Smartphones

Yeah I'm at $210 a month on Sprint for unlimited Data + 1500 shared minutes on 4 phones. 3 are 4g Smartphones, 1 is an older 3G smartphone(my dads)

If I change at all, I don't think I can stay with Sprint, the 1GB limit per line on the Framily thing is a dealbreaker. I use 3-5GB per month on my phone(I dont have wifi at work), while all the others would be under 1GB. I might have to look into AT&T, 10GB shared would be doable.

Paying $200+ a month for phones just seems crazy. Its going to be hard to time a switch though, as all the lines were added at different times, so the 2-year upgrade timers are all at different points and some of the phones(2 I think?) have been upgraded recently enough that there would be a penalty for canceling anytime this year. Blech.

The 1GB limit is a soft limit though, they reserve the right to throttle your data past 1GB of data to 2G speeds, but apparently never do from what I'm gathering. (Lets put it this way, Tarrant basically said I was wrong when I mentioned my data was limited here, and at least one or two agents have called it unlimited) And of course never charge you an extra dime for it.

If you are sure you want to cancel with Sprint though, switching to Framily allows you to break your contract without ETF from my understanding. (They let us go to it even though we had another 7 months on ours, and when I was frustrated and talking about quitting did verify there's no ETF looming over our heads)

Please god, make this happen

Google reportedly wants to offer mobile phone service in Fiber areas

Vaclav_sl said:

Ritley, I think if the subsidized phones aren't a dealmaker for you - ITHINKFramily is going to be better for 5 lines. Should be $35 per line with 5 (assuming no other people added to the Framily thing to get it down to $30/25) - so $175 before taxes and fees. $65 ahead of the game if you don't care about the subsidies/don't need upgrades. [And still easy to be ahead with sensible upgrading]

Apparently Best Buy got cleared to sell the Sprint HTC One (M8) [only Amber Gold though] early, was going to pick up ours tonight, but the system wasn't getting along so they had to cancel it for tonight - but will have ours tomorrow I guess.

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I generally upgrade every 2ish years, so I factor that savings into my monthly cost when comparing to plans without subsidies. I don't need the subsidy or anything, but when the savings are spread out over the 2 year contract it makes it cheaper than Framily plus true unlimited. I save $400-$450 every two years for each line with subsidies, so factoring that in my cost per month is around $155 for 5 lines after taxes and fees.

The only downside is it's harder to switch carriers, but all of my upgrades are within a month or two of each other so it's not too bad

Inque_sl said:

What device is on the 3rd line you used to get the discounted phone? It's hard to adjust things w/o knowing the data usage on Unlimited. There are a lot of discounts I've been able to give people, or at least better options, but the majority of people who have Unlimited in my area are consuming about 2GB or less anyway. I'm guessing the users on this board are pulling 5-10GB or more? I dunno.

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I juat checked this month's data use and I an nearing 8 and my wife 4. The third line that is 2gb used to get her the iphone uses none it's totally not used. I am going to get it up and running and be our car hotspot to stream shit for the kids on the vans dvd on long trips or something.

Do you have coverage on your phones? With a 16% discount that puts a 20GB plan at $120, plus $40 per smart phone and there is a loyalty plan for $15 (30m a month) you can toss a basic phone onto for that third line until its out of contract to save $15 a month ; Total bill w/o tax would be $221. That 3rd line though, you'd be better off getting a MiFi or second hand mobile hotspot for $20 a month and going that route versus tossing a smartphone there for $40 a pop.

The thing I hate the most when dealing with trying to figure out plans, is the REAL cost, after taxes, fees, etc. Last time I was in a Sprint store they tried to get me to switch to a new plan. I pay $220.56 a month right now, to be exact down to the penny. The guy spends like 15 minutes figuring up this new plan for me, sorting out all 4 phones, etc, then comes back to me with a price of $215, and says "Do you want me to go ahead and switch you, you'll be saving money and get more shared minutes". So I ask him if that price is before or after taxes and fees. Of course it is before any of that. So I ask him to refigure the REAL cost, after all taxes and fees. $239 a month. Thanks a-hole for wasting my time and pushing hard for me to switch when you weren't comparing apples to apples. I'm sure he could look at my current plan and see exactly how much my plan cost before fees. I wonder how many people a day they sucker into stuff like that, and then the customer throws a fit when they get their first bill, but by that point, whoops, you're now in a new contract that you can't change for 2 years.

It's annoying when they don't (I've had good luck with them doing it - although do keep in mind the best they can do is ESTIMATE fees and taxes, they always come $1-2 high for me in fact) - but taxes and fees are assessed by line and how the carrier operates, so if you're within the carrier already, taxes and fees shouldn't ever change - so it's better to go in with both numbers in mind, then you can use both numbers once you verify which they're using. (or v.v.)

It's a really nice bonus for the prepaid carriers though, that they've got the taxes on the backend.

Wow.... just found out the HTC One (M8) supports Sprint Spark right out of the box for when it goes active in your area:
Sprint Spark | Sprint Newsroom

First time I've heard anything on it, holy shit that's some fast hypothetical numbers...

As stated before I'm in a good area - and got our HTC One (M8)'s now and holy shit, what a phone. Even BlinkFeed that I was expecting to be annoying is quite damn fun (frankly, I lost about 90 min on it, just paging through a bunch of facebook and news).

One Sprint Spark - I'm in a supported area (and one that Sprint has been great on 4G for - we were one of the earliest WiMax areas - and by the time I had an LTE phone [Galaxy Nexus] I only had to live with 3G for a few months - and their 3G was pretty solid anyhow) - and from the numbers I'm getting at home, perhaps there's some cheating going on with their end, but Speedtest is coming back with 55 Mps slightly better than my FiOS in fact. [But keep in mind, only two devices Sprint sells can use it, and most people don't know they're selling HTC One yet - so JUST LG Flex owners are really relevant ATM]

But we'll see how it is as I'm out and about, not that I can think of any need to ever need past 4G though - especially by how far ahead their hypotheticals claim to be. But it's definitely one weird case where it's actually good to be in the Baltimore area...

Oh and if anyone is considering the HTC One (M8) I do have one semi-negative to say about it - unlike most phones, you DO NOT WANT your Ringtone to be set to max - holy shit is it loud on max for ringtone, good for people that are hard of hearing, but man it's loud as anything.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

What the? $95 for unlimited data and 1000 texts? That sounds like ass rape compared to tmobiles 100minute unlimited text/data(only first 5gb 4g tho).

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Shit, even TMO's unlimited everything plan is $70/mo

Some people are still convinced it's Verizon or crap coverage keep in mind. People finally are starting to see reality is that they're only slightly less spotty for astronomically more.

Verizon is 1000% better for me where I live. I get 4G (I get 25 megabit where I live and up to 50 megabit in town) with Verizon and like 100kb/sec or less with every other provider. Verizon = stream Netflix, TMO/Sprint/AT&T = can't even check email. It's more than worth the additional cost.

Midwest does seem to be a lock for them, yes. But your region is a drastic minority of people.

Also rumblings are that data roaming charges might be getting canned if so becomes very moot. (Just passed in EU and apparently the same lobbying is already in progress here too)

Gaige_sl said:

Verizon is 1000% better for me where I live. I get 4G (I get 25 megabit where I live and up to 50 megabit in town) with Verizon and like 100kb/sec or less with every other provider. Verizon = stream Netflix, TMO/Sprint/AT&T = can't even check email. It's more than worth the additional cost.

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You said you've lived in AZ and I can tell you for a fact that even though Verizon has good coverage here, their network is over saturated and ATT speeds and coverage are better to me than when I had verizon. I have lte everywhere in Phoenix I go all the way down I-10 and into Tucson.