need a new cell phone rate family plan

[codybear]

I want to know if you have a cell phone family rate plan that you're happy with, and how much per month do you pay for it?..I'm looking at Cingular and Verizon here in Sacto..any suggestions?

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by codybear

I want to know if you have a cell phone family rate plan that you're happy with, and how much per month do you pay for it?..I'm looking at Cingular and Verizon here in Sacto..any suggestions?

We have Cingular, 2 phones with multiple thousands of minutes, and you can talk to any other Cingular customer on their phones for free, for $95/month, including all taxes.

[59toaster]

Cingular ERP 1000 free LD with unlimited Mobile to mobile on one line $9.99 plus taxes
Cingular ERP 500 Free LD that we don't use much so no M2M Tax

So monthly bill with taxes is about $14.

Cingular COU unlimited use for third line N/C





ERP = Employee Rate Plan
COU= Cingular Official Use

Guess I should mention that.

Best thing you can do is ask people you know in your area. You need a phone that works where you are and that might be different then where we are.

In Atlanta Cingular is the carrier with the best coverage. Where my sister lives in TX she gets almost no coverage with Cingular and had to go with a different carrier.

The carriers have coverage maps on their home pages. JUST BE VERY CAREFUL when comparing different carrier maps. Cingular has one map that is one charge. Some of the other carriers have a "In network map" and a "out of network map" or "off home carrier roaming area" where additional charges may apply. SO its a little confusing when trying to compare apples to apples. If you are not paying attention you may be in a Out of network calling area and incur a higher rate charge.

[59toaster]

Ohhh and I should mention. Research the phones. Junk phones get poor service and sometimes Junk phones are not the ones you would expect.

On Cingular I feel pretty good about the Nokia's across the board. The Cheapest Nokia 6010 (the one they give away with contract) is probably one of the best working phones available so price is not a reflection of quality.

On Verizon I hear the Motorola products tend to be the better working on average BUT take the time to research the product you plan to buy BEFORE you buy it.

Also Cingular has "company stores" and agent stores. They visibly look identical sometimes. The COMPANY store is probably going to give you better overall service with much better service if you have a problem then an agent store. The down side is the same phone in a company store might be a few dollars more.

You might even get the best deal price wise online at www.cingular.com BUT you loose some of that "one on one". You walk into a store you will walk out with a working phone. You order it on line and have an issue you may end up spending some time on the phone to resolve a problem and still might end up going to the store. Doesn't happen often but it does happen.

[genearnold]

We have the Cingular Family Talk Nation 550 Rollover. Monthly bill is $62.00 total for two lines. Since neither my wife nor I use too many minutes the plan is more than adequate for our use. I think we've accumulated more than 1500 rollover minutes since April. We got two Nokia 6102 camera phones for $30 each. If I did it over I'd just go for the basic free phone.

There are a lot of places where we get no signal due to the remoteness (central Idaho, some areas of Wyoming, etc.) but when we are in civilization we seldom have a problem.

Gene

[codybear]

Thnx for all of your suggestions..I currently have Cingular..and have been happy..I just had a very old at$t plan with the old kind of phone that's going to be terminated ...I'll probably go w/the Nokia basic phone too..I don't need a lot of feautures on it or a lot of minutes, just to use the phone for emergency and on the road when traveling..

[jcanavera]

We made the jump to US Cellular this year after many years with Verizon. Problem was that Verizon would no longer allow me to keep my national plan if I wanted to add additional phones to the account. Unfortunately their America's Choice plan is really more restrictive than the old national plan which allowed no roaming charges where ever I could pick up a signal.

US Cellular's plan is costing me about $95 a month for 3 phones which includes national service (analog and digital), with no roaming charges no matter whose service I pick up. The coverage map is larger than Verizon's Americas Choice. The service also includes free incoming calls (no air time charge), in the midwest area and free moble to moble (US Cellular). I get 800 minutes of time per month that the 3 phones share. The free incoming is a great feature since it keeps our minutes used to about 600 or so.

Note that the only drawback to US Cellular is the requirement that the phone be used 51% of the time in your home area. For me this is the midwestern states. So this plan would not be good for full timers.

Jack

[codybear]

I just found out you can get rid of your land line (been thinking about that too) and get this dock n talk gizmo that plugs into your cell phone w/a special cable, so that you could use the cell phone at home too!..it costs about $139 plus the cable..so I guess I'd have to get the cell phone first then get the right cable to go with the DNT..so many choices (again!)...good thing I'm starting early on this to-do list!..I've got till Feb before the current plan terminates..

[InsideOut]

Originally Posted by codybear

I just found out you can get rid of your land line (been thinking about that too) and get this dock n talk gizmo that plugs into your cell phone w/a special cable, so that you could use the cell phone at home too!

I don't know about this "special cable" and "dock & talk" feature, why can't you use a cellphone at home without it? Save the $139 on a possible gimmick...

We gave up our "home phones" with our move into a new house in January. We only use our cellphones now and haven't had any problems or regrets...we have T-Mobile family plan with 2 lines, a bucket of minutes, free long distance anywhere/anytime and TM-TM calls are free - I think it's $69 per month....we've had the plan for a while, it may be more now. The plan is neither exceptionally "good" or "bad" but works for us...and we save the $40 or so for the home phone to sit and do nothing all day. No dock & talk cables required.

We both work so we always have the option of using the phones there for critical calls we wouldn't want to make on our cells.

Shari

[overlander63]

There are cell phones available with built-in "modems" for you to plug your computer into, so you can continue to experience the joy of dial-up connections without the hassle of a land-based phone...

[InsideOut]

Originally Posted by overlander63

There are cell phones available with built-in "modems" for you to plug your computer into, so you can continue to experience the joy of dial-up connections without the hassle of a land-based phone...

AND you get to pay for the minutes while doing so, I'll bet!

Shari

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by InsideOut

AND you get to pay for the minutes while doing so, I'll bet!

Shari

Of course, that's why you get the "free nights and weekends" plan.

[ibgl6]

I have Nextel while the price is a little higher than the others listed above I have not had any problems it works in most all areas I have been and I too have alot of minutes 500 anytime unlimited direct connect (m2m) and free night and weekends 2 phones are 110.00 per. mo. I use it alot with my job and am assisted by my employer for that use. A friend has NET 10 he said it is .10 per minute for each minute used if you dont need a whole lot that may be the way to go. It is sold online and at walmart in my area...

[59toaster]

Originally Posted by overlander63

Of course, that's why you get the "free nights and weekends" plan.

Bills as data. Unlimited Data in Atlanta is 79.99 for a laptop setup that would stand alone. I would wait for UMTS to fully deploy on that before buying an Air card. Once UMTS is available you can run DSL speeds in most major cities

It will also kick over to a WiFi hit spot or in rural areas kick back to edge (about dial up).

You can add unlimited Data to an existing voice plan and use a cable between phone and laptop for $59.99 in addition to any $39.99 or higher voice plan.

Or if you call Customer service and tell them to add "data connect unlimited data" to the phone for its internal browser you have the cable for and don't mention that you will be using it as a modem you might just get that data plan for $44.99. Data is data as far as the system is concerned so if you are using a laptop or the internal browser...the system just can't tell.

[ArtStream]

Originally Posted by 59toaster

Bills as data. Unlimited Data in Atlanta is 79.99 for a laptop setup that would stand alone. I would wait for UMTS to fully deploy on that before buying an Air card. Once UMTS is available you can run DSL speeds in most major cities

It will also kick over to a WiFi hit spot or in rural areas kick back to edge (about dial up).

You can add unlimited Data to an existing voice plan and use a cable between phone and laptop for $59.99 in addition to any $39.99 or higher voice plan.

Or if you call Customer service and tell them to add "data connect unlimited data" to the phone for its internal browser you have the cable for and don't mention that you will be using it as a modem you might just get that data plan for $44.99. Data is data as far as the system is concerned so if you are using a laptop or the internal browser...the system just can't tell.

59, Is that Verizion?

[CaddyGrn]

Originally Posted by codybear

Thnx for all of your suggestions..I currently have Cingular..and have been happy..I just had a very old at$t plan with the old kind of phone that's going to be terminated ...I'll probably go w/the Nokia basic phone too..I don't need a lot of feautures on it or a lot of minutes, just to use the phone for emergency and on the road when traveling..

We had Cingular for a couple of years, before that ATT (they sold out to Cingular). In the end I got really mad at them because they wouldn't allow me to change the plans, only my hubby. Plan in his name, I pay all the bills and set the thing up in the first place. Anyway, I had to drag him down to a store and show all his ID before they would change what we needed. GRRRRRRRRRR

Then went to Edge Wireless because we are up here in the backwater areas... sticks.... or whatever you want to call it. Lousy cell phone service here unless on I-5, then it works most of the time. Anyway, we wound up paying way too much on our phones (for 2 of us... maybe $150/mo) and I said enough! I went in to turn our phones into prepaid phones... lo and behold they came up with another plan that was less coverage ( I didn't need the other coverage anyway), but significantly less. The bad thing is, our phones are old and will not be serviced after Feb. Hope our kids get new phones soon, then we will get "upgrades"!

Mrs. NorCal Bambi (traveling in S Tardis)

[Tarheel]

We use Verizon simply because we get better service when traveling.

[Darrell Root]

Codybear, most reports show most service plans piss people off at some times, however verizon is considered the best of the bad. If you're still working verizon offers many corporate discounts,mine is 17% plus phone and acces. discounts. We travel from Ca. to La. often and have good cell to cell service. In paticular the motorola v325 tri mode phone with mini usb port has the best reception of any cell we have owned. Darrell

[codybear]

Hi Darrell,

I pay a family discounted rate per month with the current plan w/Cingular that my son got while working for ATT several years ago..even w/the new added $4.95 charge per each line (x second line) is still only a total of $40 per month..the plan only came w/60 minutes for each line, enough for us retirees..but if I go to Verizon, from what I saw on the internet website, I think there is roaming charges vs. none w/Cingular..otherwise it's still about the same features for $60 for family share 2 line plans..so I just have to decide..Verizon used to be Cellular One (if I remember) when we first started a long time ago when we were using those gigantic 'cell phones' that weighed aobut 3 lbs!..and I do have until Feb 2008, not Feb 20007 that I previously misread in the letter I got in the mail yesterday..

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, I have Cingular and it works pretty good for me. I have the $29.00 plan [expired long time ago] plus all the taxes, about $35.00 a month. With this old contract I don't get roaming. My plan gives me something like 350 anytime minutes plus 3500 night and weekend minutes. I use from 30 to 50 minutes per month. When traveling out of state they hit me for $.69 a minute extra for roaming. The only reason I have a land line in my house is for this computer I am useing right now. I have wanted to get another phone for my wife, but they keep changing the plans and I have to up my plan to a minimum $59.00 plan. Then another $10.00 to $20.00 more to add a line.
While on your computer, check out "Consumer Cellular" they have an add in Highways. [Good Sam Club magazine] I'm seriously thinking of changing. For $10.00 a month you get 25 any time, any where, minutes within the U.S. without roaming charges and no long term contract. ["They say you can cancel you contract in 30 minutes or 30 days if you want."] The next one is for $20.00 a month for 100 minutes. and the one I want is $30.00 a month for 400 minutes a month. And for me, the biggie, I can add my wife to any of their contracts for $10.00 a month more. Of course that is shared minutes, but that would be fine with me. They have many more plans. Also they say they buy airtime from other companies, saveing on their cost, and their phones use SIM cards. [Sounds Cingular to me!]

Bob