My family(4) and I are on a pretty dated verizon plan (3/4 of us including me, the tech guy in our fam, has a 4-6 year old flip phone), and my father had the unlimited data plan back when unlimited data wasnt a big thing (although he doesnt use very much of it). The thing is all of us need to upgrade. Our flip phones are on the verge of outright broke and were getting pretty screwed over with our verizon bill (they keep inflating it little by little).
The main thing is that were looking at switching carriers to ting (were all looking to upgrade to some degree of smart phone). Were also looking on a decent budget for the plan (~$100-$140)Is there any big caveats with ting? Can I use just about any smart phone (locked or unlocked)? How long does the sim card take to ship in? Is the coverage/speed good? (staying in suburbs and cities), and anything else that I should
Ting uses Sprints or T-Mobiles network and that depends on the Sim card you buy. It took about four days to get the sim card and around eight hours to transfer the number to the new sim. If you buy a locked phone, you would have look up how to unlock it. I guess some disadvantages that I can think of is that you don't get unlimited talk and text. Also, it probably wouldn't be worth it if you plan on spending $500 each on new smartphones.
My dad already has an unlocked smart phone, my mom would probably spend $50, im looking at a used LGg4 (~$200), idk about my sister though, ill probably look used for here too. Nothing more than $250.
If you use a lot of data or a lot of voice/text, I would look at a t-mobile unlimited plan instead. Ting is great if you're all light to moderate users, but if you use a lot of data especially you might be better suited using a service that is flat rate instead of pay as you go. For example, with T-Mobile and my unlimited plan, I've used over 40GB's in a month without incurring a problem. My plan is part of a family of four, and our bill is around $190-200 (I don't remember exactly). On ting, my 40GB usage alone is $600 a month. So if your like me and love to watch twitch, youtube, and tether your phone on the go, I would consider other options.
I mean we dont use that much data. My dad says he uses not even a Gig a month, my mom is almost always at a wifi location, as well as I, and my sister is always at a wifi (college wifi is like 30MBps at peak). The only time we would need to use 4glte is when were driving occasionally using the map app.
Also the gsm line is based on t mobile's towers (and cdma is on sprint's towers). Do I have to deal with t mobiles bullcrap or does ting just borrow their towers?
Not sure what you mean by that but Ting just borrows the towers. I've used both CDMA and GSM phones on Ting and there wasn't any nonsense with billing or coverage other than CDMA has fewer towers in general, which isn't on them.
It sounds like your family would do great by going with Ting for the time being for service. Just up to your phone choices now
Can you have both gsm and cdma sims on the same plan? Is there any raw difference between gsm and cdma except the fact that gsm doesnt care what phone its in?
You can have both on under your account at the same time. The only differences will be connectivity, (depends on your location), and choice of phones, (GSM has a much wider market)