The Lesser Evil (phone providers)

Foolish Chaos

I'm looking to buy phones/ get a plan for a family of three. I'm indecisive and you guys give good advice, so here I am!

I've been looking exclusively at the big 5 (at&t, verizon, t-mobile, sprint and their little brother virgin mobile).

Without talking to any of the reps, the best deals appear to be within either Virgin Mobile or T-Mobile. If we went for high end phones, virgin mobile can leap ahead (around $200 over the course of 2 years). In the end the difference can be fairly inconsequential.

I'd like to buy the phones up front, rather than getting into a contract. It just seems like you are less likely to get fucked that way? But T-Mobile doesn't seem to offer that, at least not online.

So, yeah, any suggestions? Its hard to get a read on how the actual service will be. I'm in west US if that makes a difference, California.

Shadowfire

Since you're willing to buy up front, a pre-paid MVNO is almost always going to be the better option. I've heard good things about Virgin, but that depends on how the Sprint coverage in your area is. If that rules it out, I'll say that my wife and I are very happy with Aio so far. It's $45/month for unlimited everything (2.5GB of 4G data), and it bounces off AT&T towers instead, so the coverage here is better.

The thing to keep in mind, though, is that your coverage isn't enhanced by roaming in an MVNO usually. For instance, if you have Sprint you'll usually be able to bounce off Verizon towers when you're out of range of Sprint. The same is true with AT&T and T-Mobile. With pre-paid carriers, you generally don't have that roaming insurance, so you need to be sure your coverage is good. If it is? There's no reason to stick with the big 4.

Creagan

The one thing I'll say about T-Mobile is that when my family used it as our service provider, text messages were not always delivered in a timely manner. And by that, I mean I could not get a message for 3+ hours of it being sent.

Foolish Chaos

Shadowfire wrote: »

Since you're willing to buy up front, a pre-paid MVNO is almost always going to be the better option. I've heard good things about Virgin, but that depends on how the Sprint coverage in your area is. If that rules it out, I'll say that my wife and I are very happy with Aio so far. It's $45/month for unlimited everything (2.5GB of 4G data), and it bounces off AT&T towers instead, so the coverage here is better.

The thing to keep in mind, though, is that your coverage isn't enhanced by roaming in an MVNO usually. For instance, if you have Sprint you'll usually be able to bounce off Verizon towers when you're out of range of Sprint. The same is true with AT&T and T-Mobile. With pre-paid carriers, you generally don't have that roaming insurance, so you need to be sure your coverage is good. If it is? There's no reason to stick with the big 4.

Looked at the coverage maps (I don't know why I didn't do this before). They all look pretty good. With any MVNO not based off AT&T (and maybe Verizon? Their map isn't super clear) towers I could see a few instances where I would lose coverage. But they are rare. T-Mobile and Verizon are the ones that offer 4G in my city though.

Any advice on finding the right MVNO? Searching around right now

Pi-r8

I think that, for a family of 3 you're probably better off going with one of the big carriers and getting a family plan. The prepaid ones don't have any family discounts (as far as I know).

It also depends on how much data you want, and how nice of a phone you want too. Also make sure to check how good their coverage is in your area.

Metalbourne

Sprint will require a contract even if you bring in existing equipment.

Of course, they say the only way around it is getting a phone through their installment program, but that's just a different kind of contract. Basically, when you cancel under the agreement plan, it just makes the entire remaining cost of the phone come due instead of the early termination fee.

You wanna know more about sprint, just message me. I work tech support there and I've been a customer for just over 10 years.

Mostly because I'm too lazy to change carriers.

Pi-r8

Foolish Chaos wrote: »

I'd like to buy the phones up front, rather than getting into a contract. It just seems like you are less likely to get fucked that way? But T-Mobile doesn't seem to offer that, at least not online.

Also this is odd... when I went to a T-mobile store recently they told me that now they ONLY do no-contract phones.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

you're not really getting that fucked with a contract phone; it's really just pro-rating the sticker shock on the phone over a couple years, since high-end phones are still pretty expensive

that being said you should definitely look into smaller providers; there are tons of smaller or regional cell companies that just buy capacity from the backbone providers, but who have plans that are much cheaper and/or better suited to your needs

AresProphet

Hi. I run an AT&T store so I can give you some idea of what the Death Star can do for you

5 lines with 10GB of data is $175 with no contract. At $35 a line that's pretty cheap. The data thing is not an issue for most people, but if you need a lot more you may want to look elsewhere. 15GB is only $30 more.

"no contract" of course relies on you doing one of three things:

-bringing your own AT&T-compatible phones (unlocked or pre-owned)
-buying phones outright
-paying for phones over up to 26 months

but that's the same stuff you'll have to deal with on any of the cheap MVNOs, and our phones are much nicer. so is our network

on a 2 year contract, the same plan will run you $300 per month. paying off the phones over time is almost always the better deal (if the payment is less than $25 a month, it's cheaper than the 2 year, plus nothing up front). and on the monthly payment thing (which we call AT&T Next) you don't pay activation fees, which helps. you can upgrade after 12 or 18 payments (depending on which option you choose) so you don't have to wait two years between phones. you can mix and match, so you could bring 2 unlocked phones, finance 2 more, and do a 2 year contract on the fifth.

bonus: no matter what you do, through March 31 AT&T is paying you $100 per line that you activate. with contract or not, it doesn't matter; you activate fine lines and 3 bill cycles later you get $500. so that's a pretty nice deal

Verizon will have something similar; T-Mobile does too, but they just don't offer the 2 year contract option. even Sprint is doing the same thing. and the pricing is all pretty competitive, so it's really going to come down to two things: which networks are best in your area, and which carrier has the better phones. I think we win in the latter category right now, but I might be a bit biased. side note: some unlocked phones don't play nice with AT&T's data network, this is mostly a problem with international devices but some T-Mobile ones don't have the right LTE bands.

if you can pass a credit check you have no reason to go with the cheap guys like Virgin or whatever anymore. the big carriers cut pricing big time. you get a much better network and better customer service; AT&T has stores everywhere you can walk in to and get help.

PM me if you have any other questions, I'm happy to help.

Foolish Chaos

Pi-r8 wrote: »

Foolish Chaos wrote: »

I'd like to buy the phones up front, rather than getting into a contract. It just seems like you are less likely to get fucked that way? But T-Mobile doesn't seem to offer that, at least not online.

Also this is odd... when I went to a T-mobile store recently they told me that now they ONLY do no-contract phones.

I was mistaking contracts for their pay by month service. Basically you can cancel at any time and then you just pay what you still need to. And they totally have phones you can just buy outright, im just blind

Liquid Hellz

I know you said big 5, but I switched to ting and couldn't be happier. They use Sprint cell towers so wherever you get Sprint you get them. I pay about 30-40$ a month for everything I can use. I also use Talkatone with a Google voice account to make free calls over Wifi from home to save on minutes.