To switch wireless carrier?what else could I do?

[smalltank]

After 16 months with Verizon..finally given the green light to leave..our apartment gives me n my wife's phone zero to minimal service..we pay $174 a month..but have unlimited 4g lte data...Sprint is said to have 4G up end of this month..if we went Sprint..we would save almost $25 now..I do remote desktop support for my friends office and my wife plays a lot of games on her phone.. but were just used to unlimited data..minutes and text aren't a big deal..my dad has T-Mobile..if 2 more lines on his account we could pay $75 a month for 500 min..unlimited text+4g data unlimited..but don't wanna put more pressure on my dad who helps us graciously pay a few of our bills...thoughts and advice greatly appreciated

Smalltank

 

[smalltank]

Gotta landline..cable internet on ATT 6mbps (up to)
Living in California

 

[sychodelix]

Be very careful with unlimited data. Wireless companies are snakey. Most of them will cancel your data for the month (or in some cases totally disconnect your service) if you use more than 2GB-5GB of data for a month. 90% the unlimited data is not unlimited at all. T-Mobile is the least worse about it. After you hit their cap, they only cut your speed, not kill your data.

Straight talk has a killer plan for unlimited minutes and text for $45. They only give you 2GB of data a month, generally, but I'd mostly use Wi-fi when I can anyway.

 

[smalltank]

yea I hear ya on the unlimited grandfather plan..our upgrade is in February..its a joke...either we buy phones retail or elsewhere....if we CHANGE out plan then we get subsidized pricing on phones...anyways...yea I just saw that straight talk plan...I was told if we go on my dads family Tmobile plan..we get 100% unlimited data but putting a higher bill on my dad isnt something we wanna do...

 

[buffdaddy]

Be careful about Sprint. They're slowly rolling out their LTE network but It's slow going. The Chicago area was just lit up at the end of September and it's decent but not anywhere as fast as ATT or Verizon, yet. This past summer was an absolute nightmare for me and Sprint. With dropped calls and 3G that is dial up quality speeds. Probably not going to be until mid 2013 until the network is truley blazing fast here.

I would suggest you go to Sprint's website and see when you'll have LTE coverage before taking the plunge . Other than that, Sprint is a pretty good bang for the buck, and the data is still unlimited, plus a good selection of phones. A great resource for Sprint customers is www.s4gru.com/. Great site that is dedicated to Sprint news and their LTE/Network Vision roll out.

Another thing to do is download a great app called Sensorly if you have an Android device. It's a user supported free app that shows maps of every carriers coverage in the U.S.. You can even switch it on when you have the GPS activated on your phone and it will map the data and send it to their database so it tells others where there is 3G/4G in their area.

T-mobile is also a good option with their plans, although their phone selection is just OK. They really don't have an LTE network but their 3G speeds are great, if you're in a good area. Plus they are GSM which is also nice.

 

[mdmmd]

Be very careful with unlimited data. Wireless companies are snakey. Most of them will cancel your data for the month (or in some cases totally disconnect your service) if you use more than 2GB-5GB of data for a month. 90% the unlimited data is not unlimited at all. T-Mobile is the least worse about it. After you hit their cap, they only cut your speed, not kill your data.

Straight talk has a killer plan for unlimited minutes and text for $45. They only give you 2GB of data a month, generally, but I'd mostly use Wi-fi when I can anyway.

T-Mobile is doing the unlimited 4g data without throttling again. I used nearly 7GB last month without issue. I recently left Sprint. Even though they had unlimited data, the speed in my area was horrible. 3g but I'd be lucky to get 200kbs on a good day. Now I get 8mbs. I wouldn't count on a promise of better service from Sprint. Played that game for 6 months before I left. I'd wait until actually roll out 4g before getting into a contract. Just my 2 cents.

 

[smalltank]

Nice site!...someone was near the ucla area that commented 4g was active and speeds were fantastic...but every block can change the signal when location changes...

 

[buffdaddy]

T-Mobile is doing the unlimited 4g data without throttling again. I used nearly 7GB last month without issue. I recently left Sprint. Even though they had unlimited data, the speed in my area was horrible. 3g but I'd be lucky to get 200kbs on a good day. Now I get 8mbs. I wouldn't count on a promise of better service from Sprint. Played that game for 6 months before I left. I'd wait until actually roll out 4g before getting into a contract. Just my 2 cents.

Oh I hear 'ya. Like I said this past summer was as bad as it could get. I called Sprint almost bi-weekly to complain and they were nice enough to give a me a $30.00 discount on my bill almost everytime I called. Currently the Chicagoland area is the largest area to get LTE, and it's still a bit wonky. LTE barely even works in certain parts of downtown Chicago.

But some good things are going on with Sprint as of late. Softbank which is Japan's 3rd largest mobile provider bought a controlling interest in Sprint for 20 billion dollars and Sprint also bought a controlling interest in Clearwire. Not to mention U.S. Cellular recently sold it's territories particularly in the midwest including Chicago (were USC is based ironically) to Sprint. So Sprint gets a lot of cash to to pay off that disaster of a deal with Nextel, and can further upgrade it's LTE network around the country. Plus some extra spectrum to boot.

And yes for all you Whitesox fans, Comiskey Park will still be named U.S. Cellular field lol!

I've read that as great as T-mobile is, the building penetration is less than to be desired. Which means if you walk into building in a heavily congested area the signal strength really goes down. Not sure if that's true, but something I've read more than once in some of the tech forums I peruse.

 

[zethreal]

Be very careful with unlimited data. Wireless companies are snakey. Most of them will cancel your data for the month (or in some cases totally disconnect your service) if you use more than 2GB-5GB of data for a month. 90% the unlimited data is not unlimited at all.

I currently have Sprint and only had issues with them and their 'unlimited' data when the phone my father has was using 1-2GB a month *roaming*. I had my sprint phone tethered to my computer as my only internet and was using 15GB or so for 4 or 5 months and never had any issues. By 'no issues' I mean: My speed was never noticeably lower after I had downloaded a bunch, I never got a larger than normal bill & I never got a nasty-gram from Sprint saying I was using too much data.

 

[Go West Young Man]

You should consider buying an off contact phone and going month to month with a prepaid Sim plan.

It'll be a couple hundred more expensive up front, but you can get ridiculous data plans for as low as $50 to $70 per month. Plus, you won't be locked in to a contact and can switch carriers as much as you want.

 

[jones2289]

You should consider buying an off contact phone and going month to month with a prepaid Sim plan.

It'll be a couple hundred more expensive up front, but you can get ridiculous data plans for as low as $50 to $70 per month. Plus, you won't be locked in to a contact and can switch carriers as much as you want.

+1 to this. I had AT&T for over four years before finally getting out. I had only signed a two year agreement, and was paying month to month for the past two. At $60 / month just for talk and text, I couldn't stand to pay $80 - $100 for data and a smartphone. I stuck it out for 4 years with a simple flip phone.

A couple weeks ago, I got a gently used iPhone 4 from a friend who upgraded. I had it unlocked through AT&T, and have been using Straight Talk for $45 / month. I honestly have better service now than when I had AT&T. My family lives in a rural area, and I usually have very spotty reception. I went up there for Thanksgiving and had 4-5 bars everywhere I went!

It's definitely worth a shot, and you're only out the cost of a month's service if you decide the prepaid route isn't for you. Straight talk's website is pretty convenient, as it lets you set up an auto-bill pay, and it just charges you $45 at the same time each month. No buying prepaid cards, etc.