I was; however, somewhat worried that the quality of the network would somehow be terrible on a discount provider. I heard enough positive reviews for Ting and learned that they use Sprint's network, figuring the third largest telecom network in the nation by 2015 should have all the network infrastructure in place that I would need, so I decided to make the switch.
If you are unfamiliar with Ting's business model, rather than reinvent the wheel, I will provide the following summary from Ting Inc's wikipedia page:
"Ting's business model does not subsidize phone sales, or require contracts beyond month-to-month. Pricing is in separate tiers for voice minutes, text messages, and data, each of which is adjusted month-to-month to match actual usage. There are no "regulatory recapture" fees added to bills, in contrast to the practice of some of the large mobile companies."
If you are interested in playing around with what the rates might look like for you, you can see the pricing for each tier on Ting's website:
https://ting.com/rates
Another feature of their website, is a savings calculator, that allows you to input your actual usage and fees paid based on your prior three month bills. You can access that here:
https://ting.com/calculator
As I am just three days shy of my first month's billings for Ting, I thought I would provide this summary. Here is a screenshot of my account. At any time, you can login to your account and check what tier's you are in with Ting and estimate what your monthly bill will be. You can also set alerts to email or text you in the event that you are about to exceed one data, text, or message tier to allow you to plan your usage accordingly to end the month in your budgeted or targeted tier.
The black bar will show you your usage for each device (ommitted for privacy).
As you can see, the bill for two devices on Ting looks like it should be just $38, or $19 per person in my plan. I anticipate that in future months I will use more minutes and data and fall in a larger plan, but this is the beauty of Ting. Your bill is based on actual usage. You don't have to commit to prepaying for the maximum amount of minutes, messages, or megabytes you think you might you, and then get penalized for going over that threshold.
For reference, the AT&T bill under my old contract would've been approximately $110.
Also, in the interest of completeness, Ting does not offer any promotions to get you a free phone, but of course, you know that AT&T et. al. are charging you each month for that discount, they just hide it within your bill. We opted to buy older model refurbished phones and move to Ting.
In summary, I highly recommend Ting so far, and am really impressed with this business model.
Interesting! Cool that its saving you money! I hate AT&T and Verizon both and am eager to switch off their networks. Unfortunately I've run through their rate calculations before and Ting would be substantially more expensive for me. I don't use many minutes, but I do use a ton of data. Their data pricing gets crazy after less than 2 gigs of usage. I'm routinely using 8+ gigs unfortunately. Based on their chart - I'd be paying almost triple with Ting that I do with AT&T. It seems like a really great deal though if you're not a heavy data user!
ReplyDeleteAlso, FWIW, I also do not elect to go the subsidized phone route, I just buy my phone (an iPhone 6 at the moment) at full retail price which sucks, but makes the monthly bill much, much smaller.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I assumed that if you used a lot of data it would be more cost effective to have a contract, such as an unlimited data plan, but its cool to see that quantified. 3X!
ReplyDeleteYeah, the killer is that they (Ting) start charging you a hair over $15/gig for each gig over 2. I'm on a share plan with my brother and we routinely hit somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-15 gigs between the two of us. I believe Sprint is the last carrier that will sell you an unlimited data contract these days. I haven't looked recently, but your post has prompted me to do so. Maybe there are savings out there waiting to be unearthed!
ReplyDeleteI think I usually use about 2-3 gigabytes, typically. Not sure if I was just shy to use data this month with the transition or what. I do try to connect to wifi networks whenever possible. I think the ideal would be to connect to a wifi network at home and at work, and not needing to use data during a commute to and from work.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to you and please report back with any positive results!