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Comment by jamroom | Hacker News Reader

Just as a point of reference, this is about on par with AT&T family share plans - I pay $145 a month for 3 iphones, unlimited text and talk with 10 gigs shared data. With taxes and fees it comes out to right around $160 (which would be the same here if I used all 10 gigs). The down side is that I'm not refunded for any unused data, so I pay that every month. But we use a good chunk of it every month, so this wouldn't be a big savings for me.

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This whole thing makes no sense for me. I go through Cricket Wireless, which is $40/mo for unlimited minutes and 2.5GB of high-speed data (then throttled to pretty much useless). I would say is equal to their plan that has 2GB. I actually only pay $35/mo due to auto-pay, so even cheaper than their $40 and I get more data.

I don't see their offering as competitive at all.

edit: just saw the "plus taxes and fees" of which there is none for me. So, I pay even less now.

Wow are those smartphones? Somehow I'm paying $100/mo for just my iPhone, 3 gigs of data and unlimited text.

The first phone on a plan costs the same as what you're paying; it's adding phones that's cheap.

With T-mobile I pay $100 (+ ~$8 tax/fees) for 2 smartphones with unlimited everything (data is never cut off or throttled as well). Look into a new plan!

I've been paying $80 + 2 x $10 for 3GB of high-speed data each. After reading this comment, I switched over to unlimited for the same price. Thanks!

Do you have the AT&T family share plan or the family VALUE share plan? Because those figures sound a lot more like the value share plan.

PS - The difference is that with the value plan, phones are no longer "free." You have to have a separate credit line (called: "AT&T Next"). So a phone might be $30/month for 30 months.

I think that is a moot point since you would have to pay the full price of your phone with the Google Fi plan anyway. It seems like the AT&T Next plans are actually a credit line with 0% interest as well; if you multiply out the costs, it's normally within $2-3 of the full cost of the phone anyway (i.e. AT&T isn't profiting off of your phone subsidy). For the sake of apples to apples comparisons, it seems like the Google plan is not a great value add...yet.

It isn't a moot point. Many people reading might assume that that price includes a largely subsidised phone, since that is what people are used to with the big two.

All I am saying is, AT&T's offer no longer does, so it is close to what Google/T-Mobile are doing.

I'm on the "Mobile Share Value 10GB With Rollover Data" - I own all 3 iPhones outright though, so maybe that's why I'm not getting hit for an additional $30 for the phones? Good to know!

I also use an AT&T share plan and they recently started rolling over unused data. So while I'm not getting money back I feel like I'm at least accruing something when I don't get close to my max.

Depending on your plan they might be doing the same for you now too?

> accruing

I think AT&T only rolls over data to the next month, so you aren't actually accruing anything. Unlike T-Mobile, who I believe roll over data for up to 12 months.

Wait really? The email I got from them made it sound like it would roll over forever. I'm gonna have to go read the fine print now. That's a big bummer if you are correct.

Yeah it is only month to month (previous month's unused rolls over to the next month only).

Well that's a bummer. Oh well.

They roll it over but it is the last used and is only rolled over a single month.

Month 1: Get 10 Use 5 = 5 rolled over.

Month 2: Get 10 Rollover 5 Use 5 (of the 10) Lose 5 (already rolled over) = 5 rolled over.

Month 3: Get 10 Rollover 5 Use 5 (of the 10) Lose 5 (already rolled over) = 5 rolled over.

Month 4: Get 10 Rollover 5 Use 5 (of the 10) Lose 5 (already rolled over) = 5 rolled over.

By Month 5, you would think you would have 30 (10 + 5 rolled over from each month) but you only get 15.

AT&T: We'll always find a way to fuck you.

Likewise, I pay right at $200/mo for 3 subsidized smartphones with 10GB of shared data and unlimited text/talk on Verizon. We do typically go through 8-9GB of usage monthly too, so it's not much wasted. Fi would be like $15/mo/phone less expensive + that marginal data rebate except... I can get LTE on Verizon nearly everywhere, unlike with T-Mobile and Sprint (especially once you leave metro areas out west) and my phones are subsidized. If I want to subsidize a Nexus 6 through Fi, it's now an additional $27.04/month/phone, or for the 3 of us, $30 more expensive every month than Verizon.

I pay $110 per month for 2 iPhones and unlimited talk, text, and data on T-Mobile. I really don't know why anyone wouldn't go with T-Mobile. They don't have contracts, overage fees and have the only unlimited data plan on the market (or at least among the big players).

I could see coverage being an issue if you're in the country but that's not going to be an issue for too much longer.

sprint also has an unlimited plan fwiw.

On the same plan we've got 5 people at the same price. There's a way to remove subsidized phones from the plan which saved close to 20 dollars per line for us. The downside is flag ships now cost 600, and so we all use either something old and used or a moto g.

old? I bought an LG G3 like two months ago for 350 bucks, came with a case, 64GB sd card, and all the original packaging and stuff. Was also in mint contition (the back of the case was scratched up a bit, but i dont really care for cases)

Anecdotal i gues, but if you look around its quite easy to find new flagship phones for very cheap, especially right around when the new iphones come out and people are clamoring to trade up

Can't really call 350 bucks cheap. But yeah that's why used and hand me down devices are quite common in our family. (We have like three S3s that were all bought by someone else on contract and given to us free by someone upgrading.)

Moto G is my personal preference though I bump into the limitations of that a lot.

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