[General Topics] sitizenx:
I and every single postal worker get 25% off the voice component of our plans. Hardly what I would call 0.00001% chance. There are multiple corporations/organizations that get a similar deal. Not everyone gets that deal but everyone should check. It doesn't hurt to check. Yes, all discounts are not the same, but something is better than nothing... right? Some numbers floating around the web...

Thanks for the advice. I went to the at&t website and read the fine print. Here is what it says...

I don't want any of that. As was previously stated you can get the minimum plan and have unlimited mobile to mobile minutes. On top of that you have 450 daytime minutes and 5000 nights and weekend minutes. I NEVER use all of that. And those daytime minutes roll over. I have a four figure number of rolled over daytime minutes accumulated. If you are the type of person that makes and receives a lot of calls from land lines during the day then yes you would need to bump up your plan. If you are like me and can use landlines at work for business calls and don't make many personal landline calls during the day you never run out of minutes. So minimum plan $39.99. $30 with discount.

I and another person got unlimited data in the last year. He had a corporate account and had been a good customer for years and told them he was pulling the plug to join his wife on a family plan on another network... they offered him unlimited. That was a while ago, but certainly not YEARS. The unlimited thing is definitely tricky. If you don't have it now there really isn't anything you can do about it. But if you have it look into the corporate discount program and see if they will knock anything off before switching carriers.

To be honest with you I don't need the unlimited plan. I'm around wifi enough and use my phone so little that the 300mb plan should work just fine. at&t are idiots. They really should have something between the 300mb $20 plan and the 3gb $30 plan. And they should lower the price on the 300mb plan. I really would have been fine with a moderately priced 300mb plan. But if I'm paying $20 I might as well forgo a couple of starbucks coffees a month and put a dent in at&t's LTE network since they asked for it. I would have been happy with 300mb for $10 but noooo. They wanted to charge me $20. Well I'll see your $20 and raise you $10 and now I'm gonna break your network with my LTE phone and my unlimited plan. Happy?

Okay you yourself admitted that you could get some kind of discount at at&t. It may not be 25+% off voice but it is something. Tons of university students get at least 10% off. USPS, the military, various government agencies get discounts. So that $69.99 number is the worst case scenario. Furthermore I don't know too many people that NEED an unlimited calling plan. The unlimited mobile to mobile that at&t is serving up to me works fine and it's only $30 with my discount.

No one has unlimited data. That is a myth. Even my account says unlimited data but with the throttling I doubt I'll ever go over 5 gb and I probably will stay under 3 gb unless I decide to be a douche and stream video... while I'm driving. Furthermore as I pointed out in another thread LTE is hot. Verizon has the most LTE coverage. at&t is coming in at number two. It's being spotted all over the place in the region around me and it will be live in my city in a few months. Nothing doing on the tmobile/sprint side of the equation.

So when someone says "unlimited data" my question is, LTE? Invariably the answer is no. Then I ask really unlimited or booted off the network after you go over 3/5 gigs three months in a row? Invariably the answer is booted or throttled like a redheaded step child.

Ultimately you are not just buying minutes, texts, or data. You are buying the network. And if the voice part of the network is not as robust and there is no LTE then you are getting what you pay for. I will admit this, the subsidized phone thing is a racket. If I am happy with my phone two years from now and I don't upgrade my rates should fall... they don't, so I upgrade again. Totally wasteful. Frankly it should be illegal.

Just got the Lumia 900 free... not sure how much cheaper it can get than that.