T-Mobile Cuts Rates for Data Hogs

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With all the cellphone rate cuts that keep coming, it’s like 1996 all over again! That was the last time we had a massive wave of discounting like we’re seeing now.

The latest news in the marketplace involves Verizon’s recent announcement that they are losing customers to the much lower cost plans available in the marketplace.

Historically, Verizon has had the best reliability and network…but they’ve also had prices that are much higher than the rest of the industry. So now the company faces a tough choice: Will they cut prices or continue losing customers?

ARTICLE: Sprint will cut your cellphone bill in half

Meanwhile, there’s some big news to tell you about with T-Mobile…

T-Mobile cuts rates again

T-Mobile has a new rate plan for data hogs. Two people can get unlimited talk, text, and data with no throttling for $100. Each additional person you add to the plan is $40 a month.

Yet if you don’t need unlimited data, there are much cheaper options. But you have to buy a real phone at a real price.

Motorola is selling the Moto G — a very good Android with a 5-inch screen that gets great reviews — for $179 via both Amazon and their own site. This is a phone you can use on AT&T, T-Mobile, Straight Talk, and any of a variety of non-contract players.

ARTICLE: Smartphone and Data Plan Guide for 2014

Freedom Pop offers free service, but with caveats

If that’s too expensive for you, here’s another idea: Freedom Pop has free cellphone service. They’ll give you 200 minutes, 500 texts, and 500 MB of data for absolutely free every month. (The typical person uses about 1 GB of data each month, so 500 MB is exactly half that.)

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That’s the good news about Freedom Pop. The bad news is the call quality on Freedom Pop is severely lacking. While the coverage seems fine, the call quality is just mediocre at best. It’s a definite work in progress. But the data works very well, just as promised.

With Freedom Pop, you have to buy a phone from them in order to get this deal.

Republic Wireless offers more robust service for just a few dollars more

If you want more robust service, I suggest you check out Republic Wireless. For $10 a month you get unlimited talk, text, and data that you can only use on wifi. If you want unlimited everything and the ability to flex between wifi and traditional cell service, it’s $25 a month. Both are no contract options. Just like with Freedom Pop, you must buy your phone from Republic Wireless starting at $99.

But note this well: The data on the cellular service runs at 3G speeds, which may seem slow if you’re used to 4G networks.

With all the price cuts in the cellphone world, if price matters to you and you have not shopped your plan in the last 90 days, odds are you’re paying too much!

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