Which Phone Plan Should Our Family Buy?

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Which Cell Phone Provider Offered My Family The Best Plan?

This is a follow up post from yesterday's Winner: Verizon's Share Everything family plan. 

• Most important to me: price & contract flexibility.
• Less Important to me: superior quality and coverage.

If you have the patience, it's worth your time to follow these steps exactly: the most comprehensive cell phone plan purchasing walkthrough.  If not, here's the 3-step summary:

1. The best thing you can do first is identify your usage for those three (data, voice, text) up to this point. (Get an estimate.)
2. Then ask yourself, what is the lowest quantity, in each category, I'd be willing to buy.  As I mentioned, nothing worthwhile exists for less than $30 for me as an individual.  If you're interested in the lowest-end service, PCMagazine identifies 10 super-inexpensive (but crummy) cell service providers. 
3. Barring those cheepos, search different mid-range provider's plans on their webpages:

Boost Mobile

Boost Mobile offers a bargin if you don't want to be shackled to voice/text/data limits:

1. Bring the phone you already have into a no-contract service agreement on the Sprint Nationwide Network.
2. $50 for unlimited everything, but the payment shrinks to $35/month over the first 18 months to reward customer loyalty.
1. After 6 months, you pay $45/month
2. After 12 months, you pay $40/month
3. After 18 months, you pay $35/month

Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile has some cheap plans for $35/mo./phone.  They are also no-contract providers and offer "hassle-free" provider switching.

1. The basic plan looks best.
2. I wonder if you can get two phones to share the "PlayLo" $30/month plan? Poor options, but low cost.

T-Mobile

T-mobile offers relatively inexpensive, no-contract or contract, plans for their users who need flexibility.

1. Family plans (2 lines): BAD
1. No data = $100
2. Data = $160
2. Individual plans: BAD
1. Contract: $80
2. No Contract Best Deal: 500 Minutes + Unlimited Text + 2GB Data = $70
3. Value plans (2 lines): GOOD!
1. $70 will get you 1000 shared voice minutes, unlimited text, and 2GB of shared 4G data/month.
4. Online Pre-paid special: GREAT! (This is my personal recommendation if you choose not to be part of the Verizon Share Everything family plan.)
1. If you are willing to give up the iPhone, and if T-Mobile's laggy service works for you, I recommend ordering the Galaxy Nexus from Google for $350 (or a different Android phone of your choosing) and use a pre-paid, no-contract plan from T-Mobile plan that offers 100 minutes, unlimited text messaging and 5GB of data at 4G speeds for $30 month. If you're fine with non-blazing speeds, this is a good choice for you. (Review)

AT&T

AT&T is comparable to Verizon in price, but I think their overall service is slightly inferior.  They offer voice and data plans separately, so you'd need both—which makes the overall price unrealistic.  (Seriously, don't even look at this.)

1. Voice:
1. Shared lowest: $60 for 550 minutes (first 3 phones)
2. Individual lowest: $40 for 450 minutes
2. Data plans:
1. Shared lowest: $40/month for 1GB
2. Lowest individual data plan: Since the lowest voice plan you can get for an individual is $40/month, it doesn't make sense to look into the optional data plans.
3. AT&T jumped on the shared data train shortly after Verizon.  Here's their deal:
1. Lowest mobile combined data and voice plan: $40 (2GB + unlimited voice and text) + $45 per phone (2x) = $130.

Sprint

Sprint is crummy, but their site was the easiest to search.  I am just coming off a two-year contract with them.  They might work for you, but this has been my experience with them.