I just got a new phone from them a couple months ago. And 4G capability on it makes me a happy Mystic.

Now by the end of that 2 year mark, they should finally be talking about putting 4G in my area.

[raine_naoe]

Just chiming in with the information I've gotten from the reps at work.

Our Verizon rep has not mentioned anything about dropping the unlimited plan. Doesn't necessarily mean anything, but the last change we were told about was that the $10 limited plan was going to include ringback tones.

T-mobile just changed their data plans. there's now several different options. All are technically 'unlimited' but vary by how much of that is at 3g or 4g speeds, ranging from about 500mb to 10gb depending on how much you want to spend.

Most of the T-mobile customers at our store went with t-mobile due to the flexpay option. They've since done away with that, and the deposits are as high or higher than Verizon when required. (sprint has seemed to have the lowest deposits, and I've heart AT & T is low too) so that's probably going to hurt them a lot.

A LOT of people are going with prepaid. You have to pay more for the phone initially (smart phones starting around $200) but much cheaper plans. I think this trend is just going to grow


That's just what I've noticed from work, anyway.

[Food Lady]

At this point I'm wishing I had a landline and a laptop. I don't even really talk on the phone, except to my mom. I really only need a phone in case of emergency.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

That's what we have with AT&T.

So do my Dad and Stepmother, who have had ATT since it was BellSouth Mobility in our area.

They like it fine . . . the service has few dead spots, and good coverage area for them. My baby sis also has them (she just had to upgrade her phone b/c she tried to teach her old Samsung how to swim and that didn't work too well)

Her plan didn't change b/c of the upgrade . . . she has the same plan and rate. I've got currently a family plan (started as a single plan in April '10 but by August we had added on a 2nd line) and we have the Nokia 6350 flip style phones.

I called ATT back in February inquiring about the iPhone 3, but my line isn't eligible for upgrade until December. And to upgrade early they tack on a $200 early upgrade fee - meaning that $49 iPhone 3 would have cost $249 up front.

Sorry . . . I'll wait until December (as I don't want a 3rd line and I want to keep my same number) and get an iPhone 4 instead. I figure it should only cost an extra $15/month b/c it'll have to have a data plan.

Besides, I've got a bunch of rollover minutes built up . . . when my brother and I call each other, it doesn't subtract from our plan minutes. Same if we call Dad, Stepmom or Dingbat - if you're on the ATT network, all calls to numbers of those within the network doesn't subtract from your monthly minutes.

I think overall I've got a good deal . . . roughly $70/month for two mobile phones on a family plan . . with rollover. I think I'll keep it as long as I can.

[dragon_wings]

So do my Dad and Stepmother, who have had ATT since it was BellSouth Mobility in our area.

They like it fine . . . the service has few dead spots, and good coverage area for them. My baby sis also has them (she just had to upgrade her phone b/c she tried to teach her old Samsung how to swim and that didn't work too well)

Her plan didn't change b/c of the upgrade . . . she has the same plan and rate. I've got currently a family plan (started as a single plan in April '10 but by August we had added on a 2nd line) and we have the Nokia 6350 flip style phones.

I called ATT back in February inquiring about the iPhone 3, but my line isn't eligible for upgrade until December. And to upgrade early they tack on a $200 early upgrade fee - meaning that $49 iPhone 3 would have cost $249 up front.

Sorry . . . I'll wait until December (as I don't want a 3rd line and I want to keep my same number) and get an iPhone 4 instead. I figure it should only cost an extra $15/month b/c it'll have to have a data plan.

Besides, I've got a bunch of rollover minutes built up . . . when my brother and I call each other, it doesn't subtract from our plan minutes. Same if we call Dad, Stepmom or Dingbat - if you're on the ATT network, all calls to numbers of those within the network doesn't subtract from your monthly minutes.

I think overall I've got a good deal . . . roughly $70/month for two mobile phones on a family plan . . with rollover. I think I'll keep it as long as I can.

A word of warning about the $15 data plan: that's the smallest data plan and depending on how much you'd use it and whether or not you have wifi you may use more then that a month. I learned that the hard way when I got my iPhone.