Kid cell phone options…

Tacoma747 said:
I don't think 1,000 Snapchat's a day is going to get them to the point of 'leading the way'.

I can't wait till my kids are teenagers when I have to eat these words.
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What i mean by that is -it’s the norm of their peers . Im not suggesting we shouldn’t teach to be above the noise - but it’s also part of being a part of your community.
 
Ron said:
Well every Snapchat includes a photo. I’d guesstimate my kids send 1,000+ snapchats each a day
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How the fuck is that possible?
To hit 1k you'd have to average more than 1 a minute for 16 hours.
 
Ron said:
Cool story. But he has soon to be teen girls. 5gb is before lunch.
Trust me.

My two college kids average about 250gb each /month
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I cannot wrap my head around this.
That is 5.8 Megabits transferred every minute for 30 days nonstop. No sleeping.
I feel like there must be some miscommunication here.
 
RatLabGuy said:
How the fuck is that possible?
To hit 1k you'd have to average more than 1 a minute for 16 hours.
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Maybe they send 20 snaps to 50 peeps at a time? Adds up pretty quick when you realize that it's not a 1:1
 
RatLabGuy said:
I cannot wrap my head around this.
That is 5.8 Megabits transferred every minute for 30 days nonstop. No sleeping.
I feel like there must be some miscommunication here.
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We've done 40GB down/2GB up in the last 24 hours here at the house. You're mixing and matching irrelevant scales, which makes the numbers seem ridiculous. Assuming an 8-hour day, you can do 250 GB at 2Mbps in a month. A few hours of mixed resolution/bitrate video mixed in with other things (Spotify, TikTok, etc) gets there pretty easily.
 
RatLabGuy said:
I cannot wrap my head around this.
That is 5.8 Megabits transferred every minute for 30 days nonstop. No sleeping.
I feel like there must be some miscommunication here.
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Ok.
But with 5g speeds and current camera resolutions…
5mbs is pretty minute. Even out here in the sticks I’m ~110 on 4g.

Now realize that damn near every conversation a teenager has is a video chat. And you have a camera with a 32-48 megapixel resolution constantly up and down the video. Seriously I have conversations with my kids at college where they are in their room studying and it’s FaceTime with the screen looking at the ceiling. That’s just the norm.

I fought it until Jan of 22. I had one kid 3 years in college and one in her senior year and we’d fought a 10gb/month plan.
They’d go over half the time my blood pressure would spike. They’d pay for it. Rinse and repeat.
I then realized for less than $100 /year more I could get unlimited and thought about how many $100 meals I’d eaten in an hour in the last year ….and I’ve never looked back .

Plus I know Rob and his family. He’s raising a pair of princesses who don’t know the word ‘no’ just like their mama. I can relate. :D

I’m suggesting he needs an unlimited data plan because he doesn’t need to lose more hair
 
Oh and on Sunday iphone sends that usage text. I just pinged my two kids.
11&14 hours a day seems to be the current load level
 
FYI, no overage charges with Mint. IMO, of they go over the 5,10, or whatever plan and it meters the speed back, then it is what it is. It's cheap! Do I wish sometimes I had Verizon service? Sure. But I also remember how bad Verizon's customer service was, and at my house, Verizon is no better than t-mobile. For $15/month I don't have any complaints. Normally when I don't have service, it's in a place I wouldn't expect to have service anyways (you know, motorcycle rides in the middle of nowhere, places that cell signal COULD be very important in an emergency 😄)
 
Tacoma747 said:
FYI, no overage charges with Mint. IMO, of they go over the 5,10, or whatever plan and it meters the speed back, then it is what it is.
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That's how my 4gb Verizon plan is. Super fast, until it hits 4gb for the month, then you feel like you're on dial up. But we used 4.01Gb last month, so I think it's about right.
 
Ron said:
Now realize that damn near every conversation a teenager has is a video chat. And you have a camera with a 32-48 megapixel resolution constantly up and down the video.
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It's not streaming at that resolution, though.

Stuff like Instagram, FB, TikTok, etc, massive data hogs. Constantly trying to buffer the next video.
 
shawn said:
It's not streaming at that resolution, though.

Stuff like Instagram, FB, TikTok, etc, massive data hogs. Constantly trying to buffer the next video.
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Yeah, I was going to say TT or IG. The constant video download will run up data in a heartbeat.
 
The mvno plans, the prioritizing was a big issue for me. Typically it goes something like Emergency Services, Business, Post Paid Customers, PrePaid Customers, MVNO Customers. With the amount of travel I do, the prepaid and MVNO plans never worked well for me. ANd I also found out the hard way that a Verizon towers MVNO plan, does not work on ALL Verizon towers. Some verizon towers are *not* accessible by prepaid devices. Ive also noticed that mvno plans, for some reason in the singular experience I had, would not work in a area with repeaters like the previous post paid plan phone did.

Anyways I tried Verizon and was very pissed off with their customer service (at that time). Went to AT&T Business Elite (with vet discount), and really don't care about the $. I just drink less beer and eat less pizza if it ever bothers me. But now I am on a unlimited plan, a grandfathered real unlimited hot spot sim that I have in a mofi router, and 4 leased phones for $250 after taxes fees etc.

I am not on my phone much. Shitter, before bed, over coffee, lazy weekend when its raining etc and body too broken for indoor chores. Over all connections that's 3gb on snapchat (only communicate with my siblings on this), 2gb on amazon shop, 32gb on tiktok... I take a lot of photos for personal and work. They all upload to the cloud for backup, and those are raw large photos not downgraded low pixel snapchat photos. People don't realize how big photos/videos are. Anytime you have a "space" or "data" issue for the lay, its always media related. Tiktok for example is almost 1gb per hour of watching. No I don't watch 30hrs a month, but I do download (save) a lot of the political evidentiary videos that expose the lies and corruption going on, or a how to video, etc.

On my phone it records at 1mb per second of video (on Snapchat). On native video rec, its 3mb per second of recording.
 
UTfball68 said:
I know that’s factual…but it still boggles my mind. Most of my job is done via phone, whether text/phone/email…and I’ll surf NC4X4 and Book of Faces when I’m home. I wanna say I’m somewhere between 4-6gb every month. And I feel like I’m on the phone all the damn time. I couldn’t imagine a 20x multiplier on that.
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I average 8-10Gb/month on my phone. Thats not the work phone, just my cell. But I watch a lot of documentaries in my down time lol. I also always have something streaming on spotify be it music or podcasts.
 
I know that you need an iPhone to activate/pair an Apple Watch, and that Apple intends for the watch to be a compliment to the iPhone. However, I know several folks whose kids have Apple watches and can make/receive phone calls through them, but do not have phones of their own. I'm guessing the watch is paired to mom/dad's phone (or maybe a random old phone), but haven't thought to ask. That might be something worth looking into. Zero reason for a kid to have a smart phone.
 
Tangentially related - we are hosting a teenager from Spain for a month. He wants to show up and drop in a SIM card so he has cell service on his iPhone. Suggestions? Needs less than 30 days of service.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Tangentially related - we are hosting a teenager from Spain for a month. He wants to show up and drop in a SIM card so he has cell service on his iPhone. Suggestions? Needs less than 30 days of service.
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Cricket probably. It’s prepay and no monthly contract.

Or most of the plans at wal mart are 30-day prepaid plans without a contract and have affordable SIM activation kits.
 
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Any MVNO will let you get get a SIM card for like 99 cents (or often free) and not have any contract. Just pick one.

Walk into walmart and do straight talk, like @rockcity said, probably stupid easy that way.
 
shawn said:
I know that you need an iPhone to activate/pair an Apple Watch, and that Apple intends for the watch to be a compliment to the iPhone. However, I know several folks whose kids have Apple watches and can make/receive phone calls through them, but do not have phones of their own. I'm guessing the watch is paired to mom/dad's phone (or maybe a random old phone), but haven't thought to ask. That might be something worth looking into. Zero reason for a kid to have a smart phone.
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You can setup iPhones now with family sharing without a phone.

Set up Apple Watch for a family member

Family Setup lets family members who don't have their own iPhone enjoy the features and benefits of an Apple Watch.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
DSM Turbos said:
Any MVNO will let you get get a SIM card for like 99 cents (or often free) and not have any contract. Just pick one.

Walk into walmart and do straight talk, like @rockcity said, probably stupid easy that way.
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Turns out he ordered something ahead, though Amazon or something. Similar thing I believe.
 
DSM Turbos said:
Any MVNO will let you get get a SIM card for like 99 cents (or often free) and not have any contract. Just pick one.

Walk into walmart and do straight talk, like @rockcity said, probably stupid easy that way.
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Right. I was actually standing at the Straight Talk counter in wal mart when I posted. For a silver plan, SIM card activation kit, it’s like $45 and includes activation and 30 days of use with a good amount of data. So pretty reasonable for a 30-day period.
 
Whelp, after researching all day going into multiple stores plus countless hours online, we made our decision…


We had Verizon Unlimited Plus their top tier plan at $80 per line before our nurse/teacher discount or auto pay discount.

Adding 2 of their Unlimited Welcome lines for a total of 4 lines. That reduces our per line cost to $55 and the girls’ lines to $40. Add in auto pay discount if $10/line/month, that is $45 for our lines (same Unlimited Plus features) and $30/line for the kiddos. So, now $150 if we sign up for auto pay, minus another $20/month for the nurse/teacher discount for a total of $130 plus whatever typical taxes and fees get added. That is cheaper than we currently pay. Plus the 2 new lines come with new iPhone 12 Pro phones at no additional cost.

So, seems like a win/win to stick with Verizon versus going with a tier 2 provider. Cricket’s unlimited plan for 2 lines was $80 and doesn’t include a phone. I could switch all of us to Cricket Unlimited for $100/month but then I’d still need 2 phones for the kids. Even if we paid outright for a reasonable phone, it’s still $350-$500 per phone, which equates to about $20/month per new phone, so, with that initial phone cost plus the plans, it’s about the same monthly cost as Verizon, or even more expensive in some instances.


So, we stuck with Verizon, got 2 more new i phones and added 2 new lines and are paying less than we do with just our current 2 lines with the same features.
 
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rockcity said:
Right. I was actually standing at the Straight Talk counter in wal mart when I posted. For a silver plan, SIM card activation kit, it’s like $45 and includes activation and 30 days of use with a good amount of data. So pretty reasonable for a 30-day period.
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FYI I did a quick search on Amazon and you can get unlimited everything from T Mobile for $30 for 30 days..
 
RatLabGuy said:
FYI I did a quick search on Amazon and you can get unlimited everything from T Mobile for $30 for 30 days..
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I was in Best Buy today looking at plans and they didn’t even want to sell me T Mobile, said it was not good. Coverage wasn’t great and Verizon and ATT had better prices for better coverage.
 
Want to bet Best Buy gets a bigger commission from Verizon or ATT?

Up here in Rockingham County, T-Mobile blows away Verizon for service.

A lot does depend on the area. In Durham, Verizon was the way to go. So, YMMV.
 
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