Cheapest place to buy iPhone / cell plan?

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

You are trying to do math on something that is not set in stone. They can change their prices and ways to make the money depart your wallet.

Yeah, but the fact is still that I pay $108 + taxes per month for 2 lines, unlimited talk/text, and 10GB shared. Now today for new plans, the same plan with 10GB + either full cost of phone up front or monthly installments costs quite more than $108.

We as the consumer have lost out by them getting rid of contracts. And lets face it, they aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They are benefiting by now having us pay the full cost of the phone. When they were subsidizing the phone cost, they were sucking up a whole lot more of the cost associated. Now it's 100% passed all onto the consumer.

 

[EIR]

Tmobile. My wife an switched from Verizon about 4 months ago and have not looked back. We have quadruple the data allowance, added 2 ipads and still pay less than Verizon. The service isn't as good, but it is very justifiable.

 

[woodreau]

I know the OP has already made his decision. I had to make the decision between subsidized 2 year and AT&T next and paying full price for the phone. After comparing the two, it was a wash with AT&T next being a few dollars cheaper over 2 years.

If I had gone with the subsidized 2-year, the phone access charge was $40/month. Under the next their phone access charge was discounted and was only $15/month. The phone plans were the same.

I plugged it all into a spreadsheet and the next plan was cheaper. If I wanted to get new phones. The money I would pay in undiscounted monthly phone access charges for a 2-year subsidized contract, covered the cost of paying full price for a new phone under next.

To keep customers, I think AT&T also discounted the phone access charges to $15 for people currently on a 2-year contract, until the customer wanted new phones. Then it would go back up to $40/month per line.

Yeah, but the fact is still that I pay $108 + taxes per month for 2 lines, unlimited talk/text, and 10GB shared. Now today for new plans, the same plan with 10GB + either full cost of phone up front or monthly installments costs quite more than $108.

We as the consumer have lost out by them getting rid of contracts. And lets face it, they aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They are benefiting by now having us pay the full cost of the phone. When they were subsidizing the phone cost, they were sucking up a whole lot more of the cost associated. Now it's 100% passed all onto the consumer.

I think you're getting gypped. That's what I pay for 3 lines, unlimited talk and text with 15gb of shared data. AT&T automatically upped the data allowance to 15GB if you were on a 10GB mobile share plan recently.

I don't use anywhere near 15gb. I think between the 3 of us we just use 2gb total and roll over around 13gb every month.

 

[drunkenbeagle]

Just looked, T-mobile is offering 2 lines, Unlimited everything, for $120. (I pay $70 for one line unlimited everything). You can get much cheaper with a limit, but why bother.

If you go out of the country twice in a year, T-mobile is totally worth it for that alone. Free overseas data and text is totally awesome.

 

[Max Power]

I have Sprint and have for years. Currently $140/ month for two phones and unlimited everything ( with corporate discount, was $175). Sprints network is the worst though, as soon as you get too far off the major highways or major cities, forget about it. I carried a Verizon Blackberry for work and had my Sprint phone at the same time. I had full 3G service in places where I zero service with Sprint. I've been considering switching but I don't know if it's worth it.

Maybe check Best Buy or even Amazon. I upgraded last year (with two year contact renewal) to an iPhone 6 from an iPhone 5 at Best Buy due to a postcard from Best Buy. 2 year contract, phone trade in and extra money for the trade-in. New iPhone 6 64GB for $70 out of pocket. They tried to sell me on the iPhone Lease program but it wasn't worth it. I paid $70 for a $700 phone, the monthly payments for the phone were way more than that. Besides, it's not a lease. I've leased plenty of cars and you only pay for a portion of the car. With a phone lease, you're paying for the whole thing and you still get to trade it in.