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Old 01-20-2017, 03:34 PM   #21
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She won't say why, but DW says ABSOLUTELY NOT to T-Mobile, Sprint or any other provider except Verizon or AT&T. I am guessing she has preconceived fears re: coverage. After 37 years, I've learned to pick my battles...
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Old 01-20-2017, 04:33 PM   #22
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With TMobile, I've been on a 1GB plan and just upgraded for free to 2GB woowho! I only go over the 1GB limit if traveling for any length of time otherwise I'm mostly on wifi. I do web surfing but no video or music streaming so even web access can add up in data usage. When I exceed the data limit, my data speed drops back to 3G or less. I've stuck with TMobile because the plan covers phone, text and data in Canada and Mexico. I spend several weeks a year north of the border so that feature is really useful and saves me hassle and money.
You're lucky you have this, because T-Mobile has gone to unlimited only plans for new customers with corresponding higher monthly rates - $70 for a single line, but at least that does include all fees and taxes, so it's a final number.

We both switched to T-mobile because we travel internationally a lot and love the Simple Choice international coverage, plus we live along the border, and "Welcome to Mexico" messages are not uncommon, but don't matter because Mexico and Canada are included in our coverage. With Verizon I'd have to call and dispute charges if a call connected to a Mexican tower from the US side of the border, and keep after them because they wouldn't always fix it.

Actually, the first reason we finally switched to T-Mobile as our only provider was their early adoption of wifi calling because we live in an area with poor cell reception and we were having a lot of trouble with Verizon and dropped calls, or having to stand outside to use our phones at all. Verizon took another year to adopt it and excluded some of the earlier phone models. Wifi calling works very well for us at home. As we drive to away from the house our T-Mobile reception is just fine. In our travels across the country we rarely encounter a "dead" zone.
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Old 01-20-2017, 05:11 PM   #23
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DW and I share 1G, with rollover (att). We use wifi whenever available. The only time in the past 2 years we have gone over is when travelling on vacation (Road trip). Maps and radio streaming will suck the data big time.

Usually try to turn of maps when we know we have 300 miles to go on the same highway, but sometimes forget.

ATT is good about warning you at 75%, so you can limit further use.
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Old 01-21-2017, 08:28 AM   #24
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You're lucky you have this, because T-Mobile has gone to unlimited only plans for new customers with corresponding higher monthly rates - $70 for a single line, but at least that does include all fees and taxes, so it's a final number.
My $50 plan becomes nearly $58 after all the fees are added on so $70 all inclusive is not too bad. But I will rarely exceed 1GB and maybe never 2GB so saving $12 a month is good for me. And even if I do go over, it just means, the internet slows down, it doesn't stop working or rack up extra charges.
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Old 01-21-2017, 09:07 AM   #25
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One of the reasons I switched to Cricket instead of Verizon last week, is that I noticed my data usage per month was averaging around 6MB - - yes, that's not 6 GB, but 6 MB. So, I went to a Cricket plan that includes only 1 GB data, for half the price of my old Verizon plan. Plus, they gave me a free LG phone (my old iPhone 5S was on its last legs or beyond).

https://www.cricketwireless.com/ , if you are interested in Cricket. There are cheaper services but for me, this was the best fit.
I'll second the Cricket recommendation.

We switched from Verizon to Cricket (AT&T network) in late 2015 and have been very happy with their service. A nice thing about their advertised rates is the price quoted is "all in' and includes all taxes, fees, etc. We have the 2.5 GB plan at a cost of $35/mo each line after all discounts and feel we are getting good value for our money.
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Old 01-21-2017, 09:07 AM   #26
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Downgraded our Verizon plan (data and 2 line access charges) from 10GB@$92.40/mo to 4GB@$79.00/mo. Should be more than enough data for us.
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Old 01-21-2017, 09:09 AM   #27
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OK, we have 3 iphones in the house (2 4's, 1 5s) and we use on average about 20MB of data per month. I have a 200MB/month plan with Consumer Cellular for $5/month. I keep data turned off on the phones unless there is a specific need for the data. Don't use it for entertainment unless we have wifi. Actually, just really don't use the phones for entertainment at all with all the other options available; laptops, ipad, computers, TV.

We're definitely an outlier in the modern world of communications. We have 3 teenagers in the house and only the oldest has a phone. She uses it a lot in the house for texting, but doesn't use it much outside the house as she has essentially no data. I don't think this is such a bad thing.

BTW, Consumer Cellular bill is 53.94/month for 200 minutes/2000 texts/200MB. The only one we ever come close to exceeding is the 200 minutes usually around the holidays. When we are on wifi (90% of the time) we use free Vonage app to make phone calls and that keeps us under the 200 minutes. Down side is I usually don't answer the phone and call people back with vonage so I don't use my minutes.

This has worked well for the past 3 years and I figure is saving us roughly $1000/year which I'm sure is wasted somewhere else in the family budget. At least it's not wasted on DD watching silly YT videos.
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Old 01-21-2017, 09:21 AM   #28
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We use T-mobile pre-paid, ends up costing us less than $100/yr as our time rolls over with a small top up once per year.

Naturally we have no data, but with so much free wifi around, I don't miss it. We have a super nice GPS with a screen twice the size of a phone, for the car. But as I understand it, even if we used gps on the phone, it would not use data. Haven't bothered to learn how.
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Old 01-21-2017, 09:36 AM   #29
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My $50 plan becomes nearly $58 after all the fees are added on so $70 all inclusive is not too bad. But I will rarely exceed 1GB and maybe never 2GB so saving $12 a month is good for me. And even if I do go over, it just means, the internet slows down, it doesn't stop working or rack up extra charges.
Right - that is what DH was paying before we added my line.

Now two lines unlimited offer is $120, but we are paying around $96 for our $80 plan once you include taxes and fees. We certainly don't need the unlimited high speed data feature. We have 6G each including tethering, and unlimited talk and text covering Mexico, Canada and US, wifi calling, and cheap calling, free text and data when we are overseas.

So I guess we're saving $12 a month each!
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Old 01-21-2017, 09:43 AM   #30
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I use a $20 smart phone (Moto E tracfone) I typically buy a 1 year plan in December which gives me 1200 phone minutes, 1200 texts and 1.2 gigs of data for $100/year. I've found this sufficient for the whole year. I use Wifi whenever available which is most of the time so my data use is minimal being that the big data hogs are music and video. I have downloaded about 200 hours of music to my phone and plenty of books so I don't lack for phone based entertainment when away from a WiFi connection.
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Old 01-21-2017, 10:03 AM   #31
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I switched to Ting a few months back. It is rare that I go over 1 gig of data a month.

My bill has dropped from $50 a month to about $25 a month. If I do use an extra gig or two it might go to $40 a month max. I have been very satisfied with the service and performance of Ting.
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Old 01-21-2017, 10:24 AM   #32
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I switched to Ting a few months back. It is rare that I go over 1 gig of data a month.

My bill has dropped from $50 a month to about $25 a month. If I do use an extra gig or two it might go to $40 a month max. I have been very satisfied with the service and performance of Ting.
+1 to Ting. And a second line is just $6/month.

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Old 01-21-2017, 11:20 AM   #33
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My $50 plan becomes nearly $58 after all the fees are added on so $70 all inclusive is not too bad. But I will rarely exceed 1GB and maybe never 2GB so saving $12 a month is good for me. And even if I do go over, it just means, the internet slows down, it doesn't stop working or rack up extra charges.
Don't forget KickBack. T-Mobile gives you a $10 credit for each line that uses less than 2GB of data.

What's not clear to me is if BingeOn goes against the 2GB of data usage. This is another great feature of T-Mobile. Video consumes most of your data and for the popular sites, it doesn't account against your data cap. This is true even if you have one of their old plans (like I do).

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Right - that is what DH was paying before we added my line.

Now two lines unlimited offer is $120, but we are paying around $96 for our $80 plan once you include taxes and fees. We certainly don't need the unlimited high speed data feature. We have 6G each including tethering, and unlimited talk and text covering Mexico, Canada and US, wifi calling, and cheap calling, free text and data when we are overseas.

So I guess we're saving $12 a month each!
With KickBack, you're only saving $2/month, assuming you stay under 2GB.

For families, T-Mobile is about the best value you can find. We're still on T-Mobile Simple Choice and pay $85 for the plan and $10 for taxes, $95 total. Normally this plan would cost $100, but we get a 15% discount. For this, we get 4GB per line and most of the other benefits, with the free overseas data being most useful. This is for a family of four with two teenagers who have used almost 5GB of data last month. Normally this plan would be 2.5GB, but T-Mobile offered promotions over time which increased our data limit.

And occasionally they offer promotions, such as high-speed data in Europe over the summer, which we were able to use for 4 weeks last year. That was a *very* nice bonus.

I've looked at transferring to the $160/month plan, but even if we get a 15% discount it comes to $136/month. Count in two $20/credits and that brings it down to $116. That's still $21/month more than what we have now. Not worth the upgrade.

Another plus with the T-Mobile One plan is that it supports high-speed data in Canada and Mexico. We usually go to Canada a couple of times a year and the data connection is always slow (way worse than in Asia/Europe). This could be one advantage to the T-Mobile One plan, especially if it only costs a few dollars more per month.
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Old 01-21-2017, 01:48 PM   #34
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We use T-mobile pre-paid, ends up costing us less than $100/yr as our time rolls over with a small top up once per year.

Naturally we have no data, but with so much free wifi around, I don't miss it. We have a super nice GPS with a screen twice the size of a phone, for the car. But as I understand it, even if we used gps on the phone, it would not use data. Haven't bothered to learn how.
I have the same grandfathered T-mobile pre-paid as you.
$100 for 1000 minutes. But this year, I will probably just add $10 to keep it alive.

I bought two (2) $100 Verizon Wireless gift cards for $75 each with an American Express offer, so I will be using my Verizon prepaid a lot in the coming two years.
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Old 01-21-2017, 01:49 PM   #35
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OK - well didn't know about kickback. That's very interesting! It's really hard to get through T-Mobiles marketing info about current pricing sometimes. So we're only saving $2 each. Oh well! LOL!
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Old 01-24-2017, 03:13 PM   #36
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So what's everyone else doing with their phones that uses way more data than we seem to?
Young people send and receive photos and videos on vine, Instagram, snapchat, Facebook, etc. They also (nearly compulsively) take photos that get automatically backed up to a remote server (e. G., iCloud).

That can burn gigabytes each month easily...
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Old 02-13-2017, 06:41 PM   #37
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Don't forget KickBack. T-Mobile gives you a $10 credit for each line that uses less than 2GB of data.

What's not clear to me is if BingeOn goes against the 2GB of data usage. This is another great feature of T-Mobile. Video consumes most of your data and for the popular sites, it doesn't account against your data cap. This is true even if you have one of their old plans (like I do).

With KickBack, you're only saving $2/month, assuming you stay under 2GB.

For families, T-Mobile is about the best value you can find. We're still on T-Mobile Simple Choice and pay $85 for the plan and $10 for taxes, $95 total. Normally this plan would cost $100, but we get a 15% discount. For this, we get 4GB per line and most of the other benefits, with the free overseas data being most useful. This is for a family of four with two teenagers who have used almost 5GB of data last month. Normally this plan would be 2.5GB, but T-Mobile offered promotions over time which increased our data limit.

And occasionally they offer promotions, such as high-speed data in Europe over the summer, which we were able to use for 4 weeks last year. That was a *very* nice bonus.

I've looked at transferring to the $160/month plan, but even if we get a 15% discount it comes to $136/month. Count in two $20/credits and that brings it down to $116. That's still $21/month more than what we have now. Not worth the upgrade.

Another plus with the T-Mobile One plan is that it supports high-speed data in Canada and Mexico. We usually go to Canada a couple of times a year and the data connection is always slow (way worse than in Asia/Europe). This could be one advantage to the T-Mobile One plan, especially if it only costs a few dollars more per month.
Hmmmm - T-mobile just announced that for existing customers, for a limited time, two lines for $100 including all taxes and fees. If that includes kickbacks, it would be cheaper than our current plan of $95-97 for two lines including taxes and fees. https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-a...ps-verizon.htm

So we have to figure out how kickbacks apply. We use less than 1G a month typically, our 20GB data stash is full for each of us. Our current plan gives each of us 6G per month.

So could this new offer get us down to $80 a month?
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Old 02-13-2017, 06:52 PM   #38
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Hmmmm - T-mobile just announced that for existing customers, for a limited time, two lines for $100 including all taxes and fees. If that includes kickbacks, it would be cheaper than our current plan of $95-97 for two lines including taxes and fees. https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-a...ps-verizon.htm

So we have to figure out how kickbacks apply. We use less than 1G a month typically, our 20GB data stash is full for each of us. Our current plan gives each of us 6G per month.

So could this new offer get us down to $80 a month?
$95-$97/month for 2 lines is expensive.

If you are using less than 1 GB per month, why are you paying so much for your plans??

Yesterday, I bought a Tracfone SIM kit at Target. Put the CDMA micro SIM into my Verizon pre-paid Motorola E (2nd Generation) and have service on Verizon network. On Tracfone, 1GB is $10. Then just buy minutes and texts.

I used to have T-mobile plan with 100 minutes/100 texts/5 GB data for $30/month. I think it is still available from Walmart.
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Old 02-13-2017, 07:08 PM   #39
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$95-$97/month for 2 lines is expensive.

If you are using less than 1 GB per month, why are you paying so much for your plans??

Yesterday, I bought a Tracfone SIM kit at Target. Put the CDMA micro SIM into my Verizon pre-paid Motorola E (2nd Generation) and have service on Verizon network. On Tracfone, 1GB is $10. Then just buy minutes and texts.

I used to have T-mobile plan with 100 minutes/100 texts/5 GB data for $30/month. I think it is still available from Walmart.
It's less than we were paying for Verizon, and we have seamless coverage internationally which is really important to us. I really don't want to have to deal with other phones overseas.

We would use more data if we really needed it. We just don't use much data at home in the US.
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Old 02-13-2017, 07:11 PM   #40
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It's less than we were paying for Verizon, and we have seamless coverage internationally which is really important to us. I really don't want to have to deal with other phones overseas.

We would use more data if we really needed it. We just don't use much data at home in the US.
If you want T-mobile, why are you not on the cheaper $30/month plan available at Walmart or Tmobile.com?

https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/other-prepaid-plans
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