Prepaid Service

[saratoga172]

I've been tossing about the idea of ditching Verizon and going with a prepaid service. Over time my Verizon bill has climbed from ~$78/month to now ~$93/month (That was with NFL Mobile so truly ~$88/month).

I haven't ever really been dissatisfied with the service. They had a few LTE outages early on and the network is a bit saturated now so I usually see 5-10 down on average. Sufficient for my needs when out and about. I can connect to wifi at home if needed. I've almost always been able to make and receive phone calls (device permitting) and send/receive texts. I'm just looking to cut some costs as it seems crazy to spend $90/month for cell service. The main thing that is keeping me from jumping ship today is that I've got a grandfathered unlimited plan with them and I'm tentative about giving that up.

Current plan:
450 anytime minutes
5000 N&W
unlimited M2M
Unlimited Text & Data

Current Usage:
Over the past 3 months for voice ~750ish average
Data is anywhere from 1.5-3gb of usage. I could connect more to wifi and not download apps on the go and preserve more data
Texts (new plan must have unlimited)


Currently using a Verizon iPhone 5 which I know is compatible with T-Mobile's HSPA+ network (1900mhz I think?). But I'd be fine with wiping and selling to either get a T-Mobile version or find another phone. Been thinking about jumping back to Android.

Current plan would be to use my old Galaxy Nexus with my Verizon account until my contract is up in September and I'd be free to use MY iPhone to test out new prepaid services to see what works.

What I've looked at:

T-Mobile Prepay - Unsure which plan would be good. I'd like to stay at or under $50 but really the cheaper the better for seeing real savings. The $60 with 2.5gb of data is very enticing. The $30 plan wouldn't work as I need more minutes. Might be able to slide by on the $50 500mb highspeed plan. Suggestions for T-Mobile? Do they allow LTE connectivity on their prepay or month-to-month or is it HSPA+ only?

Straight Talk - $45 unlimited everything. 2gb soft cap I believe on data. Not worried about this too much since I can use wifi. How does data speed compare to the T-Mobile prepay option? Is coverage the same since they now use T-Mobile's network?

Net 10? - Just came across them but they use AT&T's network and have unlimited everything I believe. Again soft cap at 2gb for data like Straight Talk. How's the coverage compare to the T-Mobile options?

For reference I'm in Dallas and occasionally travel to Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Oklahoma City. Those are maybe once a month tops though.

Assuming the phone is not an issue (would prefer to reuse my iPhone 5 but not against changing to something else, maybe S4 or HTC One or something similar as I'd like great battery life) what service or recommendations do you guys have? Experiences are welcome. Information across the net is very sporadic and all over the place.

Thanks to anyone who reads/responds to this. Help is greatly appreciated.

 

[dagamer34]

There's also AT&T's GoPhone plan which gives you unlimited minutes, texts, and 2GB data for $60/month. It's basically AT&T's post paid plan without any of the idiotic fees and no device subsidy. You'll have to bring your own phone (which honestly, if you wait a few months you can get cheaper than MSRP, especially if it is NOT an iPhone).

I switched to T-Mobile recently in the Houston area in May and have seen definite improvement in their coverage and tower performance in the last few months, even since LTE launched in March. Granted, it's no Verizon or AT&T, you'll probably almost always get voice coverage unless you're in a rural area, but data speeds can be less than ideal. You do get what you pay for, which is why I'm not angry about it.

 

[AstroManLuca]

You could even get Verizon's prepaid smartphone service, which is $60/mo for unlimited talk/text and 2 GB of data. That's already a pretty significant savings over what you have, and you know all your devices would work on it. But you would also lose LTE, and Verizon's 3G is pretty slow.

T-Mobile has cheap plans and there are plenty of MVNOs on their network that also have cheap plans. The issue is data coverage. Outside of large cities, don't expect to get much.

Platinumtel is a TMo MVNO with a $50 unlimited + 2 GB data plan. They ONLY work on T-Mobile towers though, no roaming. That's one advantage to T-Mobile's own prepaid service - you can roam on AT&T towers for voice coverage (not data). Otherwise they are similar, just slightly cheaper than TMo's own plans.

 

[openwheel]

don't do it. Keep your unlimited data.

 

[saratoga172]

Well I went out and bought the Net10 sim and plan to test for a month. I'll see how the service works. Using a new number since I'm still on my plan with Verizon, so I won't be 100% on that phone, but the main thing I'm looking at is data and connectivity. Pretty confident I'll get voice and text most places I go.

Net10 uses AT&T's network and uses the HSPA+ network where available. I've been able to pull 6/3 speeds so far with full bars of "4G". So more than adequate speeds for listening to Pandora, receiving/responding to email, and browsing forums on tapatalk and safari browsing. One thing I hadn't realized I used so much was picture messaging. Something I'll have to get a T-Mobile sim and try to work around. Currently don't have it.

Call quality sounds the same as my iPhone 5 on Verizon. I'm using the same phone so that may be why but at least the network is on par. I don't pay much attention to quality of the call as long as it isn't terribly staticky anyways.

I'm still curious in checking out T-Mobile's prepay program since they supposedly do LTE on their prepay network and I could do something like the HTC One, S4, or T-Mobile iPhone 5 for LTE data. Their HSPA+ network might be a bit faster with an officially supported device as well.

These are only thoughts after a few hours of use. I'll see how it works over the weekend and report back. Also of note my battery seems to be a bit better on the HSPA+ network than it was on Verizon's LTE network. That could just be because a different part of the chip (less power hungry) is being used. Again I'll have more info on it over the weekend.

Anything particular anyone wants me to check out? Any other suggestions?

 

[saratoga172]

don't do it. Keep your unlimited data.

I still may, but I'm really looking to cut my phone costs. And I can go prepay with "unlimited" for $40 cheaper per month. Couple that with some other things I've cut back on and it's a nice little savings.

It's just crazy for me to be paying $90 month for phone service when I can something nearly as good for half the price. Testing it now so we'll see if it's worth the trade-off.

 

[saratoga172]

You could even get Verizon's prepaid smartphone service, which is $60/mo for unlimited talk/text and 2 GB of data. That's already a pretty significant savings over what you have, and you know all your devices would work on it. But you would also lose LTE, and Verizon's 3G is pretty slow.

T-Mobile has cheap plans and there are plenty of MVNOs on their network that also have cheap plans. The issue is data coverage. Outside of large cities, don't expect to get much.

Platinumtel is a TMo MVNO with a $50 unlimited + 2 GB data plan. They ONLY work on T-Mobile towers though, no roaming. That's one advantage to T-Mobile's own prepaid service - you can roam on AT&T towers for voice coverage (not data). Otherwise they are similar, just slightly cheaper than TMo's own plans.

Thanks, but there is no way I would ever consider Verizon's 3G network. It's just painfully slow now that I'm used to LTE. And I use data quite a bit between email, browsing and such. I can offset some with wifi but still like to have the ability when I need it.