The US has some regional carriers that offer cheaper plans in smaller geographical areas, like the size of your country. The more expensive plans from national carries like ATT work the same anywhere in the US, including Alaska and Hawaii. No roaming charges, even if you're 3000 miles from home. From what I've seen, none of the cheap European plans work in an area anywhere near that big. Seems like once you leave your country on these crazy cheap plans, it costs a ton to use the phone. In the US, it's not uncommon to travel the equiv of a EU country or two to visit family/friends or vacation.
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Carrier Is AT&T Really That Expensive
- Thread starter Bengalhawks
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I think it's expensive simply because if you want data, you've got to pay out the wazoo for it. That's why even though T-Mobile gets terrible service in a lot of places, it works where I live and at my job. I can't imagine leaving their service as long as they provide unlimited data.
Me and my guy are both on the $70 grandfathered unlimited everything plan. His line is $70, mine is $50. Plus two jump devices and insurance. It's around $170. Since he just got on with a PD, he'll get a government discount so it'll go down a little.
Overall, I'm pretty happy. I can see that there are a lot of places where having unlimited data wouldn't matter as you don't get the coverage to use it!
Me and my guy are both on the $70 grandfathered unlimited everything plan. His line is $70, mine is $50. Plus two jump devices and insurance. It's around $170. Since he just got on with a PD, he'll get a government discount so it'll go down a little.
Overall, I'm pretty happy. I can see that there are a lot of places where having unlimited data wouldn't matter as you don't get the coverage to use it!
It probably wouldn't be such a big deal if the carriers in the US only had to cover an area the size of Michigan like the UK ones do.
What geographical area does your plan cover without roaming charges?
Issue is you aren't comparing apples to apples.
The largest networks in say the UK are EE (orange/tmobile) O2, and Vodafone. What are their prices compared to ATT.
AT&T and Verizon in the USA are by far the two largest networks in the USA. We'll ahead of Sprint and Tmobile USA.
Second. Many people in USA are on family plans. So most of us average $50 a line including data and unlimited texts and talk plus the $18-20/month subsidy plus many of us get discounts 8-25% monthly.
So it really clouds the comparison. Many of us have 4 lines between $220-240 a month with data/talk/text
So the $55 per line cost than we subtract $18-20/line per month.
So around $35-40/line when the subsidy is factored in.
The difference between AT&T/verizon isn't much more than the big carriers in Europe when everything is factored in.
Plus we also have prepaid choices which are cheaper for single lines.
Come 2015 all of the eu if the eu gets its act together! At the moment UK, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Macau, USA, Australia, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Sweden, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland, but come July add on France, Switzerland, Israel, Finland and Norway.
I love 3 - American networks seem to be abusing monopoly power, don't you guys have anyone regulating them?
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Ah I thought these prices were for one phone - as a household I pay £15 for unlimited everything (iv used 100gb of data one month and have never used 50% of min/texts so call it unlimited), my parents one pays £6.90 for 500mb 200min 5000 texts and unlimited network to network calls and the other has a dumb phone so is on pay and go so pays 1p per text and 2 or 3p a min but we can call him for free, similar case for grandad - they use probably £5 a year but still call it £23 a month
What's a prepaid, is it pay and go? Do you have equivalent of sim only so you front the phone and just pay for network services?
Agreed. I've had TMO for about 18 months and just ordered a Cricket SIM. The more places I go, the more TMO is either there with only EDGE or not there at all. Cricket looks like a way to get the best of ATT at a significant discount.
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Sort of. Cricket was a separate, CDMA operator owned by Leap Wireless since 1999 or so. ATT bought it and rebranded its AIO service as Cricket. ATT is in the midst of shutting down the CDMA part.
I got fed up with ATT prices. Went to TMo last year. Switched to AIO two months ago, my phone has already switched to cricket.
Pro: The coverage is waaaaaaaaaaay better. It costs a bit less.
Con: I lost tethering.
Verizon. If you're paying, you might as well be paying for the ability to have service pretty much everywhere.
This is coming from someone who's had ATT, T-Mobile, Straight-Talk, and AIO.
The comparison for service puts Verizon as the winner. They're as pricey as ATT, but you're paying for coverage.
This is coming from someone who's had ATT, T-Mobile, Straight-Talk, and AIO.
The comparison for service puts Verizon as the winner. They're as pricey as ATT, but you're paying for coverage.
I wonder about that. In the late 1990s, CDMA and GSM added the ability to let operators suppress the roaming indicator. That's how a lot of regional ops were able to create the impression of a nationwide network. The majors still do that because even they can't afford to build out everywhere.
Do sub-brands such as AIO, Virgin, et al get the same roaming coverage that customers of the main brands do? I suspect not, for a couple of reasons.
One, the operator has to pay the roaming partners, and doing that for customers who pay less might eat into their profitability. Two, before Sprint bought Virgin, my wife had Virgin, and I had Sprint. Sometimes on vacation, she'd have no service, and I'd have five bars, a difference so big that it can't be dismissed as one phone having a better radio and antenna than the other.
Anybody know?
Prepaid in USA is the same as pay and go.
Generally prepaid for American have been associated with poorer people or people who have poor credit scores.
But a lot as changed in the prepaid market in the USA the past 5-6 years. More attractive plans. More affordable. Generally who can get a prepaid (pay and go) with unlimited text and talk (to any phone number) plus 2-3gb data (throttled after to edge speeds) for around $40-50 a month usd. That includes all taxes.
Postpaid service (AT&T/verizon) are very costly for single lines. A single line can easily cost someone with AT&T/verizon $100 a month (they do get 2 year contract iPhones for $199 subsidized). But still $100/month is a ripoff for single lines even with subsidies.
But in America lots of people are on family plans. The more lines (especially after 4 lines). The bigger the savings. Like I said when you factor in subsidies and corporate discount. Many people on post paid AT&T and Verizon average around $35-40/line. So that someone talks about a $220-250 phone bill they generally have 4 smartphone lines plus get to buy an iPhone for $199 every two years.
So in conclusion. AT&T is expensive for single lines. But AT&T gets a lot more affordable more more lines.
I do know that AIO (now Cricket) doesn't get the same coverage benefits as AT&T. Cricket can't voice roam on partner networks like AT&T postpaid customers do. So if you have Cricket and travel across the state of Nebraska, you won't have voice (or data) service.
here's the maps:
AT&T (see partner areas (lightest orange area? that's where Cricket doesn't work)
Cricket (see the partner areas are no coverage if you have AIO/ new cricket)
this difference in coverage is the thing that is keeping me from switching to AIO/Cricket from post-paid AT&T (that and tethering and speed caps).
When I was considering Cricket, the speed caps were an issue. But then I realized that 4 Mbps -- I have a Nexus 4, which maxes out at HSPA+ -- is more than enough for all of the apps and services I use, so I pulled the trigger.
I currently spend $90 pre-tax and discounts for two lines with shared 600 minutes per month, 3GB of data on one line and 300MB on the other. Could probably save more on another carrier but everyone I know has AT&T, I save a good amount (20%) with my employer discount and get best reception with them over other carriers (T-Mo, Verizon, etc.)
My experience with cricket/aio is that att native coverage will be robust enough for most people. I've used it in Alaska, Atlanta, New York, philadelphia, Delaware, New Jersey and had good coverage in these places.
I know I don't need the fast LTE speeds I regularly get (15-20Mbps down) but they would be hard to give up
yeah, I know for 90% of my use, I probably won't tell a difference with coverage. But my wife and I drive from Colorado to Wisconsin once (sometimes twice) per year. Having no service while driving across Nebraska doesn't sit well with me.
when I was in Alaska it worked everywhere between Fairbanks, Denali national park and anchorage. Also when we went out into the hills, 2 hours away from the city, for military training I had service. Just stay away from anything that uses tmobile.I know I don't need the fast LTE speeds I regularly get (15-20Mbps down) but they would be hard to give up
yeah, I know for 90% of my use, I probably won't tell a difference with coverage. But my wife and I drive from Colorado to Wisconsin once (sometimes twice) per year. Having no service while driving across Nebraska doesn't sit well with me.
thanks for the info, and regarding T-Mobile, I completely agree with you. I'm actually trying T-Mobile out now on my unlocked 5s (I get the first month free through my wife's employer and can cancel at 30 days). I'm blown away that people can put up with having 0 service when they walk into a building. We went to the grocery store the other day, my phone immediately dropped to no service while my wife had all 5 bars of LTE the whole time we were in there. Not worth the ~$20/month I would save (granted, that would be going from 10GB on AT&T to 6GB on T-Mobile and losing the data on my iPad). At the end of the day, AT&T is priced very right for me. I'll just see if I want to switch to AIO/Cricket when our contracts are up in January.
It's about the same as what OP is getting from AT&T. My family pays about $250 for three iPhones ($40 each), a dumb phone ($30), and an iPad ($10) with the 6gb plan. That's with my dad's 25% discount.
If you are paying $250 (subsidized) for 4 lines (3 smart and one flip with mobile share plus one iPad for 6gb
You should seriously consider the $100 10gb mobile share plus $15/line (no subsidy) plans.
$100 x 4 lines equals $160 plus $10 for iPad. So $170. Plus taxes minus 25% discount off the $100/10gb. So $75 plus $60 plus $10. So $140 plus taxes. Comes out to around $160 total for your plan. That's with no subsidy.
Considering the subsidy is worth around $18.75-20 a month max. It may be worth it to switch (if you didn't sign any new contracts prior to Feb 2014 cut off date.