So my father wants to switch our phone plan because they are getting rid of the 2 year contract thing that makes phones cheap at AT&T. He checked out verizon but the guy said it would be around 200$ a person per month with a 2 year contract to get the phone for cheap. Does anyone work at verizon or AT&T to help with this stuff? We would need the phones to not be 600$ and we need 4 of them with unlimited text and probably unlimited call and like 8GB of shared data. Any help?
So the whole change from 2-Year to IB (Installment Billing) is something that ALL of the major postpaid carriers will all adopt solely. T-mobile kicked it off but all other carriers are adopting it. It's unfortunate that it's completely misunderstood by most customers and isn't being better explained by said carriers.
So here's why IB is usually better. How I usually explain it to people is by breaking down the complete cost solely associated by the phone. In the case of AT&T let's assume we're using the 15GB plan under their new plan scheme because it's usually the most common, it's $100/mo.
So, as part of any of the carriers recent plans, there is usually what's called a 'Line Access Fee'. It's the per-line cost to have a line on an account. On this 15GB AT&T plan, said fee is $15 per line that is not in a 2-year agreement. This also counts for NEXT agreements. If you do happen to have a 2-year agreement, the fee is $40 per line. That's $25 extra than the NEXT line cost. The extra line access cost across the 2-year agreement is $600.
Sooo.... let's pretend like we're using iphone 6's
2-year Agreement $199 - Iphone 6 $600 - Extra 24/mo Access cost $40 - Activation Fee $849 Total
Next $649 - Iphone 6 $15 - Activation Fee $664 Total
4 Lines all in 2-years with that 15GB plan and Iphone 6's would be $260/mo before tax . 4 Lines on Next 24 with that 15GB plan and Iphone 6's would be $246.68/mo before tax.
*Somebody who sells multiple companies phone plans BTW
The same can be said for any of the carriers. You can always buy any phone at retail value and use it on a carrier as BYOP, and of course there's no contract. In T-Mobile's case with Installment Billing, the phone is financed through a retail installment agreement, which is a contract, it's just a different kind.
240$ is so expensive jesus. Our current plan is 2GB each person, 1000 msgs and 1000 Minutes for around 180$ after everything every month but thats only me, My mom, and My brother so I guess thats what it would still be But i don't know if i could convince my dad 246$ is about the best we can do. He wants to buy us Amazon fire phones because they are only 25$, he thinks 650$ for a phone is ridiculous
Well it can all be switch around, that was just my example, iPhones are expensive.
AT&T doesn't really have anything in-between 5 and 15GB anymore, and even if you went down to 5GB you would only shave $10 off the bill.
It does also largely depend on which phones you do, AT&T does have some cheaper phones like the HTC Desire and the LG G3 Vigor which isn't that bad. If you did 4 of those the bill would be around $190-$198.
If you buy your own phone outright, you completely cut off that cost from the bill. If you purchased all four outright, it would only be ~$160 a month, or ~$150 for that 5GB plan.
How much would it be if like I got a Moto x Pure from the website and not from at&t and we all got our phones from somewhere else then just got the cellular connection with 5gb?
So i just went through this with ATT and wanted to gouge my ears when I heard what they were telling me.
Some back story my family has had a plan with ATT since before the Cingular wireless merger. I have had unlimited data for many years and was under the assumption there would be free upgrades when I walked into the store because our 2 year contract had been up for some time.
I was given the same speech you are giving here about how next is cheaper and how I should give up my plan and that next was much cheaper because of line access fees.
I separated the plans so now we have just me on unlimited data and texting with a couple of minutes I don't need much and the rest of the family on the NEXT plan so it is easy to compare the cost.
My line totals $83 a month and I got a s6 active for $200. The other lines total $230 a month after they stick you with $28 a month for each phone. 3 phones total.
The cost for the NEXT plan simply doesn't come out cheaper compared to my grandfathered plan.
To the OP. You can continue your grandfathered plan but you have to go to a actual ATT store and they will badger you into giving up your plans but dont give in if its not what you want. BestBuy mobile sent me away saying that its not possible to extend my plan but the real store was able to do it even though they were very reluctant and they also mentioned it gives the store a bad score from corporate if they extend your contract.
Yea, for those with unlimited data you'll have to just keep fighting for it. I'm actually kind of surprised they agreed to issue a new 2-year with unlimited. Those plans were not conceived with next in mind so there's no built in accommodation for it.
We only have 2GB a month each and 1000 minutes and 1000 texts so we kind of want a new one anyways. I probably will convince my dad to get us like moto pures and then get a line on verizon for the 140$ a month