With all the media coverage about individuals getting overcharged on their cell phone plans by thousands of dollars, it’s important to understand how not to get overcharged on your iPhone plan.
Data Plans
Data plans are where most people incur the most extra charges. Up until Sprint started offering the iPhone with unlimited data, there were no unlimited data plans. ATT and Verizon still do not offer unlimited data plans, and it’s impossible to get a minute by minute update of how much data you’ve downloaded and uploaded. It’s also important to understand that total data used is every piece of data that was sent and received from your iPhone.
Data works the same way at text messages. If you send a message, that’s one message. If someone sends you a text message, that’s also one message. So in order to send and receive one text message, it actually costs two plan messages. In otherwords, you’re using up data and text messages twice as fast as you think you are.
Phone Plans
In order to decide on a minute plan, it important to determine your average phone use. A 450 minute plan may seem like a great deal, but that’s only 15 minutes a day. If you spend a lot of time on the phone every month, 15 minutes a day may not work for you. A 900 per minute plan may actually be better since it works out to about 30 minutes a day, and if you talk an average of more than 30 minutes a day on your phone, the Unlimited plan might be the best option, but it’s up to you to figure out how many minutes you use on average every month.
AT&T
AT&T does not offer any unlimited data plans. They offer a 200MB $15 a month plan, a 2GB $30 a month plan and a 4GB $45 a month plan. That means that the cheapest data plan allows a user to send and receive 10,000 emails, view 1,150 web pages or view 105 minutes of videos. A 2GB plan allows the user to send and receive 100,000 emails, view 11,500 webpages or view 1,050 minutes of video. A 4 GB plan would obviously allow for 200,000 emails, 23,000 web pages or 2,100 minutes of video. AT&T phone plans start at $39.99 for 450 minutes. A 900 minute plan is $59.99, and an unlimited minutes plan is $69.99.
Verizon
Verizon offers a 2GB data plan for $30 a month, a 5GB data plan for $50 a month, and a 10GB plan for $80 a month. It’s minute plans are exactly the same at AT&T with a $39.99 450 minute plan, a $59.99 900 minute plan and an unlimited minutes plan for $69.99. The only difference is that Verizon does not offer rollover.
Sprint
Sprint is the only US carrier that has unlimited data plans. To receive the unlimited data plan from Sprint, the user must sign up for the $69.99 voice plan or larger and accept the $10 Data add-on. It’s an extreme deal at $79.99 when you consider what the other carriers are offering; and if you’re an iPhone internet hound, it may well be worth the cost just to ensure that you never go over your data limits.
Billeater.com is a money saving blog helping people find ways to save more and do more with less.
AT&T offered me an unlimited data plan if I turned down the iPhone and went with a Blackberry Torch. Sadly, I accepted since I am the worlds biggest cheapskate! Although my blackberry has served me well, I still get jealous when I see my friends “bump” pictures and music to each other 🙁