Budget Phone Service

[drmike]

S4GRU... looks interesting and 16k members.   I'd say real info there mixed in.

Sprint is going to (by my estimate) maybe a big splash in the next 12 months.  There are tons of tower upgrades going on.   Tons of oops, this is overdue, fell between cracks, has to be done this week work showing up with what I know of / about.  It's a 3+ state area with many millions of people.

With the Softbank money, investment, etc. they are going to get both unrealistic and competitive with 4G upgrades.   I don't see Sprint being able to upgrade at pace it appears they want to now (rapidly on calendar) cell tower wise.  It's good news to the contractors who do the work and go between other outsourced entities though (yeah it's crazy everything outsourced land sadly).

 

[TheHackBox]

Ok I'm going to blow your minds. First of all I shall start with my Ting usage (current phone is a LG Viper LTE so I can have LTE )

Without taxes it comes to $17.00 a month. Next Phone of choice is the iPhone 3GS on Airvoice Wireless (AT&T MVNO). I put $10 in my account every 90 days and I get 165MB of data (fine for me) and talk is 10c/minute, SMS is 10c/message. My last phone of choice is the LG Optimus S activated on Selectel Wireless (Verizon MVNO) and I put $10 in it and it never expires. Rates for Selectel are 5c/minute, 5c/SMS, 5c/MB. Considering my market is heavily Verizon around here, I am never without coverage anymore.

 

[Mr. Obvious]

Bleh, I wish I had sprint coverage for Ting here..I'd switch in a damn heartbeat.

But no.

The boonies has no coverage.

 

[Damian]

THREAD RESURRECTION: GO GO !!

Here's our Ting usage for a full month with four devices (3 cell phones and a home phone connect):

$59 plus tax? Hell yes. I we paid $230 a month plus tax for this same approximate service with Verizon. Sprint's coverage is weak but it hasn't been an issue with us thus far.

 

[drmike]

What is Ting charging for their home phone service?   Couldn't find that on public sales site.

$59 bill sounds darn nice actually for 3 mobile and 1 home phone!

 

[Damian]

It's $6 per month regardless of device type, then it comes out of a singular post-paid usage pool. Cell phone? Home phone? Wireless 'hotspot'? Doesn't matter, $6/month.

When the bill gets generated tomorrow, i'll post a better screenshot depicting the price breakdown.

Another good thing: the support. Call them, and an actual live human being will answer the phone within a few rings and will actually be able to help you. Don't want to call? Open a support ticket, and you'll get help within the same day, usually within the same hour. And that help via ticket will actually be helpful too, none of that "erm, well, give us a call" business. 

The entire service is really awesome. My only issue thus far: it's on Sprint, who continues to have the wimpiest network in the United States when you're outside of a metropolitan area.

 

[drmike]

Incredible Damian!

$6 + use in whatever grouping you end up in for use right?   Totally usage based?

Support sounds awesome... My kind of company.

Are their account setup/origination fees?  How about taxes and ugly surcharges?

 

[wdq]

I'm currently a Sprint customer and I'm seriously considering moving over to Ting. Have you had any issues with Ting other than Sprint's coverage (which is actually good in my area, LTE is slowly unofficially rolling out.)

 

[nunim]

I have had Sprint from 2007-now (SERO Plan), and I never had problems with the quality of their network.  From the swamps of Florida to the Colorado ski-resorts to the forest of the Pacific Northwest I always had service, now their customer service is a different beast entirely but I haven't found any major telco that has good customer service.  

I don't understand the idea behind the Wifi only calling, are you really in areas with open wifi that often?  What about in the car?  When you're out of town etc..  If you just use wifi get yourself a prepaid phone with a SIP client or Skype.  I've got Wind Mobile now, they're a newer player in the Canadian market and although their "4G" is really HSDPA+ their prices are half of what the big 3 charge.  The one thing I don't understand here is paying for voicemail, I guess I just thought of it as a given with any phone these days.  

 

[KuJoe]

My service (RW) is on the Sprint network and I regularly find myself without service since moving to Colorado so I carry a 2nd pre-paid AT&T phone since it works everywhere. I'm hoping a phone upgrade will fix the problem but we'll see.

 

[nunim]

My service (RW) is on the Sprint network and I regularly find myself without service since moving to Colorado so I carry a 2nd pre-paid AT&T phone since it works everywhere. I'm hoping a phone upgrade will fix the problem but we'll see.

From what I read RW coverage isn't exactly the same as Sprint, although their website is down right now so it's hard to do  more reading.  I don't have data to back it up but when comparing with family members and friends I've found that CDMA network coverage is inferior to GSM networks.   It's never a bad idea to have a backup phone on a separate network as network wide problems are not unheard of, as Canada saw yesterday with Rodgers Wireless. 

 

[KuJoe]

From what I read RW coverage isn't exactly the same as Sprint, although their website is down right now so it's hard to do  more reading.  I don't have data to back it up but when comparing with family members and friends I've found that CDMA network coverage is inferior to GSM networks.   It's never a bad idea to have a backup phone on a separate network as network wide problems are not unheard of, as Canada saw yesterday with Rodgers Wireless. 

I think it's because I only have the single band version of the Defy XT.

 

[nunim]

I think it's because I only have the single band version of the Defy XT.

That could be it, some bands don't propagate nearly as well as others, this is the only downside to WindMobile but I am hopeful for the coming spectrum auction.  It could be also be that you don't benefit from Sprint's roaming agreements and other contracts.  It's crappy that the only phone they offer has such an old version of Android and no hope of an official upgrade, I was disappointed my Optimus L9 only had 4.1.2, I couldn't imagine still using 2.x.  What kind of data connection do you get?  Sprint's speed and latency was always acceptable to me.

I do wish that all providers had WIFI calling, I wouldn't mind using it when roaming or out of the country. I can always use Skype but I think it would be nice to have my number on the caller ID.  Is there a lot of open free WIFI in CO? 

 

[KuJoe]

That could be it, some bands don't propagate nearly as well as others, this is the only downside to WindMobile but I am hopeful for the coming spectrum auction,  but it could be also be that you don't benefit from Sprint's roaming agreements and other contracts.  It sucks the only phone they offer has such an old version of Android and no hope of an official upgrade, I was disappointed my Optimus L9 was only 4.1.2 I couldn't imagine still using 2.x.  What kind of data connection do you get?  Sprint's speed and latency was always acceptable to me.

I do wish that all providers had WIFI calling, I wouldn't mind using it when roaming or out of the country. I can always use Skype but I think it would be nice to have my number on the caller ID.  Is there a lot of open free WIFI in CO? 

2.x is fine with me, I had 4.x on my tablet and didn't notice any difference except for using Chrome. Speeds in CO are horrible (<1Mbps) but it's consistent and stable enough that I can do about 500MB over Pandora in the car a week and I can use Google Maps and check my e-mail whenever I need to but in FL it was much better (>3Mbps) so I could do a few GB a month tethered to my laptop. I only use WIFI at home and work since it kills the battery pretty quickly.

I use Google Voice as my primary number so it rings on both of my cell phones and either my work or home phone depending on the day and time.

 

[nunim]

2.x is fine with me, I had 4.x on my tablet and didn't notice any difference except for using Chrome. Speeds in CO are horrible (<1Mbps) but it's consistent and stable enough that I can do about 500MB over Pandora in the car a week and I can use Google Maps and check my e-mail whenever I need to but in FL it was much better (>3Mbps) so I could do a few GB a month tethered to my laptop. I only use WIFI at home and work since it kills the battery pretty quickly.

I use Google Voice as my primary number so it rings on both of my cell phones and either my work or home phone depending on the day and time.

I would imagine it's much easier to setup a good cell network in a nice flat place like Florida because the signal will travel farther.  I don't miss it FL, I'm sure I will once winter actually starts, but I know no place will ever be like it  I figured that the WIFI would chew through the battery very quickly, I wonder why they only offer a single device? T-Mobile has made it work with multiple devices.

It's an interesting idea but outside of places with city-wide WIFI like San Francisco I don't see it being practical. For only a few dollars more per month you can have access to a nation-wide network and and a greater variety of devices, without having to worry about getting cut-off for using too much cell service.