My AT&T iPhone costs me about $80/month for service.  And I don’t even have the 3G iPhone, or the fancy iPhone 4 – I have the classic 2G model.  4GB, aluminum backing.  Cingular “EDGE” network only. 

I bought it for $300 when Apple first dropped the price.  And I’ve never upgraded, because I don’t really use my phone all that much.  My 450 minutes per month was plenty (I use maybe 30 of those minutes in a given month) and I’m usually near a WiFi connection so the EDGE network was never much of a problem for me. 

I recently took an epic cross-country trip, however, & discovered that my AT&T phone worked almost nowhere.  Plus, the EDGE network was so slow that it was nearly unusable.  I resolved to upgrade to a new phone & switch plans as soon as I returned.

I checked out the usual carriers – Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile – and learned that I couldn’t get a smartphone with a data connection for less than $80/month.  From ANY of them. That’s about $1000 per year, just to have a phone in my pocket.  What’s up with that? Isn’t this stuff supposed to get *cheaper* over time?

And they all wanted me to enter into a 2-year contract, which I don’t understand.  It used to be that cell phone companies sold phones below cost and then recouped that expense through a 1-year contract.  Now it’s a 2-year contract, and they don’t really sell most phones below cost anymore.  Maybe a little, but not much,  Don’t believe me?  Go to your favorite wireless carrier and tell them that you already have a phone and see what kind of rate you get.  It’s about the same as the “subsidized” plan.  They’re not recouping cost, they’re price gouging.

I was very happy to discover Virgin Mobile USA.  For $25/month, you get 300 minutes of talk time (which is fine for my needs), unlimited texting, and unlimited data transfer.  If you’re chattier than I am, you can get the same unlimited text & data plan with 1200 minutes for just $40/month.  And that’s with no hidden fees – if you pay online, you’ll have to pay sales tax (about $1.50 for me), but compared to the $15 of hidden fees that AT&T sticks on my bill every month, $1.50 is a pittance.

A breakdown of Virgin Mobile’s plans:

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For me, the unlimited data alone makes this deal a steal. $25/month with no hidden fees for a phone and unlimited data is an AWESOME deal.

But what are the phones like, you ask?  I got the LG Optimus V, an Android-based phone that blows my old 2G iPhone out of the water.  It ran me $150 (a little less than 2 months of AT&T service, btw), and the way I look at it, I’ll recoup my switching-from-AT&T-costs in just a few months.  Plus, I got a better phone out of the deal.  The experts call this phone a “mid-range” Android phone, but it suits my needs just fine.  For me, it’s top of the line.

I’ve read some opinions that peg the LG Optimus as close-to-the top-of-the-line – more than a few commenters have said that the LG Optimus is second only to the Sprint EVO. I don’t know a lot about phones, so I don’t really know how true that is. I do know that it’s a lot better than the 2G iPhone that I had. And I know that I’ve seen some better looking screens out there, but I really don’t need to watch 1080p movies on my phone, so this is great for my purposes.

Though not officially supported or sanctioned, you can use this phone to tether your laptop or another computer to the internet pretty easily.  Just download the free Android app called “Quick Settings.”  I’ve read that the unofficial cap on data transfer for this
“unlimited” Virgin plan is about 5GB, though some people put it at 10GB.  Either way, that’s way more data than I expect to use via the tether. Once you hit the limit, whatever it is, reports are that your data use will be throttled, not cut off.

Here are the results of my last few speed tests, in varying locations:

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Not bad, eh?  For $25/month, I can’t complain.

Perhaps the best thing about this Virgin Mobile plan is that there is no contract – you’re month-to-month, and you can quit at any time without penalty.  And if you quit, you can probably sell the phone for 70% of what you paid for it.

But there have to be downsides, right?  Right.  There are. I believe that this phone will only work on the actual Sprint Network.  (Virgin USA is owned by Sprint, or in association with Sprint, or something like that.)  What I mean by “actual Sprint network” is that, from what I understand, if you have a Sprint phone, and if there are no Sprint-owned towers near wherever you happen to be standing, your phone will switch over and use another company’s tower at no additional expense to you.  That isn’t true of the Virgin Mobile plan – Virgin phones will only use Sprint towers.  There’ll be no switching over to another cell tower, and you may be left without phone coverage.  I haven’t personally encountered this yet, but I’m told that it’s a possibility.

Also, there are no “nighttime” or “anytime” minutes on this phone. Every minute that you use counts against your monthly minutes allowance. If you talk a lot, you may want to get the 1200 minute plan, or the unlimited plan. Or use Skype, or another VoIP service. Which you can do on this phone, since it runs Android and is relatively unrestricted by Virgin.

In any event, this phone has been fantastic for me.  If it doesn’t work in some places every so often, it’ll still be better than the AT&T service I was getting with my iPhone.  And at a fraction of the cost.

I’ll save $660/year with this phone over my AT&T iPhone. That’s $1,320 over 2 years, which is the contract term that all providers want for a new activation.

If you’re in the market for a new cell phone, definitely check out Virgin Mobile.  Or if you’re looking for a mobile data connection, check out Virgin Mobile.  It’s only been a few weeks for me, but I’ve been very, very happy with them.