Unlimited Wireless Plans

So the carriers have all gone back to unlimited plans... even Verizon.

I think Sprint is the cheapest for a single line but also has the worst coverage. When you get to multiple lines, they all fall in the same range and then it's a matter of which carrier you prefer.

I've compared the prices to our current limited plans (we use 2 different carriers) and they are actually cheaper switching to unlimited and keeping the same carriers.

Doing some research, for multiple lines, value wise I think TMobile and Sprint are at the top, VZW in the middle and AT&T at the bottom... coverage wise, VZW is at the top, Tmo and AT&T very close and then Sprint at the bottom.

Anyone else switching to the unlimited plans?

I'm tempted by t mobile, but hear coverage indoors can be an issue, my wife's coworkers claim it does not have good reception at work.  But we never tried ourselves.  Will probably save about $50 a month over our current att plan, not counting any new promos, or free phones.

I have Sprint. To be blunt, the service in Irvine is dogsh*t. But, I only pay $180 for 5 lines, which includes 3 iPhone 7 leases @ $27/each. It's unlimited calling, text, 15gb of data monthly w/ rollover (plenty for my family), and free roaming in Canada/Mexico.

Specifically, the coverage in pretty bad is the new construction areas - especially PS and parts of OH. But, Sprint has Wifi calling so as long as you can hook up to wifi you can make/receive calls as usual.

I believe all carriers have this feature now - so indoor coverage shouldn't be a big issue as long as you're on wifi.

I was skeptical when the carriers went to limited plans but I analyzed our usage on unlimited plans and it never really exceeded 10GB a month... most times staying under 5GB.

So when we switched carriers, we went to a limited plan and never went over the 10GB. In fact, because it had rollover, we always had more data available than we can use.

On another carrier, we were grandfathered into unlimited, but the limited plans were cheaper and I had to add more lines, so we switched to limited with the same carrier and still, did not exceed the allotted data limit.

I compared the carriers new limited plans with unlimited and for some reason, it works out either the same or only a few dollars less at the 10GB level. For TMo, it's even cheaper because TMo One includes all taxes and fees and now they have a Kickback plan that if you use 2GB or less per line, you get a $10 credit for the following month (which is the case on some of the lines we have), and TMo doesn't even have limited plans anymore from what I can tell.

irvinehomeowner said:

So the carriers have all gone back to unlimited plans... even Verizon.

Click to expand...

Although "unlimited" they do throttle your data rate after exceeding some predefined threshold. So rather than paying a penalty for overage at the same rate, no penalty but throttled (although lately I'm seeing no penalties on fixed data plans anymore but turtle-speed throttling until you buy extra data allocation). Your roaming rate is also going to be slower. Hot spots are even slower if at all permitted. Once you take this into consideration it's not that attractive anymore. Read the fine print before getting wooed by the whole unlimited thing.

Since we both use less than 2GB/month, the unlimited plans are more of a hinderence.

I don't really want to watch movies on my phone in my car while waiting for my kid.  I don't really need to stream slacker or anything else. 

I don't really want to chronically consume 'entertainment.'

But I'm old.  Most Millenials and younger can't sit for 3 minutes without firing something up to distract them.

Just switched back to Verizon after being on tmobile for about a year. Still has the best coverage to me. Tmobile was fine 95% of the places I go but places like the gym, no service.

None of them are good at my house in Cypress Village so Wifi calling is crucial. Tmobile does have the best wifi calling. Couldn't even look at AT&T since Wifi calling doesn't work on non AT&T purchased Android phones. Too bad since would be cheap since I have AT&T Fiber and DirecTV