Or, there's a $US 500 per month plan that's unlimited and I get a new phone (iPhone, BB Storm, or HTC Touch Diamond) every two years.

Ha! Ha!

So I feel good that I already have the best deal, but sad that there's nothing better. Oh well. I have already decided to switch to a prepaid plan when my contract is up in December.

I hate what cell phones are doing to American culture, and I would be happy to give mine up in exchange for banning them all except for 911 calls.

Though since then, I have not been hit with those fees, thankfully.

$54.10/mo for 1 line (Samsung Behold phone - new and I like it) 1000 anytime minutes, unlimited text/msms, umlimited T-mobile calling, unlimited nights and weekends (after 9pm)

I probably don't need the $7 worth of unlimited T-mobile calling, but I figure it saves my ass when I (RARELY!!) go over my minutes... emergencies, travelling, etc. The overage fees are a nightmare, ya know?

@pecan 3.14159265: Same as you. $150 for two phones with 1400 minutes between them and unlimited data/texting on the Big V. No landline at home and cant live without an internet capable handset.

@nocturnal99: True, but your question was "does everybody here choose their carrier on price alone" - Sprint is cheaper, and offers coverage comparable to AT&T, I think, but had no phones I wanted. Verizon isn't GSM, so that was useless to us as far as international calling was concerned. So my determination was not only that I wanted an iPhone, but there weren't any other phones that I wanted to get. Not even the Blackberry could sway me, and I really liked the Blackberry Curve I played with in the store. It was red and shiny and everything. but it would have cost the same as an iPhone.

Billshrink couldn't really save me much money, but a prepaid plan is cutting my cell phone expenses by more than half.

I have discounts, perks and other things out the wazoo. Unlimited everything on Sprint with all blackberries using very old grandfathered features and plans.

1400 minutes on AT&T on one group, 2100 minutes on the other group.

@nocturnal99: Not exactly. I chose AT&T because even though the coverage isn't as spectacular as Verizon, I wanted a smartphone (and more specifically, an iPhone) and Verizon's smartphones suck. Also, I had been having ridiculously terrible customer service with Verizon and desperately wanted to get out of dealing with them.

So I get a few dropped calls here and there, but I love my phone, and I have had really good customer service with AT&T the few times I've called to ask questions.

I've tried other companies and my signal is always less reliable than Verizon. In my area, NYC. If I moved to other areas, I might go with, say, AT&T.

@pecan 3.14159265: I pay a bit over $200 for the least amount of minutes needed, 5 lines, and unlimited text/multimedia messaging on the 5 lines. None of the lines uses data or internet (because AT&T doesn't offer a family plan for data only the messaging plan is available for family). But according to BillShrink I've got the best deal to fit my needs. And like you, I don't have a house phone and my internet is $20 a month w/ the cable company and there's tons of wireless hotspots if I'm out and about with the laptop so I don't need to use my phone.

It's disgusting.

Granted I wouldn't expect the "oh, you want unlimited data? Use this proxy and ask for this plan" tricks but it seems pretty comparable to just trolling the sites looking at the plans.

Too great of a deal. And I got my Palm Pre too!

@MostlyHarmless: I'm at $45ish. Texting costs me $0.05 per (I don't text) and the plan only gives me 200 minutes. Long distance (last time I checked) is $0.19/min.

My plan fails at life. I'm dropping it next week for a pay-as-you-go plan for $100 or so a year, and leaving my phone off most of the time.

I am on the Sprint Sero plan. I have been out of contract for a year or more buy not upgrading my phone. I don't want to get a phone or switch carriers to keep myself contract free. Ironic that the thing that is keeping me with Sprint is the fact that I don't have a contract. They tried to force me into one by taking away my free after 6 discount, but I threatened to cancel and they relented.

@pecan 3.14159265: Now that I look at it, I'm like "I pay how much?!" but we don't have a landline, and I really, really like having internet on my phone. It's the data plan that the major cost. I would have paid for text regardless. AT&T doesn't have a family data plan for the iPhone.

@MostlyHarmless: About $170 a month for both of us to have smartphones with the lowest amount of minutes, unlimited data and texting.

This is a good tool if you haven't done any research into what you want. For most people, they have to find the coverage maps that tell them where they'll get the best reception. This knocks out one or two carriers, IMO. I don't think there are very many areas in which all of the big four carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint) work well equally. So once you figure out which ones work the best, you survey their deals. Unless you've never had a cell phone before, you have a good idea of how many minutes you need, who is on that particular carrier (free mobile to mobile) and what kind of phone you want.

I tried to use BillShrink, but it said I'm already getting the best deal. The cheapest plan they showed me was $20/month higher than what I pay now, for a smaller number of minutes than my current package, and they only have 4 carriers (not including my carrier). Also, I'm sure including taxes and fees would make it much more difficult for them to calculate, but that shit adds up. It's hard to compare plans without knowing how much additional that stuff will cost.

Overall, meh. Maybe it works better for other people.

It's good that they factor in the ETF you'd have to pay to switch carriers.

Billshrink's not bad, but it doesn't include prepaid plans, which can really save you money.

Your parent organization actually had a blog posting about this a while back.