Have you considered Consumers Celllular?
https://www.consumercellular.com/savings
Gerry
On 7/5/2014 9:22 PM, Dan Penoff wrote: On Jul 5, 2014, at 8:33 PM, Tim
Crone <bb...@crone.us> wrote:
Subsidy is built into the price of your plan already. Verizon is the sole
source of their phones, so there isn't a good way to get a discount off
their retail price. Verizon in particular won't let anything (or almost,
at least) not branded onto their network, from what I've read.
That may be, but my family plan is now almost seven years old. I have never
upgraded or changed my plan, and my data plans are mostly still unlimited as
they are grandfathered.
I've been off contract for many years. I also like it, but to maximize the
value you have to be willing to go to a prepaid plan - otherwise you're
paying the subsidized costs of your phones in your plan, but aren't getting
the subsidy. The new T-Mobile plans are at least honest about this.
The major downfall of prepaid, at the moment, is no data roaming, and
family plans on GSM carriers are not so great. Verizon data on prepaid has
historically been very expensive, though I read a few days ago they are
reconfiguring their prepaid plans to include 500MB of LTE at the $45 level.
(By comparison, I get 3GB on AT&T through Straight Talk for $45, and paid
less than $30 for 1GB on Sprint through Ting, though Sprint data service is
unfortunate here so I left.)
Prepaid isn't an option for me for a lot of reasons, one of which is the 19%
discount I get as a County employee.
These vendors are selling used phones, most likely, for which they have
eaten the ETF. They may never have been "used" but from Verizon's and
Samsung's perspective they are. At least, that's been my experience buying
"new" phones that are carrier branded on Amazon.
I looked at several Samsung S4 models that were new, in the box, Verizon
branded phones. Here's one for example:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00CY6U990/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new&m=A1AYA2LE3BV7SY
Maybe they have eaten the ETF, but they are sold as new and carry full warranty.
Why are you avoiding used phones? The big risk is getting a bad ESN, but
Amazon is probably pretty safe. There's always the risk someone will
report it stolen some months later, but that seems remote if you've paid
for it.
I'm not necessarily, but I'm reluctant to for lack of a "safe" place to buy
them and not get scammed or ripped off. I already know a couple of people who have
bought used phones that weren't clean. If you know of someplace good and reputable I
would like to hear about it.
Drop Verizon? You can order a brand new Nexus 5 for $350, it will work on
any GSM carrier or Sprint, including prepaid carriers. You can also look
into the Google Play Edition devices, I think they are slightly cheaper
than carrier retail and will have full manufacturer warranty.
The boy wants a Samsung Galaxy phone. Yes, I know they're both Android phones,
but that's what he wants.
As for dropping Verizon, that's a very real possibility.
I currently have a family plan with five lines, and it's costing me around
$265/month. AT&T has cheaper plans, but they use pooled data which I have
concerns about. Verizon's pooled data plan ins't any cheaper for us with the mix
of phones we have and the data we currently use.
AT&T has good deals on refurbs that they sell outright. Verizon wants you to sign a
contract even if the refurb is "free" or relatively cheap.
I'm going to hit both Verizon's and AT&T's factory stores here next week and
see what the latest is. I gotta do something about this phone bill. Ouch.
Thanks!
Dan
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