I have been with AT&T for a long time with multiple services (home phone, internet, and mobile services). My family was with AT&T from back in the Cingular days, and until two years ago, I was always on an old plan with my parents. Then my life changed and I got married, and we decided to stay with AT&T but get our own plan through my wife’s work discount program. That is when my relationship with AT&T went downhill.

We ordered our new phones, and then had tons of problems porting my wife’s phone number over as well as mine into one account. Then came the months and months and months of trying to get our bill worked out correct with all the discounts we were due with my wife’s account. On top of it, both of our junk Samsung phones started having problems a little over a month after getting them, and AT&T refuse to help us in any way. It was a miserable time, at least six months, and AT&T just refused to do anything right. I would spend hours and hours on the phone every night. Finally for my phone, I ordered parts off of eBay and fixed the phone myself. For $30 in parts and my time to make the repair, AT&T lost me as a customer. It was truly horrible customer service no matter where I turned. I was locked into a contract with no way to get out.

I had heard all kinds of stories across the internet with ways to get out of the contract. At one point AT&T changed a bunch of fees on our bill, so I attempted to work my magic to get out of the contract. After phone call after phone call, I got no where. I was eventually referred to the legal department because no matter how many times I pointed the incompetent customer service reps to their own contracts and terms, which proved my point that I was allowed to get out of the contract if they changed fees and the contract, I was denied. I eventually wrote to the legal department with all of my backup documentation, etc. requesting to be let out of my contract. What happened? Surprise, I was turned down again with an argument that they tried to justify that they could change the fees. After an exhaustive several month process, I finally gave up. AT&T had beaten me and my persistent attempt to make things right. I could have hired a lawyer and probably gotten out of the contract, but it was not worth it. I swallowed my pride and decided that as soon as my contract was up, I was leaving AT&T for good.

So we have been researching which carrier we wanted to switch to, and my wife had a preference to return to Verizon. I had no problem switching to Verizon, especially after they got the Apple iPhone, but the thrifty side of me also wanted to evaluate our options. I was not interested in the smaller providers (Revol, etc.). My family had T-Mobile years ago, and the service coverage was horrible. So our main choices were Sprint and Verizon.

I was very interested in Sprint from the standpoint that they are considerably cheaper than Verizon, and had a 4G network. The best part was the price you paid covered unlimited texting and data. Our biggest concern though is that we like to travel a lot, whether it be a one tank trip, or across multiple states. When we pulled up the coverage areas around where we currently live, it looked like we should not have any issues. However, the coverage map got more sporadic as you traveled east or west of where we live now. So on top of our travel coverage, we had concerns that depending on where we move, our mobile coverage could be limited. So that left Verizon.

We obviously knew we needed a family plan of shared minutes. Since 700 shared minutes would be to few for us, we went with the 1400 minute plan. Over the past year, both my wife and I have dramatically increased the amount of text messages that we send and receive. Therefore, we decided that we really needed to have unlimited texting on our plan. Our basic Talk and Text plan will cost $119.99/month, without even considering new phones and data plans.

While we were on AT&T, I got used to have a cheap data plan for my Samsung Eternity phone. However, I realized that I sat in front of a computer all day at work, and then for a good portion of my evening after the kids go to bed. Therefore, I did not really need data coverage, so I was pretty adamant that we did not need expensive phones with elaborate data plans. However, recent changes at my work changed all of that.

I am a lifetime subscriber to Sirius XM radio, and found I can not live without it. We are devout Sirius XM fans. Besides my commute to work, I used to listen to Sirius XM online all day at work. That is until my work recently changed their internet policy and now restrict online music streaming. Not being able to listen to Sirius XM all day is miserable! One option I always had was to buy an indoor docking station and antenna, but I never was to optimistic about getting the setup to work at my office. Since I am not able to listen online to Sirius at work, my cell phone coverage requirements are now extremely different. No longer was not having a data package an option, as I need to stream Sirius XM through my phone. Luckily Sirius recently released a new app to listen online, so I needed a phone that could support the app and signal.

We went through all of the phone options available with Verizon. After carefully considering our options, we both decided to take the plunge and get iPhones. There were a bunch of Android options available, but when considering what we would need to shell out up front for the cost to purchase the phones (at least $200), we decided we were better off paying the $199 each to get iPhones. After our horrible experience with AT&T, we learned that we might as well go with a company that is known for excellent products, customer service, and friendly technology platform. Therefore, we look forward to getting to use our new iPhones when they arrive this week.

Total up front cost for two iPhones after tax- $430.98 includes free activation on both lines
Total monthly rate- $179.97 includes 1,400 minutes and unlimited text and data on both lines

This was a big commitment, I will admit. We will be paying substantially more per month, plus having to shell out a big chunk of change up front, than we did with AT&T. But we will be glad to leave AT&T, at least when it comes to mobile service, and look forward to our new relationship with Verizon and Apple. Our new phones arrive today, so we are finally caught up to everyone else now in mobile technology.

From a financial perspective, yes we are paying more per month and had to shell out a lot of money up front. However, if I do not have the constant headaches and aggravation that we did with AT&T, maybe it will all be worth it in the end, and we will have to look for other ways to save money to make up the difference.