Well, Phone/InternetHackr to be precise. We seem to have pretty much every other kind of hackr’ing thread on here (Mortgage, Vacation, etc) so why not Phone/Internet-Hackr’ing thread!
I’ve had Verizon Fios service for a while (was some piddly 50/50 service) that I was paying $35/month for. Price went up to $45/month around a year ago, then recently it went up another $10 to $55/month. I was like “WTF” and decided to see if I could find some discounts to bring my bill back down below $40. I then got an offer for $70/month Gigabit service in my email (no install fee + free whole home wifi as well), so I was like sure, I’ll bump my speeds up 20x for $70 (and I was exploring getting whole home wifi anyways). I then realized much too late that I qualified for a $15/month military discount, so my final new bill for gigabit service was $55/month.
I’ve been meaning to upgrade the fam’s phones, and I saw Verizon had a promo for free^ Pixel 6s or iPhone 12s if we ported over out lines from T-Mobile. In addition to the assorted freebies (D+/Hulu/ESPN+, etc) Verizon was also offering a $200 gift card per line ported as well. Free phones AND $200 bucks on top per line? Sign me up!
Signed up for 4 unlimited lines (Verizon has 4 unlimited plans…really?), 1x Play More and 3x 5G Start, which normally would run $190/month before fees/taxes. But after $40 in autopay and $25 military discounts, the monthly bill comes down to $125/month. But wait, there’s more! Verizon also offers a bundle discount if you have both Fios and Wireless service, which is $20/month total ($10 off both Fios and Wireless). So my final wireless bill (before fees) for 4x unlimited lines should be $125 - $10 = $115/month.
But there’s even more! I found that I was eligible for a “bonus” bundle discount of $20/month off my Fios bill, so combined with the regular $10 bundle discount, my Fios bill should be $55 - $10 (bundle discount) - $20 (bonus bundle discount) = $25/month!
tldr; Hacked internet and wireless service down to ~$115/month for 4 unlimited lines of wireless with 4 free^ new phones and $25/month for Fios gigabit and will net $800 in gift cards for porting 4 numbers.
Make sure to keep an eye on the “Offers” section on your Chase / WF / BoA debit & credit cards. Occasionally a free month of service will pop up if you switch the billing over to that particular card for that month’s payment.
Also look into something like the Wells Fargo Active Cash Card which comes with 2% back and $600/yr cell phone insurance included if your bill is paid by the card. (As well as a $200 bonus if you spend $1000)
I use Ting for my kids. They both have iPhones albeit old ones (8 & Original SE.) It is on the T Mobile & Verizon network. I pay $29.02 a month for 2 lines with taxes/fees. It includes Unlimited talk & text and 1gb of data, which they don’t use because I dumbed their phones down to work with iMessage & Phone calls only on data. Everything else just works on Wifi.
If you use under 125mb data, it would be $10 a month (plus taxes/fees) for 1 line unlimited minutes/sms but that’s tough. Plans go up to $45 a month for 22gb data. All plans include hotspot.
Most phones work on their service. And all the data is pooled on multiple lines.
Just a side note, I put a 200mb/month plan on an Iphone (Redpocket) (84/yr) and the iphone itself used that up within a week just sitting in my pocket. There’s some underlying data it uses and that 200mb didn’t even last long enough for me to use it personally.
I did the “pay for what you use” data game when I was with GoogleFi for a few months. On GoogleFi, at the time you paid only for data you used…think it was $10 per GB. So I was constantly worrying about not using data unless absolutely necessary, which got old real quick. Then one time I somehow used several hundred MBs within a couple minutes (think my phone lost wifi connection and defaulted back to my GoogleFi data when watching some YT vid). Around that time I was like “screw this!” and switched to T-mobile and their unlimited plan.
Mark me down as another Visible convert. Not sure what current deal is, but ours is $15/line for a house of 4. (Went down $5/line with each additional beyond 2.) So $60 for unlimited everything for 4 lines. Most importantly to me, NO contracts! Yeah, no free phones, but those are never really free since you are roped into contracts, fees, high monthlies (for most people). I get our phones off Backmarket, when we need a “new” one. Most recent one was in Feb for my son’s bday: $281 for an iphone XR 64gb.
ACK! Sorry, I totally lied above. I thought it was $25 reduced to $15. Turns out it is $40 reduced to $25. So I’m paying $100/mo for the 4 of us on unlimited everything.
Visible is still just about the best value in the MVNO space. Prior to Visible I did the deal with Sprint where they gave you a year for free, just had to pay fees every month ~$5. Granted it was Sprint, however the few times I did have an issue were offset by the fact it was free service and the gave me a “Magic Box” or Microcell to use as well to enhance the service. It was then extended another 3 months due to Covid.
I have no idea how Visible is ok for you guys. I got a backup sim to do their Iphone deals and find the throttling especially during evenings impossible. Nothing works/loads and I have to hunt for Wifi just to get data.
Was previously in the Detroit Suburbs but now moved to Portland. Had the same thing at both places. I get bars but if I click on like Gmail notification it takes a good minute or two to load. Its a visible phone so I don’t think its a missing band issue.
works great for me. I often use it as a hotspot for my work laptop when I’m out and about, or when my home wifi goes out. When not doing that, I stream netflix, amazon, hulu while waiting for my kid at baseball practice or some other thing.
And weirdly some spots with good verizon is throttled. In front of my fav restaurant I get 4 bars and no internet…all the time. Maybe a Verizon 5g customer there running bitcoin mining or something.
