cell phone family plans?

if you're on a shared data plan and wouldn't mind sharing some info with me, i'm shopping family plans and would appreciate your input:

what carrier?
how many smart phones?
how much talk / text / data is being shared?
is it enough?

thanks!

verizon, 2 smartphones, unlimited talk, unlimited text, 2 gb data shared (we use wifi at home). around $127 a month after all the taxes and fees.

2 gb is just enough for both of us for the month. sometimes we come close to the cap (like if i have a busy month at work and find myself downloading files from emails) and other times not.

Not on a shared plan but if Sprint is good in your area then I would suggest looking at Republic Wireless. Ulimited Talk, Text, 3g for me and the wife is only $60 a month no contract. It offloads to Wi-Fi when I'm at home or on a trusted connection. You have to buy the phone, but the low cost of service makes your ROI on the device pretty fast.

If 3g isn't fast enough, they just put out the Moto E with 4g and I think it's like $40 a month for 2gb data.

https://republicwireless.com/

We're on AT&T with 4 lines, unlimited 4g data and text on all lines, 700 shared minutes with rollover (if we've used 700 minutes in the last 3 years combined, I'd be surprised). It's about $80/month for the primary line and maybe $30/month for each additional line. Service is good on the east coast, and they gave me a plug-in cell for my house to up our signal a bit at no additional charge.

we are on comcumer cellular (att reseller)4 smart phones 700 minutes 1000 text and 500mb data. we use wi-fi at home. it is 75/mo after all taxes etc. you can change the plan during the month if you go over to not pay the excessive overage charges. you have to buy your own phones as well.

AT&T with two phones, unlimited talk/text, 10gb 4GLTE per month with rollover. After taxes and such, I think it's $140. Our monthly usage usually is less than 10GB but more than the next lowest tier of 5GB. With the rollover, we usually wind up with 14GB or so to use every month.

We're with Cricket Wireless. 5 lines, unlimited talk, text, data. I think it's 2gb at high speed per line before it gets slowed down. $100/month total. Phones were free...part of a promotion they had going on at the time. They're not the newest smart phone, but I don't care because I don't text, use social media, etc...

T-Mobile, 3 smartphones, 3 GB data on one, 1GB each on the other two, unlimited text & talk. $100 + taxes, works out roughly at $115.

Sales rep told me that we can have 4 lines with shared 10GB of data for basically the same money, haven't looked into that further.

I know a lot of people at work have really good luck with Ting, which operates on ATT/Sprint's network.. I'm talking like 4 iphones and less than $75/mo good. But I use Verizon, makes it easy to jump in and out when I go across the pond and the coverage is great.

Okay so I did a search and found this thread. Rather than start another one I decided to ask my question in this thread. I work for Verizon(landline network), and have a smart phone through them that I use as a personal phone as well. I have a simple data plan for my wifes iPhone 5s that I got for her for mothers day 2014. It is a 1GB plan I believe. I have no idea what I am paying for it as I just get one bill with my DSL landline, her cell, and Directv all in one. I still don't need a smart phone plan as I just use the work phone, but my 13 year old son wants his own phone, and I think it is probably time. He has my sisters old Galaxy S3 that he uses as a device on the wifi at home, but I would like to have the ability to get a hold of him when he spends time away from home(not often, but will be more in expect in the future).

Should I just get another phone line added to my Verizon account? How about the deal I have seen about Directv customers getting a deal on AT&T cell plans now that AT&T owns Directv? Do you think I can get a former Verizon phone(sons S3) on to AT&T if we go that route? His S3 is cracked, so do I get him a new phone as well? This will/could be a Christmas gift. Also for the record we have a 9 year old as well, so I know he will want a phone in the next 5 years or so. Is it best to get a family plan now, or just add a line now, and play it by ear?

FTR I would like to stay loyal to Verizon as I am an employee, and stock holder, but I am not locked in to them by any means. My company discount is not very good. Any other options I am not seeing? I really don't know much about cell phone, or plans. I do know they are expensive however. Any chance we are locked in to Verizon with my wifes iPhone being only 1.5 years old, or are there no contracts anymore?

Thanks,

Chris

Best buy has a Black Friday sales on the Moto E, $9.99 for use on the Verizon prepaid service. This handset can not be used on Verizon contract.
Service is $45 per month.
Verizon now had a plan for $30(i think) that only gives talk and text. He would only have access to the Internet only via WiFi. This means no Facebook on the school bus but Facebook when he gets back home.
In your car, with you present, he could use your work data if you make your phone a Hotspot.

Cricket has some good offers for the holidays also.

Word of caution... If you want to be able to threat your son that you will take away his phone then put him on Prepaid services. If he is attached to your contracted services then you will still pay even if you take it away from him.

Ftr he doesn't have Facebook, and is a really young 13 if that makes sense. He mostly watches minecraft and pokemon videos, plus plays the games. Probably doesn't need much data, but I really don't know.

Chris

Verizon, 2 iPhone 5C's, unlimited talk, unlimited text, 3 GB data shared. $140 a month with the taxes and fees adding another $10.

Might be a little high compared to some of the others mentioned here, but we got the phones when we got the plan and didn't have to pay any up-front money. So I am sure part of the bill is for the phones.

Don't use much data but the wife racks up 300-400 talk minutes a months. I don't talk much but have sent 100+ text messages in a month a number of times.

Virgin Mobile. 3 phones, 1-2.5 gigs per month, unlimited music streaming on one.

$35 per month for each phone, bringing the total to $105 per month. Can be done cheaper through Walmart.

I/we have chosen this as our "family plan" for several reasons.

1. I can drop a service without penalty any time I/we wish.

2. Throttling at cap instead of overage charges.

Data usage is minimized by connecting to wifi at home, at school and at work. Son can hit the cap playing his games some times. Wife streams music constantly, but almost never ran into data issues even before the unlimited music streaming. I use the least and constantly navigate with my phone when driving. I almost never exceed a gig per month.

There are a few semi-downsides to Virgin and the like.

1. Pay for the phones up front. That can be pricey if tastes are expensive.

2. Not usually the latest and greatest phones. Wife and I are fine with this, boy child chafes at it. He thinks he needs the greatest $1,000 Samsung.

3. Connectivity can be dicey. This is true with any of the discount services like Virgin, Cricket, Boost, etc. They are given a lower priority than the regular users, so cell tower data streaming is generally less than going directly with AT&T/Verizon/Sprint/Etc. You can also have towers that will bump you off quicker.

For far flung traveling, like into nothing more than the rural mountains, AT&T and Verizon are the only carriers that might have a viable signal out there. And that gets pretty bad anyways even for calling or texting. Sprint, TMobile, etc have nothing. So if you like to travel into the even vaguely remote areas, and simply must have a good phone signal, you'll need to pony up for the expensive services.

AT&T

Unlimited talk/text 40gb w/ rollover 1 smartphone 1 mifi hotspot

$200/month. Upgraded to the 40 plan last winter when they have the 1/2 price data sale, which is nice because that's all of our internet at home. We're just far enough out of town in a new neighborhood so there aren't any land line services.

AT&T unlimited/unlimited/30 GB w/ rollover (from/price of 10). 4 lines, no idea on cost, wife handles that.

We have been using straight talk from Walmart for the last few years. They recently updated the bring your own phone plan we use. Unlimited talk/text/data* for $45 a month per line. After 5G of data you get slowed down to almost useless speeds but you don't get charged for using more. Depending on your phone, you either use AT&T or Verizon towers.

I don't have a family plan, but I've looked into Total Wireless at Walmart. It looks like 2 lines for $60/mo or 3 for $85 or 4 for $110. I'm not sure whose towers they use, but the map doesn't look bad.

Personally, I am on Google Fi and my wife is on Verizon. Mine is about $30/mo and hers is $65/mo (including S5 subsidy).

I'll also throw it out there that your employer may have a discount program setup with one of the big 3. We both have Verizon discounts. Ask HR or accounting.

Not a family plan, but we are on Straight Talk's unlimited $45 BYOP prepaid plan. Unlimited talk, text, with 5gb of LTE data then throttled. Don't sign up for auto refill initially, and after a few weeks you can log into your account and will have an offer to save $2.50/month by billing to your credit card. Ends up at $47.50/month per phone on AT&T network.

For less money, T-mobile has a $30/month prepaid plan with 100 minutes of talk time, unlimited text, & 5gb of LTE data then throttled. Not as good coverage area if you are not by interstates or major roadways.