Speaker 1: Three new mobile phone plans that might just save you money.
Speaker 2: What's going on. I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: There are lots of mobile phone plan options out there,
Speaker 2: but in reality, many people don't want to switch for
Speaker 2: a better deal because they're tied up in device payments
Speaker 2: or your phone is tied to a particular carrier. But
Speaker 2: there are some new and compelling options out there in
Speaker 2: the wireless world, and I'm going to go over three
Speaker 2: of them that I'm getting lots of questions about. Spectrum Mobile,
Speaker 2: Metro by T Mobile, and Verizons Visible. All three services
Speaker 2: have compelling prices that could save you almost fifty percent
Speaker 2: on a typical unlimited plan and offer many of the
Speaker 2: same features and the network quality that you're used to.
Speaker 2: Let's start with spectrom Mobile, because this one is all
Speaker 2: over the airwaves. This is a pretty compelling new offering
Speaker 2: and wireless and if you're in a Spectrum area, you
Speaker 2: see the commercials all day. They're advertising an unlimited plan
Speaker 2: for forty five dollars a month, or you can pay
Speaker 2: by the gigabyte at just fourteen dollars a month. Spectrum
Speaker 2: Mobile runs on a combination of the Verizon Now Work
Speaker 2: and Spectrum's Wi Fi hotspots. Basically, if they can route
Speaker 2: your call over their own Wi Fi hotspot, they will
Speaker 2: do this. Otherwise it just goes over the Verizon network
Speaker 2: and all of this is invisible to you, the end user.
Speaker 2: You just dial your numbers the way you always do. Also,
Speaker 2: Spectrum doesn't say that their service runs on Verizon. They
Speaker 2: just say it's on America's largest LTE network, and the
Speaker 2: map is in Verizon's signature red.
Speaker 1: So you get the idea.
Speaker 2: Now, for the average user, the fine print on Spectrum
Speaker 2: mobile plans isn't actually that bad. You do have to
Speaker 2: pay taxes and fees on top of the forty five
Speaker 2: dollars plan price, and although the plan is unlimited, they
Speaker 2: might slow you down after twenty gigabytes of use. In
Speaker 2: any given cycle, you even get to use your phone
Speaker 2: as a mobile hotspot, but after five gigabytes of hotspot
Speaker 2: data use, this feature is slowed down to a turtle
Speaker 2: speed of six hundred kilobytes per second, which is almost
Speaker 2: fast enough to check your email.
Speaker 1: Also, video streams at.
Speaker 2: DVD quality or four ADP not a deal breaker, as
Speaker 2: many of the other popular unlimited plans have similar limitations,
Speaker 2: but there are two main sticking points to know about. First,
Speaker 2: you must keep your Spectrum Home Internet to get the
Speaker 2: forty five dollars a month plan. Otherwise, if you cancel
Speaker 2: your home internet service, they will charge you an extra
Speaker 2: twenty dollars a month that instantly negates any savings that
Speaker 2: you might realize on this plan. The other thing is
Speaker 2: that right now you must purchase your phone through Spectrum.
Speaker 2: This means you cannot bring your current device, which might
Speaker 2: be paid off from another carrier. Spectrum offers a selection
Speaker 2: of current devices, including the iPhone tens and Tens Max,
Speaker 2: as well as Samsung devices like the Note nine and
Speaker 2: the S nine. They also give you twenty four hours
Speaker 2: to pay with no interest, as other cell phone carriers do,
Speaker 2: and the company says the ability to bring your own
Speaker 2: device is coming later this year. So is Spectrum Mobile
Speaker 2: a good deal right now only if you're in the
Speaker 2: market for a new phone and have no intention of
Speaker 2: giving up your home internet service through the company. But
Speaker 2: if you plan to stick with Spectrum Home Internet for
Speaker 2: two years and you need a new phone that you
Speaker 2: would be buying from another mobile carrier over twenty four months,
Speaker 2: you could save some money.
Speaker 1: My mind, imath On one Spectrum mobile line.
Speaker 2: Versus a single Verizon line with similar features, You would
Speaker 2: save about thirty dollars a month or seven hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty dollars over two years. Otherwise, I would wait to
Speaker 2: see what the deal is with bringing your own existing
Speaker 2: device when they announce those details later this year.
Speaker 1: One Spectrum allows this.
Speaker 2: It could mean even greater savings if your phone is
Speaker 2: already paid off and it works on their network. Next up,
Speaker 2: Visible Visible is a secret phone service run by Verizon.
Speaker 2: For forty dollars a month, you get unlimited calls, text,
Speaker 2: and data. Kind of funny they call it Visible when
Speaker 2: really it's tough to find out about. The big question
Speaker 2: here is whether your existing cell phone works with the service.
Speaker 2: Many iPhones will, but Visible does have a section on
Speaker 2: their website where you can pop in the unique identifying
Speaker 2: code from your cell phone called an Imei number to
Speaker 2: see if it's compatible. The main thing to know here
Speaker 2: is that your speeds are limited to five megabits per second.
Speaker 1: This is definitely.
Speaker 2: Fine for most video streaming emails, surfing the web, and
Speaker 2: posting to Instagram, but if you are a phone user
Speaker 2: and like to stream live from your phone or watch
Speaker 2: and post videos from your device all day long.
Speaker 1: You might find the speed limitation.
Speaker 2: Frustrating, especially since the Verizon network is really fast and
Speaker 2: it can handle speeds that are often ten times the
Speaker 2: five megabits they limit you to. Additionally, you have to
Speaker 2: be a DIY person. Visible requires you to sign up
Speaker 2: through their app, pop in a simcard that they send you,
Speaker 2: and pay your bill digitally with a card or payment
Speaker 2: service like PayPal. If you have an issue, you can't
Speaker 2: walk into a store. This service is primarily aimed at millennials.
Speaker 2: In fact, at the start it was invite only, but overall,
Speaker 2: if you're the kind of person who likes to tag
Speaker 2: your own luggage at the airport, you self service check
Speaker 2: out at the grocery store, or you like online chat
Speaker 2: and email versus calling in a eight hundred number for help,
Speaker 2: you might be fine with Visible. Finally, Metro by t
Speaker 2: Mobile In case you haven't heard the news, Metro PCs
Speaker 2: is becoming Metro by t Mobile. The revamped brand has
Speaker 2: rolled out several new plans with compelling features, most notably
Speaker 2: one with an Amazon on Prime membership built in. The
Speaker 2: big difference here is that Metro is a prepaid plan,
Speaker 2: so you pay for your service before you actually use
Speaker 2: it each month. Not a big deal since many wireless
Speaker 2: customers are already on auto pay anyway, so it's really
Speaker 2: not much different from what you're used to the other
Speaker 2: nice thing about Metro is that taxes and fees are included,
Speaker 2: so the price of the plan is the price that
Speaker 2: you will actually pay every month. The thing to know
Speaker 2: about Metro is that you're getting the same T Mobile network.
Speaker 2: The big difference here is that postpaid T Mobile customers.
Speaker 1: Get priority on the network.
Speaker 2: So let's say you're at a baseball game where everyone
Speaker 2: is using their phone and all the T Mobile towers
Speaker 2: are overloaded. Theoretically, a regular T Mobile customer might see
Speaker 2: their Instagram picture post first because they're getting priority on
Speaker 2: the network they're the ones paying the premium. In reality,
Speaker 2: this should rarely be the case, but you do need
Speaker 2: to be aware of this distinction. The other difference between
Speaker 2: a Metro plan and a standard T Mobile plan is
Speaker 2: when they start slowing down your data. With Metro, you
Speaker 2: might be slowed down after using thirty five gigabytes of
Speaker 2: data in a cycle, but with T Mobile that number
Speaker 2: is fifty gigabytes. With T Mobile, you also get free
Speaker 2: international roaming, so if you travel out of the country
Speaker 2: a lot and you want to use your phone, a
Speaker 2: standard T mobile plan might be a better bet. Video
Speaker 2: on both services is streamed at DVD quality now. The
Speaker 2: big advantage to Metro is its variety of plans. You
Speaker 2: can get a plan as low as thirty dollars a month,
Speaker 2: but that includes just a teeny.
Speaker 1: Tiny bit of data.
Speaker 2: If you're looking at the high end, for fifty or
Speaker 2: sixty dollars a month, you can get many of the
Speaker 2: most popular wireless features, including mobile hotspot. The most interesting
Speaker 2: plan to me is the sixty dollars a month, which
Speaker 2: is their top plan. You get unlimited data, talk, and text,
Speaker 2: including a good amount of mobile hotspot use, and they
Speaker 2: even include one hundred gigabytes of Google backup storage space
Speaker 2: and Amazon Prime. Those one hundred gigs on Google usually
Speaker 2: cost two dollars a month, and an Amazon Prime membership
Speaker 2: if you paid up monthly, would run you thirteen dollars
Speaker 2: a month, So you can subtract fifteen dollars a month
Speaker 2: from the top plan and you're effectively paying just forty
Speaker 2: five dollars a month for an unlimited plan. One thing
Speaker 2: to know Metro's new look, and new plans don't happen
Speaker 2: until October. So the bottom line, Spectrum, Visible, and Metro
Speaker 2: are just three new options in a sea of wireless plans.
Speaker 2: And while many of you are probably gonna stick with
Speaker 2: your big old school plan from one of the main
Speaker 2: carriers like AT and T, T Mobile or Verizon, you
Speaker 2: really can save some money if you're not a power
Speaker 2: phone user. I pay about one hundred and eighty dollars
Speaker 2: a month for two unlimited lines, and I would love
Speaker 2: to pay less, but I don't like any restrictions on
Speaker 2: my network speeds. Plus I like to pay a bit
Speaker 2: extra to have my video streamed at HD quality versus
Speaker 2: DVD quality. Plus I'm always live streaming something or uploading
Speaker 2: or downloading huge files and using my phone as a
Speaker 2: mobile hotspot. But again, I'm sort of the exception to
Speaker 2: the rule here. I'm not the typical mobile phone user.
Speaker 2: My job relies on all this social media and all
Speaker 2: of this streaming and all of this content creation, so
Speaker 2: I have to pay a premium for that. If none
Speaker 2: of those things are important to you, or if only
Speaker 2: a few of them are important to you, you could
Speaker 2: save a lot of money by shopping around and going
Speaker 2: with a carrier, or a plan that isn't as we
Speaker 2: well known but backed by one of the big networks.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 2: If you want links to all the plans I talked about,
Speaker 2: you can go to my website it's Rich on tech
Speaker 2: dot tv, or check the show notes. And if you
Speaker 2: enjoy listening to this podcast, please share it with your friends.
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Speaker 2: your post.
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro. I'll talk to you real soon.