Point of fact: every significant relationship I’ve had has necessitated a major change to my phone plan. The last one made me change to a plan that provided more than 300 minutes per month. This one – clearly a sign of the changing times – means I need a weapons-grade text messaging plan.
The pre-paid idea worked fine as long as I didn’t text, but when one received and one sent message hits me for $0.15 each time, a conversation starts getting visibly expensive.
Options:
- Give her my Google Voice number from which I can deal with texts via computer for free
- Go back to a “real” phone plan
- T-Mobile
- 500 minutes + unlimited text: $40, no contract, no new phone
- 500 minutes + unlimited text + web: $60, no contract no new phone
- As 2.1.2 but change out to a more text-oriented phone than my 5310.
- Android phones start at $400 (MOTO Cliq), the one I like is $450 (Samsung Behold 2). Contractless comes at a price.
- Sprint
- 450 minutes + unlimited text + web: $70, new phone required, 2 year contract
- Effectively unlimited minutes as Sprint says “free calls to all mobile numbers on any network”.
- HTC Hero (Android 1.6) available for $100, which isn’t a bad deal.
- 450 minutes + unlimited text + web: $70, new phone required, 2 year contract
- Verizon / AT&T – not even looking there. Data prices are outlandishly high.
- T-Mobile
Right now 2.1.1 is probably the most flexible of the plans: I can always go up to data later if needed, I can always get a new phone later (if needed) and I can switch out from that plan to any of the others with relative ease.
I did the math to make this harder last night. My minutes usage is going to skyrocket as well, so 500/month is almost certainly not going to be enough. Rough guesses are putting it closer to 1000/month. If I can load most of the minutes into the >9pm range, then TMO’s free nights/weekends comes into play. Otherwise I’m looking at their $70 1000-talk/text/web plan or Sprint’s 450 plan (again, effectively unlimited because everyone I know has cell phones).