2015 U.S. Mobile Phone Plans (hint: Rok Mobile)

My friends have been recommending MVNO's to me.  These mobile phone service providers use the same networks as the national carriers and offer many interesting inexpensive plans, some even free.  There are so many that it's clear that most people have a far better alternative with an MVNO like Ting than directly with the mobile phone network owners (Verizon, ATT, Sprint, TMobile).  I used WhistleOut for much of my initial research, but I've visited and investigated most of the plans on nearly all the MVNOs (I think) and all the major carriers sites so I thought I'd report back on what I've found.

I've been a Sprint subscriber since the 1990's since they've always been the best value.  They may still be the best value for many, but I'm finally ditching them.  I'm a techie and a data hog, though I don't watch a lot of video, which is where the vast majority of data usage lies, but when I need my data, I need it.  Sprint never throttled my data, even after using the hotspot regularly.  They didn't have a hotspot charge until a few years ago ($10 extra), but when the new owners took over they started to throttle at 3GB and the hotspot charge went to $30. At that point, it wasn't the best value for me anymore.  I've had an iPhone 5S on Sprint.

I've been all over the Boston area this year and have been using OpenSignal app and my They turned on their new network 4G LTE network in Boston about a year ago only (after the WiMAX flameout), and only now as they still build it out during the year, am I starting to see a difference.  I bought an iPhone 6S and tried AT&T for a month and it's 4G LTE seemed to be available everywhere and far speedier than Sprint's, so I wouldn't mind a network change (though when I'm near one of Sprint's new towers, Sprint is faster). I have had a Verizon mobile hotspot and they seem to 15% more widely available than Sprint's and usually faster as well, though not as fast as AT&T's.

Overall network coverage is converging and price is becoming the differentiator, and MVNOs have greatly increased the competition, thanks to Obama's FCC.  Since they are using the same networks, and are very cheap, why not switch?

I'd like to save a lot on the outrageous sums I've paid to Sprint over the years.  I want to avoid having to count my bytes and I also prefer a known bill rather than worry about if I should call someone or whether I was roaming when I watched that video for fear of a charge worth about a full month's bill. I text some, but don't talk a lot, but talk is cheap, literally, so the plans that fit me best are the unlimited plans and that's where I focused my research.  At the same time, I have a second number I'd like to keep as cheaply as possible as I can, so I kept my eye on that too.  Unlimited data plans are easy to come by, what you pay for nowadays is the 4G speed over the 3G (or slower) speeds.  Most providers will give you a limited amount at 4G speeds, which I'd say are about 4 times faster experientially, and then the rest of your data at 3G is pretty cheap to come by.

Findings

Honerable Mentions

Ting may be the service best plan for users that don't want a lot of data, especially for people who can use wifi most of the time, but their mobile data gets expensive.  A plan with just 100 minutes of talk (about all I need), 1000 texts with 1 phone is just $14.  Add in 2GB of data - I minimally am like the rest of us and use 1-2GB a month (until I tether), then the bill jumps to $43, which doesn't beat Sprints $50 unlimited plan.  Anyway my iPhone 5S won't be Ting-ready until they turn their new GSM network online in February.

Runner Ups

RingPlus beats Ting hands-down, with $33 for unlimited talk, unlimited global SMS and 2.5 GB of data.  Additionally, RingPlus, like many of these new MVNO services, has unlimited calling via wifi as well, if you happen to have wifi and bad phone service (often true indoors).

RepublicWireless has an interesting $5/month wifi-only plan which can be quite economical in many circumstances.  For the unlimited lovers, unlimited talk, text and data (over cell), and unlimited data, throttled after 5GB for $40.  However, it's not really unlimited since it's stopped, not throttled, if you violate the 5GB a second time in 6 months, and there doesn't seem to be tethering support.

Boost mobile has $45 unlimited 4G, but no hotspot.  The might be the best deal if our winner wasn't running a special.

Winners

"Without Tethering" Category
Rok Mobile has nearly the best unlimited deal, with a current offer that beats everything.  First, Rox Mobile was started by the same man who started Patron tequila, enough said! (And Paul Mitchell hair products, both great companies with high quality products). Rok Mobile has unlimited talk, text (including international) and web with 5GB at 4G LTE for $49.99 - with 4 months free, that's like $33/month!  Plus it adds some nice added bonuses, especially a "free" subscription to their Rox Music service with unlimited music streaming and none of it counting against your download data.  Additionally you get and access to 20 million wifi hotspots. The downside?  No hotspot!  Still, that's a great deal no matter how you look at it, it beats almost all MVNO 2GB of 4G plans.

"With Tethering" Category
MetroPCS (TMobile Network) has the best really unlimited plan, unlimited talk, text and supposedly unlimited 4G LTE all month, no throttles, for $60, $65 to use it with a hotspot tethering.  This is $80 a month from TMobile directly.

Google Chrome and Chrome OS could Be Huge

The move to an all-Cloud life is curving upwards. Most people have wifi most of the time they crack open their computers and mobile broadband hotspots are getting nearly cheap (more in my next post). Maybe we don't have to carry powerful laptops anymore?

In order to work with the high school class I help teach, I bought a Chromebook to match what the students have. I bought the best one out there and it was just $239 (in store is cheaper), many Chromebooks can be had for around $120. The specs are light in some ways, a 14" screen (1366x768), 2GB RAM, 16GB Hard drive (not a misprint), but it is made for connectivity and mobility: 1 HDMI port, 3 USBs ports (one is 3.0), SD slot, 802.11ac wifi, bluetooth, camera, a nearly 3000 mAh battery which seems to last forever (they always do at first, don't they?), and it comes with 1TB of Google Drive storage for two years for free - ah, there's the real hard drive. I do wish Google Drive was versioned content management, like Time Machine, but I can't even see old revisions of Google-originated documents, maybe I'm missing something.

I used the machine for only a few days, but it's clear that I can do nearly all of what I need to do on it, and I like the keyboard navigation better on it than a Mac. With my Mac crashing almost as much as Win98 now, and Macs being WICKED expensive, I have to consider if I could replace it for a mere $250 (with resale values on Macs seemingly near 95%). The Chromebook is about 10% lighter than my MacBook Pro 15", so I don't mind being lighter in the hand as well as the wallet.

When I moved to the Mac from Windows I moved everything to the cloud - a lot of that was moving things to Google Drive, much of it what have been great online services - Evernote, ToDoPro, Mint, and all the mobile apps and websites I use. I've already learned that machines come and go, but your data is always your data, so keep everything near permanent backed up to external hard drives  (except my Google data, which I should do). The idea was to create OS independence, so I could move to - and away from - the Mac easily.  Could I move to Chrome OS?

After 6 years, 3 Macs (one a used starter, one run over after 5 years - they do last, one recent replacement) and 3 iPhones (4S, 5S, 6Plus), I am still not very tied to MacOS/iOS. I am somewhat tied to Aperture (sort of, you can get at the pics underneath their database easy enough) but the only real major tie to is TimeMachine - one of the main reasons I moved to Mac in the first place. Since I have a lot of data backed up on Time Machine, I'll always need a Mac around, or a Virtual Machine for a MacOS, and I will always have that around. Heck I could always have a virtual machine for OS/2!

It's not just me, most people are far less tied to OS's now that we are all using apps in the cloud. In fact, maybe people are more tied to Google's main services than the various operating system they are using on their various devices. In the meantime, Chrome has recently become the majority browser. It's been a long war, but Chrome is winning and none of the competitors can recapture share (Microsoft and Opera certainly won't, Safari can only change as far as their OS penetration, and no further, and Firefox is improving but it will be hard to keep up without the same level of funding).

Chrome is now invading other OS's desktops.  After adding a Chrome Extension, I automatically got this helpful new Google portal on my Mac dock, just like the one on my Chromebook's start menu.

Ah, so I can use all those apps that plug into Chrome on all my devices? Nice. I don't think it's hard to see Google growing their eyeshare from here.

But I'm a developer! How could I get along on a Chromebook? The time for development to move to the cloud is near, maybe not here, but near.

We almost had cloud-like development in the 1990's with ClearCase - a virtual file system, very similar to Google Drive, but with controllable versioning, like Time Machine (on steroids). It could never quite work because the files a developer edits were always local because the developer tools were always local so it was very slow as the compiler reached across the network to find the net file, 10,000 times. I can here some of my old IBM mainframe friends that they were developing in the cloud, and it's true, though the cloud was usually in the building.

In 2015, developers have many tools living in the cloud - editors, compilers, builders, test runners, test and production machines. They seem mature enough for Javascript development, though the tools for Java may be somewhat behind. (I'm trying out Cloud9, no review ready yet.)  All we need now is a little terminal. Ah, but ChromeOS has bash and if that's not good enough, maybe Ubuntu on a Chromebook would work!