The lower prices due to increased competition are on their way, America! Just wait a little bit longer for the consolidation synergy and those massive corporate tax cuts to really kick in.
I just switched from Verizon to Comcast (xfinity mobile). I now pay no monthly line fee, and just $12 per gig. If I go above 3gb, they charge me $45 for the month and I get unlimited access (throttled after 20gb). Much lower price, and same Verizon network.
They used to require you to buy the device from them, but now it’s BYOD also. And unlike many carriers, they don’t charge setup or device upgrade fees.
In Israel you can get unlimited minutes + text + 30GB data for $10 a month. If you want to include around 200-300 minutes to call out of the country you can get to $13 dollar. The premium packages cost $30 and include calls + data when abroad. All that on an LTE network.
My roughly equivalent US plan on AT&T is ~10x that.
Don't get me started on the international. $60/GB for a pass or insanely $2,050/GB pay-per-use without a pass [1]. The rate is higher than that in some cases too [2]. It really should be illegal. Of course this is on top of the normal data plan charge.
They also have another day pass plan for $10/day that allows you to use your normal data plan internationally [3], however, only a subset of AT&T plans are eligible for it.
That's a fairly recent development, though; they recently broke up the cell phone cartels that were charging outrageous rates in exchange for very poor service.
This is something we desperately need to do here, but I don't much faith we'll do it anytime soon.
Bell got 50+ years to extract incredible amounts of cash from their customers (who had, quite literally, nowhere else to go). Then it was broken up and prices fell dramatically, which sounds close to what happened in Israel?
Unfortunately, we clearly didn't learn anything from this, and we let the small companies formed from the Bell breakup buy each other up -> consolidate the industry again -> eliminate most of their competition, and we wonder why we're getting screwed again.
This sounds really expensive! Are all contracts similar in the US?
In Italy I pay EUR 5.99/mo for 30gb and unlimited calls including to any European country and some international countries too.
I switched my wife first because she wanted Verizon's network and at that point you had to buy a new device from Comcast. After a couple of months, I ended up buying a used phone compatible with Xfinity Mobile and have been very happy with it.
We took our phones with us to Mexico and roamed for a week for about $9 over the usual bill. That was almost entirely Google Maps, with a little "Find Friends", but it was so much nicer than swapping SIM cards.
I was in the process of setting up BackBlaze and ARQ to back up everything at home offsite when Comcast implemented their 1TB/month limit. That was not pleasant. And every year Comcast makes me do the "we're doubling your price for internet unless you threaten to leave" every year and having the cell phones with them makes it harder to move. It's another $10/month per line if you don't have service with Comcast.
So I'm not thrilled about having more eggs in their basket but the service has been really reliable. My wife wanted Verizon because she travels to the boondocks and she wouldn't have service with Ting, which is what we were using before.
I have wondered if it would make things hard on me when it comes time to threaten to leave and keep my cable internet bill low.
On the other hand, I'll be saving $100/mo versus Verizon (big family plan), so even if I have to eat a $20 increase in my Comcast bill, it will be well worth it.
I also get access to xfinitywifi hotspots, which I previously didn't have because my Comcast internet is below the required tier (60Mbps).
From my time with prepaid on T-mobile, most of these fees are imposed on post-paid connections.
I am seriously considering AT&T prepaid to avoid these gimmick fees. for 2 lines 50/mo plan i'll end up paying 70 - https://www.att.com/prepaid/plans.html
Huh so $12 per gig times 3 and then when you go over its an additional $45... so $86 a month for unlimited data?
Im on a ATT family plan I pay $50 for unlimited data. Xfinity doesn't sound like a deal to me and it's Comcast(uggh, yuck and i worked for them for too long hearing customers yell at me because Comcast give no craps about customers).
That $50 number is misleading or not inclusive of fees. My grandfathered original iPhone unlimited plan is ~$80–100/line total bill cost all in for unlimited data on a handful of lines.
I’m in a family plan... get your family and or a group of friends into one account and you’ll save a good amount. We have Direct TV now as well which I don’t think any of us use.
That may actually be cheaper than tracfone. I pay ~ 12.50/month/line for more minutes + texts than I use (they roll over...), and 500MB of data. Additional data is $10/GB. You can choose between the big three networks (at&t, verizon, sprint), and they support BYOP.
I pay $30 / month for my phone bill. That's it. I don't use a lot of cell data, but I have more than enough for some light streaming, GPS, price checking, etc. When I'm not at home or the office (on wifi).
Oh, and there's no arbitrary limitation on tethering either.
Yes, competition is delightful, but sometimes you actually have to try.
In this case, the differentiator between my current option and the lower cost ones is the level of cell service living out in the sticks (aka 45 minutes out of the metro area). More would be nice, but rural life typically has fewer options.
That is really changing though, on all fronts, as technology does.
