Slashdot Mirror
Crunching the Numbers On Shared Cellphone Contracts
itwbennett writes "The Wall Street Journal has a handy online calculator to help you sort out which phone plan is best for you. But one thing you'll notice is that shared or 'family' plans rarely offer any real savings, or benefits beyond the convenience of having a single bill, says blogger Kevin Purdy, who is bracing himself to propose a phone plan separation with his wife."
That calculator leaves out the MVNOs which are decidedly cheaper. The one that comes to mind is Bandwidth.com's Republic Wireless which offers unlimited data, texting and voice No Contract for either $19/month or $29 month, depending on how you purchase their phone. (Using the WSJ calculator, the next closest price I could find for unlimited data was T-Mobile at $70/month) The main catch is that you have to buy a specific phone--the Motorola DEFY XT, which again, depending on the plan you choose is going to be either $199 or $99. They have a special feature that I think is quite interesting--probably all of the carriers should allow this--you can connect to a WiFi and use that to make or receive calls--this is a good idea for bad reception areas and basements. The phone itself seems to be okay. Its reviewed well, but it is a bit outdated. At least it is a durable, waterproof phone though. Reviews for the phone and for Republic Wireless seem to be quite good over all. Here are a couple of the best ones that I have seen: A customer review http://longmeadcrossing.com/republicWireless.htm Time Magazine Review: http://business.time.com/2013/02/22/the-19-per-month-smartphone-is-actually-getting-decent-reviews/
A shared plan can be billed to the main tax payer in the 'family', making it much easier to gang costs and take a reduction, especially when a small business is involved.
I priced it out using that calculator for 4 lines (unlimited voice, unlimited messaging, 2GB data per line). T-Mobile costs $140/month for a shared plan vs. $240/month for 4 individual plans. For 2 lines it'd be $100/month shared vs. $120/month for 2 individual plans. I see exactly the opposite of the claim: the shared plan is more economical than individual plans for everything but the most limited usage. And that T-Mobile's plans are more economical than anybody else's, which may explain why T-Mobile had such a good quarter.
Ting is a great company, and I'm a happy customer, too.
Parent is a sleazy spammer for posting a referral link without mentioning that it earns him $25 as well.
Go directly to https://ting.com/, or find a friend who's using it and use their referral link. Screw sneaky spammers.
One of the reasons providers offer a discount of families is that it makes it harder to switch away from them.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I use ting.com too. I realize silas_moeckel and I are going to come across as shills, but Ting is supremely cheap provided A. you don't use tons of data ( much past 2GB of data use and Ting doesn't save you money versus the other carriers) and B. you live in an area where Sprint reception doesn't suck, since Ting uses their network.
It's hard not to sound like a shill for Ting, after you've dealt with traditional cell providers for so long. When you finally find one that has great prices, treats you like an important customer, has real people helping you (and fast) and eliminates all the bullshit gimmicks and fees and everything else . . . well, it's hard not to get over-excited when you try to show other people that they can jump off the shit-train of Sprint/Verizon/AT&T and so on.
(Also, you'll notice that I'm such a fan of Ting that I never post a referral link when I recommend their service -- it's so cheap that I don't need $25 for referring a customer and I'd rather people check it out without feeling slimy about it).