My family is definitely going to be doing this next month when our Sprint contract is over. I'm also going to port our phone numbers over to Google Voice to avoid any future porting fees.
The abysmal world of mobile phone carriers seems to be making some good improvements.
Be careful with Google voice as your mobile number. Your texts won't be texts but will come in via an app. And it doesn't support MMS. You may not care about receiving photos but MMS is used to send multi-recipient text messages as well.
The net effect is that if anyone, ever tried to send a text message to you and several other people at the same time you will not receive it. You will not receive a notice or anything, it will just silently fail and the sender will assume you are ignore them.
This is the equivalent to buying a house or car with cash to save on interest. Of course you save money by paying full-price up front instead of financing. It only works if you have that much cash available though.
To be completely accurate - Nexus phones are an exception. Even the manufacturer of Nexus phones sells their non Google branded Nexus equivalent models at significantly higher cost. There is nothing else in the market priced like a Nexus phone (probably because no one can sell these devices at cost because they don't have the cushion of massive ad revenues).
True, except the financing is shockingly expensive and comes with unknown but substantial opportunity costs (i.e., negotiating for a better price when you're not on a contract).
Ultimately the best way to minimize your costs is retaining the ability to say "sod off, I'm going to [competitor]".
While a GSM unlocked phone sounds attractive, there are market problems. Not all wireless carriers are created equal. AT&T and Verizon have the largest networks, but they use incompatible wireless technologies, so an unlocked device grants you no mobility. Yes, you can move to providers like T-Mobile, but that's not a 100% equivalent comparison. Depending on your needs, you may still be locked in to AT&T or Verizon, at which point an unlocked GSM phone nets you zero savings.
My point is that it's still not a "common sense" evaluation. It's a nuanced decision that must consider all variables.
* I can tell you we just switched from AT&T to T-Mobile and it’s been flawless.*
That's because you haven't actually had to start using T-Mobile's horrendous service. When I tried to do this (admittedly a couple years ago) they told me with a straight face, after I had gone through all the effort of changing "You can't use data on your smartphone because you didn't get it from us." Why would I have changed over if I couldn't use data!?!? (It would have been edge or something ridiculous as well, as only people on certain contracts could use 3g!)
I've used T-Mobile for over 13 years. Can you tell me what this horrendous service is? Its worked fine for me in Chicago, Tampa, Miami, Key West, New York, San Francisco, LA, and last but not least, on the playa at Burning Man (in the middle of the desert).
Non-major cities can have terrible coverage. You might only get 2G speeds or have trouble using the phone indoors. It seems the more remote you are, the more you are forced to go with Verizon.
I admit, yes, if you are in the middle of nowhere, you may have a problem. I myself encountered some blackholes between Chicago and middle of nowhere Nevada, and on my way back through Yellowstone to Chicago.
No carrier is going to have perfect coverage. This is something I'm willing to live with for unlimited connectivity @ $50/month.
I mean, seriously! I get coverage in the Virgin Islands! Included! And with their new rates for International travel, I'm willing to let A LOT slide.
Are you sure that they didn't tell you that because your phone's hardware was incompatible with their network? No CDMA phone is going to work with T-Mobile and you might not get the more advanced sorts of data service if the frequencies your phone supports aren't the same as the ones that T-Mobile uses. I certainly haven't had any trouble using 3G with phone's I've bought from Amazon or Google.
Ok, Wikipedia tells me that the Nexus One supports 3G on 1900 MHz, but not 1700 or 2100. It looks like T-Mobile had switched 1900 to be a 3G band in some but not all cities as of 2012[1]. So I'd guess that you were in one of those areas that hadn't switched over, and only had Edge available in the frequencies your phone supported.
This highlights a major function of the mobile operators: retail store support.
I know people want to think of the carrier network as a dumb pipe, but the carriers have major investments in customer support. This means creating training for their sales reps only on the devices they're selling
Occasionally you'll find some rockstar in a retail store that can help you troubleshoot your non-carrier phone, but those people tend are the exception. Many of the retail reps do cargo-cult support. They try to stay within the boundaries of their training. This isn't terribly surprising- It's all downside if they try to fix your problem and accidentally break your phone. There isn't going to be much sympathy from either the customer or management if they screw up.
This results in little to no support for off-carrier mobiles.
In the UK you have the well-known "Sim-Only" and "Rolling Month" contracts, which are almost, not like contracts in the traditional sense given you can cancel any time.
my Sim-Only contract that last's for 12 months is £15/m
I paid £750 or so for the iPhone 5s with 64GB of space which is: £31 (over 2 years)
£46 total a month for two years.
a contract with my provider for my phone is:
£99 upfront cost.
£51 a month (over 24 months).
so, I'd be paying £5 for the privilege of _not_ having cash in hand for my phone.
there are other downsides; like requiring carrier support instead of apple support, which, honestly makes a large difference to how you're treated.
although the UK is under EU jurisdiction about the locking of mobile phones so, it's now prohibited.
I just made the switch myself. The only thing is; it cost me the iPhone. Only Android phones have the WiFi calling on them. As a result, I had to give up my iPhone and switch to an S4. I have to say though it has been useful as I made crystal clear calls in the middle of nowhere (through hotel wifi) where att nor tmobile get good reception.
In the process with the cost of the new device included in the monthly payments I ended up saving about $80/month for a family plan of 3 phones.
I wish iPhone supported the WiFi calling! Maybe a google voice solution is under way.
If you travel internationally the fact that you can use your data connection (albeit on 2g) internationally without any roaming fees is superb. I would say make sure to get the right phone based on your needs but switch soon!
Another advantage: an unlocked phone can really help for international travel. I'm heading from the US to Hong Kong and my friends with unlocked phones can get local, prepaid SIM cards for very good voice + data rates.
AT&T has told me that "standard" rates for international roaming in Asia is $2.50/minute (!!) and even the biggest package they have only brings it down to $1.50. It's completely insane. Plus you need to purchase voice roaming, data roaming, and text roaming all separately. Believe it or not, it will actually be slightly cheaper to cancel my AT&T plan, pay the cancellation fee, and switch to TMobile than it would be to purchase all of their punitive roaming services.
To be fair, Verizon at least, will unlock your phone for international SIM cards if you call them before traveling abroad. Thus allowing you the same advantages. I'd be surprised if AT&T wouldn't do the same.
With newer LTE phones, Verizon "world phones" (i.e. phones with a GSM SIM slot alongwith the CDMA stuff - For eg. iPhone 5, 5c and 5s) already come GSM "unlocked". This is apparently not out of the goodness of their hearts but because of some LTE spectrum agreements with the FCC. The kicker though is that the phones will favor the Verizon network while in the US.
The rep I chatted with said that AT&T phones "cannot work with other SIMs." The implication was that they cannot be unlocked. Seems fishy, though, so I'm going to confirm. Anyone have experience here?
I've done this and the math already. We had 3 of us on a shared family plan on contract with Sprint at around $200/month. We broke contract and ate some large fees and sold our Sprint phones. We bought 3 nexus4 phones and switched to T-mobile that came around $100/month. Even after paying for breaking our contract with Sprint it was cheaper than to wait the contract out.
As a bonus, we all got unlocked phones with Wifi tethering (free) and better data service. Keep in mind though, T-mobile signal might suck for your location.
I have tried lots of different prepaid and no contract services and here's where I landed. Virgin Mobile is ok if you like the Sprint network. Net10/Tracfone are both fantastic if you don't want/need a smartphone and just want voice and text. Straight Talk is awesome if you want a smartphone.
I do Straight Talk SIM with an iPhone 4 on AT&T's network and the only problem I've had is no media messaging, which is not a huge deal. Also, iMessage is great for that. If you care about MMS, buy a phone from Straight Talk directly. The iPhone on Straight Talk is on the Verizon network, but since it's a VZW phone, you can use SIM as well.
Straight Talk SIM now supports LTE on AT&T if you want to go that route.
The point is, for phone service, you don't need to spend more than $45 a month and off contract phones can be had for $400 or less for top end phones (like iPhone 5 or Galaxy S3). If you don't want data, you can drop down to $25 a month or less.
There is no reason to be on contract, it no longer makes financial sense.
I'm still trying to find my pre-paid provider. I have two AT&T phones, a Lumia 920 and a Nexus 4. On both phones with Net10/AT&T, I ran into an issue where, like you had mentioned, MMS was flaky to non-existent. Also, a 1.5GB cap on data for AT&T.
I switched to T-Mobile prepaid on their 5GB "unlimited" plan, but there are even worse drawbacks there. For one, I struggle to get service. My apartment is half underground, and neither VZW or TMo have coverage, even though I'm in the city. AT&T does, but they don't deserve my money. The second issue is that it only comes with 100 minutes, and I can't figure out how to activate the 10c per minute overage (my phone just tells me I'm out of minutes and I should upgrade the plan).
My SO gets frustrated when I'm out of contact, and is seriously pushing for me to get back on a contract. Maybe Google Voice and a SIP gateway would be a better option? I really don't know.
T-Mobile has calls over wifi. It's active on the my touch line and there are packages for the CyanogenMod versions I've installed. It might still not be up to par for you but T-Mobile is good in my area so I really like it.
The Net10/Straight Talk data cap on AT&T SIM cards has actually been lifted,[0] now it's just 2.5GB at full speed and then throttled until the month is over.
I find that the BYOP offerings of Net10 and Straight Talk don't differ that much: both offer LTE, similar APN settings, same throttling limits, etc., as both companies are owned by TracFone. The only difference is that Straight Talk costs $45/month while Net10 costs $50/month, although if one sets up recurring payments on Net10's website the cost will be reduced to $45/month as well.
If you have wireless network in your apartment get a google voice number. That is what I had to use for 2 years in my apartment. Forward your Google voice number to your cell phone so that it will ring on your phone, through wireless, just like a normal phone. The only reason I ever used my minutes was when I wasn't within a wireless network.
From personal experience, Net10 customer service sucks, and you can't bring your own phone.
For the past year or so I've been using a $10 plan from Airvoice Wireless (an AT&T MVNO) for voice & text on an unlocked old BlackBerry (= good signal quality + long battery life). I'm not sure how long Airvoice will last (they seem like a tiny operation) but at least their customer service has been more responsive than Net10's.
I did Bring Your Own Phone on Net10. I used a Lumia 920 and a Nexus 4 interchangeably. I bought the Smartphone BYOP SIM card from Best Buy and just popped it in my phone and changed the APN settings.
I am thinking of going with the $10 plan with a a Nexus 4. Turn on data when you need it for 6cents/MB. Have you been happy with the call quality, etc?
Ya; call quality is same as with AT&T (haven't had any dropped calls; good signal even in rural areas). Site is simple to use & easy to pay. Only time I had to call customer service (during porting) they were responsive and intelligent.
I'm trying to set up a system where I have google voice and a data plan only. Currently trying out google voice + wifi which is working fine, but I sometimes do need coverage when I'm wifi inaccessible. Any insights on data only plans?
edit: oddly enough, another alternative is to sign up for one of those providers that have free wifi hotspots all across the city (e.g. CableWifi, XfinityWifi), which could be cheaper than a data plan
T-Mobile has a plan where it's $30/mo for 5GB of 4G/LTE data (no overages, just throttled after that), unlimited SMS/MMS and 100 voice minutes. If you have a solid LTE signal, FaceTime Voice works very well. I'm sure other services would work similarly well. It's a bit meh over 3G due to latency and T-Mobile's LTE coverage is very mediocre at best. But, you absolutely get what you pay for.
I'm also trying to find a data only plan. I know verizon offers data only for iPad.. I wonder if there is anyway to sign up for that and hack an iPhone to use it?
I certainly don't know enough to say but I imagine someone here might.
I bought my iPhone (3GS) in France when I lived there. I signed up for a 1 year contract and cancelled it after 10 months, no penalty because I was leaving the country. Bouyges unlocked my phone without any hassle.
When I got home (US) I bought an iPad with AT&T 3G and put that SIM card into the 3GS. I had to install a special profile to make everything work, but that was all it took for a data-only 'phone' plan.
It's a bit klunky. I make calls with an app called Talkatone, and the quality when I'm on 3G gets very bad. It's better at home and work over wifi, but some friends still complain about sound quality and lag.
Whenever people talk about pre-paid, I always think Pay-as-you-go. I am currently thinking of switching from a Tmobile family plan to one of the Pay-as-you-go services that are ultra cheap, like $10 for 100 minutes good for 3 months. Use Voip at home. We'll see how it goes.
One thing none of these articles mention: on AT&T, you don't use minutes to call other AT&T customers. If your entire extended family is on AT&T (as mine is), this provides a horribly effective incentive to stay.
If you're in a family of 2 or more, AT&T's new MobileShare plans don't charge you for minutes, period. On-net or off-net, it doesn't matter. Data is the new metering point.
Reference (you have to provide your zip code, boo!):
Right. And on the ATT network. And only 6cents per MB. Just flip on your phone's data when you need a map or to check your email in an emergency and you could pay < $15/month. Also they have $10 for 100min for 90 days. So if you get a Voip service at home and make all your long calls there + over wifi on your smartphone, you could even pay less for cell minutes, perhaps only $3/month.
I do not work for them, just checking out the options.
One of the things about going with an unlocked phone in the U.S. that often doesn't get discussed is that you can realistically own multiple phones. We miss out on this experience because we are so tied to contracts and only using one phone with a sim card.
The biggest regret I have as someone who has been on phone contracts for years is that it is very prohibitive to experiment with different phones. If we treated phones more like computers, we could have more than one phone at a time. When you're on a contract with a locked phone, it's really difficult to experiment with different phones in any meaningful way.
That doesn't mean I would be buying new phones all the time. Perhaps I get used ones off of Ebay, and I probably only buy a new phone every two years or so. Phones are starting to hit an inflection point where they will run well beyond two years.
If we can get better unlocked options in this country with data and voice plans that are priced better, geeks like us can experiment with different phones and OSes. I use OS X and Windows every week (and Chrome OS, but that depends on the week).
I hardly ever use Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry OS. And I think that's a shame.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but long before T-Mobile did away with their contracts, I was SIM swapping between Android devices (and even flip phones) with no problems.
I still do this occasionally since I keep hoarding my old phones as development devices, and even with phones T-Mobile doesn't actually support (i.e. you can't select it as your current device if you use their web portal), I have not had problems.
On the GSM side (T-mobile and AT&T), if your phone is locked to a carrier it will still accept any SIM from that carrier and your carrier provided SIM will work on any GSM unlocked phone with compatible frequencies.
I just switched from Sprint to T-mobile. I financed my T-mobile 5S through the Apple store, then activated a T-mobile SIM card online, and got the $30 per month deal for 5GB 4g data and 100 minutes per month, with 10 cents per minute beyond that (prepaid). $30 per month is by far the least I've ever paid for an iPhone.
I don't even upgrade my phone through my carrier anymore. I just go on ebay and get a used phone for around $200. Case in point: The new Nokia 928 which was released in May of 2013 is selling on ebay for $250.00. To upgrade its $99 and I get my unlimited data plan yanked and re-up for another two years? No thank you.
Also, the only company to actually reduce their price plans to account for not subsidizing their phones is T-Mobile and I figure they're going to get more customers as people start to realize the upgrades from AT&T and Verizon are a total crime.
> reduce their price plans to account for not subsidizing their phones
When I brought my own phone to sprint and they forced me to sign a 2 year agreement, I knew that business was on the way out. I'm on straight talk now.
Kind of bizarre he goes to such lengths to save a little money and then still buys upgrades regularly. If he cares about money so much, he should be skipping upgrades as well. His plan is not reasonable for me since AT&T and Verizon are the only decent LTE carriers here in the US, so he's permanently crippled his bandwidth. LTE means I don't need a home internet connection any more, so it saves much more than he does by going T-mobile.
So anyway, he's sacrificing network speed to save money, but won't sacrifice upgrades, which seems illogical. Also he writes off skipping upgrades while on a decent network, because he says that is costing him money for free, but it still saves him the cost of the upgrade handset itself, typically $200 for a premium phone. He would be stuck paying the increased amount no matter what on the only good network options there are right now, so it doesn't matter. Saving 200 is saving 200.
Confirms what I thought. I was once locked, it was hell. Now I am free. I can switch or haggle the bastards for the things I want. And it's way cheaper.
I rather pay up front and pick what provider I want every 6 months pay a fee for a card that renews itself ever 6 month without CC or bank account involved so they can't overcharge as they are used to.
I don't think this applies in Canada. For example on Telus, as soon as your contract expires, all the free bundled stuff you got like voicemail or texting plans are now $6 or so a month, so your usual $60 bill jumps to $75.
-A phone is designed to physically break in 2 years (with or without contract)
-A cellular contract last 2 years
-Purchase cost of a new unlocked, contract-free iPhone 16g 5c is $600 after taxes
-Purchase cost of a new locked, contractual iPhone 16g 5c is $120 after taxes
-Monthly bill for iPhone contract is around $100 after taxes(unlimited everything)
-Monthly bill for iPhone without contract is $60 after taxes(unlimited everything)
Total cost of contractual iPhone over 2 Year period:
100+10024=2500
600+5024=1800
((2500-1800)/2500)*100 = 28% more for contract. Factor in the cost-benefit of peripherals you receive with a contract or non-contract phone and make your decision.
In Canada, one of the big 3 telcos, TELUS unlocks your phone for $35 if your account is in good standing after 90 days without having to finish your contract. So you can maintain your contract and have it unlocked for travel.
That's a lot of math, and it might work for most of the top-notch phones. I go google.com/nexus all the way because I know that I'll be able to use my phone anywhere (I'm french and live in the US).
I've got a $30 no-contract sim-card only plan on T-mobile, with unlimited data and use Google voice for my calls. I don't think it's beatable (price wise. Quality wise it is.) it you want a last-gen smartphone.
67 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadThe abysmal world of mobile phone carriers seems to be making some good improvements.
Currently I have a Google Voice account but it is a different number than my phone service.
The net effect is that if anyone, ever tried to send a text message to you and several other people at the same time you will not receive it. You will not receive a notice or anything, it will just silently fail and the sender will assume you are ignore them.
> The net effect is that if anyone, ever tried to send a text message to you and several other people at the same time you will not receive it.
I do receive these. I haven't ever heard from anyone "Hey, you didn't come to my <birthday party, other event>!?!?!
I cannot send them. YMMV?
To be completely accurate - Nexus phones are an exception. Even the manufacturer of Nexus phones sells their non Google branded Nexus equivalent models at significantly higher cost. There is nothing else in the market priced like a Nexus phone (probably because no one can sell these devices at cost because they don't have the cushion of massive ad revenues).
Consumers have forgotten.
A) Your expenses shouldn't exceed your income.
B) You should carefully evaluate the price you pay for financing.
There is nothing wrong with amortizing an expense, provided it doesn't break your income/expense ratio and you aren't overpaying on the financing.
Ultimately the best way to minimize your costs is retaining the ability to say "sod off, I'm going to [competitor]".
My point is that it's still not a "common sense" evaluation. It's a nuanced decision that must consider all variables.
That's because you haven't actually had to start using T-Mobile's horrendous service. When I tried to do this (admittedly a couple years ago) they told me with a straight face, after I had gone through all the effort of changing "You can't use data on your smartphone because you didn't get it from us." Why would I have changed over if I couldn't use data!?!? (It would have been edge or something ridiculous as well, as only people on certain contracts could use 3g!)
No carrier is going to have perfect coverage. This is something I'm willing to live with for unlimited connectivity @ $50/month.
I mean, seriously! I get coverage in the Virgin Islands! Included! And with their new rates for International travel, I'm willing to let A LOT slide.
[1]http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4988
I know people want to think of the carrier network as a dumb pipe, but the carriers have major investments in customer support. This means creating training for their sales reps only on the devices they're selling
Occasionally you'll find some rockstar in a retail store that can help you troubleshoot your non-carrier phone, but those people tend are the exception. Many of the retail reps do cargo-cult support. They try to stay within the boundaries of their training. This isn't terribly surprising- It's all downside if they try to fix your problem and accidentally break your phone. There isn't going to be much sympathy from either the customer or management if they screw up.
This results in little to no support for off-carrier mobiles.
In the UK you have the well-known "Sim-Only" and "Rolling Month" contracts, which are almost, not like contracts in the traditional sense given you can cancel any time.
my Sim-Only contract that last's for 12 months is £15/m I paid £750 or so for the iPhone 5s with 64GB of space which is: £31 (over 2 years) £46 total a month for two years.
a contract with my provider for my phone is: £99 upfront cost. £51 a month (over 24 months).
so, I'd be paying £5 for the privilege of _not_ having cash in hand for my phone.
there are other downsides; like requiring carrier support instead of apple support, which, honestly makes a large difference to how you're treated.
although the UK is under EU jurisdiction about the locking of mobile phones so, it's now prohibited.
In the process with the cost of the new device included in the monthly payments I ended up saving about $80/month for a family plan of 3 phones.
I wish iPhone supported the WiFi calling! Maybe a google voice solution is under way.
If you travel internationally the fact that you can use your data connection (albeit on 2g) internationally without any roaming fees is superb. I would say make sure to get the right phone based on your needs but switch soon!
AT&T has told me that "standard" rates for international roaming in Asia is $2.50/minute (!!) and even the biggest package they have only brings it down to $1.50. It's completely insane. Plus you need to purchase voice roaming, data roaming, and text roaming all separately. Believe it or not, it will actually be slightly cheaper to cancel my AT&T plan, pay the cancellation fee, and switch to TMobile than it would be to purchase all of their punitive roaming services.
*edited - I've only done this with iPhones but my understanding is that it can be done with any phone once out of contract.
As a bonus, we all got unlocked phones with Wifi tethering (free) and better data service. Keep in mind though, T-mobile signal might suck for your location.
I do Straight Talk SIM with an iPhone 4 on AT&T's network and the only problem I've had is no media messaging, which is not a huge deal. Also, iMessage is great for that. If you care about MMS, buy a phone from Straight Talk directly. The iPhone on Straight Talk is on the Verizon network, but since it's a VZW phone, you can use SIM as well.
Straight Talk SIM now supports LTE on AT&T if you want to go that route.
The point is, for phone service, you don't need to spend more than $45 a month and off contract phones can be had for $400 or less for top end phones (like iPhone 5 or Galaxy S3). If you don't want data, you can drop down to $25 a month or less.
There is no reason to be on contract, it no longer makes financial sense.
I switched to T-Mobile prepaid on their 5GB "unlimited" plan, but there are even worse drawbacks there. For one, I struggle to get service. My apartment is half underground, and neither VZW or TMo have coverage, even though I'm in the city. AT&T does, but they don't deserve my money. The second issue is that it only comes with 100 minutes, and I can't figure out how to activate the 10c per minute overage (my phone just tells me I'm out of minutes and I should upgrade the plan).
My SO gets frustrated when I'm out of contact, and is seriously pushing for me to get back on a contract. Maybe Google Voice and a SIP gateway would be a better option? I really don't know.
I find that the BYOP offerings of Net10 and Straight Talk don't differ that much: both offer LTE, similar APN settings, same throttling limits, etc., as both companies are owned by TracFone. The only difference is that Straight Talk costs $45/month while Net10 costs $50/month, although if one sets up recurring payments on Net10's website the cost will be reduced to $45/month as well.
[0]: http://androidforums.com/net10/763501-net10-t-sim-card-data-...
For the past year or so I've been using a $10 plan from Airvoice Wireless (an AT&T MVNO) for voice & text on an unlocked old BlackBerry (= good signal quality + long battery life). I'm not sure how long Airvoice will last (they seem like a tiny operation) but at least their customer service has been more responsive than Net10's.
edit: oddly enough, another alternative is to sign up for one of those providers that have free wifi hotspots all across the city (e.g. CableWifi, XfinityWifi), which could be cheaper than a data plan
I certainly don't know enough to say but I imagine someone here might.
When I got home (US) I bought an iPad with AT&T 3G and put that SIM card into the 3GS. I had to install a special profile to make everything work, but that was all it took for a data-only 'phone' plan.
It's a bit klunky. I make calls with an app called Talkatone, and the quality when I'm on 3G gets very bad. It's better at home and work over wifi, but some friends still complain about sound quality and lag.
Reference (you have to provide your zip code, boo!):
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/mobileshare.html
I do not work for them, just checking out the options.
The biggest regret I have as someone who has been on phone contracts for years is that it is very prohibitive to experiment with different phones. If we treated phones more like computers, we could have more than one phone at a time. When you're on a contract with a locked phone, it's really difficult to experiment with different phones in any meaningful way.
That doesn't mean I would be buying new phones all the time. Perhaps I get used ones off of Ebay, and I probably only buy a new phone every two years or so. Phones are starting to hit an inflection point where they will run well beyond two years.
If we can get better unlocked options in this country with data and voice plans that are priced better, geeks like us can experiment with different phones and OSes. I use OS X and Windows every week (and Chrome OS, but that depends on the week).
I hardly ever use Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry OS. And I think that's a shame.
I still do this occasionally since I keep hoarding my old phones as development devices, and even with phones T-Mobile doesn't actually support (i.e. you can't select it as your current device if you use their web portal), I have not had problems.
Perhaps this is different between providers?
On the CDMA side (i.e. Verizon, Sprint), yes.
On the GSM side (T-mobile and AT&T), if your phone is locked to a carrier it will still accept any SIM from that carrier and your carrier provided SIM will work on any GSM unlocked phone with compatible frequencies.
Also, the only company to actually reduce their price plans to account for not subsidizing their phones is T-Mobile and I figure they're going to get more customers as people start to realize the upgrades from AT&T and Verizon are a total crime.
When I brought my own phone to sprint and they forced me to sign a 2 year agreement, I knew that business was on the way out. I'm on straight talk now.
So anyway, he's sacrificing network speed to save money, but won't sacrifice upgrades, which seems illogical. Also he writes off skipping upgrades while on a decent network, because he says that is costing him money for free, but it still saves him the cost of the upgrade handset itself, typically $200 for a premium phone. He would be stuck paying the increased amount no matter what on the only good network options there are right now, so it doesn't matter. Saving 200 is saving 200.
Given:
-A phone is designed to physically break in 2 years (with or without contract)
-A cellular contract last 2 years
-Purchase cost of a new unlocked, contract-free iPhone 16g 5c is $600 after taxes
-Purchase cost of a new locked, contractual iPhone 16g 5c is $120 after taxes
-Monthly bill for iPhone contract is around $100 after taxes(unlimited everything)
-Monthly bill for iPhone without contract is $60 after taxes(unlimited everything)
Total cost of contractual iPhone over 2 Year period:
100+10024=2500
600+5024=1800
((2500-1800)/2500)*100 = 28% more for contract. Factor in the cost-benefit of peripherals you receive with a contract or non-contract phone and make your decision.
Done.