Smartphone Data Plans

Finally some competition out there. Data plans are starting to drop. I'm thinking about dumping our VZW plan for something more reasonable. The consumer gurus recommend holding-off on renewing 2 yr contracts since things are so fluid now.

Freedompop.com, a relatively new carrier, is now providing free service. I don't recall the exact #'s but it's something like 500MB data, 500 text, and 200 min voice. That's reasonable for many users. It's a beat roll-out so it isn't available everywhere. The catch is you need to buy an older android smartphone ($99). If you're needs are higher it might be $20/month. Apparently they use Clearwire and Sprint towers.

Sprint isn't the best of course but at some point they'll all be running 4G-like speeds with adequate tower coverage and then the bottom falls out. Of course the big carriers will want to buy out the disrupters as soon as they can.

T-Mobile has a nice, no contract, pre-paid $30/month plan, 100min voice, huge # of texts, 5GB at 4G speed and then over 5GB speeds drop. Works great for my daughter. I don't use many voice mins so it would be ideal for me too.