I have tried lots of different prepaid and no contract services and here's where I landed. Virgin Mobile is ok if you like the Sprint network. Net10/Tracfone are both fantastic if you don't want/need a smartphone and just want voice and text. Straight Talk is awesome if you want a smartphone.

I do Straight Talk SIM with an iPhone 4 on AT&T's network and the only problem I've had is no media messaging, which is not a huge deal. Also, iMessage is great for that. If you care about MMS, buy a phone from Straight Talk directly. The iPhone on Straight Talk is on the Verizon network, but since it's a VZW phone, you can use SIM as well.

Straight Talk SIM now supports LTE on AT&T if you want to go that route.

The point is, for phone service, you don't need to spend more than $45 a month and off contract phones can be had for $400 or less for top end phones (like iPhone 5 or Galaxy S3). If you don't want data, you can drop down to $25 a month or less.

There is no reason to be on contract, it no longer makes financial sense.

One of the things about going with an unlocked phone in the U.S. that often doesn't get discussed is that you can realistically own multiple phones. We miss out on this experience because we are so tied to contracts and only using one phone with a sim card.

The biggest regret I have as someone who has been on phone contracts for years is that it is very prohibitive to experiment with different phones. If we treated phones more like computers, we could have more than one phone at a time. When you're on a contract with a locked phone, it's really difficult to experiment with different phones in any meaningful way.

That doesn't mean I would be buying new phones all the time. Perhaps I get used ones off of Ebay, and I probably only buy a new phone every two years or so. Phones are starting to hit an inflection point where they will run well beyond two years.

If we can get better unlocked options in this country with data and voice plans that are priced better, geeks like us can experiment with different phones and OSes. I use OS X and Windows every week (and Chrome OS, but that depends on the week).

I hardly ever use Android, Windows Phone or Blackberry OS. And I think that's a shame.

I've done this and the math already. We had 3 of us on a shared family plan on contract with Sprint at around $200/month. We broke contract and ate some large fees and sold our Sprint phones. We bought 3 nexus4 phones and switched to T-mobile that came around $100/month. Even after paying for breaking our contract with Sprint it was cheaper than to wait the contract out.

As a bonus, we all got unlocked phones with Wifi tethering (free) and better data service. Keep in mind though, T-mobile signal might suck for your location.

Another advantage: an unlocked phone can really help for international travel. I'm heading from the US to Hong Kong and my friends with unlocked phones can get local, prepaid SIM cards for very good voice + data rates.

AT&T has told me that "standard" rates for international roaming in Asia is $2.50/minute (!!) and even the biggest package they have only brings it down to $1.50. It's completely insane. Plus you need to purchase voice roaming, data roaming, and text roaming all separately. Believe it or not, it will actually be slightly cheaper to cancel my AT&T plan, pay the cancellation fee, and switch to TMobile than it would be to purchase all of their punitive roaming services.

* I can tell you we just switched from AT&T to T-Mobile and it’s been flawless.*

That's because you haven't actually had to start using T-Mobile's horrendous service. When I tried to do this (admittedly a couple years ago) they told me with a straight face, after I had gone through all the effort of changing "You can't use data on your smartphone because you didn't get it from us." Why would I have changed over if I couldn't use data!?!? (It would have been edge or something ridiculous as well, as only people on certain contracts could use 3g!)

I don't even upgrade my phone through my carrier anymore. I just go on ebay and get a used phone for around $200. Case in point: The new Nokia 928 which was released in May of 2013 is selling on ebay for $250.00. To upgrade its $99 and I get my unlimited data plan yanked and re-up for another two years? No thank you.

Also, the only company to actually reduce their price plans to account for not subsidizing their phones is T-Mobile and I figure they're going to get more customers as people start to realize the upgrades from AT&T and Verizon are a total crime.

Kind of bizarre he goes to such lengths to save a little money and then still buys upgrades regularly. If he cares about money so much, he should be skipping upgrades as well. His plan is not reasonable for me since AT&T and Verizon are the only decent LTE carriers here in the US, so he's permanently crippled his bandwidth. LTE means I don't need a home internet connection any more, so it saves much more than he does by going T-mobile.

So anyway, he's sacrificing network speed to save money, but won't sacrifice upgrades, which seems illogical. Also he writes off skipping upgrades while on a decent network, because he says that is costing him money for free, but it still saves him the cost of the upgrade handset itself, typically $200 for a premium phone. He would be stuck paying the increased amount no matter what on the only good network options there are right now, so it doesn't matter. Saving 200 is saving 200.

I just switched from Sprint to T-mobile. I financed my T-mobile 5S through the Apple store, then activated a T-mobile SIM card online, and got the $30 per month deal for 5GB 4g data and 100 minutes per month, with 10 cents per minute beyond that (prepaid). $30 per month is by far the least I've ever paid for an iPhone.

Hm, I always assumed this stuff was transparent.

In the UK you have the well-known "Sim-Only" and "Rolling Month" contracts, which are almost, not like contracts in the traditional sense given you can cancel any time.

my Sim-Only contract that last's for 12 months is £15/m I paid £750 or so for the iPhone 5s with 64GB of space which is: £31 (over 2 years) £46 total a month for two years.

a contract with my provider for my phone is: £99 upfront cost. £51 a month (over 24 months).

so, I'd be paying £5 for the privilege of _not_ having cash in hand for my phone.

there are other downsides; like requiring carrier support instead of apple support, which, honestly makes a large difference to how you're treated.

although the UK is under EU jurisdiction about the locking of mobile phones so, it's now prohibited.

One thing none of these articles mention: on AT&T, you don't use minutes to call other AT&T customers. If your entire extended family is on AT&T (as mine is), this provides a horribly effective incentive to stay.

This is the equivalent to buying a house or car with cash to save on interest. Of course you save money by paying full-price up front instead of financing. It only works if you have that much cash available though.

The cost-benefit analysis is elementary.

Given:

-A phone is designed to physically break in 2 years (with or without contract)

-A cellular contract last 2 years

-Purchase cost of a new unlocked, contract-free iPhone 16g 5c is $600 after taxes

-Purchase cost of a new locked, contractual iPhone 16g 5c is $120 after taxes

-Monthly bill for iPhone contract is around $100 after taxes(unlimited everything)

-Monthly bill for iPhone without contract is $60 after taxes(unlimited everything)

Total cost of contractual iPhone over 2 Year period:

100+10024=2500

600+5024=1800

((2500-1800)/2500)*100 = 28% more for contract. Factor in the cost-benefit of peripherals you receive with a contract or non-contract phone and make your decision.

Done.

That's a lot of math, and it might work for most of the top-notch phones. I go google.com/nexus all the way because I know that I'll be able to use my phone anywhere (I'm french and live in the US). I've got a $30 no-contract sim-card only plan on T-mobile, with unlimited data and use Google voice for my calls. I don't think it's beatable (price wise. Quality wise it is.) it you want a last-gen smartphone.

Confirms what I thought. I was once locked, it was hell. Now I am free. I can switch or haggle the bastards for the things I want. And it's way cheaper. I rather pay up front and pick what provider I want every 6 months pay a fee for a card that renews itself ever 6 month without CC or bank account involved so they can't overcharge as they are used to.

My family is definitely going to be doing this next month when our Sprint contract is over. I'm also going to port our phone numbers over to Google Voice to avoid any future porting fees.

The abysmal world of mobile phone carriers seems to be making some good improvements.

I don't think this applies in Canada. For example on Telus, as soon as your contract expires, all the free bundled stuff you got like voicemail or texting plans are now $6 or so a month, so your usual $60 bill jumps to $75.

In Canada, one of the big 3 telcos, TELUS unlocks your phone for $35 if your account is in good standing after 90 days without having to finish your contract. So you can maintain your contract and have it unlocked for travel.

I'm in the process of moving from ATT to Tmobile.

Anyone here use pay as you go services like AirVoice?