New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

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MandyLuna
Posts: 96
Joined: Sat Oct 02, 2021 7:37 am

New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by MandyLuna »

I have a very old iPhone and I'm thinking to buy a new iPhone 13.

Searching prices and I see that the phone is roughly $800 or about $35/month if I go with one of the major phone carriers on a 24 month contract deal.

I am paying just over $40 now with Consumer Cellular for one line and a very old phone long ago paid for. This is for service only.

Am I missing something? Can I buy a new phone and continue paying for the service for the approximate same out of pocket monthly expense? So the carriers have built the price of the new phone into their monthly recurring charge - but I am paying about the same amount to Consumer Cellular without a new phone?

Am I missing something? seems too good to be true.
onourway
Posts: 3778
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:39 pm

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by onourway »

The $35/month is for phone only. The service charges are separate, and with the major carriers generally starts somewhere around $50/month for a single line. Most of the major carriers don't do contracts anymore per se - they just use the monthly cost of the phone as the lock-in mechanism. So $800/24 months = ~$35/month. You can always pay off the phone early, pay for it all in advance, etc. with no extra charges, however.

Unless you get in on a great deal, it's generally still cheaper to buy a phone up front out of pocket and use a 3rd party carrier like you do now.
classicindexer
Posts: 207
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 10:43 am

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by classicindexer »

If you receive a promo deal from Verizon for a free phone or a large credit like $800 off, they apply the credit over the selected 24 or 30 month term. If you leave them early or try to pay the phone off early you forfeit the remaining Verizon credits and owe quite a bit.
dukeblue219
Posts: 4071
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 11:40 am

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by dukeblue219 »

MandyLuna wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:43 amCan I buy a new phone and continue paying for the service for the approximate same out of pocket monthly expense? So the carriers have built the price of the new phone into their monthly recurring charge - but I am paying about the same amount to Consumer Cellular without a new phone?

Am I missing something? seems too good to be true.
No, you can't. Carriers now have unbundled the phone cost from the service cost, which is generally a good thing. None of the major carriers have two year contracts any longer. However, they will often finance the phone payment for 2 years occasionally with some huge discounts if you stick around for that long.

You need service and the phone itself.
MathWizard
Posts: 6542
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 1:35 pm

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by MathWizard »

MandyLuna wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:43 am I have a very old iPhone and I'm thinking to buy a new iPhone 13.

Searching prices and I see that the phone is roughly $800 or about $35/month if I go with one of the major phone carriers on a 24 month contract deal.

I am paying just over $40 now with Consumer Cellular for one line and a very old phone long ago paid for. This is for service only.

Am I missing something? Can I buy a new phone and continue paying for the service for the approximate same out of pocket monthly expense? So the carriers have built the price of the new phone into their monthly recurring charge - but I am paying about the same amount to Consumer Cellular without a new phone?

Am I missing something? seems too good to be true.
Do you use a lot of data?

$40 for a CC plan would seem to include a lot of data,so maybe you are paying for a lot more data than you use

My wife uses an iPhone 11 on a prepaid TracFone plan with unlimited talk/text and 12GB of data for a year at $199/ year. Additional data is $40 for 8 GB. You never lose the data if you keep service.

I use a Google Fi plan on a pixel phone, which uses CC as one of the multiple carriers, and I pay about $27/ month including taxes and fees,but I only use about 200 MB/month, which is all I have to pay for.
NYCaviator
Posts: 1925
Joined: Sat Apr 09, 2016 5:06 pm
Location: NYC

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by NYCaviator »

Buy the unlocked iPhone outright from an Apple store and you can use whatever service you want. Monthly payments for a new phone are the same as the old fashioned 2 year contracts just disguised as something else. You should be able to active the new phone on your current consumer cellular line easily. I'd also stay away from post-paid cell plans. They are usually complete rip offs unless you have a bunch of lines on one account.
02nz
Posts: 10476
Joined: Wed Feb 21, 2018 2:17 pm

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by 02nz »

By far the best deal on iPhones is from Verizon subsidiary Visible: https://www.visible.com/shop/smartphones/apple

You get $100-$200 electronic Visa gift cards plus AirPods Pro or Studio Buds. The phones are unlocked after 60 days. The service is officially $40/mo for unlimited - but no one should pay more than $25, since you can join a "Party Pay" group right in their app (no information is shared with anyone else).
02nz
Posts: 10476
Joined: Wed Feb 21, 2018 2:17 pm

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by 02nz »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:49 pm Monthly payments for a new phone are the same as the old fashioned 2 year contracts just disguised as something else.
This isn't quite true. In the old days of contracts and subsidized phones, even after your contract was up (and your subsidy effectively "paid off"), your phone bill remained the same - typically $80 or more for one smartphone line. You kept paying for the subsidy whether you got a new phone or not. Now at least after the monthly payments end you're only paying for service.
retire2022
Posts: 3285
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2018 6:10 pm
Location: NYC

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by retire2022 »

Op

I would check where your location has the best service provider before selecting a service which may not have coverage.

Use this map to verify 5G and or 4G LTE

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/US/-/-/signal/

If coverage where your main use will be lacks 5G, which is my case for vacation home in upstate New York, the answer was simple no need for fancy Iphone 13 or 12.

I brought Iphone SE2 (4G LTE) which has the same processor as Iphone 11 and this May I paid $149 through Walmart StraightTalk, a prepaid wireless service using Verizon network. The other three are offered as well, TMobile and ATT.
bloom2708
Posts: 9855
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 2:08 pm

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by bloom2708 »

Buy the phone from Apple unlocked.

Mint 4GB plan for $15/month.

$20/month for 10GB.
FandangoDave5010
Posts: 239
Joined: Sun May 03, 2015 7:34 pm

Re: New iPhone/Cell Service - what am I missing?

Post by FandangoDave5010 »

I just signed up with Lively, formerly Jitterbug. It is owned by Best Buy and uses Verizon. Their new Smart 3 phone looks like the iPhone SE and you can have voice, text, data, gmail, google map and read QR codes for less than $30/month. The Smart 3 phone is on sale now for $75 at Amazon, Best Buy and the major drug store chains. I like the phone very much and it can do things that my old "dumb flip top cell" can't do. Although I am an 85 year old senior, I did not subscribe to any of their emergency and private operator services...which I will do if the need arises. CC was a consideration but with 6 Apple computers, laptops and iPads at home which I am very comfortable using, I did not feel the need for an iPhone to basically make emergency calls. I still have my land line as cell reception is borderline at home.
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