Cell phone carriers

We use and recommend Tmobile. Ive had verizon, sprint, and Carolina west but Tmobile has been good to me for 8 years now.
 
Subscribed...played this game a few years ago, tried everything that didn't tie me to a contract. Verizon was by far the best coverage, so I went back to Verizon. The wife and I have two phones (paid for) on our plan with 12gb of data, unlimited talk and text...we're at $140ish/month. Went to Verizon a couple months back to see what plans they had that could get it cheaper...told me I was grandfathered into an old plan and they couldn't really offer a better rate unless I wanted to give up some data (which we already exceed if we travel anywhere, additional $15/gig). I was hoping in the last few years someone had gotten better, but in my own house, I have folks with various carriers that have difficulty getting service, but I never have with Verizon.
 
you can get straightalk with verzion tower.
straightalk isnt a carrier they are a provider
 
Google Fi here, love it, been all over and had no issues...they use T-mobile and sprint towers (maybe a few others since I last checked). The wife has verizon, and we have yet to be anywhere, where I didn't have the same or better service.

For those that travel, the phone works in ~180 countries with no special fees or sim sards (jumps on local provider network).

I use very little data, and my bill is $30 or less every month....the bill is based off of data usage, but will never exceed $80/mnth.

PM and I can send you a link that will get us both $20 if you want to try google fi. If you are an android user, a google fi phone is the way to go, I have the cheapest moto Android-one phone ($180?), it is nice because security patches are made quickly, they don't have to be modified to suit your service provider specific phone.

If anyone else wants a promo code....shoot me a pm with a number to text to.
 
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The wife tried straight talk some years ago - no service at home and dropped it. I think they used att/cingular at the time. I've had vzw for the last decade or more.. prepaid ($20/3g data if the plan runs out - $40/3gig and service for a month, they offer other plans with more data). Wife went to .... Not cricket but the other one.. not us cell.... Not TMobile... METROPCS!! (That took 5 minutes). Her plan includes like 15-17g, no hot spot for like $60 out the door. Coverage is different than my Vzw service, some places I don't have service, she does, and vice versa. Both are prepaid. Vzw offers a higher data package prepaid plan for 60/70$ and includes hot spot. I'm partial to vzw due to coverage and I've been with them forever (prepaid). Ymmv. I don't see any advantage to a contract.. so what if I pay ahead for it vs getting a bill in mail.. and you can set up auto pay, so what's the difference? Most prepay plans are as good or better than contracts. For one, there are never any surprise bills for overage - it doesn't exist.
 
As said, there are a number of providers that use VZ as the carrier. If you like VZ, you should be able to goto one of them and get the same amount of service.

If you use alot of data or like having a newer phone, the cheap plans are not likely going to work well for you.
 
Stuntman Autoworks said:
I'm wanting to drop Verizon and go with a cheaper option. Any experience with straight talk? Others?
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I have been with Straight Talk for years. I left Verizon not long after they bought out Alltel and went to Straight Talk. The interesting thing is that if you get a phone with a red map on the box from Straight Talk, its gonna use Verizon's towers anyway so you benefit from their coverage area without getting raped by their prices. Tried a blue map phone once, (att&T) and didnt like it, went back to a red map one.
 
I have Google Fi as well, but in my opinion, it's WAY behind Verizon. Verizon had the best coverage for me at work in Charlotte, at home in SC, in BFE eastern NC, and like Uwharrie, the outer banks, no problems. Google Fi is much cheaper, and works pretty well at work, home, but in BFE it's very hit or miss, and I got basically no service at Uwharrie last time I was there. Fi uses sprint, t-mobile, and US cellular towers IIRC. I also signed up when there were only 3 phone options and my Pixel 2 is an overpriced piece of shit. It may be just me or my particular phone, but I'm unimpressed with it compared to my old Galaxy S6 and my work Iphone 7 and 8 I've had. It's been buggy, the screen bezels are huge, the speakerphone is shit. It's a year old and since month 4 it got to where I had to cram the cable in the charger port and hope it doesn't move a millimeter and stop charging. But I think the options for phones are better now.

I like Fi's pricing, but I think it's more of a data grab than anything. Google gives you a cheap phone plan and an acceptable service. They try to seamlessly use wifi when possible and move around the best tower if there's no wifi, all nice and good in theory, but to me it seems more like a lot of data for them to gather and use. If you are OK with that, and you need a phone that works where t-mobile, sprint or US cellular work well already, it's a pretty good deal.
 
We have a family plan on Verizon, unlimited data, unlimited talk/text, etc. It comes out to about $65 per month for me since I got a new phone last year, will go down after the phone is paid off. Wife's cost is the same since she got a new phone at the same time. Haven't found anyone else that can touch Verizon's coverage area.
 
untchabl said:
We have a family plan on Verizon, unlimited data, unlimited talk/text, etc. It comes out to about $65 per month for me since I got a new phone last year, will go down after the phone is paid off. Wife's cost is the same since she got a new phone at the same time. Haven't found anyone else that can touch Verizon's coverage area.
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I don't see how yours is that cheap. Me and Melissa have a phone plan together with Verizon unlimited data. My phone is an old s5 and hers is new pixel 3. She has the payment every month and our bill is $190/mo. If you break it down my half of the bill is $68.xx but no payment to come off or anything that's as cheap as its going to get.
 
paulevans76 said:
I like Fi's pricing, but I think it's more of a data grab than anything. Google gives you a cheap phone plan and an acceptable service. They try to seamlessly use wifi when possible and move around the best tower if there's no wifi, all nice and good in theory, but to me it seems more like a lot of data for them to gather and use. If you are OK with that, and you need a phone that works where t-mobile, sprint or US cellular work well already, it's a pretty good deal.
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You think none of the other companies gather data? Do you live under a rock?
 
Stuntman Autoworks said:
You think none of the other companies gather data? Do you live under a rock?
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I dont think he said that.

But Google owns the 5 largest Data centers in the world.
Facebook is number 6 and 8
7,9, and 10 are also Google.

No one, and I mean no one harvests data like Google.
If you have nothing to hide, who cares - right? But understand Fi was described in public Google documents as a data gathering marketing tool.
 
BTW before someone google's that (HA) and corrects me...please note square footage does not equal data volume....
 
Stuntman Autoworks said:
But he did infer in that direction, atleast that's how it reads to me.
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I guess what I am saying is this. We all know cell carriers gather meta data. Even if we dont like it we come to accept it.
Google gathers more data. It is going to be interesting how the law rules on Google recording calls and having them electronically analyzed without human interaction and its federal wire tap implications...then again with Fi you sign away your rights to privacy to all calls.
 
If you use any digital device and expect privacy....you are setting yourself up for a huge disappointment.

On any android device, google defaults are set to gather your data, spend 5 mins. and go through your android and security settings, you can opt. out of most of it, no matter the service provider.
 
shelby27604 said:
If you use any digital device and expect privacy....you are setting yourself up for a huge disappointment.

On any android device, google defaults are set to gather your data, spend 5 mins. and go through your android and security settings, you can opt. out of most of it, no matter the service provider.
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Right. But IF you opt out thats device level.
You cant stop the carrier from recording the data that passes through its hands. IE recording phone calls, saving texts, etc.
In this instance Google has the chance to save what you search if you dont opt out through the search engine data center.
And if you do opt out they can save what you search for by the carriers transmission data center.

The contract for Fi specifically grants them the rights to save store and use all information including recording of your phone calls for voice analysis and recreation.

I was at a Data Center conference in February that was scary as shit. At one of the security break out sessions they had a rep there from a company Google acquired last year for their voice recognition technology. They brought three volunteers up - one of which a coworker who Ive known 15 years...so he wasnt a plant.

They had them read a paragraph into a microphone...pretty innocous paragraph and the microphone was a blue tooth headset. Nothing overly fancy.
They then played clips of these people saying things. Things like, "I'm sorry (insert wife's name here) I dont love you any more I want a divorce." or "I hereby renounce my US citizenship and pledge allegiance to Mars"

Again Ive known this dude forever. I would have sworn he said the words they played. The tone, inflection everything was darn near perfect. It terrified me to be honest.

The implications of that are staggering
 
iPhone 8+ on straight talk,very few times have I not had any service.$45 a month unlimited plan.Three phones w them for about 4/5 years now.Theres a area on 77 over around mnt Airey where I never have service but most everywhere else it works good.Biggest complaint is customer service has almost ZERO folks that speak English as their native language,and of the ones that do none I have talked to speak "southern English"
 
Stuntman Autoworks said:
You think none of the other companies gather data? Do you live under a rock?
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Whether I live under or over rocks is none of your damn business sir :D But I do understand that all of them are gathering and harvesting and processing and selling/sharing/using data. I think Google saw the opportunity do get in on it from another angle and tie together some of their other market coverage and whatnot. I accept it as how things work nowadays, but it still feels icky knowing that everything these days is a cover for data harvesting.
 
Stuntman Autoworks said:
I don't see how yours is that cheap. Me and Melissa have a phone plan together with Verizon unlimited data. My phone is an old s5 and hers is new pixel 3. She has the payment every month and our bill is $190/mo. If you break it down my half of the bill is $68.xx but no payment to come off or anything that's as cheap as its going to get.
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My parents, my brother, Ashlee and I all share a family plan. Think my parents part is around $30-40 each per month since they have older phones. Brother, wife and I have newer phones so our portion is $65 each per month.

I can talk to Ashlee and see exactly which plan we have.
 
We have Verizon and are grandfathered into an old plan. On top of the rate on two of my lines I get an extra $20/month discount for owning my phone. Plus I had a 25% discount applied when I worked for Cummins and they never removed it. With both of those 2 of our lines are ~$48/month but we pool like 12 gfigs of data not unlimited. And the two kids blow through the cap everymonth and I pay overages. But with their new plans we have to use 5 gigs extra for it to work out and...we dont ...usually...eventually ill update.

But its a tough decision. VZW is spotty at my house. ATT had full coverage at my house.But from 1 mile from my hosue to 10 m miles either direction vzw is great and att is zero its a weird location...dont know what to choose.
 
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