On 10/21/2014 2:37 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:


My son pays for data, and text and $10 for talk time, he can get an
iPhone 4C or a less featured phone for no extra cost, My wife did the
same 2 years ago.

I did something similar (we're on ATT) with my wife's phone. Got an iPhone
4 or 4S (can't remember now), factory reconditioned, for $0.99. Did not
even have to re-sign if I recall correctly, directly off the ATT web site.
Had it delivered the very next day by FedEx. Did not even have to pay
shipping. I looked for a similar deal not too long ago, and there were none
like that. Don't know if there is now that the iPhone 6 has come out.
Sometimes it's a matter of what new technology has just hit the streets.


My wife got a phone for free and only pays the $10 per month for her
share of the talk plan. She was not required to get a data or text
plan although the phone id capable of receiving both.

ATT requires you to take a data plan for all smartphones. Used to be you
could get away with just not signing up for data, but they changed that a
couple of years ago.



I can get an iPhone 5C for free this November and not pay any more for
service than I am right now. Since 2008 we have not paid any more for
phone service than we did then and all of us have upgraded 2~3 times,
some of us have paid $200 for the latest and greatest iPhones and some
of us have opted for the free phones.

I really have to check into this stuff myself because I need to upgrade my
Galaxy S3 - it's getting slow and the battery life is intermittently
horrible. Not completely a phone problem, but I'm getting tired of the S3
being treated like a forgotten child by ATT. Last I looked, it seemed that
the carriers were going to a new plan - instead of almost giving away
current phones, they now charge you a monthly fee for the phone which comes
out to nearly full retail if you keep it the life of the agreement. People
seem to think it's ok to pay $30 per month for a phone that we used to get
for no more than $99 under the old way of upgrading phones and signing a new
2 year agreement. I'm not sure exactly how these new programs work, and I
need to check into it, but it appears this is a new direction with the
Carriers.


Yeah they have introduced Next, IIRC. It allows up to 9 phones with
unlimited talk and text. Each phone is $15. You buy your own phone
interest free, on top of the $15, and can trade it back in in 12 and 18
month intervals for credit towards a new phone IIRC. Once you phone is
paid for your bill is back to $15. NO Contract.


With our current plan once the 2 year obligation is up the payment
remains the same.

This looks like a better deal for us if we choose to not upgrade every 2
years.