I just posted this over at treocentral.com (I've been a long-time Sprint/Treo user, just recently switching to AT&T/iPhone). I'll probably get bashed over there, but I figured I'd repost it here (I suspect that the reaction here will be more cordial).
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I've been wanting to try out a new phone after using my Treo 700p for quite a long while. I had the itch and was leaning towards the iPhone, but hated the AT&T rate plans. With the pre coming out, and rumors of an iPhone refresh, I figured I'd wait it out till the details for those two devices hit. I was on SERO, and it was sounding more and more like Sprint would require a plan change to get the pre. When that became official, and I had a chance to play with a pre and read about the iPhone 3GS, I played around with the rate plans online and discovered a funny thing. The Sprint plans certainly give you more for your money, but depending on your needs, it's actually possible to configure an AT&T plan that's *cheaper* than a Sprint pre plan.
So here's my situation...We have two smartphones in my house (my wife and mine). I want us both on the same network so as to take advantage of unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes. My wife and I are both long-time Treo users, and she's been relatively happy with the Treo line, but was also interested in the iPhone. Our SERO plans were individual plans, but were very cheap, so even for two of them, it worked out to be much cheaper than even the cheapest family plan options. I looked online at my past Sprint information (kudos to Sprint for making this easy to look up online), and saw that we only used about 200 anytime minutes on average. We of course also had some nighttime/weekend minutes which would have come out of that unlimited bucket, as well as a lot of minutes mobile-to-mobile, which are also unlimited. My wife likes to SMS me, and I'll reply (or occasionally initiate an SMS to her), but our total number of SMS messages is pretty low. Nevertheless, I think I paid for $5 or $10 for 500 SMS messages or something (way more than we needed).
Initially, I figured that if I got us iPhones, I'd get the $5/month (per phone) 200 SMS message plan, but with the iPhone 3.0 update offering "push" notification support, I figured it might be worth trying an IM app (e.g., Beejive) to see if that could meet our limited messaging needs. The jury's still out on that, but here's how the plans (for our needs) compared...
Sprint's cheapest family plan w/data:
- 1500 anytime minutes
- unlimited mobile-to-mobile
- unlimited nights/weekends (starting at 7pm)
- unlimited data
- unlimited SMS
- navigation included
$130/month
AT&T's cheapest family plan w/data:
- 550 anytime minutes w/rollover
- unlimited mobile-to-mobile
- unlimited nights/weekends (starting at 7pm)
- unlimited data
- no SMS
$120/month
I should add that neither one of us needs the turn-by-turn GPS functionality (though I wouldn't mind having it), because my wife has a standalone GPS unit already, and my car has built-in GPS.
The number of anytime minutes is significantly higher with the Sprint plan, but if we only use 400 minutes/month on average, then it doesn't really matter, and with the rollover feature AT&T offers, if we do have a few months here or there where we exceed 550 minutes (so long as they aren't our first few months), we'll be "protected" by the unused minutes that have rolled-over from our typical months.
Even if we decide that the instant messaging app workaround ($10 one-time purchase) isn't working reliably, we could add $5 x 2 for 200 SMS messages, which would bring the cost on par with Sprint, but if we can get by without SMS, we're $10 ahead.
Again, YMMV (and for many of you, probably does), but I figured I'd post this just to demonstrate that, though rare, there are scenarios (or at least one) where AT&T's plans can actually end up slightly cheaper than Sprint's. So, the claim that AT&T is *much more expensive* than Sprint is untrue in my scenario and, in many other scenarios, is at least exaggerated.
**********
I've been wanting to try out a new phone after using my Treo 700p for quite a long while. I had the itch and was leaning towards the iPhone, but hated the AT&T rate plans. With the pre coming out, and rumors of an iPhone refresh, I figured I'd wait it out till the details for those two devices hit. I was on SERO, and it was sounding more and more like Sprint would require a plan change to get the pre. When that became official, and I had a chance to play with a pre and read about the iPhone 3GS, I played around with the rate plans online and discovered a funny thing. The Sprint plans certainly give you more for your money, but depending on your needs, it's actually possible to configure an AT&T plan that's *cheaper* than a Sprint pre plan.
So here's my situation...We have two smartphones in my house (my wife and mine). I want us both on the same network so as to take advantage of unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes. My wife and I are both long-time Treo users, and she's been relatively happy with the Treo line, but was also interested in the iPhone. Our SERO plans were individual plans, but were very cheap, so even for two of them, it worked out to be much cheaper than even the cheapest family plan options. I looked online at my past Sprint information (kudos to Sprint for making this easy to look up online), and saw that we only used about 200 anytime minutes on average. We of course also had some nighttime/weekend minutes which would have come out of that unlimited bucket, as well as a lot of minutes mobile-to-mobile, which are also unlimited. My wife likes to SMS me, and I'll reply (or occasionally initiate an SMS to her), but our total number of SMS messages is pretty low. Nevertheless, I think I paid for $5 or $10 for 500 SMS messages or something (way more than we needed).
Initially, I figured that if I got us iPhones, I'd get the $5/month (per phone) 200 SMS message plan, but with the iPhone 3.0 update offering "push" notification support, I figured it might be worth trying an IM app (e.g., Beejive) to see if that could meet our limited messaging needs. The jury's still out on that, but here's how the plans (for our needs) compared...
Sprint's cheapest family plan w/data:
- 1500 anytime minutes
- unlimited mobile-to-mobile
- unlimited nights/weekends (starting at 7pm)
- unlimited data
- unlimited SMS
- navigation included
$130/month
AT&T's cheapest family plan w/data:
- 550 anytime minutes w/rollover
- unlimited mobile-to-mobile
- unlimited nights/weekends (starting at 7pm)
- unlimited data
- no SMS
$120/month
I should add that neither one of us needs the turn-by-turn GPS functionality (though I wouldn't mind having it), because my wife has a standalone GPS unit already, and my car has built-in GPS.
The number of anytime minutes is significantly higher with the Sprint plan, but if we only use 400 minutes/month on average, then it doesn't really matter, and with the rollover feature AT&T offers, if we do have a few months here or there where we exceed 550 minutes (so long as they aren't our first few months), we'll be "protected" by the unused minutes that have rolled-over from our typical months.
Even if we decide that the instant messaging app workaround ($10 one-time purchase) isn't working reliably, we could add $5 x 2 for 200 SMS messages, which would bring the cost on par with Sprint, but if we can get by without SMS, we're $10 ahead.
Again, YMMV (and for many of you, probably does), but I figured I'd post this just to demonstrate that, though rare, there are scenarios (or at least one) where AT&T's plans can actually end up slightly cheaper than Sprint's. So, the claim that AT&T is *much more expensive* than Sprint is untrue in my scenario and, in many other scenarios, is at least exaggerated.
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