There's no point in adding Straight Talk at this time because official word (via their Twitter) is that they do not have nano SIMs and they have no (announce-able) plans to sell nano SIMs at this time.
Micro-SIMs cannot be cut down to nano-SIM dimensions and be used.
Americans pay a LOT for their cellular service. I mean $100/month is just absolutely insane.
Currently I pay about $17/month but if I wanted unlimited everything I could get it for $32/month.
We don't pay to receive calls or texts however so there is little need to have "unlimited" either. Even the thought that I am paying for advertisers to send me junk text messages or calls would drive me insane, if I was in the US.
The US and Canada really have it rough with mobile and internet services...
Not relevant to LTE devices AFIAK, but I bought my Android phone outright and have it on the $30/month T-mo unlimited data, text, 100 mins plan. Couldn't be happier with it. Amazed to think I was spending over $100 with AT&T before.
Virgin's iPhone5 will likely remain a better value than any subscription option mentioned in the article. Unfortunately Sprint (and therefore Virgin) can't get close to Verizon's US 4G coverage.
Same here. I'm curious to know what Sprint LTE coverage will be like once it launches here in Southern California. Hopefully it's better than their 3G coverage/equivalent speeds compared to other carriers (Virgin is on Sprint's network).
Has Virgin confirmed iPhone 5? The only one I've seen so far is Cricket. I'm just hoping that the $25 unlimited data & messaging with 300 minutes plan is available!
I really fail to see why 'tethering' should cost you anything, _especially_ if you're capped in bandwidth already. If you pay for x GB you should be able to use as much, using any device you like. Weird.
Imagine how much of an advantage it'd be to only enforce a 1 year contract. That'd be a huge differentiator, as it would allow you to upgrade your iPhone on it's yearly release. I'm sure that would cause a massive switch in carriers for Apple fans.
AT&T used to allow iPhone users an upgrade annually for the new iPhone despite being on a two-year contract. I'm not sure if they have for this round, but every other year, they simply changed upgrade eligibility for iPhone users right before the iPhone came out.
The problem is that this is very expensive. An iPhone costs $650 and you get it for $200. That means that the carrier is eating $450. Even if you argue that a carrier is getting a discount and it's only costing them $300-350, they have to earn that back. $300-350 over 12 months is $25-29.17 per month that they have to earn back, plus interest. So, you have a $30 data plan, and only $0.83-$5 of that is going to actually implementing, maintaining, etc. the network. If they're subsidizing the device by $400, giving you an upgrade ever 12 months would mean taking a loss of $40 not including the cost of creating and maintaining the network.
So, it's quite detrimental to a company's bottom line to offer that to the point that it isn't wonderfully feasible. Sure, you can say that it gets you the voice plans of those people who switch and maybe that can go to the subsidy as well and whatnot, but the margins are thin. I'm quite literally paying $40/mo for my iPhone plan as an add-on to a family plan (plus 1/5th of $20 for texting ($4) and 1/5th of $70 for voice ($14)). So, I'm paying a total of $58 and getting a $450 discount on the device. $450 over 12 months is $37.50 plus interest and so I would only be paying $20.50 per month for my actual usage. Even if I bring my own phone, there isn't a carrier that would give me a price near that low.
Frankly, I think it would be better for uses to pay the $649 up-front and have cheaper plans (and this does happen in many countries and can happen here if you want to buy the iPhone 5 for T-Mobile). However, even there I wouldn't be getting such a value. T-Mobile offers 500 minutes plus texting plus 2GB of data for $50/mo. For $8 more on a family plan, I'm getting $450 off my device which even if I can only upgrade every 24 months is an $18.75/mo value.
It would definitely be a huge differentiator. AT&T did this for many years to keep Apple fans happy and to prevent their yelling from overwhelming the press around the new device. However, it's really expensive. Even if you gained more customers, it likely wouldn't be worth it.
Imagine if they just gave you the phone, no contract. Someone is eating that cost. In the US, you get a subsidy on the phone, but you also get locked in. That's how the industry works and no one really does anything different (TMobile tried for a while).
Does anyone have info on the Sprint tethering pricing listed here? I don't see it on their site or a Google search, and the existence of such would be very compelling for me (obnoxious overage price notwithstanding).
Not relevant for people who switch phone in two years, but AT&T's phone unlocking at the end of the contract or with account charges taken care of, is pretty neat.
I felt that was a disingenuous part of the chart. The author said that FaceTime only worked over cellular for AT&T when you moved to a shared data plan, but always worked on Verizon. That's technically true, but only really because Verizon won't offer customers subsidized pricing without moving to a shared data plan.
From Verizon's perspective, if you pay their post-pay rates and bring your own iPhone, you're paying them an additional $18+/mo since they don't have to cover the subsidy. As such, if you have a grandfathered plan, they care less since you're basically paying for a higher rate plan by not using a subsidy.
Only if you live in an area covered by LTE. In my area, city of ~250,000, there is no LTE or plans to implement but I usually have four to five bars on 3G. Seemingly the 3G connection strength would be a good thing but I get 3G data speeds comparable to dial up. If I am not connected to wifi, the data features (Siri, dictation, pic/vid texts etc. etc.) are virtually useless. Trying to browse the internet is also a pointless task about 75% of the time. The unlimited data offered by Sprint is moot point if you can't use LTE.
The biggest drawback for Sprint is their abysmal LTE coverage. They bet too early on with WiMAX and lost out on the LTE train. It's going to be a good long while before they're caught up there.
His AT&T pricing is inaccurate (he is reporting it too low). This looks like a great comparison chart, but the first thing that jumped out at me was the low prices he used for his analysis. After doing my own research it turns out his #'s for w/1 phone is wrong, w/2 phones it's even more wrong, etc.
By itself? Probably not. I leave LTE disabled on my Galaxy Nexus to save battery life most of the time. I can't even remember the last time I turned it on. It's nice for tethering I suppose but for normal usage it's not worth the battery cost. If you're on AT&T HSPA+ is actually fairly close to LTE speeds already though the latency is generally higher. I see about 7-8Mbit/sec on Verizon LTE and about 4-5Mbit/sec on AT&T HSPA+ -- not a huge difference.
Same as other guy said. It's so much better than wifi that I leave wifi off all the time (thanks unlimited data!). I can stream netflix/hbogo in high quality with no issues.
I actually didn't know only AT&T is able to do voice+data. For me, that option alone seems to justify the carrier choice. Nothing better than looking things up online or checking map directions while staying on the line with somebody.
Yeah, same here. I do this all the time.
The fact that AT&T is the cheapest option for me ($75/month for unlimited data, 450min, 1000 sms) and that it's the only one here that does this basically forced me to keep it. — Now, I just have to figure out how to unlock my phone (@cutyoursim?) and whether or not I want to rent a phone for LTE or just get a SIM Card whenever I travel.
I'm sort of debating - I'm grandfathered in w/ one of the AT&T unlimited data contracts at around $80/mo, but am thinking of switching to verizon for the extra LTE bands and what looks like better network support in general...
This doesn't seem right. My individual plan cost me $69/mo for an iPhone 4S with unlimited data. I just switched to a family plan with two iPhones and it's costing me $110/mo, before taxes and surcharges of course.
So, as for people not from US, could someone, please, explain - how much would it cost monthly to use a single iPhone5 device with unlimited text/voice, 2GB data and tethering? Just curious.
The thing that sucks is that I have two iPhone 4's that are grandfathered into the AT&T unlimited accounts and pay less than $100 a month for both. I'll probably never upgrade since I know I'll just get screwed by AT&T when they force me to move to LTE accounts.
AT&T isn't forcing customers to change plans (at least not during this upgrade cycle). Verizon is requiring shared data plans for upgrades, but AT&T is allowing grandfathered users to keep their plans. AT&T is, however, throttling past 5GB, but they're doing that whether you upgrade or not, IIRC.
[+] [-] achille2|13 years ago|reply
- 4th column for StraighTalk as one of the carriers
- 5th column for Tmobile as one of the carriers)
- Cost to buy iphone (199 normally, but full price prepaid)
- Cost over the entire life of the plan
See:
- Tmobile: http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/10/t-mobile-unveils-its-big-plans...
- StraighTalk: http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/30/review-the-iphone-on-straight-...
Note: Since StraightTalk resells AT&T using their own antennas, the available service would be same. Correct?
[+] [-] runjake|13 years ago|reply
Micro-SIMs cannot be cut down to nano-SIM dimensions and be used.
[+] [-] mason55|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dubya|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UnoriginalGuy|13 years ago|reply
Currently I pay about $17/month but if I wanted unlimited everything I could get it for $32/month.
We don't pay to receive calls or texts however so there is little need to have "unlimited" either. Even the thought that I am paying for advertisers to send me junk text messages or calls would drive me insane, if I was in the US.
The US and Canada really have it rough with mobile and internet services...
[+] [-] drstewart|13 years ago|reply
Looking on here:
http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phone/pay_monthly/24_months/Medi...
It looks like the cost is $70/month for unlimited text/voice and 1 GB of data. That doesn't seem much cheaper at all to me.
[+] [-] Adirael|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|13 years ago|reply
I'm dying to find out if, say, Cricket or Virgin's iPhone5 plans will be any better - I'm willing to buy up front.
[+] [-] untog|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evan2m|13 years ago|reply
Virgin's iPhone5 will likely remain a better value than any subscription option mentioned in the article. Unfortunately Sprint (and therefore Virgin) can't get close to Verizon's US 4G coverage.
[+] [-] antimatter|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mason55|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darklajid|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kurtvarner|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdasen|13 years ago|reply
The problem is that this is very expensive. An iPhone costs $650 and you get it for $200. That means that the carrier is eating $450. Even if you argue that a carrier is getting a discount and it's only costing them $300-350, they have to earn that back. $300-350 over 12 months is $25-29.17 per month that they have to earn back, plus interest. So, you have a $30 data plan, and only $0.83-$5 of that is going to actually implementing, maintaining, etc. the network. If they're subsidizing the device by $400, giving you an upgrade ever 12 months would mean taking a loss of $40 not including the cost of creating and maintaining the network.
So, it's quite detrimental to a company's bottom line to offer that to the point that it isn't wonderfully feasible. Sure, you can say that it gets you the voice plans of those people who switch and maybe that can go to the subsidy as well and whatnot, but the margins are thin. I'm quite literally paying $40/mo for my iPhone plan as an add-on to a family plan (plus 1/5th of $20 for texting ($4) and 1/5th of $70 for voice ($14)). So, I'm paying a total of $58 and getting a $450 discount on the device. $450 over 12 months is $37.50 plus interest and so I would only be paying $20.50 per month for my actual usage. Even if I bring my own phone, there isn't a carrier that would give me a price near that low.
Frankly, I think it would be better for uses to pay the $649 up-front and have cheaper plans (and this does happen in many countries and can happen here if you want to buy the iPhone 5 for T-Mobile). However, even there I wouldn't be getting such a value. T-Mobile offers 500 minutes plus texting plus 2GB of data for $50/mo. For $8 more on a family plan, I'm getting $450 off my device which even if I can only upgrade every 24 months is an $18.75/mo value.
It would definitely be a huge differentiator. AT&T did this for many years to keep Apple fans happy and to prevent their yelling from overwhelming the press around the new device. However, it's really expensive. Even if you gained more customers, it likely wouldn't be worth it.
[+] [-] mahyarm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drivebyacct2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cdmoyer|13 years ago|reply
http://www.att.com/mobileshare
[+] [-] iigs|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prophetjohn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amartya916|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] indiekid|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomkinstinch|13 years ago|reply
I put in my request yesterday, but it has yet to go through...
[+] [-] LVB|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdasen|13 years ago|reply
From Verizon's perspective, if you pay their post-pay rates and bring your own iPhone, you're paying them an additional $18+/mo since they don't have to cover the subsidy. As such, if you have a grandfathered plan, they care less since you're basically paying for a higher rate plan by not using a subsidy.
[+] [-] Quasimoto3000|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisisdallas|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] indiekid|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freshrap6|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenj0418|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] indiekid|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reagan83|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whichdan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsz0|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhrosTT|13 years ago|reply
It's pretty sweet.
[+] [-] Pewpewarrows|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] branchan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benguild|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frankus|13 years ago|reply
I'd like to switch (they're the only ones with LTE coverage in my city) but probably half of my calling is to/from/in Canada.
[+] [-] indiekid|13 years ago|reply
If you're going to Canada a lot, your best option would be the AT&T iPhone as the Verizon iPhone won't support Canadian LTE bands.
[+] [-] phsr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caycep|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brandoncordell|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laacz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heed|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] indiekid|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adestefan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdasen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mvanveen|13 years ago|reply