Best cell-phone plans for every type of user
Life Desk :
Call it the wireless wars. Cell phone carriers are falling all over themselves in their rush to entice you with their latest promotions, which range from overhauled plans and pricing to hefty cash rebates if you’re willing to break your contract with your current carrier. In a span of a couple of weeks in August, most of the major carriers either updated some of their current plans or introduced new plans to compete more aggressively for your business. “I think it’s a better time now than it ever has been for customers looking for deals,” says Logan Abbott, president of Wirefly, a site that compares phone plans.Intense competition has wrought a much wider selection of no-contract options with lower-price service plans. T-Mobile led the charge in spring 2013 by discontinuing two-year contracts on all of its plans. Its customers can bring their own compatible devices or pay full freight for their phones rather than select a device at a subsidized price that carriers typically pair with a contract. Now AT&T, Sprint and Verizon also allow customers to pay the full price for a phone or bring their own devices in exchange for lower pricing on a service plan and freedom from a contract.
You’ll have to do the math to see whether one of the new arrangements is a better deal than a traditional two-year contract. For example, suppose a couple want to share 4 gigabytes of data on Verizon’s More Everything plan and get new Samsung Galaxy S5 phones. If they skip the contract, they’ll fork over $600 each for the phones but pay lower monthly service fees than with the contract. Total cost: $4,320 over two years, including the phones. If they opt for a shared contract, they’ll pay $100 each for the phones and slightly higher monthly fees, for a total of $3,800 after two years-but they may have to fork over as much as $350 per line if they break the contract within two years. It’s a plus for customers that carriers are cutting breaks on monthly service fees. But the latest smartphones cost a lot more than basic flip phones, and phone and plan prices overall have risen over the years to reflect the higher cost of providing sophisticated gadgets and data services. Now, “the phone industry is looking a lot more like the car industry,” says Maggie Reardon, author of CNET.com’s “Ask Maggie” column. As with a car lease, you can choose to make monthly payments on a phone and trade it in for a new one after you’ve paid off a certain portion. Plus, carriers are pushing insurance plans to cover the devices.
And sticking with a contract may mean you’ll have to wait longer to get a new phone at a discount.
– Kiplinger
Call it the wireless wars. Cell phone carriers are falling all over themselves in their rush to entice you with their latest promotions, which range from overhauled plans and pricing to hefty cash rebates if you’re willing to break your contract with your current carrier. In a span of a couple of weeks in August, most of the major carriers either updated some of their current plans or introduced new plans to compete more aggressively for your business. “I think it’s a better time now than it ever has been for customers looking for deals,” says Logan Abbott, president of Wirefly, a site that compares phone plans.Intense competition has wrought a much wider selection of no-contract options with lower-price service plans. T-Mobile led the charge in spring 2013 by discontinuing two-year contracts on all of its plans. Its customers can bring their own compatible devices or pay full freight for their phones rather than select a device at a subsidized price that carriers typically pair with a contract. Now AT&T, Sprint and Verizon also allow customers to pay the full price for a phone or bring their own devices in exchange for lower pricing on a service plan and freedom from a contract.
You’ll have to do the math to see whether one of the new arrangements is a better deal than a traditional two-year contract. For example, suppose a couple want to share 4 gigabytes of data on Verizon’s More Everything plan and get new Samsung Galaxy S5 phones. If they skip the contract, they’ll fork over $600 each for the phones but pay lower monthly service fees than with the contract. Total cost: $4,320 over two years, including the phones. If they opt for a shared contract, they’ll pay $100 each for the phones and slightly higher monthly fees, for a total of $3,800 after two years-but they may have to fork over as much as $350 per line if they break the contract within two years. It’s a plus for customers that carriers are cutting breaks on monthly service fees. But the latest smartphones cost a lot more than basic flip phones, and phone and plan prices overall have risen over the years to reflect the higher cost of providing sophisticated gadgets and data services. Now, “the phone industry is looking a lot more like the car industry,” says Maggie Reardon, author of CNET.com’s “Ask Maggie” column. As with a car lease, you can choose to make monthly payments on a phone and trade it in for a new one after you’ve paid off a certain portion. Plus, carriers are pushing insurance plans to cover the devices.
And sticking with a contract may mean you’ll have to wait longer to get a new phone at a discount.
– Kiplinger
