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malnpudl at 08:36pm on 07/02/2014
malnpudl at 08:36pm on 07/02/2014In the end, for various utterly Byzantine reasons, I am getting the LG G2 smartphone. \o/
For the record: If the people in the AT&T store tell you it is not possible to do thus-and-such thing within the bounds of your pre-existing plan... the truth may be only that they cannot do that thing, but if you take another route (online or over the customer service help line), you may be perfectly able to do it.
Which is to say, Dan the Man has had a 5-line (max) family plan for 10+ years, with himself and his wife (my BFF Suzi) on smartphones and their three surviving parental units on basic phones, all for $175/month. After Suzi's mom passed away in December, he had a line free for me to adopt. A non-smart phone would have cost me $10/month. A 300MB/month smartphone plan is $20; a 3 GB plan is $30. He talked for a long time on the phone to an AT&T rep who said that yes, he could add me and I could get myself a new smartphone at promo prices and he (Dan) would get the $100 new-person credit -- which, bless him, he'd apply to the cost of my new phone, and I'd cover any cost over that. My out of pocket budget for that was $100, or $200 max for the total cost of the new phone.
So this morning we happily head off to the local AT&T store where we're told A) the phone is affordable -- i.e., their "free" price (which is a bald-faced lie) or their "Next[buzzword]" plan so-called "subsidized" price (another bald-faced lie) -- only if Dan were to change his entire family plan over to a new version that would increase his bill by at least $75/month PLUS I'd be making monthly payments for the "free" or "subsidized" phone until eventually I'd paid full retail price. Which, FUCK NO.
Also, Dan was told that the maximum number of lines on his family plan is three, not five, even though he's had five for donkey's years. So sorry, no can do. Nope. Nuh-uh.
So Dan's face turned bright red and he (politely) steamed out of the store and went home where he spent the next two hours deep-delving until he found a way to do exactly what he'd planned on doing in the first place. *fist pump* He keeps his existing plan, I get added to it as his fifth line, I get a new LG G2 smartphone for the cost of sales tax, and my monthly cost is either $20 or $30 a month, depending on how much my data usage turns out to be. \o/
Doing it this way, the Samsung Galaxy S4 would have cost well over my $100 out of pocket limit, with no new-account credit to offset it, so it got moved out of the running. So it goes. I'm okay with this, because in the end it was pretty much a coin flip between the two phones.
Many, many thanks to all of you who chimed in on the decision. You were incredibly helpful, and I am very grateful.
Now I have one follow-up question: I don't know if I need the 300 MB/month or 3 GB/month plan. Is there any way to find out what my data usage is likely to be? I would be using it for voice and text, occasional e-mail, weather, occasional GPS, occasional shortish (around 5 minutes) video uploads to YouTube, paying Words With Friends (how much of a hog is this?), and possibly occasionally listening to streaming FM radio (NPR) for limited periods of time, maybe an hour or two at a time. Other uses -- listening to my own audiobooks and MP3 music and podfic files -- won't involve data use, since I can sideload them or use my in-house wireless, right? I'm sure I'm failing to think of lots of other stuff I might do, since I don't even know what the possibilities are yet. Any thoughts?
For the record: If the people in the AT&T store tell you it is not possible to do thus-and-such thing within the bounds of your pre-existing plan... the truth may be only that they cannot do that thing, but if you take another route (online or over the customer service help line), you may be perfectly able to do it.
Which is to say, Dan the Man has had a 5-line (max) family plan for 10+ years, with himself and his wife (my BFF Suzi) on smartphones and their three surviving parental units on basic phones, all for $175/month. After Suzi's mom passed away in December, he had a line free for me to adopt. A non-smart phone would have cost me $10/month. A 300MB/month smartphone plan is $20; a 3 GB plan is $30. He talked for a long time on the phone to an AT&T rep who said that yes, he could add me and I could get myself a new smartphone at promo prices and he (Dan) would get the $100 new-person credit -- which, bless him, he'd apply to the cost of my new phone, and I'd cover any cost over that. My out of pocket budget for that was $100, or $200 max for the total cost of the new phone.
So this morning we happily head off to the local AT&T store where we're told A) the phone is affordable -- i.e., their "free" price (which is a bald-faced lie) or their "Next[buzzword]" plan so-called "subsidized" price (another bald-faced lie) -- only if Dan were to change his entire family plan over to a new version that would increase his bill by at least $75/month PLUS I'd be making monthly payments for the "free" or "subsidized" phone until eventually I'd paid full retail price. Which, FUCK NO.
Also, Dan was told that the maximum number of lines on his family plan is three, not five, even though he's had five for donkey's years. So sorry, no can do. Nope. Nuh-uh.
So Dan's face turned bright red and he (politely) steamed out of the store and went home where he spent the next two hours deep-delving until he found a way to do exactly what he'd planned on doing in the first place. *fist pump* He keeps his existing plan, I get added to it as his fifth line, I get a new LG G2 smartphone for the cost of sales tax, and my monthly cost is either $20 or $30 a month, depending on how much my data usage turns out to be. \o/
Doing it this way, the Samsung Galaxy S4 would have cost well over my $100 out of pocket limit, with no new-account credit to offset it, so it got moved out of the running. So it goes. I'm okay with this, because in the end it was pretty much a coin flip between the two phones.
Many, many thanks to all of you who chimed in on the decision. You were incredibly helpful, and I am very grateful.
Now I have one follow-up question: I don't know if I need the 300 MB/month or 3 GB/month plan. Is there any way to find out what my data usage is likely to be? I would be using it for voice and text, occasional e-mail, weather, occasional GPS, occasional shortish (around 5 minutes) video uploads to YouTube, paying Words With Friends (how much of a hog is this?), and possibly occasionally listening to streaming FM radio (NPR) for limited periods of time, maybe an hour or two at a time. Other uses -- listening to my own audiobooks and MP3 music and podfic files -- won't involve data use, since I can sideload them or use my in-house wireless, right? I'm sure I'm failing to think of lots of other stuff I might do, since I don't even know what the possibilities are yet. Any thoughts?
(no subject)
When I'm at home, the phone is on the wireless network, so it doesn't suck down data. I usually have my GPS turned off unless I'm actively driving to an unfamiliar place.
I actually don't do much with my phone that uses data, so maybe the 3 Gb plan to start, then move down to the smaller plan if appropriate?
(no subject)