ATT Wireless Bill

[Al]

My bill is $74.58 per month for two phones. We don't use any data although it is available. 600 texts per month and 400 minutes. This is 2 phones. I think I could do a bit better with Consumer's Cellular

Now that I have my Comcast under control...$80.50 + $4.50use phone I am ready to move on the Cellular area.

Thoughts on Cellular costs?

 

[fdcg27]

Republic Wireless.
If you usually have wifi access, you don't even need to pay for data.
If you want data, it's pretty cheap.
Since you're saying you aren't using data, you should be able to cut your monthly cost by nearly half.

 

[Trav]

Stay clear of Cricket, they are the worst. My sister went through torment with them, it was a constant battle.

 

[Mr Nice]

I got my mom a TracFone with 800 minutes (1 year) for $108

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Stay clear of Cricket, they are the worst. My sister went through torment with them, it was a constant battle.


No real problems with cricket here.. had a 6 hour outage but that was nationwide(random)

2 phones for over a year 70$ including all fees and 2.5GB data per line.

For cricket if you have issues knowing someone locally is key, or using their chat.. Their foreign support people work much better over chat than voice.

Google FI would be 35$+ taxes + data for 2 phones but of course you have to have certain phones.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
I got my mom a TracFone with 800 minutes (1 year) for $108

Yea that would be totally unaffordable for me.

Quote:
Since you're saying you aren't using data, you should be able to cut your monthly cost by nearly half.

I plan on calling them on monday about that.

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Originally Posted By: Al
MI think I could do a bit better with Consumer's Cellular
Thoughts on Cellular costs?


We had Consumer Cellular for a few years-it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $38/month for two phones. We don't do anything more than use the phones for talking.

We switched around a year or so ago to Republic Wireless which brought our bill down to $26/month for two phones. Our home internet connection is quite good, so the phone quality is as good as Consumer Cellular. While we only use phones for making phone calls, we could look something up if we needed to do so. For our purposes they work great, and the costs are far better that some of the outrageous amounts some folks are paying.

 

[JustinH]

Republic wireless runs on the sprint network. If you have good sprint service you will like them. They use WIFI calling, so I had to do some port forwarding in my home router to get it to work. Also would not work on the work WIFI network.

My wife has Cricket, they have been very good except for a 6 hour outage last year. They gave her $100 to port in a line, and they gave us a Galaxy Grand Prime phone for free as well. Her bill is $35 per month. Service is ATT and has been good in our area.

Watch for a cricket port in deal, and I would go with them. They have treated us well.

The problem with republic wireless is that the phones were too much money, and if you count the price of the phone into the total cost of ownership (I do), then it becomes less of a deal, especially if you want something beyond a very basic phone.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Consumer Cellular is the right choice for your needs. I price-checked all of them having either ATT or Verizon airwaves (not step-down Sprint) and Consumer Cellular was the cheapest.

 

[road_rascal]

Same here. I dumped T-Mobile a while back and a single phone with unlimited data is $65/mo with Cricket. I'm happy with their service.

Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: Trav
Stay clear of Cricket, they are the worst. My sister went through torment with them, it was a constant battle.


No real problems with cricket here.. had a 6 hour outage but that was nationwide(random)

2 phones for over a year 70$ including all fees and 2.5GB data per line.

For cricket if you have issues knowing someone locally is key, or using their chat.. Their foreign support people work much better over chat than voice.

Google FI would be 35$+ taxes + data for 2 phones but of course you have to have certain phones.

 

[mk378]

Consumer is not the absolute cheapest but it is a good choice for former AT&T user since it is the same network. So if you didn't have coverage issues on AT&T, Consumer will work the same.

If your phones are locked to AT&T, request the unlock codes and unlock your phones before leaving them. I don't think you have to unlock former AT&T phones to use them on Consumer, but it increases resale value and gives you other options.

 

[zzyzzx]

Cricket uses AT&T towers as well. If you are not using data, then don't get a plan that offers it.

 

[Warstud]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
I got my mom a TracFone with 800 minutes (1 year) for $108

Yea that would be totally unaffordable for me.


Your paying $37 a month for each phone but $108 a year is unaffordable.

That comes to $9 a month.

 

[Studebaker]

Selectel Wireless. Verizon towers. No roaming charge. $75 for 2000 minutes and 2000 texts, good for up to a year.

 

[Andrew1972]

$74 is very steep for no data usage even for Verizon pricing as I helped my inlaws out with this. They stuck with Verizon for $55/month two flip phones because of minutes usage to kids is not docked since we all use their expensive but regionally superior coverage.

My discovery is none of large providers have interest in non data plans so they price high. The only catch with third tier is dealing with 3rd rate at best customer service and potentially poor service dependent on your locale.

 

[PandaBear]

Depends on what is good for reception in your area. I was happy with Project Fi but then my wife couldn't get any reception on anything other than ATT at her work (peninsula in the middle of nowhere), so the whole family plan is now on Cricket. Happy with them so far and signed up when they provide $50 line switch credit.

For low data usage (less than 1gb / month) without family plan of 5, I say Project Fi is hard to beat. For 2.5Gb / mo it'll be Cricket. Unless you go freedom pop or other free but ad supported service.