Cell Phone Family Plans
by Todd
If you’re assembling information to determine the best possible cell phone plan for you and your loved ones, then you must certainly look into the increasingly popular and competitive family cellular plans.
Cell phone family plans empower multiple cell phone customers to utilize the same pool of air minutes within the same contract and billing cycle. This is a great way to save money and I suggest that even couples consider taking advantage of these cell phone family deals.
Just make sure you read the fine print on those cell phone family plans! In recent years cellular carriers have begun implementing all sorts of variations of the basic concept so you must carefully read all of an offered plan’s details.
Choose A Cell Phone Family Plan, Not A Brand
Like with prepaid cell phones, the popularity of these plans has led cell phone companies to brand family plan services separately from their standard offerings. Remember that there is usually no such thing as the overall cheapest cell phone family plans — it is all dependent on what you and your family need and making sure you pay for nothing extra for unnecessary cellular services or subscriptions.
These cheap cell phone family plans feature catchy monikers like FamilyTalk (AT&T, Cingular), Family Share (Verizon), FamilyTime (T-Mobile), Team Share (Nextel), and the Power Pack Family Plans (Sprint).
Mobile Family Plans
The Power Pack from Sprint provides unlimited weekends and nights, free long distance and no roaming charges. Additionally, most of Sprint’s family plans allow you to purchase add-on minutes. This helps you keep overage charges to a minimum. Sprint has the capacity to fully leverage its fiber optic network to unify family cell phones into what Sprint promotes as the Sprint PCS Fair and Flexible America for Families.
FamilyTime Plans from T-Mobile provide the most pure minutes to share. This means they provide more straight-up anytime minutes than other cell phone family plans. They also make phone calls between plan members free. T-Mobile also provides additional paid add-ons such as expanded roaming-free areas and unlimited T-Mobile to T-Mobile calling.
Formerly Cingular plans, AT&T’s FamilyTalk Plans leverage the largest cellular network in the United States to include free calls within network. The FamilyTalk plan may provide one of the most compelling features in its Rollover Minutes. This allows you to roll over unused minutes from billing period to billing period and spread them among plan members. You can also opt-in to unlimited AT&T moble to mobile minutes. Sometimes finding the cheapest cell phone plan just means finding the most flexible cell phone plan.
Verizon’s advertising has become tightly integrated with contemporary pop culture (yes, we can hear you now), so you’re more likely to know their cellular phone family plans already. Verizon Wireless offers the Family Share plan, which in addition to their standard (and generous) free unlimited Verizon-network calling, also provides family discounts and shared minutes. Additionally, Verizon has recently introduced the ability to keep calls between mobiles within the same exchange — your particular area of your area code — free from charges. They call this Local IN Calling Minutes. This is one of the more popular wireless family plans.
Depending on your area, different networks may have superior coverage and thus be able to offer you the most flexible cell phone family plan. AT&T’s FamilyTalk plans may be the most forward-thinking of the mobile family plans right now, and they’re built on the nation’s largest and most established cell phone network. However, this doesn’t guarantee that they have the best coverage in the areas where you’ll be calling, and it doesn’t necessarily match the best with the you and your family’s particular usage habits.
Sometimes prepaid cell phone family plans may be your best bet, but not always. You need to monitor and measure your usage before you can determine whether such a family cellular plan would bet the best of cell phone family plans for you.
So be sure to weigh all these described variables when determining the best family cell phone plans for you and yours.